Any anti-theists out there?
This may be treading on GD territory, but I don’t intend this to become a pro/con religious debate. I’m quite set and comfortable in my atheism. In the past 30 years or so, I went from a non-practicing Catholic, to agnostic, to a live-and-let-live soft atheist. As I’m getting older, though, I’ve noticed my feelings about atheism becoming more and more… “evangelistic”, for want of a better term. I see many bad (evil, if you will) things happening, or that have happened, because of, in the name of, or rationalized by religion and/or some god, and am starting to feel very strongly that the world would be a much better place if all this superstitious thought would just completely disappear. Sure, “evil” will still exist, but I feel that it’d have a much harder time existing without having religion there as a rationalization. Sure, religion has some good points, does some good things, but I’ve yet to see any that truly needed god as a prerequisite, except in the devotee’s own mind.
This is my problem: I read the above paragraph, and I cringe because it sounds like witnessing. I sound like some religious intolerant that believes his truth is the only truth and must prevail. And, worse of all, I’m becoming less and less bothered by my own exhibitions of these qualities that I dislike so much. The truth and a better world are a noble cause, so what I alienate and offend a few people getting there. I’m becoming anti-theist. Any one else out there been in the same boat? How do you/I resolve this internal dissonance?
