It was interesting how lax this article about irreligion was. I’ve read some pacifism in my day but this tops by quite a bit. It sounds like someone has rejected the fundamentalism anti-intellectual religion that is pervasive in west Michigan but is too afraid to stand up for fear of offending the Jesus freaks. Ill admit its hard to get anywhere around here without running into smarmy religiosity and theological and historical ignorance. But to roll over and say “I want to reject religion but I’m willing to bend my convictions because my friends are Christians” is offensively non genuine and downright boring. Now I applaud your move away from childish faith but feel strongly that you are misrepresenting nonbelievers.

First off there is no doctrine or dogma for unbelief, you are not commanded to believe in anything. The arguments are there for you to decide and you can choose whether you agree or not. This isn’t a claimed divine word or revelation, simply a worldview based on hard evidence and logical inferences that requires thinking for one’s self. And I don’t know about you but I have never heard any of our “higher ups” (not sure who you are referring to) indicate that there are things we must never question. Questioning everything is what propelled great men like Einstein and Jefferson out of the herding sheep of organized religion and superstition. If you are not capable of understanding these ideas that you claim you shouldn’t question then you are to blame only yourself.

As for the different sects of atheism you clearly don’t understand what these organizations are about or the word sect. The Center for Inquiry is not an atheist organization just a skeptical one, The Freedom from Religion Foundation is a nonprofit that was created to keep up Jefferson’s wall between church and state. The American Atheists is more of a political organization as well focusing on theocratic nonsense in the United States. All of these organizations tend to agree with each other on their “doctrine” and actually share funding and leadership, which is much a lot more than you can say about different sects of Christianity and way more than you can say about different religions.

With you final argument that claiming there is no God is an arrogant statement that goes against skeptical inquiry I will agree with you somewhat. To declare with 100% certainty of anything without specific evidence is something reserved for religious people. Unfortunately you go on to equate the arrogance of this to the statement that not only there is a supernatural creator,which some deists claim, but that he loves you personally and cares deeply about the plight of the human race. To declare this more theistic argument is, I hope you can see, requires a lot more “faith”. Fortunately for the religious crowd faith is cheap and is in stock at your local mall(I believe the closest one is called Mars Hill).

-Steve Bischoff