Atheist Prayer by Martin Willett

[Natasha]

"Let us take responsibility for our own actions, inactions, strengths and frailties and not project them onto ghosts, spirits, stars, portents and gods unseen.

Let us have the courage to accept that one person's faith is another person's bloody-minded pig-headed refusal to accept the obvious.

Let us have the courage to accept that the person at the front of all crowds, including this one, doesn't know all the answers.

Let us have the wisdom to accept that if our ancestors had fared differently in wars our communities would be holding different absurdities up as sacred truths, and the willingness to accept those absurdities would be seen as the badge of social trustworthiness or even the right to be allowed to draw breath.

Let us accept that the difference between a prophet and a madman is not what they say but whether the crowd accepts the story and tells their children to believe it.

Let us have the courage to accept that wanting to believe in something with every fibre of our being does not and cannot make it true.

Truth needs no help, no believers, no bowed heads and no amens."


Atheist Prayer

[tekla]

Best single statement I've ever read, by Penn Jillette (half of the Penn and Teller comedy/magic act)

As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, November 21, 2005.

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

[Julie Marie]

The Atheist Prayer seems more like an anti-religion prayer. And those words are hard to argue, unless you do so from a religious perspective.

The idea that social acceptance drives what is the "truth" has been proven over and over. And when it comes to God and religion there's so much you can't prove or disprove and so the silver tongued leaders can sway an audience into accepting as fact what they are preaching and create these "truths". And eternal damnation seems pretty effective in getting people to heed your warnings.

I wonder what this world would be like if humans hadn't invented hell (or something like it).

Julie

[tekla]

Lots of religions and spiritual beliefs don't have a heaven/hell deal.  Most in fact.  It's pretty much a Western/Asia Minor creation.  So it might look a lot like oh say China, or the Pre-Colombian North America.

And that's why I've always liked the Penn bit, its not a prayer, or an anti prayer, but a pretty well-thought out statement.  Particularly the part where he talks about the solipsism of belief.

[Lisbeth]

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

As I have said before, atheism is as much an act of faith as belief in god is.

[finewine]

As I have said before, atheism is as much an act of faith as belief in god is.

I suppose there's a definition of faith you could bludgeon atheism into, i.e. "a strong or confident belief in an idea" where the idea is non-belief.  Rather clumsy usage, in my opinion.

It's a pointless equivalence anyway, because it doesn't for a moment make the two beliefs equally rational.

I don't believe Russell's teapot exists but I can't prove it doesn't.  That's a "faith" as much as atheism is, by your usage.  Nevertheless, it's quite a rational "faith", as compared with, say, belief that the tooth fairy exists.  Drawing an equivalence of faith between atheism and theism is as fatuous as equating the "faith" in a-teapotism and "faith" in the tooth fairy.

[Lisbeth]

It's a pointless equivalence anyway, because it doesn't for a moment make the two beliefs equally rational.

You misunderstand me. I consider both religion and atheism to be equally irrational. You also misunderstand me if you think I believe that irrationality is bad.

I don't believe Russell's teapot exists but I can't prove it doesn't.  That's a "faith" as much as atheism is, by your usage.  Nevertheless, it's quite a rational "faith", as compared with, say, belief that the tooth fairy exists.  Drawing an equivalence of faith between atheism and theism is as fatuous as equating the "faith" in a-teapotism and "faith" in the tooth fairy.

I don't know. I always got a coin for my tooth. Did you ever get a cup of tea from Russell's teapot?