We Are All Atheists [View all]

[trotsky]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-schweitzer/we-are-all-atheists_b_6890056.html

The cold hard fact is that atheists face global persecution, yet attacks are rarely reported in mainstream news. In contrast, any attack on a Christian gets plenty of attention. One piece in the New York Times pleaded, "Who Will Stand Up for the Christians?" Here is a headline you'll never see: "Who will stand up for the Atheists?" The Catholic press emphasized that ISIS is killing Christians, which is true, but ignored that fact that ISIS is killing anybody they deem unworthy of their radical Islamic beliefs, including other Muslims and Jews. Is the killing of a Christian worse than the murder of an atheist or Muslim? Apparently.

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The word atheist derives from Greek, originally from the adjective atheos, meaning "without god." The term was later invoked by Greek writers to mean "denying the gods." All of us are without or deny the existence of at least some gods, and therefore all of us are atheists. This is undeniable: all monotheistic believers reject all gods, except one. They reject all the Greek elder gods Cronus, Gaea, Uranus, Rhea, Oceanus, Tethys, Hyperion, Mnemosyne, Themis, Iapetus, Coeus, Crius, Phoebe, Thea, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas, Metis and Dione.

Muslims, Jews and Christians all deny the existence of the Greek Olympic gods Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Hera, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, Hermes, Artemis and Hephaestus. All major religions today dismiss as nothing but myth the Roman gods Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Pluto, Apollo, Diana, Mars, Venus, Cupid, Mercury, Minerva, Ceres, Proserpine, Vulcan, Bacchus, Saturn, Vesta, Janus, Uranus and Maia.

Yet this roster of gods was real to multiple thousands of people for thousands of years, every bit as real as the one god worshipped by Christians, Muslims and Jews today. These Greek and Roman gods were the subject of daily pleas, prayers and sacrifice and the guiding force for much daily ritual. These mighty powers stood for millennia, ruling over their followers for a period of time that greatly exceeds all of Christianity. These gods are now demoted to nothing more glorious than a good story. What would convey upon these gods more or less legitimacy than the god of John, Matthew, Mark and Luke? Nothing.