My deal with religion

Hello again

Among my friends, I have always being truly open regarding atheism, in particular my atheism, meaningly the position in which I stand that altough I can not prove god doesn't exist, there is no real evidence it exists neither, and that makes me an atheist (save me the posts, I know what an agnostic is and I'm not, I have no-god = a-theism). In fact, I'm willing to be shown wrong, but as long as it happens I firmly believe (based on the evidence I've seen) that we have lot of things to do in this place we call Earth before finding out if there's a puppet-master who will give sense to our existence...

I could go very long on details about why I dismiss religion, also from the personal point of view, but a lot has been written about that with much more exact words ( in particular refer to: http://www.randi.org/jr/072503.html ), I particularly agree with almost everything on that statement.

I would like now to add just a few paragraphs, concerning the responses I may have of all the people who exert their trutful right to choose a religion, because that is what I wanted to state now. These are not my words, but I think I couldn't have expressed more accurately the feeling I have towards religion so here it goes:

"What do I believe in? I believe in the basic goodness of my species, because that appears to be a positive tactic and quality that leads to better chances of survival — and in spite of our foolishness, we seem to have survived. I believe that this system of aging and eventually dying — a system that is the result of the evolutionary process, not of conscious effort — is an excellent process that makes room for hopefully improved members of the species, in an increasingly limited environment. I believe that if we don't smarten up and get a sense of reality and pragmatism, our species will do what they all eventually do: it will cease to exist, prematurely. I also believe that we will get smart, because that's a survival technique, and we're really pretty good at that.... "

"I also believe in puppy-dogs and a child's sparkling eyes, in laughter and smiles, in sunflowers and butterflies. Mountains and icebergs, snowflakes and clouds, are delights to me. Yes, I know that this perception is the result of hard-wiring in my brain, along with the added input of experience and association, but that does not subtract a bit from my appreciation of phenomena. I know that others, both of my species and not, may not share my awe and acceptance of these elements that so please me, because they have different needs and reactions. A cloud is a mass of condensed water-vapor in the atmosphere, I know. But it can be a sailing-ship, a demon, an eagle, if I allow myself to be a human being, and though many will doubt it, I frequently do. "

Just to end this brief statement, that I believe won't please everybody a few more words:

"Folks, I was in Mexico City on the plaza outside the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe when a young peasant father crawled by me along the rough pavement with an obviously dead infant in his arms, swaddled in a tiny white serape. There were twin tracks of blood behind him from his bleeding knees. He was seeking a miracle. Through the adjacent barred window in the basilica I could hear the coin-sorting machines packaging the money that was pouring into the offering boxes inside. I turned away and wept. "

"In a St. Louis auditorium I stood in the lobby as paramedics treated a heavy elderly woman who lay in a fetal position on the carpet, white-faced and moaning in agony. Moments before she'd been seized in ecstasy in front of faith healer "Reverend" W. V. Grant, leaping up and down in an adrenalin rush that made her temporarily oblivious to the bone spurs on her arthritic spine that were cutting into her muscle tissues and bringing about internal bleeding. The attendants got her onto two stretchers and into an ambulance. I wept. "

"Outside an arena in Anaheim, California, my camera crew approached a tiny, thin, Asian boy with twisted legs on worn crutches to ask him if he'd been healed by Peter Popoff, the miracle-worker who he'd told us two hours earlier was "gonna ask Jesus to fix my legs." When he turned toward us, we saw his tear-streaked face and anguished eyes. The cameraman lowered his camera. "I can't do this," he said, and we both turned away and wept."

I will not try to disuade anyone from his own religion, that's not in what I believe (again because the previous evidence has taught me that); but I would like to say vehemently that I appreciate and value human life highly, above all the other things society make us think are important, that is why I study medicine, that is why it would be impossible for me to think, in the middle of an intervention, in the middle of a treatment, in the middle of a research, that this particular human being's fate (my patient's fate) has already been thrown, and that I can't do anything about it.

I just wanted to speak out my mind a little about this

*all the quotings are property of the JREF (James Randi Educational Found)