(can’t remember his name)<\/em> managed to get all these points in.<\/p>\nI’m not an evangelical atheist by any means. I don’t go around preaching to people that atheism will sort out all their problems. I don’t believe it will. If you become an atheist it probably won’t make you richer, more attractive or get you more friends. \u00a0You won’t get rewards in an afterlife for atheism and you won’t believe in a powerful friend who will sort out your problems. \u00a0Atheism makes NONE OF THE PROMISES<\/strong> of other popular belief systems. Indeed, my experience of it is that even in a country with an 80+% lapsed catholic population, you’re treated with suspicion when people find out you don’t have religious beliefs.<\/p>\nYet atheism is a belief system. It’s a rational (if there is such a thing as rationality)<\/em> awareness that you do not see sufficient evidence to believe in the existence of god. \u00a0It doesn’t make you sad. Atheists do not spend their days pondering the futility of existence. Believing that you have only a short time in existence doesn’t devalue any second of your life and it doesn’t. What’s it all for? Why does it have to be for ANYTHING? <\/strong><\/p>\nIt’s OK to look at a flower and marvel at evolution. To think nature is an amazing system where simple rules give rise to such amazing complexity. Skepticism is a much undervalued virtue in society. One would think that with the traditional authority figures of Irish society (the church, the banks, political parties)<\/em> embroiled in tribunals, investigations and financial scandals that principle of healthy and rational skepticism might be looked upon positively.<\/p>\nIt’s not OK to be patronised by believers as a way of supporting their beliefs. The repetition of downright lies suggesting all atheists are unhappy or lack a moral compass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s funny how often I hear the myth of the unhappy atheist. I’m not saying all atheists are happy but the myth of the unhappy atheist sees us condemned to be miserable because of the hopelessness of our bleak godless outlook. The argument goes like this Believing in “God” gives you hope and strength Life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":701,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}