More Questions and Misconceptions

Here are some common questions and misconceptions by Filipinos regarding atheism and other issues.

1.) In the issue of sin.

Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 3:10

As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;

Like anyone else, an atheist is not a perfect person. We all commit mistakes. Remember that atheism is not about refusing to acknowledge that we err.

But because atheists do not believe in any god or gods, they do not accept the concept of sin just like they do not accept the concept of karma. The concept of sin is pointless to an atheist. Sin is defined as the transgression of God’s law. Since atheist doesn’t believe in God, then the concept of sin is without meaning.


2.) If we evolved from Apes as science suggests. Why do we still have apes?

This is the most common question if the believer is too ignorant with evolutionary biology, taxonomy and genetics and I’m sure a lot of Filipinos are.
First, humans and other apes are descended from a common ancestor whose population split to become two (and more) lineages.

Second, Christians assume that the theory of evolution presuppose some inbuilt tendency for advancement or progress. There is nothing in evolution that automatically makes a population ‘better’ or ‘more advance’. Humans and apes came from a common ancestry line but they diverged and become different. But one group was not superior to the other group. That’s why we still have apes in Africa.

In today’s basic knowledge of heredity, we now know that there is no barrier keeping evolutionary change within specific limits. With the discovery of DNA, we find that all living things – from the tiniest bacteria to the giant sequoia trees, to cats, whales, lizards, sponge, apes and humans, all share the same DNA information. With some other factors such as geographical isolation, natural selection and time, it is not impossible for modern apes to evolve into something else.

3.) It’s so obvious that Atheists are people who lived an awful life. And so they blame God for it and try very hard to tell people that he doesn't exist. Well God gave you freewill so do what you want. And I feel sorry for you that you have to blame God for your terrible life.

Is atheism the effect of a bad childhood, a failed marriage, an unhappy life, failures, etc. etc…Well if that’s true then there must be more atheist in this world than God believers.

But seriously, belief or non-belief is not a factor that will affect someone’s life. In fact, there are even some religion that capitalized on human misery and guilt.

What makes believers to link God to happiness is this: Every human naturally desires the good, the object of happiness. God is believed to be the ultimate, self-sustaining good. Therefore, human seeks God.

If I don’t believe in the existence of elves, that will not make my life unhappy. That’s the same with god belief. Not believing in a God doesn’t affect my life. If I believe in evolution, that will not make my life sad and miserable.

Happiness, contentment and peace of mind is up to you and no one else can do it for you. But speaking of atheism, atheism is not against happiness and love, it is against the idea that happiness and love can only be achieve in the afterlife – when you’re already dead.

In atheism there is no God to think for you, to guarantee your happiness and to save you. These are all the sole responsibility of human beings. If you want knowledge, you must think for yourself. If you want success, you must work. If you want happiness, you must strive to achieve it. For those who rely on a god, this is a terrifying prospect, but for an atheist, it is an exhilaration challenge. As David Ramsey Steele have said, “Atheism is like a clean water supply: very elementary and purely negative. It doesn’t tell us how to conduct our personal lives or how to organize our social order. But then despite first impressions, neither does theism.”

So if a God believer attempts to defeat atheism by using emotionalism he accomplished nothing aside from revealing his disdain for an atheist’s ability to think.


4.) You don't believe in God, so you believe in nothing.

Atheism is without belief in a god or gods NOT ‘without belief’. Contrary to popular belief, an atheist can believe in almost anything. Atheist only agrees to fellow atheists in the issue against theism. Other than that it’s every man for himself.

Some atheists are communists while others defend capitalism. Some are against religion while others are neutral in the issue. Some are relativists, humanists, objectivist, feminists, compatibilists…all those “ist” and “ism” on the list!

There are honest atheists, thieves, neurotic atheists philanthropists, nationalists, psychotics, rapists or “tatlo dyes” (dime a dozen) atheists.

We have some friendly atheists, grumpy old atheists who call other atheists as “morons”. We have gay atheists and atheists suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

The only thing incompatible with atheism is theism.

5.) Obviously, there must be a Prime Mover since something cannot start from nothing? Just like in Newton's Law of Inertia, nothing can move unless there is an outside force that will move that thing.

Newton’s first law of motion is that property of matter which manifests itself as a resistance to any change in the motion of a body. Thus when no external force is acting, a body at rest remains at rest and a body in motion continue moving in a straight line with a uniform speed.

So I really don’t know why this Christian used this law as an example to illustrate the Prime Mover. There’s nothing in Newton’s first law that says a body always starts at rest. It said that if there is no external force, matter will continue moving. If the object is at rest it will stay at rest until an external force acts on it.

So how will you prove to me that everything in this universe started at rest? Atoms are always moving isn’t it? Remember that the Newtonian laws are valid only for all mechanical problems not involving speeds comparable with the speed of light and not involving atomic or subatomic particles.

Let me add something here. How do you know that something cannot start from nothing? Why is nothing always a default position? Nothing is nothing…if “nothing” has something on it to start with, then that is not “nothing”. What is the property of “nothing”. Is it hard to imagine that there has always been something? That we don’t have to begin with nothing. Energy for example is something that wasn’t created. Maybe everything started to that. Believers believe that something started with something and this ‘something’ is God. Then, why is there God rather than nothing?

In today’s modern cosmology and physics, something is more natural than ‘nothing’.

But suppose we accept that nothing is the natural state of affair. Is it impossible that something came from nothing? There are a lot of examples that simple systems of particles are unstable and undergo spontaneous phase transitions to more complex structures. Since ‘nothing’ is quite simple, it is very unstable. So it is very normal for ‘nothing’ to undergo a spontaneous phase transition to something without any supernatural agent as Nobel laureate physicist Frank Wilczek suggested.

That’s it for now.

Until next time.

Ciao!

John the Atheist