Thursday, February 3, 2011

There is no "We" in Atheism

One of the most common misconception about atheists is that atheists are all the same. But actually we aren't. We hold different sets of beliefs and the most common commonality (oh redundancy) would be the unbelief in God/s.

Some atheists may agree with my views and some will not. The views that will be posted in the future will only reflect my views.

It is misleading to conclude that the world view of a certain popular atheist is the world view of the other atheists out there.

Beliefs

My first post would be the laying out of my beliefs and these will be the basis of most of my posts in the following days.

I don't believe in God (obviously) or gods in the case of polytheistic beliefs. God/s defined as any supernatural being/s whether anthropomorphic (with human characteristics) or essence (energy, love, life force, etc) that created the universe and life. Obviously it would follow that I do not believe in Satan, the antithesis of God in most monotheistic religions. So don't accuse of me worshiping the devil or Satan. I also do not believe in angels, spirits, fairies, gremlins, imps and the like.

I believe in the scientific explanation of how the universe (big bang theory) and life (evolution) came to be (so far, until a more plausible theory is formulated). Though both are still theories and may have holes/gaps that still need to be filled, I have a leap of faith for those two theories but I am willing to change what I believe given sufficient evidence in terms of empirical and physical data (though I have no technical expertise to interpret such data, technically, I have faith in the authority of scientists).

I am open to believe in an essence god (energy, life force, etc) but is closed to believe in a anthropomorphic god. Currently I am exploring the concepts of unity and oneness through the readings of Erich Fromm (will be borrowing ideas from him in future posts) and will try reading Buddhist text in the future.