This is my first diary. And I wish I had more of my own rantings rather than simply sharing with you what passes for quality journalism (according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal). The author is Dale Reich. And Dale Reich is a generalizing fool. Flip if you wish to know why.
The editorial starts off OK. I recognize that Mr. Reich is a devout religious man, holding his beliefs to be completly true and universal for all people. His tone is mildly insulting, but for now I can handle when he writes:
It was pretty chilling. I didn't like the emptiness, the disconnectedness, the lack of direction and the prospect of it all ending when I die.
Fine. Emptiness? Disconnectedness? I can see how a deeply religious person would feel when they cast off their beliefs. It appears his faith is engrained, and removing his faith would be akin to me becoming apolitical. He feels "naked," and I would feel "naked." Right? Can Mr. Reich just continue on, clutching at least some aspect of civility towards atheists? Well, no.
Friends, if you're going to be atheists, start thinking and acting like it. Get rid of your own irrational beliefs and embrace the world as you say it is: a purely physical and random place where goodness and evil don't really exist and where the rules set down by organized religion and thousands of years of human history are no more meaningful than two rocks colliding at the bottom of a mountain after an avalanche.
I fucking hate this argument. In my mind, it's a generalization. Being atheist doesn't mean that I've lost all sense of morality or basic human decency. These are social contructs. I may be fudging this quote, but Frank Zappa said it best on Hardball: "Morality from behavior, not from religion." According to Mr. Reich, because I don't have some enigma to prove myself to, I suddenly lose all sense of morality? How does this follow at all? Mr. Reich proves his illogic succinctly soon after this.
What I learned from my foray into disbelief was that most atheists have it all wrong. They've merely substituted their own irrational belief system for the one I was given from 2,000 years ago.
One of my friends told me the other night that he had stopped to help a stranded motorist.
"Why would you do that?" I asked.
"Because it was the right thing to do. She needed help."
"But," I protested, "that doesn't make any sense. You wasted your time and efforts on a complete stranger, and for what? You got nothing out of it. You should have kept right on driving."
He gave me a puzzled look.
I see. So atheists don't have a sense of decency, right? They don't believe in Reich's god, the bastion of "good," therefore why would they even consider doing something nice for another human? To sum up this diary and Mr. Reich's foray into the abysmal uncertainty of atheism, I'll leave you with this final passage:
If it feels good, do it, because it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing matters. To put ourselves above the animal kingdom without the existence and rules of a creator is just plain silly. Like dogs and cats and mosquitoes, atheists should embrace their freedom and act accordingly.
Some people already do that. We call them sociopaths, but maybe that's too harsh.
Maybe they're not sick; they're just free to do as they please.
Dale Reich's JS Editorial