I think the following by Penn Jilette says everything us atheists want to say to those idiots who try to press their beliefs on us:

“I believe that there is no God. I’m beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy — you can’t prove a negative, so there’s no work to do. You can’t prove that there isn’t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word “elephant” includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this “This I Believe” thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life’s big picture, some rules to live by. So, I’m saying, “This I believe: I believe there is no God.”

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there’s no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I’m wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don’t travel in circles where people say, “I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” That’s just a long-winded religious way to say, “shut up,” or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.” So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that’s always fun. It means I’m learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.”

Discuss.

Pretty cool essay, as a general rule of thumb optimists will be better off then pessimists, but I feel it’s possible to be atheist and not have this depressed, “god is dead” mentality.

n00Biff Posted:

My thoughts are that comedians are probably not the best source of information in your theological questings.

Stephen Colbert would never lie to meeeeeeeeeee

i’m surprised to see this isn’t an rp forums as it certainly seems like a troll. sure i’m happy for this guy, he seems to lead a happy meaningful life, but is there really a need for all those sweeping generalizations about religious people? give me a break. It’s too bad he couldn’t defend his own way of life without putting others’ down.

Wow, this is interesting. Thanks, SG94.

just pulling one example out of many from the essay:

Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

So if you believe in a god, you’re forced to just accept it as a ‘test’ and there’s no option of learning from it and helping others with it? Only if you don’t believe in god is there less possibility of suffering in the future? Maybe this applies to that tiny tiny majority of nutjobs who don’t even bother to get medical help for their children, but YOOHOO mr. atheist not every religous person is fucking insane.

BirdofWar Posted:

just pulling one example out of many from the essay:

So if you believe in a god, you’re forced to just accept it as a ‘test’ and there’s no option of learning from it and helping others with it? Only if you don’t believe in god is there less possibility of suffering in the future? Maybe this applies to that tiny tiny majority of nutjobs who don’t even bother to get medical help for their children, but YOOHOO mr. atheist not every religous person is fucking insane.

I think he’s talking about his personal experience and not saying that you HAVE to be an atheist in order to have those things. I myself didn’t interpret it to say “this is a list of reasons why I’m better then you”, more as a response to the tons of comments directed against atheists like “atheists have no morals”, etc.

Of course there are almost as many atheist fanatics as there are religious ones, so I don’t know.

THERE IS THUNDER IN HIS FOOTSTEPS

AND LIGHTNING IN HIS FIST

IT WASN’T FOR NO REASON THAT HE SHED HIS BLOOD

HIS RETURN IS VERY CLOSE SO YOU BETTER BE BELIEVING

and that was an example of christian fanaticism

as you can see atheism is more logical