How atheism insults religious imagination—an affront on hope.
Three very important things to remember when scrutinizing faith.
First of all it confronts the validity of hope which triggers an adrenergic response. It can certainly be startling when faced with the fact no god is coming to the rescue. “Wait, I’m on my own here?” No worries mate, you’ve been living life on your own the whole time (with a little help from your friends) Nothing is going to change only you don’t have to wait around talking to yourself to see if a prayer was answered. You’ve done ok so far, but holding that much power can be frightening at first. But, you’ll get used to controlling you own path.
Second, criticizing a belief is a trigger warning to resist temptations to even consider alternatives—for god (friends and family) is measuring your devotion at that very moment. Considering better-than-belief alternatives you might fall into sin, or regress to your old self and return to your own vomit (Proverbs 26:11) All those things “god” did for you won’t come undone. Relax. No need for knee-jerking. Its called moving on—maturing through faith.
Thirdly, you directly insult imagination. Humans have terrific imaginations—religion is a great way to kill time when your brainpower exceeds opportunity, activity, or motivation. But don’t be fooled—just a nudge in the right direction and bang! You can express this runaway imagination through achievement.
Our imaginations make up a huge portion of who we are, or think we can become. A personal affront to imagination is a direct insult worthy of stoning and death. It even has a name—blasphemy.
Blasphemy—a: the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God
b: the act of claiming the attributes of a deity for man to imagine that he was divine could only be viewed as blasphemy.
“Suggesting you have the ability to chart your own path puts those in power in an awkward position to justify their own arrogance”. This is a most heinous sin. It’s treason, really.
And fourth but not least, reducing self-deprecation as a worthless sinner isn’t putting you in dangerous territory, but it may release how good you can really be without having to put your own foot on your own neck in the name of belief.
A good thing to remember—arguing with faith is debating reason against physiology. Through repetition the neurons are hardwired and the inability to connect the dots and to embrace contradiction is now a physical phenomenon.
TheCommonAtheist 