FreeThinkingAtheist.com

Found this post in an IMDB Beowulf forum. He's arguing against somebody who claimed Beowulf has "anti-Christian" themes in it, and someone posted a rather enlightening & inspiring thought on religion as a whole:  

Both Muslims and Christians have died for what they believe in - I kind of believe that's nothing but fanaticism. There is no logic in thinking that one religion should be more "believable" than another just because it has more followers. Christianity has most definitely had a rather expansive history, with colonization and crusades, while for instance Hinduism and Judaism aren't missionary religions, and therefore don't work as hard on "saving" people. (Or make them choose between the cross and the sword as the Christians did to the Muslims during the crusades).

A lot of old cultural treasures in Scandinavia were destroyed when Christianity arrived, so that it could be the ONLY religion. Of course when we later shifted to protestantism, they burned the catholic stuff. It's all p.r. If people want to believe in God, or whatever they feel like, it's fine by me, but one can't use physical evidence to prove the righteousness of faith. The point of having faith is that one should exercise it even without proof, right? I always saw that as the beauty of it. As soon as you start using history as some kind of proof, you'll end up noticing that people will behave the way they always have - selfish and greedy after power and money. God has nothing to do with it. Both Christianity and Islam are beautiful religions with a message of love though, so I hope all those believers out there starts actually READING their Bibles and Korans and starts to love each other a little more. Then maybe that particular part of history won't have to repeat itself.

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    Yesterday, I attended a religious discussion event at my university. In a nutshell, the even creators intended on having a wide variety of religious world views present so that they could split them up where there was one religious view at each table. At each of these tables, there was a mediator present to ask questions on faith and each person answers the question. The whole purpose of the event was to educate others on your religion and to encourage respect of each other's beliefs.

    My table had me: the Atheist, a Muslim, two Christians, a Jew, a Catholic and a Pagan. We had quite a variety! Each person had excellent answers to just about every question. I learned a lot from the Jew and the Muslims in particular. The two Christians at the table seemed to be learning a lot from just about everybody. What I particularly liked about this event was the amount of respect I was given while representing the Atheists of the world. I'm so accustomed to being told things like "Oh, well Jesus forgives everybody, even Atheists like you", or "what?!?! you don't believe in God?? Aren't you afraid of going to hell????". But I received nothing of this sort while there. In fact, not only did I receive solid respect, but I also seemed to be enlightening on everything I said.

     Turns out, none of them knew hardly anything about what an Atheist is. The very first thing I said was "Alright, let's get this straight now. Atheism is not a religion. Atheists come in very different flavors. The only common belief Atheists share is that they lack the belief of a creator, God, or gods. It's not that they believe there IS no God, but rather, they lack the belief of a God. There are Atheists who believe there is no God, there are Atheists who claim we'll never know and just simply lack the belief."

    On the topic of what books our religions followed, one of the Christians asked "So what books to Atheists read, like science books?". I told him jokingly "anything by Richard Dawkins", and nobody got the joke which is a good thing I suppose. It means they are pro-faith, rather than anti-Atheist. I then told him that Atheists don't have a unified book like The New/Old Testaments, Koran or the Kabbalah. Atheism is not a religion. I told him the most common flavors of Atheists are the scientific ones who are heavily into science reading, and the humanist ones who approach things more from a humanist & philosophical way.

     On the topic of creation, every person gave their religion's view on how they got here. The Pagan surprisingly claimed to not know, but she thought the Big Bang was some sort of hoax. And EXTRA surprisingly, the rest of the people at the table didn't discredit the Big Bang Theory. In fact, one of the Christians tried explaining it to the Pagan girl, that our universe is expanding constantly and had to come from some single point. I then proceeded to explain to everyone just what a scientific theory IS, and how it's not just some made up hypothesis, that it's a conclusion that all the facts and evidence points to. I also explained that it remains a "theory" because they don't know what caused it. Just to leaves things open so they could relate to it, I even mentioned the possibility that even "God" could've caused the Big Bang and that was his medium for creation. In short, nobody knows. But I told them as religious people, they should never try and compete with science.

    Overall, it was a pretty cool experience, with pretty cool religious people. If only all religious people were like them! 

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