Ruba Mansour, mamdouh bitar:
The number of atheists in the world may be higher than the number of believers in any of the Abrahamic religions. Atheism is generally voluntary and has no specific definition. An atheist usually becomes an atheist after making a difficult decision. It is a position on the issue of the existence of God. However, the atheist believes that atheism offers the atheist many advantages compared to his position on faith.
Faith is exhausting in most cases, as it is accompanied by many psychological pressures, then questions and answers, which raise other questions. Faith assumes the existence of a “state” after death. Here, the preoccupation is with this fateful state, then harnessing the earthly state for a decent fate after death. The believer is preoccupied throughout his life with the issue of accountability and punishment, then his wishes in this regard, while the atheist is not concerned with all these matters.
In dealing with others, the atheist is more objective. He does not care about the religious affiliation of the other, whether he is a priest, a sheikh, a Muslim or a Christian. In this way, the atheist comes closer to the concept of justice and social equality. The atheist has a higher chance of self-discovery than the believer, who identifies himself with traits that do not concern him personally… I am from the best nation or I am from God’s chosen people. The atheist is scientific and realistic. His convictions come from tangible, perceptible evidence, not from a turban or a beard. The atheist is not bound by the duties of pleasing God. He is exempt from performing these duties, and this increases his ability to care for worldly life. The atheist does not strive for God, nor does he die for God. The atheist is neutral regarding morals and relies on what he sees as appropriate and good, and not on what is stated in the holy books. He does not marry three women because that is legitimate, because he does not recognize any other law except the law of reason.
Socially, a distinction must be made between a secular society, which stands at an equal distance from religions, and an atheist society, which takes a negative stance towards religions, such as China’s stance on Islam and its consideration of Islam as a psychological illness. Socially, an atheist state or an atheist society enjoys utilitarian priorities. An atheist society does not spend money on building places of worship, nor on financing religious satellite channels or Quranic schools, but rather primarily on infrastructure, schools, roads, and employment in agriculture and industry, and in combating hunger, ignorance, disease, and poverty. Let us consider what China has achieved in a few decades, what Japan has achieved, what Europe has achieved in a relatively short period, and what our happy, religious, believing Arab world has achieved.
The believing society is religiously racist by nature, the atheist society is not burdened by this characteristic, and the atheist society does not fight with each other, because one group is Shiite and the other Sunni, or because one group claims to be the saved sect, and the atheist society does not discriminate between peoples on the basis of religion, as there is no loyalty and disavowal in atheism, and there is no crisis between the concept of the homeland defined by geographical borders and the concept of the Islamic demographic state, and there is no sectarian religious dogma that imposes friendships and alliances that are useless like the alliance of the Shiite axis that provoked the Sunni axis… Is there a reason for the disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Iran other than sectarian dogma? Is there a reason for Turkey’s decline towards extinction other than the religious reason? Why did Turkey lose all its friends except for Qatar, and turn into a prison of isolation, rejection and exclusion? Consider Türkiye’s progress under the rule of Ataturk and its decline under the rule of Erdogan.
An atheist society is far from superstition, magic and sorcery, and is very close to science and real solutions to society’s problems. Consequently, educational and training opportunities increase and people’s standard of living rises under the scientific leadership of society.
An atheist society does not work to make people ignorant, because it has no interest in doing so. The opposite is seen in a herd-like, believing society that places itself under the guardianship of the clergy, a guardianship that ensures its ignorance and backwardness… Consider the flat earth of the sheikhs, the seventh heaven, and the scientific miracles of Zaghloul El-Naggar, and hell, heaven, houris, and young boys, and superstitions and delirium, and crime and terrorism based on jihad, and honor crimes, and the slaughter of the infidel polytheist, and then those problems that limit the integration of people with each other… A Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Christian, and no one but a Muslim is allowed to take charge of the affairs of Muslims, and the religion of the head of state, and then the laws of personal status and a very long series of paradoxes that were born from the womb of faith and religions… None of that exists in an atheist society.
In general, atheism does not mean that the atheist will be moral, cultured and just, and there is no guarantee that the state or society will turn into a paradise of prosperity, social justice and democracy. However, atheism does not mean that the individual will turn into an ignorant, criminal or delusional creature, nor does it mean practicing religious and sectarian racism. Atheism allows the individual to be good and far from evil. The benefits of atheism are not comparable to its harms!
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