Blog Report 2 - What I Gained From This Course

Click here to check out my first blog report, Skeptics over Evil.

Before enrolling in this course, I was obviously ignorant to the true meaning of atheism. I had allowed stereotypical views of our society to influence my opinion without truly understanding the concept on my own. For me, society had defined atheism as a religion of “evil” and as a worship of the fallen angel named Lucifer, or better known as the devil, which is somewhat embarrassing for me to admit to my ignorance on the subject. Like I have mentioned a few times over the course of the semester though, I have never been forced to practice or study any type of religion, so I have been utterly clueless for twenty-one years about religion as a whole.

I learned that atheism is nowhere near as bad as how it had been portrayed to me through the media and other individual’s opinions over the years, and that it honestly should not be considered a religion whatsoever. Religion is defined as the faith in God(s) or supernatural forces being at work in our universe, where atheism is the disbelief of it all. What should atheism truly be considered from this standpoint? I’ve considered the thought of atheism being labeled as a “group” of individuals instead of a “religion.” For example, feminism relates to atheism because of the fact that they are both their own types of groups of individuals who have the same ideas or ways of thinking in those specific groups.

This semester opened my mind up to many ideas in order to help shape my future beliefs, but I still have not been able to identify myself as any type of religion, and I don’t think I plan on doing so. Why? Well, because I have no idea what I should believe. There are questions out there that have been unanswered that would be the ideal answers that would help me come to the conclusion. I am the type of individual that has to have proof in order to believe, even though my mind does wonder about the “what if” possibilities, I still have to have facts. The kinds of questions that bother me are in relation to, “If God is our creator then who created Him?” One way, my mind will say that ponder whether or not if these types of questions are beyond the capability of human understanding. Other ways question if maybe God is in the same position as us and has never met his creator because it is out of his own understanding as well and wants to portray himself as being the only one because we would not be able to prove him wrong for the time being anyhow. Then my mind wonders to whether or not if He is just made up, and it tends to go on for days, asking myself questions that I just cannot seem to find any answers or relief to, which is why I choose to label myself as unknown until a day when we may or may not be able to uncover any truths of how this universe came into existence.