Freethinker's corner

From time to time I feel the need to restate my stances on religion and atheism. This is probably a reaction to the continuous stream of proselytizing in the media, the internet, and Facebook in particular. The individual exposed to the constant barrage of those urging one to adopt this or that belief system cannot help but feel imposed upon.

My view of both Creationism and Intelligent Design is that neither is science. My opinion is that both are religion, with Intelligent Design a derivative of Creationism manufactured for the purposes of presenting Creationism disguised in a superficial cloak of scientific terms but in the end failing to be science.

My view on the origin of life is that most likely it is the result of a form of abiogenesis. The precise path as yet has not been determined. Whether life on Earth began here or elsewhere, I fully accept that abiogenesis was the initial beginning.

Once life emerged in some form then the forces of nature, evolution, worked with indifference to produce the various forms of life in abundant variety. Natural selection determined whether the various life forms that emerged survived or were assigned to the dustbin of extinction.

It is my assertion that humans are the originators of gods. My charge is that none of the gods presently known among humans now and in the past existed. Whether some entity exists somewhere in the Cosmos that has qualities we might ascribe to a god is unknown. Conjecturing, I suggest that none exists as no evidence is apparent as of this date. None has chosen to make itself known. Either this “god” has nothing to do with humans or has avoided humans. Most likely, like humans, this quasi-god was created by the universe rather than having created it.

The universe, in my opinion, has always existed in some form… be it as it is, or as a infinitely small point. Whether it began once or has undergone repeated expansion and contraction cannot be fathomed and for the purposes of existence, is irrelevant.

Religion. It is my thinking that religion arose out of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of losing relatives and never seeing them again. A need for parental guidance and a desire to have something greater than oneself in control of things. A need to feel safe. In short order after its arrival, religion was seen by the unscrupulous as a means to control others. Humans were manipulated by the unscrupulous over the millennia into participating in savage war and conflict. Many people over the millennia have died because they did not want to participate or had conflicting belief systems. Did the much vaunted quantity known as “humanity” ever exist? Humans seem very much like chimpanzees in appearance and behavior.

Presently, my atheism is a pure one. Some say it is a religious stance as I cannot prove the nonexistence of a god. I say that it is their responsibility to prove a god exists. I feel strongly that their attempt to label me religious is just another attempt to minimalize atheism and to proselytize. It may also be a knee-jerk reaction on their part to my claim that my stance is a reasoned one, and that theirs is not. How can one prove the existence of something that is untestable? How can one accept and live their life by something that presents not even a atom’s worth of evidence for its existence? How can people not see that they are being used?