It’s not easy being an atheist

Partial cross post from Looking For Patterns (my personal blog). I haven’t really put up much personal opinion here, and this one is a bit of a soul search.

So basically, AUSHAS had an email last week from some guy in CU offering that people could go to a prayer session if they wanted. I was not particularly bothered about this email, but one member took it upon herself to email the guy back. She made a fair few valid points, but I felt her tone was bit more aggressive than necessary. Anyway her points made me think, it’s not easy being an atheist, not easy at all. And the walk back from spar crystallised this because there was a red sky, and it was pretty.

Now, I couldn’t tell you why we get red skies (I’m sure someone else could), but I do know that they are generally a good thing as they tend to foretell nice weather. But what I can’t do is attribute the nice sky to any higher being, because there is none. I can’t say God put it there to cheer me up on what was turning into a rather poor week. People say believing in God isn’t easy. Well, I digress. If you sincerely have God, then there is something there to depend on, to help you feel like there is a plan behind it all. Something to offload all worries onto. Something to blame when things go wrong. I have 2 exams and an essay to do next week, and if I fail them, then it is (quite rightly) my fault. No-one elses. It’s not easy depending on yourself, having to compel yourself all the tine. To be associated with Richard Dawkins and his ilk, determined to put the world to rights by taking away one of its greatest pillars and motivations to do well. To have to face up to the people who questioned that an athiest society should exist. What need have we to gather?

People may feel that society is geared towards less spiritual influence, and that is basically true , but I wonder if we lose something for it. The set up we have here in Scotland really isn’t that bad. No one need really fear punishment for what they believe, whether that be theistic or non-theistic. Yet here we atheists are, determined that the better way is ourselves,  a selfish notion really. Okay, I’m going to cave in, I am perhaps struggling with a lack of God here, it’s twenty to 1 in the morning, and I’m not known for coherency at this time of night.

My atheism is moderate because I struggle with my own spirituality.  I believe that human beings are inherently religious. We can’t help but look for a higher power. I get uncomfortable when people say religion is an evil the world should be rid of, because I have seen plenty evidence to the contrary. I have a deep admiration for the Kirk as it stands, a steady but not pushy voice. A very democratic body as well, every minister has equal say and the moderator only stays in post for one year. Just tonight they approved the appointment of Scott Rennie, a gay minister with a live-in boyfriend here in Aberdeen.

So why am I an atheist? Why don’t I bugger off and find a church? First off, I cannot believe in miracles, and in Christianity, that is key. The vast majority of scripture is irrelevant and downright wrong, especially from a feminist point of view. It’s all well and good picking and choosing what bits we like, I’m as guilty of that as anyone, but overall there should be a coherency, and there isn’t. And for all that religion isn’t evil, well, occasionally it is. I think that main cause terrorism isn’t actually the religion, it’s the culture and politics. But there can be no doubt that some justify their wrong doings through God, and that is wrong. I have no wish to be part of it.

So we have an atheist society because we need to support each other, and let people know there is no shame in having a non-theistic view. We do it because there isn’t equality for us yet, we cannot access all life has to offer, as somethings are restricted to the religious.  For my part, I try to show that we can do our best, be socially responsible and not selfish without God compelling it. I do it to better us all. If my colleague does it for spiritual gain then that’s fine too, it’s a bonus prize. (Yes okay, that was crass).

Apologies that this is all over the page, but it’s been on my mind the last few days.

Not going to prom.

toledoblade.com –.

I am usually quite liberal about religions and what they do, so long as it doesn’t infringe on my personal liberties. But this just insane. Basically, this guy Tyler wants to go to prom with his girlfriend. Aww. But he goes to a different school from her, and his school happens to be a a conservative Christian school, where they don’t do dancing, rock music or hand-holding. So when he went to get permission to go to prom,  his headteacher told him if he went he would fail the rest of his assessments for the year and be suspended for the rest of the year. I mean, seriously! Seriously?! Rather amazingly, Tyler says he’s still going to prom. The guy has guts, I’m not sure I’d risk my academic career for one night of fun, but You Go Tyler! Go stick it to them!

(I found out about this via Shakesville, an american feminist website)

Andrew Brown: Richard Dawkins and the culture of contempt | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Andrew Brown: Richard Dawkins and the culture of contempt | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Dawkins is being Dawkins, and wants to sweep away all the irredeemably religious. Big surpise. I wonder if Dawkins has lost all sense of purpose and rationality (the latter would be ironic) when goes like this relentlessly. It is putting those of us who see humanism as a natural choice, but not not one wholly better than any other in an awkward position.

Dawkins has done a lot of publicity of atheism in recent years, along with the other ‘New Atheist’ figureheads, but they are now in danger of becoming a liability as they fail to realise that they will not get what they want in their lifetime (namely, the complete demise of religion), and yet still won’t compromise and debate about the reality, a multi-faith world.

Yes, I did say before, I’m not Dawkins’ biggest fan…

Stewart Lee on Religion: BBC iPlayer

BBC iPlayer – Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle: Religion.

When you have a spare half hour, watch this, tis pretty funny. Think I’ll be downloading it for AUSHAS.

Humanists rejoice! BBC will consult them on religion – TV & Radio, Media – The Independent

Humanists rejoice! BBC will consult them on religion – TV & Radio, Media – The Independent.

Loks like we have another victory on our hands, the BBC has now accepted a humanist onto their Standing Conference on Religion and Belief.

Some of you may recall the petition to get the Thought For The Day program to include secular thoughts, which basically wasn’t a success. The new guy, Andrew Copson, director of education and public affairs for the British Humanist Association, has this in his sights as something he wants to change.

As the article notes, this is the latest in many successes Humanists in particular have had over the last few months. Let’s hope we can keep up the good work.

New Atheists

To start off with, a running debate from my favourite newspaper, the Guardian, or more specifically, from the Belief section of Comment is Free.

Two weeks ago Madeline Bunting wrote this article, “Real debates about faith are drowned by the New Atheists’ foghorn voices”, Some of which I found reflected my own opinions. We do at times have a problem in AUSHAS with the kind of people Bunting complains about, those who simply try to shout louder that religion is a load of baloney over those who say it isn’t (not that there is ever many believers there). I also think there are things from religion we can use, but that we can now use them without the motivation being, ‘it’ll please God’, for instance being good to your neighbour, giving money to charity, the way Pyke gives money and food to the Aberdonian homeless. We do this because we believe it is good for society,we believe humanity will progress through our actions.

I think in general all of us atheists and agnostics of whatever hue have a severe dislike of the evangelical christians who shout from the roof tops that God is great and our lives should be lived according to His will. Well, it seems to me that too much inspiration was taken from them by Dawkins, Hitchens, et al, in terms of style of delivery of the message. They shouted too. And as Bunting says, the media has really conflated it and now quite a few of us are tired of it.

The basic hope she expresses is that we move on to a more nuanced debate “about religion: what it is, the loss of it, whether it matters, and what happens in a post-religious society?”, and that people realise it’s perhaps not something to be given up lightly.

Bunting’s article has spawned a few more in reply, especially as so many comments were left regarding it.

First off, a response to Bunting by Caspar Melville, ‘The real debate about atheism is here already‘. The main point here seems to be that we should be pleased that Dawkins and Hitchens have started up the debate in a very real fashion, but nobody is saying they have all the answers.

Then there were letters, mostly in support of Bunting. If you want to see criticisms, scroll down on the page of Bunting’s article, there are about 1500 comments apparently.

And the latest I’ve found is Julian Baggini, ‘Loud But Not Clear: Atheists must turn down the volume and have a real conversation – or lose out to the fluffy brigade’. He is also basically in support of Bunting, and is clarifiying what he feels was her main point, the negative perceptions many have of the New Atheists, something AUSHAS struggles against as a society. We’re really not going to bite people’s heads off. To be quite honest, I’d like to see more believers, it would give us better debate rather than each of preaching to the converted.

So if you are reading this, feel free to let me know what you think of all this.

Hello world!

Hello peeps, and welcome to my new blog for all things humanist related.

I have now been a member of Humanist Society Scotland for over a year now, and when I initially joined I just wanted to support HSS, and give then a little money every year as I believe in what they stand for, and their activities, especially their celebrants. I didn’t imagine that less than 6 months later I would be the secretary and then eventually the vice-president of Aberdeen University Secular Humanist and Atheist Society, a position I have held since it began basically, and one which has meant a huge leap of learning about humanism and what it stands for. So much for giving money and forgetting about it…

So here I am now, I’ve paid my second year’s worth of membership, been re-elected secretary and VP and acquainted myself with the Aberdeen and Grampian HSS Group, fabulous bunch of people that they are.

This blog is intended to be professional, where I will post information and titbits from newspapers and other blogs and other things of the like, sometimes giving an opinion, sometimes not. You will also be able to find me over at the societies website from time to time, talking about society activities, I’d imagine. For more personal day to day, I can also be found wittering on at Looking For Patterns In The Static, but it’s not so important, so you may just want to stick to here.

Now as I just said, this is a professional blog, in my role as AUSHAS secretary and also as a religious studies student here at U of A, so comments should be constructive, and I will be moderating them all. I am a Moderate Humanist, in that I simply naturally believe that there is no God, but I don’t think everyone else needs to be converted to this position, and as such also believe that chuches and mosques for the most part should exist. I do not believe that religion is all bad. There are many who will disagree with me on that point, and if you put so in a constructive and well argued manner, I’ll be inclined to post it, I’m all for free speech. But if you put anything along the lines of “All religious people are brainwashed and should go to hell (which of course doesn’t exist)”, without any justification, it’s not happening. You have been warned.

And with that, we may begin.