Faith in God, Smurfs, and/or David Hasselhoff

There’s some billboard gathering the attention of news cameras in Green Hills. I don’t know that an advertisement counts as news, but apparently some Nashvillains still are not comfortable with the reality of the First Amendment in their town.

Suggesting one can achieve a fulfilling existence without religion should not be news by now. Over the past decade you’ve either heard a great deal of religious questioning, or you’ve intentionally ignored it. If you fit in the latter group your media is likely limited to reality television, blockbusters starring CGI monsters, and the Bible. Oh, and probably Fox News. If that is the case, you really don’t know what is going on anywhere. You should probably close this particular web page and stay in your comfort zone. Go find some sports bloopers or fat Cambodian chick pornography to watch.

The grown-ups need to talk.

A few years ago it seemed there was a freshly bound representative of non-belief every other month on the bestsellers lists. Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris expanded on their book deals to get their faces on the occasional talk show. Those fresh, youthful faces (and Kelly’s body) over at the Rational Response Squad have been actually proselytizing atheism all over the Internet for several years now. Bill Maher had a movie where he just started asking questions of people with varying degrees of authority on their particular belief system.

It’s difficult to measure what effect, if any, these openly godless voices have had on society. While they may have introduced a dialogue amongst certain circles in the United States, there doesn’t seem to have been a noticeable positive effect on the general population’s perceptions.

A 2006 University of Minnesota survey revealed that atheists remain the least trusted group in these United States. This in spite of the fact our citizenry is moving away from religion. The American Religious Identification Survey found 15 percent of Americans identified as completely without religion in 2008, up from 8 percent in 1990.

That doesn’t mean all of those people are atheists. No, they identify themselves as “Nones” when questioned about religion. Even those without religion don’t like atheists. They would prefer the label of none rather than be lumped in with the atheists. That’s pretty damn insulting, really.

Those fellas with the billboard, Secular Life, also are not advocating atheism. They merely are attempting to provide comfort and community to others who are living without religion. The difference between secularism and atheism seems to be unrecognized by some of Yahweh’s flock.

The United States of America is a secular country, as established by Amendment number one. We are not, however, an atheist country.

Secular does not affirm any religious belief. It does not say any religion is wrong, nor does it say any religion is right. It just separates itself from the whole fight. A secular person will go on about his daily errands while Jews kill Muslims, Muslims attack Christians, and Christians wage total war on those “Happy Holidays” people.

A secular person sees this as fucked up, because people are getting all bloody. An atheist sees this as fucked up because people are getting all bloody for higher powers who do not exist in the real world. They are fighting external flesh and blood people over what is really an internal delusion.

Sam Harris’ The End of Faith is an atheist publication. It actively argues against a belief in any gods. People magazine is secular. It argues against nothing more than plump celebrities wearing horizontal stripes.

I am an atheist. I do not believe in a god. I am also secular, because I do live without religion. One can be secular without being atheist. That would be those “Nones” in the survey. But an atheist is necessarily secular.

I have occasionally been told atheism is a religion because it requires just as much faith as any allegiance to a deity. Let me help you understand why this is a pan full of bullshit.

I understand it may be hard for someone who has never been without religion to grasp the real concept of having absolutely no faith regarding god. Those sheltered sheep must put atheism into a context they can get. So they add faith to their perception of us.

Allow me an analogy to make atheism a little more clear.

There is a blue smurf sitting on your keyboard as you read this.

He may currently be invisible, but I assure you Ghost Smurf is there right now. Perhaps he is pacing before your flat screen, or maybe he is doing a little dance over by your mouse, but he is most certainly near you. I have faith that he is there, therefore you should have that same belief.

Do you not accept that Ghost Smurf is sitting with you? Do you not share my faith in his presence? Do you need any deep faith to assert that there is no Smurf? Is it even a question of faith?

Rather than relying on a firm belief in the nonexistence of this smurf, you might prefer to ask for real evidence of his existence. If I cannot produce evidence, will you ever believe he is there? Probably not. No faith required.

Now call this little invisible being God Smurf. He looks like Papa, but prefers flowing white drapery to red pants. Your stance on the existence of God Smurf is the same as my stance on the existence of God, period.

If faith is required for disbelief, imagine how much faith you must exercise everyday. You must have a strong faith in the nonexistence of leprechauns, Ewoks, fairies, werewolves, Decepticons, Hera, time machines, the Blair Witch, etc.

Does one really need any faith to not acknowledge any of these things as reality? Is it a question of faith or evidence?

Some have demanded I provide evidence there is no god. But one cannot prove a negative.

Let’s go back to the smurf.

Can you prove to me there is no smurf with you? Remember he can turn invisible, and he moves around a lot so forget trying to feel him out.

Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense for me to provide proof he is real? If I cannot provide real evidence to your satisfaction, I cannot expect you to believe in the God Smurf. The burden of proof falls to the person making the assertion of existence.

And don’t give me the story that cockroaches and kittens exist, so there must be a god who created them.

That is like coming upon a dictionary lying on a sidewalk, then immediately jumping to the conclusion David Hasselhoff placed it there. There are a thousand more reasonable explanations, but rather than rationally seek out an evidence based answer, you take the existence of the dictionary as evidence the ‘Hoff visited your neighborhood.

I’ll admit a dictionary appearing on a sidewalk seems unusual, but I’m not prepared to commit to the Hasselhoff theory. Life seems similarly random, but the God explanation is equally as absurd as Dave roaming about with a stack of Merriam-Webster’s. It is simply jumping to an unsubstantiated conclusion.

I am not absolutely declaring I am right. I just need some real evidence before I believe there is a god. Yes, I know God has a book out. But the Smurfs had their own television show. And I’ve seen footage of David Hasselhoff on stage and on his kitchen floor.

Until I see some real evidence, I will remain an atheist.

You’ve got to be okay with that. I am, and so are the people at Secular Life.

Update:

Voice mail responses to the billboard.