{"id":247,"date":"2007-04-25T14:10:11","date_gmt":"2007-04-25T21:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/posts\/2007\/an-athiest-manifesto\/"},"modified":"2007-04-25T14:10:11","modified_gmt":"2007-04-25T21:10:11","slug":"an-athiest-manifesto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/posts\/2007\/an-athiest-manifesto\/","title":{"rendered":"An Athiest Manifesto?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve never been a fan of Christopher Hitchens<\/a>. He’s always seemed a little too old-fashioned and conservative to me. While his columns do include far more reflection and arguments I can try to understand than most conservative pieces, he still irks me in the end. I think, “Why, Christopher, do you make so many good points and apparently see the larger picture but still fall-back on old assumptions?”<\/p>\n

But now, he might be my new hero? Slate<\/i><\/a> has posted an exclusive except of his new book, God is Not Great<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Originally I was going to cite passages I agreed with, but in the end, I pretty much agree with the whole damn thing.<\/p>\n

If, however, I had to pick one thing he says that highlights one of my largest problems with religion, it would be:<\/p>\n

\nThere is no need for us to gather every day, or every seven days, or on any high and auspicious day, to proclaim our rectitude or to grovel and wallow in our unworthiness<\/b>.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(emphasis mine)<\/p>\n

I really hate the fact that religion makes so many humans feel worthless and petty.<\/p>\n

My favorite argument against religion was in one of the many Zizek books I’ve read. He suggests that if God exists, then he is impotent because he requires humans to exist\/feel empowered. If God exists and is so great, then why does he need to be reminded by humans on this tiny planet so often. And if some of us humans don’t believe in him, does that really make him feel so bad that he needs to damn us to hell or suggest that his believes kill us? It’s just stupid.<\/p>\n

So yeah, as much as it pains me, I think I am going to go ahead and order his book God is Not Great<\/i><\/a> and see what else he says about religion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve never been a fan of Christopher Hitchens. He’s always seemed a little too old-fashioned and conservative to me. While his columns do include far more reflection and arguments I can try to understand than most conservative pieces, he still irks me in the end. I think, “Why, Christopher, do you make so many good … Continue reading An Athiest Manifesto?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}