Atheism Doesn't Offer Humanity Anything Positive! - -- By Chimp Atheism is a sheer wellspring of assets which we find both nourishing, fulfilling, beneficial, productive and inspirational. The key difference is one of mentality, and it's our hope that numerous th

-- By Chimp

Atheism is a sheer wellspring of assets which we find both nourishing, fulfilling, beneficial, productive and inspirational. The key difference is one of mentality, and it's our hope that numerous theists will improve their own lives in the pursuit of happiness through our example. Here's a modest list off the top of my head:

You're a mature individual, not a toddler who needs to be told what's best for it.
You're an intelligent human being who's perfectly capable of handling reality and adapting to changes as they happen. You don't need illusions and lies to give your life meaning.
Your life is valuable for its own sake. Short, but infinitely precious, a lot of fun and full of wonderful experiences, and ups and downs are natural and expected events.
You're no second-class citizen in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from another mind. You decide where you wanna go, what you wanna build and when. Let your visions soar!
You're not inherently evil, but inherently human, possessing the positive, rational potential to help make this a world of justice, peace and joy.
You're a person of honor and integrity, not an evil, predatory sinner.
you're trustworthy, and an outstanding friend, and no one needs to "test" your sincerity because your word is your bond, and we all know you're solid.
Life is a journey, and you're not so insecure that you have to have all the answers. You experience the joy of discovery, the thrill of the hunt and the sense of accomplishment, and know you can always adapt and adjust to the unforseen.
You're free to boldly explore every aspect of the universe without fear of repercussions. No questions are off limits, and every answer will make you grow stronger and more satisfied. It's okay to be wrong.
Making mistakes is acceptable and a means of getting experience, not a one-way ticket to Inferno.
You alone hold the keys to your own happiness. You have the means, so make your life spectacular.
You're not separate from nature, but related to all forms of life, made up of the same fabric as stars.
You're not Chosen and above the rest, but a brother and a peer. People outside your social circle are allies and potential friends, not Sinners and mere subjects of conversion.
The universe will endure for billions of years instead of ending in Armaggedon on next Saturday. (Okay, Sunday tops.)
We've been on this planet for five million years, and we're on the threshold of conquering the stars. Your descendants will most likely live on for millions and millions of years and experience interstellar travel, and scientific and natural wonders you can't even imagine.
Your species didn't survive this long due to divine intervention, but due to human ingenuity. If we got this far, there's nothing we can't accomplish now that we have all the tools. Plus we were butt-naked the first 4,970,000 years thank you very much!
The world gets better and better. More and more diseases are vanquished, there's more democracy and civil justice than just 50 years ago and technology gives new possibilities for everyone every year. It ain't all a bed of roses, but we just got out of the Dark Ages 5 centuries ago and it's amazing how far we've made it already.
You get to clobber theists over the head, MUAHUAHUARRR!
You have the mental reassurance that no one you love are destined for eternal punishment.
Nobody is peering over your shoulder when you wanna get intimate with your wife, or do things that's, uh, nobody's business.
You don't have to assume the blame for the crimes of your hypothetical ancestor.
You don't have to make forced sacrifies and donate money to beautiful church facilities when your kids need shoes.
You don't have to feign humility and bray along with a crowd who pretend they're charitable when it comes to forking over their paycheck, but whose atheist kids live in the closet for fear of ostracism.
You don't have to pretend to be gullible and stupid just because the party-line has Creationism on the program.
You don't have to keep up an unnatural self-denial and be ashamed of what you are, just because a bunch of stiff-necked neurotics can't accept the real you.
You can take credit when warranted and give it where it's due.
You don't have to pretend that coincidences are miraculous and that you're superior to everybody outside your religion.
You don't have to blame somebody for your own shortcomings, but can use constructive criticism to truly change yourself for the better.
You can be true to yourself and not live some fantasy if you suspect it's a solid lie.
You're not a divine toy created to assuage the egotrip of a higherbeing. You're a winner, one who won the right to life fair and square in a race to the death involving a few billion other spermazoa just like you. Talk about a helluva start in life!
You're the direct descendant of 10,000 generations of homo sapiens sapiens. Your ascendants survived diseases, wars, famine, calamities, draught, floods, treasons, persecutions and much more besides, yet they survived it all thanks to their own human ingenuity. Only the best of the best of the best made it for a quarter of a million years. Their legacy is your genes, and you're the pinnacle of evolution so far. If that's not awe-inspiring, I don't know what is.
Your mind is not your enemy, but your best ally. You don't fear your natural feelings be they from a harmless sensual flirt, ambition or self-esteem, and chilling out or having a hard case of the munchies aren't deadly sin which will land you in hell.
Life becomes a journey, as you are constantly exploring meaning and truth since you do not settle for halfassed answers like "god did it," "it was a miracle", "God has his own unfathomable reasons", "we mustn't question God's will" and other creative cop-outs to keep up an illusion.
You're more likely to have friends from a wide variety of religious backgrounds than someone who's taught that everybody on the outside are "of the wicked". They tend to speak their minds more freely around you too, because they don't have to fear that you'll shun them like lepers.
You're free from dogma penned by sexist, racist and ignorant goatherders from the Bronze Age, and can therefore tailormake a way of life, a moral code, a means of education and civilization which is uniquely suited to yourself for maximum authenticity and humaneness and a minimum of hypocrisy.
You'll never be duped by a slick Prophet of Profit into hocking off all your worldly possessions because the End Is Neigh. Neeeeeeiiiigh, we tell you!
To the theist, the divine is characterized by what is known, and the diabolic everything outside it. As an atheist, you have a relative lack of fear of the unknown. Well, nothing a little therapy can't solve.
You have the self-respect from knowing that you're doing the right thing even though the world despises your kind. You judge by your own conscience and give a hand to the needy not out of fear of retribution if you don't or to score a cosmic brownie point, but out of your own pure moral code of conduct.
You're free to appreciate a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Wicca, a Christian, a Voudounista or a Satanist for whom they are, not what they are. You can learn from them without prejudice because you don't explore with the preconceived notion that they're "stormtroopers of the devil".
You don't have to humiliate yourself and your friends on the Crusade Against Harry Potter, Barney, Barbie, Marilyn Manson, D&D, Pokemon, the Smurfs, Homosexual Teletubbies or whoever else threatens the Word Order this week.
You don't squander your precious life preparing for your death.
You're less susceptible to being conned because you're in the habit of demanding evidence, and you're used to not going with the herd for the sake of popularity - atheists don't exactly have a rep for clogging up the foxholes, you know. So you know how to stand up for what you believe, and not letting other people decide what's right for you.
You have no doubts whatsoever about the most crucial aspect of life itself: reality. This also makes it less likely you'll feel the urge to blow up yourself and your fellow breathers in the pursuit of martyrdom.
You don't have to suffer embarrassments when reality clashes with your world view, like the bones of dinosaurs or the latest scientific discovery disproving the Holy Scriptures, or such heartwrenching conundrums of why an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving deity would sit passively by and let 9/11 happen.
The world is your oyster. There's no such thing as "Things man wasn't meant to know", "mysteries our minds couldn't possibly solve". Everything in this world becomes a question, leading to more questions, leading to endless possibilities and thought invoking ideas.
The world makes perfect sense once you've gotten rid of man-made superstition because reality never contradicts itself. Why is there pain? Because bad things happen to us caused by somebody or something else, or our own choices. Viruses aren't "evil" - they're just doing their thing to survive. Earthquakes and floodings are natural phenomena. They're not obscure divine punishments, but have natural, predictable causes. Some people just don't care about hurting others. Life isn't fair. No one is particular favored, and the universe is a hostile environment, so there's no deeper mystery as to why bad things happen to good people and vice versa. Everything has natural causes and effects - which only means we can actually influence the outcome and thereby our destiny.
Your teach your kids to think freely, to trust their own judgements and to push themselves beyond the limits of our current knowledge and human endeavor, as there are no questions that need to be silenced, ignored or dismissed as a mere "attitude" problems of "rebellion".
You don't have to subject your kids to rigorous censorship out of fear that they might discover the world for what it is, and maybe not chose the same path in life as yourself. *gasp*
You live every day as if it was your last and that you have to make your own breaks because you don't believe in the after life or magic rituals like prayer.
You support breakthroughs in medicine because you don't believe in miracles reserved for a select few, just as you're for advancements in other fields of human endeavor to make this a better place for us all because you don't believe in divine saviors from other dimensions.

Timestamp: Nov22, 2003


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