Given the name of this blog, the subject of religion had to come up sooner or later so let's get to it right away.  The topic is so broad; however, that this post will hit only some high points that might help you (and me) understand some of my positions on other matters.  Future posts will no doubt return to some finer points of this topic.   

Atheism

First, like most humanists, I am an atheist.  But humanism did not lead me to atheism; it was more a case of humanism, to which I had been introduced during a college course, coming to the fore when I decided I could no longer accept the Judeo-Christian God of my youth.

A Protestant Sunday School had taught me since an early age that God is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent Being who is kind, loving, and forgiving.  I eventually came to doubt all of this and finally to reject it completely.  I just couldn't respect, much less worship, a God with such attributes that could permit such human catastrophes as:

• Suppression, by his church, of learning and progress during the first four centuries of the Middle Ages -- learning and progress that might have helped mankind avoid, prevent, or, at least, alleviate the effects of later catastrophes.

• The torture, rape, and slaughter that were part of the Mongol conquest of the Eurasian land mass in the 13th and 14th Centuries leaving 60 million – 50% of their population at the time – dead in China alone.

• The Black Death, the bubonic plague epidemic that killed 75 million in 14th Century Europe.

• The extermination of 9 to 11 million people during the holocaust; including 6 million Jews, the 'Chosen People'.

• The murder of 15 to 20 million of his own people by Josef Stalin in just 31 years of rule.

• The killing of more than 22.5 million Chinese in various wars of aggression and civil war from 1900 to 1949.  This has been followed by the democide (murder by government) of another 42 million since the People's Republic of China was established in 1949.

This is admittedly only a partial list and omits the history of non-fatal human suffering but it begins to describe the reasoning that led to my atheism.

Although on a smaller scale than the tragedies listed above, continuing human slavery, genocide, child abuse, and certain events in my personal experience have only reinforced my atheism.  How could an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent, kind, loving, and forgiving God allow these things to occur?

Religious Freedom

I hasten to add that I completely disagree with -- even strongly oppose -- those more strident atheists who demand that the First Amendment of the US Constitution be interpreted to mean collective, public freedom from religion instead of the intended individual freedom of religion.  There is no need for interpretation here; the Founding Fathers, extremely well educated men, were very precise in their framing of the idea that was to them so important as to be the very first addressed in the Bill of Rights.  The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a state-sanctioned religion and any restriction on your right to believe as you see fit.  To claim that the First Amendment prohibits any kind of religious practice is revisionism of the worst sort.

It seems to me that those atheists who would stand the First Amendment on its head are somehow afraid of the open practice of religion, particularly Judaism and Christianity.  So long as I am free to believe differently or not at all, how am I offended by another's expressions of his religious beliefs?  Am I somehow injured by the mere sight of his religious symbols?  The rest of us have much more to fear from such a perversion of the First Amendment than from freely permitting the public expression of religious beliefs; one position attempts to dictate what we must not believe while the other allows us to believe what we will. 

Our Judeo-Christian Heritage

Although I reject the Judeo-Christian Deities and the laws, rules, and practices regarding those Deities, I embrace those aspects of our Judeo-Christian heritage concerning human relationships.  I try to obey these laws, be guided by these ethics, and continue these traditions because:

1.        The primary objective of secular Judeo-Christian laws, ethics, and traditions is the peaceful continuance of the human race.

2.        This heritage holds individual rights to be of prime importance over community prerogatives at all levels so long as the exercise of those rights does no harm to fellow humans.

3.        Individual responsibility is exalted along with individual rights.
 

4.        Economic freedom and political freedom, the twin foundations of most human progress in the last 3,000 years, are strongly promoted by the Judeo-Christian tradition.

5.        More than 30 centuries of trial-and-error, refinement, and adoption of ideas from other philosophies have made secular Judeo-Christian laws, ethics, and traditions the most reasoned and most equitable guide for living known to man.
 

6.        The Judeo-Christian heritage is the American heritage.  To deny this is to deny and attempt to rewrite history.

Note that I do not rely on humanism to justify my acceptance of the secular Judeo-Christian heritage; rather, I see 'humanist' as merely a label that describes me because of my acceptance of the basically humanist, secular Judeo-Christian – American – heritage.

Islam

If you have read the foregoing, my views on Islam should not be a major surprise: Islam is the very antithesis of a 'religion of peace' and Islam is at war with the rest of the world, particularly Israel, the United States, and any nation that is a friend to us.

Even though our President and various apologists insist that Islam is a religion of peace, I just can't believe it.  Daily reports of atrocities committed by Muslims on Muslims and non-Muslims in the name of Allah are hardly the actions of the followers of a religion of peace.  Granted, there are some Muslims, even a few American Muslim clerics, who denounce the violence being committed in the name of Allah but their voices are few and seldom manage to sound appropriately outraged.  In any event, their voices are lost in the cries of the victims of Muslim violence.

Islam is at war with us and we are at war with Islam.  Ignoring or denying that simple fact, whether through honest pacifism, a blame-America-first ideology, craven cowardice, or apathy, will lead to your death or, worse, your enslavement and the end of our civilization.  A state of war is not a condition that must be agreed upon by all parties.  It takes only one side to make war; Muslims have proclaimed this war and proven by their actions their intent to prosecute it with deadly, unrelenting intensity.  The object of their war is no less than the subjugation or destruction of all non-Islamic civilization, with Israel, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and all of our other friends as their current primary targets.  As with all wars, the longer we delay our confrontation of the aggressor, the more costly and difficult will be the struggle with the outcome becoming increasingly bleak.  If we wait until Iran and, through Iran, terrorist organizations throughout the world, have become nuclear armed, it will be too late.

As always, the views expressed here are those of one humanist….