Atheism is on the rise in this country.
The Pew Research Center reports that one in five Americans doesn’t ascribe to any religion at all. Of the irreligious respondents, 88 percent said they weren’t looking to adopt a faith.
As the number of irreligious people has grown, so has the number of atheists.
I would identify myself as an atheist.
I observe no credible evidence for the existence of any god, so I live my life as if there are no gods.
Despite our growing number, atheists are often seen as antagonistic. Even I think the word “atheist” sounds dirty. It sounds like we’re the unhappy hedonists who are anti-God.
This is unfortunate because I don’t think that my own philosophy conforms to any of that spiteful sentiment.
I don’t hate religion.
I do wonder, though, why many within the religious community should automatically see atheists — or atheism — as contemptible.
There have been atheists who have done really horrible things. Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot killed millions.
However, it was not atheist values that caused such unfortunate behavior. The only value inherent in atheism is a lack of belief in a deity.
One could live a life that many of us would recognize as good without believing in a god.
Just as there have been atheists who have done horrible things, there have been religious people who have done really horrible things, and many of these things were done in the name of their faiths.
For example, during the Crusades, many Muslims and Jews needlessly died at the hands of Christians. It is said that during the first siege of Jerusalem the blood was up to the knees of the conquerors’ horses.
This ghastly mark on human history came directly as a result of the crusaders’ particular combination of faithful beliefs.
That’s not to say that, similarly, there aren’t good Christians. There are Christians alive today who love their fellow man and do good works whenever they can.
However, I’m not sure that the Crusades ever ought to be celebrated. Interestingly, one group on campus calls itself the Crusade for Christ.
Given what we know about the brand of Christianity that many practice, the name “Crusade” might make sense. To most Christians, the end times are approaching. To many, the ultimate battle between good and evil is already underway.
A crusade is a Christian’s holy war. Likewise, a jihad is a Muslim’s holy war. Why then wouldn’t it be acceptable if Islam On Campus was instead called “Campus Jihad”?
I think that we ought to take the concept of religiously inspired warfare very seriously.
Last week a 14-year-old Pakistani girl was shot in the head by the Taliban for blog posts she made about educating girls.
She’s recovering now, but the Taliban promises to finish the job. Is there any doubt that such hatred comes as a direct result of the particular version of faith these people hold?
I understand that not all Muslims share the belief that women ought to be shot for going to school. It is, however, an interpretation that 36,000 Taliban fighters find plausible enough to put their lives on the line for.
With so much conflict in the world that has been derived and is derived as a result of certain religious beliefs, why should an atheist be, by default, the elephant in the room?
At the end of the day, it isn’t the title of a person’s faith — or lack of faith — that defines how terrible he or she is.
Perhaps it can be argued that we ought to praise or condemn people according to what they actually believe and not according to an ambiguous label.
Brandon Lee Gagne is an anthropology senior at UF. His column appears on Thursdays. You can contact him at opinions@alligator.org.
