Are there any advantages to leading a life of atheism as opposed to worshipping a specific God and attending church whenever possible? Before entering into a discussion of what the atheist point of view offers, it’s essential to clear the air of a common but false assumption.
Just what does this refer to? Most if not all individuals that follow a religious faith mistakenly think that just because someone doesn’t believe in a Supreme Being and that he or she will either be rewarded with eternal life in Paradise or punished by being cast into the fiery pits of Hell upon bodily death, then that person must, therefore, hold to the belief that there is no existence or afterlife following death. In a word, this is wrong and serves as perhaps the biggest flaw in what defines an atheist. While there certainly are some atheists that indeed hold to the belief that the end of one’s earthly life is also the end of everything, this doesn’t apply to all of them. The former group makes up but a tiny fraction of those regarded as atheists.
But, most atheists rely on the logic of science and society’s ever-increasing knowledge and understanding of its different disciplines to explain not only what takes place at the moment of death, but also how life began and why humans behave as they do. Conversely, religious people tend to blindly hold to a faith-based on quite incredible prose written by others thousands of years ago.
In a fashion that parallels a belief in a fairy tale, a person belonging to a particular religious order genuinely believes that as long as he or she never deviates from a human-made set of rules, restrictions, or guidelines prescribed by a set church, then an eternal reward in Heaven awaits. However, if the churchgoer fails to adhere to such instructions of behavior and does not ask to be forgiven, he or she will instead spend an afterlife in a miserable existence. In short? Man created religion for two purposes: to alleviate fears of death and to control human behavior. Moreover, and to complicate matters, no two churches will hold the same beliefs as to what is acceptable conduct and what is not.
Furthermore, just because someone doesn’t hold to such a simplistic, black-and-white view of Heaven and Hell does not mean that he or she is inherently evil. Almost all who don’t believe that God created everything or that there are merely two paths one can take at the moment of death still have the capability of distinguishing right from wrong, particularly the significant infractions. Murder, theft, assault, and terrorizing others come to mind.
When a story in the news about a senseless, violent school shooting, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, murder, or any other heinous act is released, it doesn’t matter whether the perpetrator went to church or believed in a God or not. The fact remains that he or she committed an unspeakable crime, and provided they didn’t take their own life afterward, a punishment awaits, and not from God, but from the legal system of their geographic location. Fortunately, most atheists don’t fall into this category, and there’s a reason for that.
Someone who breaks into a classroom with a deadly weapon and starts opening fire on innocent people has a mental problem, a short-circuit in their brain, if you will, to begin with, and religion or the lack thereof has nothing to do with it. On the other hand, an atheist who fantasizes about what it would be like to have sex with his neighbor’s wife is merely exhibiting what is now known as a typical human trait of natural desire, whether a book written centuries ago says this is wrong or not.
An Atheist doesn’t have to answer to anyone for his or her acts
To get to the point, the atheist doesn’t have to answer to anyone for his or her acts unless they broke a legal statute. In the example of lust described above, for instance, a male blessed with a strong libido won’t be hauled off to jail for his thoughts. If he decides to go ahead and act upon such a fantasy, he certainly runs the risk of retaliation from a jealous husband, but won’t worry about spending an eternity in Hell.
An atheist doesn’t have to take time out of their week to sit in a church for an hour since they believe that this will make absolutely no difference in what happens when death arrives. Perhaps most ironic of all, consider the following question: What if all these churchgoers one day discover that they missed out on the fun by following man-made rules to the letter for either nothing or, more likely, something wholly alien and unexpected?
Most atheists provided they are educated, believe the Big Bang started it all, and that no God was necessary in that event. They also acknowledge that energy cannot be destroyed but only altered into a different form. Are not a person’s brain waves a form of such power? Some afterlife, therefore, has to exist, but the conscientious atheist believes Heaven or Hell is far too one-dimensional to serve as a feasible explanation.
