Atheism, Secularity, And Well-Being By Phil Zuckerman

Trying to communicate, but words aren’t used, writing isn’t used, it’s simply impossible. When communicating with others we use words, we speak, write, and read. But if one can’t perform those tasks, communication is simply out of reach. The essay “Homemade Education” by Malcolm X, a minister and a civil right activist, describes how his experience of learning how to read and write in prison changes his life as he became both an articulate speaker and writer. Similarly, Helen Keller, an author and political activist shares her experience being both deaf and blind in an excerpt called “A Word for Everything.” She explains how learning a new language opened her to all the joys and horrors of the world. I, like many other authors, also had an experience concerning language and how it changed my perspective of the world. Speaking Chinese and Vietnamese as my first languages in the United States made me run into societal barriers and restrictions. However, by learning English, I could open myself to new possibilities and experiences. By learning and struggling through the experience of language; new perspectives are opened up such as how one views themselves, the world, and society.

Language unites people and makes them feel as if they belong together. It gives you a sense of what a community is and show how people interact with one another through something they share. James Baldwin’s, “If Black English isn’t a Language then tell me what is,” Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and John McWhorter, “Why Save a Language?” all correspond to one another by making similar points throughout their articles but also adding their own experiences. James Baldwin focuses on explaining the origin of Black English while Amy Tan discusses the unequal treatments she had to see her mother face while growing up. Mcwhorter talks about the fascinating thing of language and how it is interesting in itself. Language is considered the most powerful

Since the beginning of language thousands of years ago, the method of communication has evolved into nearly 7000 forms used by over 7 million people, with each language having over 50,000 words. Language over the past centuries has evolved from a way of communicating facts and ideas to a few selected minority group of readers, to a way of inspiring the greater population to taking action in the paramount events of human history across the globe. Authors use language to persuade readers into joining the fight for a cause the author believes in. Authors inform readers with restricted information and use it to inspire readers into taking actions for something the author believes in.

Atheism is a controversial form of Non-Religion ideology that is increasing worldwide and is gaining popularity because of it’s lack of belief in Gods or Higher powers. Atheism has a humanistic approach such as to believing in reason instead of faith. Most Atheists are more open-minded and tend to favor science instead of religion. Unlike other religions Atheism does not have a set of rules or holy scriptures that atheist can comply by or learn from. Atheism seems to always pull away from religion and does not follow their traits or characteristics and fall along the line. Atheist are viewed in a negative way because people assume that atheist do not believe in salvation, redemption, and have no moral values. For these reason atheists are discriminated against and has resulted

Throughout time movies have changed a person's perspective on life. They have either change the way they looked at something or how they felt about something. Movies tend to make a person forget about the world and for a second believe that they can do anything they want to. I never imagined at such a young age that one movie would have such an influence on my life. I was eight years old when I first saw the movie Glitter and from there on my life was changed.

Movies have had an influence on the American culture through the content of various issues. In American movies, the characters take on such issues as social reform, political views, and emotional turmoil. Movies have changed people's attitudes about consuming information. Today, movies quickly give us a visual picture of where and what the characters are doing. Most movies neatly package a story into less than two hours of carefully edited material. Movies have made current generations used to this way of consuming information and can often make reading a book seem to slow for them.

During the year 1968, an atheist philosopher H.J. McCloskey came up with a powerful argument about how being an atheist was greater than the theistic way of life. Through this article, McCloskey finds a way to condemn numerous arguments which theist consider as true and in most cases seem to mock and impeach the believers of God. Some of the arguments that McCloskey tries to diminish are the three mutual proofs that most theists depend upon for their belief in God. The proofs include; cosmological proof, teleological proof and the argument from design. McCloskey also talks about the complications of evil and how its presence rejects the truth about God. At the end of the article, he maintains that atheism is heartening, meaning that it is more calming than theism. Below are a detailed discussion and validity of the truth about the three claims that McCloskey wants to rebate in the article and finally dispute the problem of evil to censure the thought that atheism is cool and comforting1.

In the generally fair conditions in the United States, many Americans may be unaware that events similar to Christianity’s counter-reformation are more of a current reality with other religions in other countries. As of February 2012, an Indonesian man, Alexander Aan, is serving 5 years in prison for a single Facebook post: “God doesn’t exist.” An event like this should certainly cause us to question our thoughts on religion and how much good it actually does. While some studies show that “religious people… donate more money to charities including non-religious charities,” specific religious groups have targeted and tortured others to enforce conversions to their religion. Prejudice against LGBTQ+ groups is widespread throughout religious groups as they claim their deities are against it. However, these are just a couple of examples showing just how unethical religions can appear to be. But these are only the connotations of religion, morality, and atheism. The true definition of religion is “an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or group of gods.” Note that morality has the separate definition of “beliefs about what is right and wrong behavior” and the counterpart of religion is atheism, or the lack of the “belief in the existence of a deity or deities.” These definitions are crucial to objectively viewing each argument when answering whether religion’s effects on different culture’s morals are positive or negative.

In this essay, I am going to challenge the meaning of religion and the dimensions that it covers, while discussing several different questions often asked. Is violence in the world due to religion and non-religious people? People often argue that violence from others is because they are not religious. Instead of concluding that violence and religion are indeed related, what can we do to promote peace and find ways to make things right in the world we live in.

As religion heads closer to extinction shown by the steady global increase of those claiming no religious affiliation, the question of whether religion is crucial to a harmonious and progressive civilization is posed. With the implementation of basic human rights, religion’s fundamental use as a form of societal control to pacify populations becomes ever redundant. There is no longer the necessity of religion to be the basis of a moral code. Nations categorized by low degrees of social and economical security have the lowest prevalence of atheism and vise versa (high security = highest prevalence of atheism). Due to the correlation between prosperity and lack of religion, more secularly prosperous nations are moving away from sectarianism to secularism. Socio- economic well-being generally results in a decline in the social significance of religion as it’s function as a social safety- net becomes unnecessary. However, no culture has been without religion in one form of another (myths, gods etc.) as a result of our biological craving to justify the unexplained. Nonetheless, religion arguably hinders growth of modern society by its tendency to ignore factual based findings and replacing doubt with a false, unsubstantiated surety. More than half the people under the age of 50 stated that religion was not important. Furthermore, recent findings demonstrate that the shift of religious importance by generation will persist unless religion does not tolerate society’s values. This

Even before there were millions of copies of bibles in circulation religion has been a part of society that has always been there. But is this idea of rules and regulations enforced by a belief system really helpful to society? In a world without religion would there be less wars, hatred, and discrimination? With so many people involved or affiliated with religion it is important to explore deeper into the negative impact that religion has on society and try to make the world a better place with information that will help all. At a personal level religion fulfills the role of accounting for a lack of knowledge and offering hope in the face of difficulties while also offering a sense of belonging. To identify with a religious ideology, and call it the only truth and way, leads to the tremendously negative consequences of hatred, racism, and all kinds of violence. These consequences of a world in disarray due to religion far outweigh the small personal fulfillments. As Steven Weinberg, an American physicist and Nobel laureate states, “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” Although religion claims to lead people towards truth, light, and happiness, in reality it actually leads them in the opposite direction.

Secularization is the inevitable by product of Modernization, and that the rise of modern science, pluralism, and consumerism is sure to usher in the decline of religion. Secularization theory has for many years propounded and boosted the self-confidence of non-believers and left religious individuals feeling alienated and outdated. However, in recent years, sociologists of religion have become increasingly sceptical about traditional secularization theory. Social and political debate about religious and emotionally charged issues such as abortion and euthanasia have grown increasingly salient (DI Maggio, Evans, and Bryson 1996; Hunter 1991; WIlliams 1997) Religions need to modernise their beliefs and practices to remain relevant to people today? There are indications that religious belief seems to be declining in many parts of the world; a poll of 50,000 people published last year by WIN-Gallup International suggests there has been a “notable decline across the globe in self-description of being religious” .This could be attributed to organised religions failure to adapt to the profound social changes of the last several decades.

There are different views on the role and influence of religion on conflicts. Rabkin states that religion is not a primary source of conflicts and violent strife. According to him, most often than not, religion is used only to legitimize, but not motivate conflicts. However, Jonathan Fox states that religion is one of the motivators of terrorism. The impact of religion on conflicts is also increasing over the years. Similarly in Nigeria, religion was not the central source of conflicts at the time of colonization or even after independence. However, its role has increased through time to the extent that it curtailed other important contributing factors to the conflict. Religion and identity are highly correlated in Nigeria. As a result, almost all Nigerians identify themselves with a religion: Muslims represents 50.5 % of the population; Christians represents 48.2 % of the population, and other traditional religions constitute the remaining 1.4 % of the population. This strong religious affiliation made Nigeria one of the most religious nations in the world. In a survey conducted by BBC, 95% of Nigerian respondents asserted that they would die for their religious belief. In line with this affirmation, beginning from the 1990s, violent deadly clashes in the name of religion between Christians and Muslims became the everyday phenomenon in Nigeria. In Nigeria, religion has more influence at elections and civil servant appointments than any other credentials. In

177”8. In our very recent present, Nigeria has witnessed the so-called religious-crises in Northern Nigeria that has claimed millions of lives9. These religious crises could as well have

Language,as a means of communication, permits people to convey their ideas and represent their communicative aims. Catford (1978) outlines language as a kind of shaped human behavior. For human beings, it is believed to be the most important way of interacting intheir social situations.