Eight years later

[Sarah Trachtenberg]

From Not My God

Tomorrow is the eighth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history. For many, the events of September Eleventh strengthened their belief in god– for some, in an angry, vengeful god, and for others, a kind, loving god. Others, still, wouldn’t retain their faith in the aftermath of the tragedy. Some of you may be among them.

It is probable that Richard Dawkins wrote the God Delusion and started the New Atheist movement in direct response to the attacks. Would New Atheism have come about if it hadn’t been for the last straw, this one fell swoop that illustrated in the most gruesome way how dangerous religion is?

For certain, many claimed and still do that the terrorists were not acting because of religion. Critics said it was for reasons having to do with the economy or occupation. However, the terrorists themselves believed that they were acting in the name if Islam, and that is what really mattered.

I was an atheist before the attacks and remain so. It wasn’t until afterward did I arrive to the conclusion that, yes, religion is dangerous… that, yes, September Eleventh gave us cruel evidence of that reality. For at least a few years after the tragedy, I was still making excuses. It’s not about Islam, I kept telling myself. Terrorism has nothing to do with Islam.

Finally, I had to call a spade a spade.

How many of you became atheists, or started to lose faith, as a direct result of the September Eleventh attacks? If we count the God Delusion and the resulting New Atheism as indirect results, we can count many, many more.

[Jennifer Paviglianiti]

PFAW is People for the American Way--they mostly deal with civil rights issues.

("Comforting" for the Falwell/Robertson mindset seems to be the smug satisfaction of hating the right people--and I guess I'm proud to be the "right people" as far as that goes.)

[Sarah Trachtenberg]

Wasn't Falwell (and his pals) so comforting to us in our time of pain? They basically agreed with al Qaeda in what they said.
What's PFAW?

[Jennifer Paviglianiti]

9/11, then as now, is weird for me. I was a pagan of sorts, then; still spiritual, not yet an open atheist, but I think that the event paved the way to my admitting my atheism. One of the first things I did in response to 9/11 was, right after Falwell & Robertson made their statements about how ACLU and PFAW and feminists and such were really to blame (meaning, to me, that they thought God was sorting out these people for tragedy because of things I actually did believe in--liberty, the rights of human beings, the equality of women). Although I was already opposed to organized religion, I suddenly felt opposed to it in a more particular way. I am now an ACLU-card-carrying lIberal, PFAW, open feminist and out atheist. I openly embrace a lot of the things I know that the hijackers would have been dead-set against. But also, they were things Robertson and Falwell were against, too.

There wasn't a God who wanted that horrible event--only misguided people without the cultural or historical understanding to see how the damage they did wouldn't really do any good. I dislike religion for ever making gullible people think that such horrible, fatal actions ever could.

[Sarah Trachtenberg]

If we think that something will please god(s), anything is possible...
In the mind of a theist, god doesn't make mistakes. If he makes something bad happen, it's divine justice or part of his grander design. When he kills babies, it's not petty meanness-- it's mysterious ways. When something bad comes to an end-- liberating the concentration camps, let's say-- god is credited for it, but not blamed for letting it happen in the first place. God can't lose!

[Greywolf]

Was an atheist long before 9/11. Just felt compelled to say how insane people who commit the most heinous acts imaginable feel that His Holy Imaginary Almightiness "approved" of such appalling behavior: even believe "God" gave him/her/them His "blessing" in carrying out acts of almost unimaginable depravity. All from a deity held to be infinitely loving, merciful, compassionate, and just.

So a Hitler believes that "divine providence" spared his life in the bombing attempt on his life in July, 1944. And "Islamic extremists" feel the successful 9/11 attack was carried out with Allah' seeing to it that it succeeded.

This follows a "Dictum" of mine: "If it happened, it's because God wanted it to. If He didn't, it would never have happened". (Assuming the Creature, "God" actually exists, of course.)

Atheists can readily see the "problems" involved with the statement. The overly religious mind cannot. It ends up bogged down in a state of cognitive dissonance that refuses to take its own belief-system to its logical conclusion. But, hey, it makes for artificial happiness--and blissful ignorance.

Deity had nothing to do with 9/11 in actuality. That is because supernatural creatures, as we atheists have all concluded, do not exist. But a fervent belief that deity most definitely exists, does. And the twisted mind that can convince itself to believe in such absurdity will surely see to it that mankind suffers as a result.

Take notice of how utterly depraved and malevolent religious extremists behave in the name of deity held to be the personification of everything that is loving, merciful, and "good". If that isn't an example of mental illness to the extreme, I don't know what extreme mental illness is. And there's so damn many em'!

What a F'd up existence we live in.

Let's hope you're right and that common sense and a rejection of ludicrous religious belief will become a thing of the past. Let's hope atheists of the highest moral character come to out-populate the religious extremists in the not-too-distant future. (And without having to engage in some sort of catastophic conflict with the zealots!)