Thursday, September 4, 2008

An Atheist's Prayer


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Poetry by Ruth Dickson

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To Whom It May Concern:

Grant those who live in blind faith the ability to see the light of reason, that they may understand “faith” to be nothing more than a euphemism for self-imposed ignorance.

Let the self-righteous understand the damaging effects of their contemptuous dismissal of those who do not accept their dogma as truth.

Show those who use religion as an excuse to hate, murder, rape and torture the hypocrisy of their belief systems.

Expose all “holy” writings for the distorted collections of folk tales they truly are.

Clarify for the pious the vast difference between “belief” and “knowledge” and require that they explain such contradictions as:

God is omnipotent and omniscient but either cannot or will not interfere with natural or manmade calamities, allowing the equal destruction of both believers and the impious. Ergo, he’s either helpless or simply doesn’t care about his precious creation. Which is it?

Blastocysts have souls that must be saved, but the billions of living humans whose suffering could be alleviated through the results of stem cell research must be left to “the will of god.”

Unmarital sex is immoral, but allowing millions of people to die of STDs is not.

All holy books are the product of divine inspiration, yet they contradict both one another and themselves on virtually every page. Most of these books also espouse monotheism; this being the case, one would expect the texts to have been “dictated” by the same author. Why then are the readers of one version required to murder those who read another?

The first four of the Christian bible’s ten commandments, presumably the most important rules ever presented to mankind, are all about the putative author, and have nothing to do with the human condition or its morality. At the same time, this list is considered so important to civilization, many Americans believe it should be displayed in courts of law. However, if these commandments are truly immutable, why is breaking them no longer punished by death, as demanded by their creator? Also, if the tenth rule were to be scrupulously followed, wouldn’t that cause the destruction of the capitalist system? (After all, if we didn’t covet what our neighbors have, what would become of General Motors and WalMart?).

God is loving and forgiving, but if you fail to praise, worship and placate him every day of you r life, he will petulantly punish, torture and torment you every day after your death.

In conclusion, and most importantly, please allow the religious to honestly appraise the logic of their beliefs, to substitute reason for faith and to admit their incredible arrogance in assuming they are dealing in fact.

2 comments:

AtheistExile said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Candace said...

Yess! Faith is ust a euphemism for self-imposed ignorance! I can't wait to have the opportunity to use that, Ruth - with proper credit, of course.