Atheism Is Not a Religion

The current presidential candidates  are on the spot to confess their religious beliefs as is no other previous election. It is said that an atheist could never be elected to the White House. It would be political suicide for any candidate to deny his or her affiliation with a religious faith.  However, to attest to belief in a god doesn't necessarily mean one really does. Certainly if all those who said they were Christian believers really were, it would be a different society altogether, in my opinion. America is hardly a Christian country.  According to the Bible,----Jesus , Himself,--- it is a land of adulterers and fornicators, as any remarried divorcees are adulterers and any sex out of marriage is fornication.  Adultery is the subject of one of the ten commandments, and fornication, according to St Paul is such that he admonishes widows and single women  to marry, " for it is better to marry than to burn".
Atheists these days are seen as pariahs -- an evil bunch of dissidents , a threat to organized religions.---social undesirables. Only last week the Pope advised Catholics not to see a movie which he felt encouraged atheism.  However, atheism is not a cult or a movement aimed at debunking any religion. Atheists do not proselytize, preach or attempt to convert others to their beliefs, or otherwise attempt to  encourage others to join them, Nor do they hate and voice intolerance of believers, as Christians do  non-believers.. Rather than using the term atheist  to describe this group, , it is more accurate to use the term "non-believer". This more explicitly describes their position. Non-believers are not against any belief system, They just don't subscribe to any. After all, no one--up to and including the Pope in Rome, "knows" whether there is a living God in the sky who is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc.   God is  the subject of a variety of religious belief systems--- not a fact. The question " Do you believe in god?' should really read " Do you believe there is a god?"  The non-believer would answer, " No I don't". And when you come right down to it, the minority non-believers have as much chance of being right as the believers--because, either there is or there isn't a supreme god, as described by the various religions. Although the vast majority of Americans say they believe in a god, it doesn't make their position  more likely to be true than the minority who disagree. Non-believers are not intolerant of believers, nor do they try to change other's beliefs. Non-believers are not threatened by those who disagree with them as are many religious adherents. Those religions that  condemn non-believers to hell or advocate death to "infidels" merely reveal their own doubts, fearing that the slightest test might undermine their positions. Christians used to execute heretics and some  Muslims still advocate it.  Do they really think their god approves of this? As Rheinhold  Niebuhr one said," religious fanaticism is rooted in doubt.

Even the Pope Doesn't Get It!

In the Times today, ( Page A22) the Pope is quoted as saying the church must
" address the sin of abuse within the wider context of sexual mores".   What the Pope doesn't get is that the idea that  sexual abuse of children is a sin in the eyes of the church is the least of its evils in this society. Sexual abuse of children is a crime--a felony- -punishable by imprisonment. it is also  very destructive to  the child, often causing life-long psychological damage requiring lengthy therapy in some cases. His viewing only the religious infraction as the important one, reveals his own lack of understanding of human psychosexual development and the potential psychological trauma to thousands of children  caused by pedophile priests.  It is also an attempt to minimize the disastrous effects of this problem by the Catholic Church  by calling it merely a "scandal". It's much worse than a scandal! As Jesus, himself said, " anyone who would harm one of these little ones, it would better a millstone be tied around his neck and he be cast into the depths of the sea".