Do you truly believe? Prove it.

I challenge you to accept the Question Virus.

I don’t believe that you believe in God, I think that you just haven’t tried to believe anything else.

I challenge you to try becoming a skeptic for 1 year. If you can be truly skeptical for 1 year and still walk back into your faith after that, your faith will not only be justified it will be greatly boosted. If you can’t walk back into your faith, you will have been granted a look on life where this is the one and only life that matters so you best make the most of it.

I offer my services as a person who is skeptical to provide you with leading questions through my writings here (http://www.mratheist.com/). I offer my email address ([email protected]) and an offer to answer all legitimate questions to the best of my ability and provide you the next set of questions.

So what are you waiting for? Embrace the Question Virus, read my writings and test your faith.

- Mr. Atheist

Evidence, evidence, evidence!

These are likely the 3 most common words that you’ll hear in an atheist’s debate when he’s arguing with a theist as to the discussion of God. I personally don’t particularly like this argument as it is futile. The theist generally knows that they don’t have evidence, or that their evidence is at least not scientifically admissible. The standard theist will openly stand behind their belief that faith is requires a lack of evidence. They have been taught and trained for many years to believe that it is a virtue to deny all other things than what they believe in. I apologize to deists, pantheists and some others out there that I am generalizing the term theist but I am sure you are used to that by now.

What, then, is the problem with demanding evidence when someone makes a claim that god exists? The problem is a waste of time and a build-up of an emotional defensive stance against argument. The problem is expecting that repeating this request will garner different results from the same people, which it won’t. Leave the question out there to provide evidence if they want to convert us, but it is a futile argument when trying to have someone question their own faith. This is not to suggest that it never works, as it does, but it is not going to work against someone who will openly engage in debate.

What I propose to, and attempt to, offer here in my writings is not conversion. I don’t propose open argumentative debate. I don’t suppose to offer you truth, hard evidence, or even necessarily a convincing argument (though at times I will no doubt try). What I aim to offer in my writings is simply questions. Questions about why beliefs are what they are, why the world is what it is, and it is up to you to decide what the answer is and if that answer is acceptable.

I will be quite open about the fact that it is my desire for my essays are not only read by atheists, but more importantly I want them to be read by theists. It is my desire that the people who read it accept the question, the absurdity, the contradiction, or whatever the topic that I have written about and simply think about it, question the truth of what is being said. I hope that people can take that question and investigate the source of its reasoning. It is my hope that this question spreads like a virus throughout a person’s brain, that they being to question the authenticity of everything they have learned, that they question the authority by which the messages are delivered, and moral and ethical stand that they represent.

It is my very firm belief that the greatest weapon against religion is questions. Some people ask questions because they want to know how to answer the question, but to truly curious person an answer is just a spring board for more questions. When it comes to anything of a large scale, such as religion or science, questions spread like a virus over all the information that is there. All answers presenting new questions. As the virus of questions spreads throughout the mind we have a transition from a mind that once accepted what they are told, to one that questions what they are told. Somewhere along the way we give birth to skepticism.

I don’t believe that “faith” holds water to a skeptic. Though the transition can be long, painful, and slow, I am confident that a belief in a supernatural deity does not stand up to a skeptical mind. Though the skeptical mind may never find the answer, they will at least question the authenticity of the answer. A skeptic will not be able to authenticate the answer of “god” to the many questions we have, which will leave a blank. Once a person can accept the blanks as just being unknown, god disappears.

I take an immense amount of pride when someone of faith acknowledges the credibility of one of my statements and proposes to think about it or look into it. This alone means that I have been successful at my goal. My hope after that point is that I can continue to be a source of questions and that I can seed skepticism in a person.

The key to getting someone to question their own faith though is presentation of the question. People are very fragile when it comes to questioning something that they believe it, but it is even more fragile when you are questioning something that they don’t have an answer to. People will become very defensive and will not only stop listening to you and your argument, but will stop listening to themselves and their own answers. Keeping this in mind I see it as my primary goal in my writing to try my best to avoid statements that comes across as too aggressive because they will shut down my reader and make them incapable of evaluating the points that are being made. That said, I do not want to discredit my own points or argument by softening my points to the point that the reader does not see the problem.

There is no doubt that I will offend some people. There is no doubt that some people will not understand some of my points. There is no doubt that some of writings will totally miss their mark. There is no doubt that some will see me as softening my message or “pussy footing” around theists. I will not apologize for any of this. I will not apologize for presenting my honest opinion or my reflections on a topic.

I challenge you to accept the Question Virus.

If you are confident that the conclusions you will find when you start down the path of questions will always support your faith, then you have nothing to lose but you will gain an immense boost to your faith. I am confident that heading down this road will reveal an extremely complicated new world where you will feel small by comparison of just how complex our world really is. And if you are fortunate enough to one day find you are skeptical of your faith, you will find a fabulous new reason to enjoy life: it is your one and only.

In return for your acceptance of the challenge I will answer all legitimate questions about my writings and really any topic at all. I will gladly write about topics that are suggested, and will make myself available to listen to the conclusions you come to and help you along the road to finding the next questions and the next set of questions after that.

So please keep an eye out for new postings here, and feel free to contact me at anytime via email at [email protected] and I will do my best to respond rationally to anything you might have to say about my writings, or any other legitimate topic.

- Mr. Atheist