I am willing to bet five English pounds that every person reading this article will be able to point to at least one, if not many examples of those with a personal belief in a supernatural deity acting in a manner that is... shall we say, not exactly conducive to harmonious living with their fellow human beings. Whether or not it's a Jehovah's witness jamming his or her foot into your front door to spread the good news, or a an obnoxious street preacher telling you and anyone who'll listen that you're going to hell or some such equivalent, depending on the proselytising faith, we will all be able to think of an example that resonates with us personally, because of the level of irritation it has caused us, personally.
Now to those of you who are reading this who DO have a belief in a personal God or some equivalent system of supernatural belief, I am not necessarily lumping you in with these over zealous exponents of religious faith. A belief in a supernatural creator seems to be the majority position of most of the worlds population, a fact that is hardly suprising when we hear such figures as Christianity claiming nearly two billion adherents, and Islam claiming over one and a half billion... Numbers these large would tend to suggest one thing; Faith appears to be a majority position, and even a cursory glance at the faithful ought to tell us that for the large part of that majority population, faith is just another aspect of who they are, rather than a defining characteristic. The fringe elements of faith, whatever the faith may be are not representative of those faith systems. The Westboro Baptist Church is not, for example representative of Christianity.
But you may well be a religious person who is sick and tired of your far more fundamentalist compatriots in faith giving you a bad name. You may for example, be a Catholic, sick of the image of the Priest as child molester, or sick of the Family with too many children... You may be a Muslim who hates the fact that no one is able to see you as anything other than a jabbering incipient Jihadi terrorist with dynamite attached to your torso in a symmetrical bandolier; Whatever the stereotype you're fighting against, you're sick of it.
How do you prove to the rest of the world that you're simply not like them?
1:) Your faith is exactly that; Yours.
It may be written in your holy books and other written traditions of the faith that you are a member of that your faith is the one true faith, the one true path to salvation, and that your God is the one and only true God. If you believe that, you are more than welcome to, and there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to stop you believing that. More to the point, we should not be attempting to do so in the first place.
I am not your deity, and it is therefore not my job to police your thoughts. Think and believe what you like. You are however going to have to accept that there are some very stubborn people out there who just aren't going to see the light like you have.
This is more for your interaction with other people of faith; It's the height of bad manners to turn around and tell someone that they believe in the wrong God, no matter how much you think that's true. Calling Allah a servant of Satan and an enemy of Christ isn't likely to convert any Muslims. It's just likely to make Muslims hearing you say that not like you very much, and consider you somewhat close minded and intolerant.
2:) Your holy books are not inerrant.
This sounds like a damnation of your faith, and an easy way of attacking it to point score as an atheist, but it really isn't. Your holy books were not written by your Gods.They're too inconsistent, too scientifically inaccurate, too full of glaring contradictions, too confusing in parts, too convenient in parts, sometimes historically inaccurate, too context sensitive to the times in which they were written... The list of what's wrong with the idea of holy books being inerrant tomes that are the infallible word of God is a long and Laundry one.
This however does not mean that you cannot use them as a guideline for the way you follow your faith, and in fact many theists do exactly this on a daily basis, so it obviously can be done, and this is my suggestion to you if you're a believer; Your holy book should be used as a yardstick, and a way to interpret your faith, and should not be taken either literally, or as the inerrant word of a supreme creator of the universe.
Trying to do this is going to lead you to quite a few problems; If we just stick to the christian faith system alone, it means that you should have absolutely no patience and tolerance for homosexuals, adulterers should be stoned, as well as people that eat shellfish and crustaceans, and people who wear garments made from two different types of cloth... It also means you'd have to believe that the world is less than six thousand years old despite the literally reams of evidence that say it most certainly isn't. Can anyone reasonably do any of these in the 21st century? I'd argue no...
3:) Give the proselytising a rest.
Whenever I see a street preacher proclaiming at the top of his or her lungs that everyone milling past trying to either get to work or to the shops is a sinner and is going to spend eternity being spanked by demons, it doesn't make me examine my life and go "well gee, I'm such a terrible sinner, I'd better convert straight away!"
In fact, all it makes me do is shake my head in pity. And strong as that sounds, pity is the only thing I can feel for the street preacher, because the street preacher making such a public spectacle of him or herself and their faith doesn't look like a fire and brimstone warrior for our souls, they just look insecure about their own faith.
It's written in most holy books that the relationship one should have with their God is a personal one... And if that's what you're doing, then great! It's even written specifically in the bible in Matthew 6:6 "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into a tiny closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy father which is in secret..."
I know that it's also written in the Bible that you should spread the good news, and I'm not necessarily against someone trying to spread the good news. You could try and spread the word to me, and I will politely decline... However, Just realise when "no" means "no." I know it's my immortal soul and everything, but hey, remember that whole free will thing?
Everytime you try to push your faith onto someone who has either declined, is not interested or is of a completely different denomination or faith, you're impinging on that right to free will. And seeing as that's a God given gift, I don't think the man upstairs would be too happy with you doing that.
4:) Please don't be a hypocrite.
There are several examples I could point to of religious hypocrisy, and I could be pithy and amusing with them, but there are certain hypocritical actions of certain religious folk that unfortunately tar the religious in a poor light, and that make my blood boil.
You don't get to call yourself pro-life, picket abortion clinics making a tough decision for frightened, distraught and possibly desperate women even tougher and be in favour of the death penalty. You certainly don't get to be pro-life and murder abortion doctors or support their murder.
You also don't get to preach vile and hateful things about homosexuality (and we've already sort of covered this in point two) and then be found engaging in LGBT terrific activities. That's especially galling hypocrisy, because it rather makes it look like one rule for you, quite another for everyone else.
In short, they're your rules. If you're going to try and make everyone else follow them please demonstrate that you yourself can follow them.
5:) Please stop telling lies about atheists.
Everyone knows that atheists are all hideously amoral, evil, satan worshipping baby killers who all actually really hate God and are on a mission to spread communism throughout the world so that they can erect a new Third Reich... Right?
These may sound like strawmen of what has been said about atheists, but I can assure you that they are not. I have heard every one of these at some point when it becomes plain that I am not a believer. The amorality accusation in particular offends me. It posits that without God, there'd be no reason to behave oneself... I rather have a higher opinion of humanity than that, and I find it insulting to insinuate that we didn't know how to be moral before Moses got handed the Ten Commandments. Does anyone seriously think that we as a species could have gotten to that point if it was true? I think the claim that we behave because we're frightened of what will happen to us after we die is fairly bogus.
The accusation that we hate God or in fact worship Satan is amusing rather than offensive... Amusing in a tragic sort of way. If we don't believe in God, why would we believe in Satan, much less worship him? And how are we supposed to hate a being we don't believe exists?
And trying to attach some semblance of political ideology to atheism is equally pointless... If you're an atheist, you don't believe in God. That's it. You can have right wing atheists, left wing atheists, anarchic atheists, statist atheists... Your atheism does not confer upon you a political platform.
In short, don't tell lies about atheists. It's not very nice. And the last time I checked, there was no exemption clause to the ninth commandment.
So there we have it. It's a few simple steps, but simple steps that will have you getting along famously with your fellow human beings, regardless of your religious stripings. Who knows, maybe presenting your beliefs in this framework could even win you some converts?
You never know...
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