“Atheism”, to many people in the world, is a nauseous word. Yes, it is true. Worse, there are even countries where atheism is considered as a taboo and people in those countries abhor atheists and also call atheists terrorists. They, as a result, fail to understand that atheism could be the great thing that could happen in their life. Those atheists, on the other hand, who had been brainwashed severely in a religion and later left the religion, realize the great things that atheism can offer and I am one of them. It is not like, though, that atheism has a miraculous power of metamorphosis. It is not a religion and has not got any supernatural power. So, what are those great things that you are going to face through atheism? Read on.

1. You will be Free

If you are religious, I am sure that at least for once you have felt like you want to do something so badly but in the end, you could not do that because your religion does not let you to do that. And if you are a Muslim, you face that often. Yeah, yeah. I know that. Please do not deny. The meaning of the word Islam clears that very easily: submitting to the will of Allah (the word “Islam” derived from the Arabic root word “al-Silm” which means submission). So, you have no will of yourself in Islam other than the wills that Allah and Muhammad have prescribed in the Quran and Hadiths. The same can be said for the other religions. For example, in Buddhism, you have to leave your materialistic lifestyle to become a monk and to earn nirvana.

But guess what? There is no such barrier in atheism. Atheism let you be free. When I became an atheist, I felt that.  It is that feeling of a bird inside of a cage who wants to fly and in the end, it breaks the cage all by itself. Then it flies as much as it wishes to fly. Like that bird, you can do whatever you want as an atheist by abiding the rules of the secular state. For example, you can tipple, you can start a metal band, you can go to a bar, you can have sex before marriage, you can be a homosexual, and most importantly, you can experience the ultimate freedom of speech. Almost all of the Atheists revere freedom of speech. I have said enough to get a response like this: “So where from morality will come? Atheists will get away by killing someone because there is freedom to do anything.” That is total bullshit. Why? Because of this: morality does not derive from religions. Morality derives from the evolution of human intelligence. Religions allow slavery, capital punishment, amputation, inequality for women, child marriage, superstition, caste system, war, and many other “ethical stuff in religion” that we no longer can even think of as ethical. Also, the records of the homicides in the developed countries, especially in the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, and Japan, have decreased sufficiently with their increased level of life standard and religious laws are extinct in those countries. So, the more intelligent humans are the more morality they have and religions have not got anything to improve morality but to decrease it.

2. Here is a chance to become more intelligent

This is what I was called before I became an atheist (in my family): A STUPID MORON. But believe me, after I became an atheist, this is what I most of the time hear now: Jeff has got good knowledge about stuff. Do not believe me? No problem. Here is an article that provides evidence of what happened to me also happened to many other atheists. Most Atheists are more intelligent than religious people. If you are not convinced already by reading the article that is attached above about the fact, then think in this way: how do you think people used to answer questions about the incidents that occur regularly around us? For example, where from rain comes from, why there are so many animals, why the sun burns etc., in the primitive and medieval era when religions dominated seriously? They only had one answer: God did it. They did not seek any other answer since their religions are based on faith and faith means believing blindly and blind beliefs create nothing but lazy brains. On the other hand, when a person stops believing blindly, in other words, become an atheist, her brain becomes inquisitive. "God did it" does not work anymore because the curtain of blind faith just fades away and that helps to realize that the phrase does not make sense anymore. When you question and reason everything around you, which you will do eventually when you become an atheist, your brain functions more and as a result, you reach to the world of intelligence. Just try that.

3. You will love your planet’s future

How many habitable planets teeming with lives, exactly like Earth, have been detected? Zero! Currently, we only can think of living peacefully on one planet and that is Earth. As a result, we have to protect our planet from getting destroyed to keep our descendants alive. And to do that, we need to have love and care for our planet. So, if you become an atheist right now, that care and love would increase immediately. That happened to almost every converted atheist, including me, and that is why atheists support and follow science mostly. Because science is what can help us, in the end, to protect our planet. I am not indicating here that every religious person hates our planet, but religions play a great role to make people less enthusiastic about saving our planet. In the religious scriptures, especially the Abrahamic ones, it is said that one day our planet will be destroyed by the omnipotent God. When I was a religious person, I sometimes thought that what is the point of fighting global warming or asteroids that are threatening our planet. Maybe that is the way by which God wants to destroy our planet. So, fighting to protect our earth is like defying the God's action, I used to believe. If I could think in that way as a religious person, is not it possible that many other religious people, especially the extremist ones, would also believe in the same way? Most likely. I am not making this claim based on my personal experience. According to this research, only 26% of the Middle Easterners believe that Climate Change is a great problem right now and the majority of the Middle Easterns are devoted Muslim. Also, the same research is saying that only 20% of the Republicans believe that Climate Change is a dangerous issue and most of the Republicans are devoted Christians. So, we can conclude that the greater people are serious about their religions, the lesser they are enthusiastic about our planet and science. Want a better future for your children? Better try to take your religion less seriously.

4. No need to threaten others with the HELL-FIRE

You might hear always in Christianity that God is love, Jesus is love etc. But that is not the case at all in Christianity. Broadly, every single supreme religion demands its followers to threaten the non-believers with eternal punishment in HELL-FIRE. God/s in the scriptures of those religions is/are mostly busy threatening. Some verses from those scriptures are:

“If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15:6)

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8)

“But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads.” (Quran 22:19)

“O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination.” (Quran 9:73)

That is simply vile. People are erroneous and prone to make mistakes. If we see the scriptures, especially the Abrahamic ones, then we would also find that God himself made humans as erroneous.  So, first of all, threatening someone with eternal HELL-FIRE and any gruesome element like that for just not believing a particular belief or beliefs which would not harm any single life on this planet is vile. Secondly, threatening someone in that way who has been made to make errors is what? Tell yourself. There is also another way of proving how much the idea of threatening by HELL-FIRE or anything like that is messed up. Think of it this way: in Christianity, the biggest religion, the number of adherents is about 2 billion. But there are also so many sects in Christianity and each claim to be the true one and the rest are false. So, for example, the Catholics would feel like that they are the true one and the only true people of God and it would make them to believe that the other 5.8 billion people will be burning in HELL-FIRE forever or at least for a long time. It would also make them threaten others like the way their God does in the scriptures. Same can be said for the other religions, like Islam, Hinduism etc. Holy cow! I would never be able to feel safe by believing in that way (that is why I am an atheist actually). It is rather comfortable to feel that people with the opposite beliefs and views will be safe and not be burnt in HELL-FIRE forever just because they think in a different way and atheism would help you in this case. Atheists do not think or believe that people with the opposite beliefs will be burnt in HELL-FIRE forever. They do not threaten others with HELL-FIRE. There is no scripture for  Atheists. They would at the peak, feel pity for the religious people as they find the religious people seriously gullible.

5. “…killed in the name of atheism,” said no news channel ever

Religions are based on terrorizing the gullible and timid people. In the 4th point of this blog, a hint of that is given. But they are not stuck only in threatening others with the imaginary HELL-FIRE. When religions reach to the hands of the most extremist rulers and politicians, the picture of threatening other by imaginary stuff transforms into threatening others by real life stuff: Jihads,  Crusades, holy war, honor-killing, etc. That happens because the religious scriptures allow them to do so. This is telling us how many people have lost their lives since the 9/11 terror attack in the name of Islam. The old and new testament is also no better than the Quran and Hadiths. It, throughout the history, provoked many rulers and politicians to coerce and terrorize people. For example, the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I, terrorizing and killing of pagan tribes in medieval Europe,  the Inquisition (institutions under Catholic Church's judicial system which were used to fight dissent) in Goa, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain, the forced conversion of indigenous children in North America.

Now, how many people were killed in the name of atheism? Not even a single one. Atheists are not innocuous per se. A few of them can be egotistical or foolish or bigoted. But there is no reason for which atheists would give away their lives in the name of atheism. There is no provocation and incentive that atheism provides to terrorize people who dissent. Moreover, Atheists believe that they only have one life and there is no life hereafter (as there is no evidence for the life hereafter). So they feel like that their that one and only life should be used as much efficiently as possible. 

So, with no religious extremism and more atheists, could our planet be turned into a Utopia? Maybe or maybe not. But it is worth a try after all, isn't it?