Suicide

Since I just made a post about a crappy day, I decided to write one about suicide. No, don't worry, I never had any thoughts about taking my own life and probably never will, although I'm not trying to say all atheists are the same. Atheist, believer, whatever, I think that when you get to a point where you commit suicide, it's because something was really messed up in your brain. In other words, we should help people like that, but if they kill themselves, it was probably not a rational choice at the moment, it was not their fault (yet, some believers will tell you that it's a sin).

I sincerely believe that being a believer is harmful to you in that kind of situation. If you have a succession of bad things happening to you at one point and god doesn't help you, you're going to think he doesn't care about you. It makes you feel even worse about yourself, because now you think you're a piece of shit in the eyes of the perfect being who made you and who is supposed to care about everyone. Also, when it comes to the time of ending your life for real, some people will panic at the last minute and seek for help. One who truly believes that there's an afterlife will be more inclined to do it. After all, if you shoot a bullet through your brain, you appear dead on Earth, but your soul is released to go to an infinitely better place.

Of course, that's where beliefs are not shared by everyone. There's the branch of believers (let's take christians, I know them better) who say that no matter what, if you believe in Jesus he forgave you and you go with him in his kingdom to suck his cock or I don't know what (some go as far as to say that if you've been saved once, you're saved forever.) There's the other branch which thinks you go burn in hell, even if you just had a mental breakdown. Yeah, you can really feel the love of god now, can't you? There's a thinner branch of believers who don't believe in hell, but in some kind of separation from god for people who didn't obey the rules (hey, that includes me), which is still bad considering that other people are rewarded with infinite pleasure just for believing in the right thing.

None of that matters for the believer to stop him from killing himself. After all, if you've been raised a christian all your life, you think that humanity is worthless. We are all guilty of the original sin, a truly sick concept, but thankfully god sent his son or himself or I don't know (the trinity is not only a complex concept that nobody can really explain, but not all christians even believe in it) to be the ultimate sacrifice. All I'm saying is that the person who thinks god had abandoned her, the person who goes as far as taking her own life having been raised a christian, well maybe that person thinks she deserves to go to hell and kills herself to get the right punition.

Of course, I know that not all people are like that, but it's a dangerous thought. As a believer and a parent, you think it's good to teach your religion to your children. Most of the time, the child of a believer ends up being the same kind of believer, but there are exceptions like me. Now think about it, especially if the god you're talking about is not real. Think about the dangerous ideas you're propagating for something that has never been proven. Think of how you could grow up to be a good moral person only using rationality like me. That's beneficial since you understand better the natural world you live in and you are less likely to get other false ideas. Think it's impossible to be a moral atheist? Think again!

So I had a crappy day...

and you have no idea how much I love life (no sarcasm intended). I really mean that and without any support from God. I won't give the reasons why I had a crappy day, it's not too serious compared to other people's lives, I got over it, and it's not important for the point I'm trying to make.

How do you get over something bad happening in your life if you're a strong believer like Fred Phelps? I guess you do nothing else but pray to god and masturbate when you see heathens die of natural catastrophes like a tornado or an earthquake. In summary, you get better, but just because you're a sick retarded freak, not because of a god (by the way, notice that we call these NATURAL catastrophes.) I bet that overall, your life is not as happy as mine or anybody else's, including moderate believers.

How do you get over something bad happening in your life if you're the regular moderate believer? The answer might surprise you, but I think your experience is pretty similar to mine. Sure, at the realization of the "bad" thing in question you must have a moment for god, because only a perfect being looking out for you could resolve your Earthly problems far too big for a simple human mind. After that loss of time, you relax a bit. Then you think about the situation and you find a solution. That last bit is exactly what I do and it works. Then you thank god for it.

Why would I say the praying bit is a "loss of time"? Well, as I said, I skip that step and I get the same results. If it was so great, I guess you could skip the thinking bit and god would still resolve all your problems if you're good enough. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that if I get the same results without god and all you do is add a step to get nothing better than me, then maybe that was an unnecessary step and furthermore, I would add that it's all in your head.

Now, the time has come for a fundamentalist to say that if I rejected god and still get success, then the devil has helped me. How can I prove or disprove that? You're just making stuff up along the way. I didn't ask for god, but I didn't ask for satan either. If satan is helping me, don't you think god should do something about it? If I need to ask for god's help while satan offers his for free, no contract implied, maybe he's the good guy. Note that I don't think that at all, I remember that I don't believe in satan any more than god. I'm saying that so that someone who doesn't understand hypotheticals doesn't come later to tell me: "See! Right there! You're admitting that satan is helping you and that you think he's a good guy!"

The one who surprises me the most is the atheist who comes and tells me: "Why harass these people, they're not doing any harm." First of all, yes they're doing harm. I think nobody argues that fundamentalism is plain dangerous. I'll also agree that because of the difference of culture and laws, a muslim fundamentalist is more dangerous than a christian fundamentalist (the christian is obsessed about being able to act on his beliefs though). But don't tell me that these people are in another league and that the moderate christian, for example, is okay. For fundamentalism to exist, there are moderate believers giving it credibility. There are moderate believers who don't speak against it. There are even moderate believers who stay at home praying for fundamentalists to stop being so cruel (even though they're following their religion even more accurately) and we all know how effective prayer is, am I right?

Just believing in something supernatural that might not even exist is dangerous from the start. You probably value life less, because you think something greater is waiting for you in the afterlife. If you're an homosexual believer (I'm not, but I have nothing against them), you're probably struggling with yourself thinking that you're committing a sin. Society in general doesn't approve of you, that includes some moderates. If you're a believer, you might also wait a little more when you're sick, thinking that god will help you. It's all these little things and a long list of things I didn't talk about that add up and make it less healthy to be a person of faith, even moderately. If you live your whole life with no problems at all, I still think there might've been missed opportunities and an incredible loss of time if you were a believer, but fine, I'm not forcing you to give up your beliefs. Just think...

Atheism: Weak or Strong, Negative or Positive

There's nothing weak or strong, neither negative nor positive about atheism. It's not a religion either (you can say it is if it amuses you, I'll say "so what?"), because there's no set of beliefs or any particular code, it's more of a position than anything else, and that's where weak, strong, negative or positive take their meaning.

So how do you know if you're an atheist, the single thing that unites all of them? Well, do you believe in a God? If you're not able to immediately say yes, you're either an atheist or really slow. If you claim you're an agnostic, just wait a minute.

So now, let's talk about the different types of atheists. I already said they don't share a set of beliefs (we have to think for ourselves), so it's nothing like comparing a catholic to a protestant or a mormon who share some common grounds, but have different practices. Now read the next bit carefully, because the difference is both subtle and important. A weak atheist does not believe in god, in any god that is, all the claims he's heard so far didn't do it for him or something like that. A strong atheist goes one step beyond and has a belief if you will, but not in some force, it's actually a negative belief (though it's called positive atheism and the other one is called negative atheism). The belief is that no god exists.

I am one of those atheists and I got to admit that often, the other type of atheists don't like people like me. They say we're just the same as fundamentalists, because we claim to know something that is unknowable, which is whether or not a god does exist. Now I'm going to explain the validity of my position and also, let me say that the form of atheism I'm going to defend most of the time is weak atheism, because that's the only necessary step I want all people to take eventually (got to reach it on your own, I wouldn't make a law to force it upon you).

So, why is strong atheism valid? Very simple, I'm rejecting claims of absolute certainty; I'm speaking in everyday talk. For instance, I know that the sun will come up tomorrow morning. I don't know for sure, with 100% certainty, but the probability is so high that we feel comfortable to say it. I believe that the various god claims are pure utter bullshit. And just think about that, I wouldn't have doubts about Zeus' existence, same thing about unicorns and goblins. Furthermore, when people start making various claims about their own god, things that have been proven false by science, I'd say it's safe to say it was an invention made by men who didn't know any better or wanted some power.

Let's take care of agnostics to end this post. People who say they're agnostics, to my experience, are often moderate believers or people who just believe in an undefined force. I've never seen a strong atheist wrongfully claim he was an agnostic, but I've seen lots of weak atheists claim they're agnostics, thinking they're in an elite position by taking the most rational point of not claiming to know the unknowable. I was an agnostic like that for a short period, but I realized: "Hey, I do not currently believe in any god. Basically, I'm just saying I'm agnostic to save myself from criticism. Really, I don't know, but as for believing, I don't. I'm not a theist, I'm an atheist." Later, just recently, I became a strong atheist. Also a militant atheist. I could be qualified right now as an antitheist who doesn't want to impose any laws on you, but who wants to give you information to make you realize that you hold unfounded beliefs.

Last minute note, more or less weak atheism=negative atheism=agnostic atheism=implicit atheism. Strong atheism=positive atheism=gnostic atheism=explicit atheism. There are even more terms than that and explicit atheism, for instance, does not necessarily equals what I said, but we would be entering far too many technicalities. Search on your own if you want to know more about that, it really doesn't matter; just label yourself anything you want, as long as you explain what you believe carefully. I don't find any of these terms perfect for various reasons of my own, so I'll just say atheism from now on. After all, these are just labels we decide to put on ourselves. I'm going to restate my position. I actively believe no god exists while rejecting claims of absolute certainty. If a god was proven to exist scientifically or if he undeniably showed himself to me (after all, he's supposed to know what it takes to convince me) I would believe in him. Now, that's separate from whether or not I respect or worship him... Take the god of the bible, I wouldn't respect him if he's even close to what's written, even if he had created everything.

What is the meaning of this?

This is a blog started by a single person, myself, Bob.

I know, I have a weird birthmark. People often say it looks like inverted commas, three inverted "g" or "9".

At the time of this writing, I'm a 23 years old atheist from Montreal, Quebec, Canada (I was raised somewhat catholic, very very loosely). Yes, I'm one of those nasty French Canadians, but I decided to do this in English for a single reason, more people understand it, and I do want to reach the majority. The majority that does believe in some kind of god or another. I want to tell you why you're wrong to believe what you believe and also I want to remove confusion as to what atheism is. This can be read by anyone, but the main focus of the blog is an atheist talking to believers (probably more christians than anything else, that's what I know best and that's also the society in which I live). I'm keeping this one short, but the next posts will always go in detail about one particular subject.