I'm Out!

You may have noticed there is a huge red letter 'A' on my side-bar. It stands for Atheist. I never really thought about announcing my atheism before, and I suppose it may attract a few pissed off God squaddies, but currently re-reading Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion and realised that we atheists never actually stand up for atheism. Hmm. Why is that I wonder?

What has brought all this on? I hear you ask. Well, yet another person has fallen into the pit of religious despair. I don't even particularly like this person, and don't care much for his soul, BUT, I'd rather some pant swinging, hand clapping, bus driving brigade left it alone all the same! He emailed his ex-wife to tell her he'd found God. Oh Christ. And another one bites the dust. They have special envoys who visit mental hospitals, disturbed war veterans, the homeless, the terminally ill, the divorced (although you'd think they'd be too busy celebrating their new found freedom?), and most worryingly of all, schools. So that's all those folks who are thinking nice and clearly then, eh. Aargh! Leave our kids alone!

I used to be a theist, in the form of a Roman Catholic child who went to mass once a week, and wanted to be a nun. It was my mother's fault. She made me! I made my first holy communion, and attended confession, although I must admit to making up sins for the latter because I was frightened of the priest. No sins meant LIAR and LIAR meant lots and lots of shouting and Our Fathers. But when I went to the Priest and I asked about the slight anomalies in the opening chapter of the bible and was sent packing with a rather loud, How dare you question the Lord your God?!, I thought to myself, "You have no answers, do you?" So when it came to being 'confirmed' in my convent run secondary school, I told the nuns to take a running jump, and got into all sorts of trouble. But I didn't care.

I later discovered Buddhism and Science. I became a Pantheist. Something was there. Nature, notions of Gaia, spirituality, all that. I learned not to discuss religion, because like politics, it started rows. Although it is good for comedy. Take The Now Show on Radio 4 last week, for example, asking for the religious to kindly stop blowing up our planet in the name of a God who does not exist. "And when the letters come," said Marcus Brigstocke, "And they will come..." I dread to think how many letters they got for pointing out that drawing silly cartoons is not a direct assault on your religion, and that just because you were persecuted (okay, very badly true) does not give you the right to become offensive little tits en masse. They attacked all the religions equally, which is good. No favourites.

A joke for you.

A man dies and arrives in heaven. The bloke at the gate shows him around. He points to various crowds of people. "That's the Hindus over there," he says, "and the Protestants there. The Muslims are that group there and the Jews are just to the left a bit." Eventually they reach a massive brick wall. "What's that?" asks the man. "Oh, the *Catholics are behind there. They think they're the only ones here."

* replace with any/every/all religious faiths and it still works.

You see there is a whole new movement that talks about Intelligent Design. This movement is very dangerous. It tries to undo centuries of learning and scientific investigation, argues with Darwin, makes ridiculous claims that sound quite clever on the surface. It frightens me that there are places in this world where one human being will kill another human being over a theological dispute that has no physical evidence or scientific proof. That one human being will murder another human being in the name of a God who is supposed to preach love. Love?! Are they taking the piss?!

In some schools in this world you cannot talk about Big Bang Theory, or Evolution. I have upset students in the past with my discussion of the evolution of the vocal tract from primates through to early hominids. I've had massive rows with people in chat rooms because they cannot cope with the idea that we are undoubtedly descended from apes (let alone the fact that we go back far enough and we're all bacteria... but then, hey, some people still are).

I am sorry if this offends the religious of you out there. If you are so convinced of your faith, and you need it, because hey, accepting mortality and all that, accepting we only get one shot at it, is a bit scary, well I apologise. But read the Dawkins' book and at least see the other side of the argument. As Penn (of Penn and Teller) says, "If this book doesn't change the world, we're all screwed!" At least have a look at Chapter one.

So there you go. I don't believe in God. I'm not even gonna hedge my bets 'just in case'. I am an atheist. Now go pray for my soul if you must, but I'd really rather you didn't bother!