Professor Thomas in the UK,
he teaches a religious education curriculum for kids who are around 9 or 10 years old
and he asked me if I could answer some questions for some of his students. And they sent along a bunch of questions.
So you're about to see me tackle those questions.
I thought I was just going to send this off to those kids and be done with it.
But we though, "Hey, it'd be fun to just see how I answer those questions for young kids". So,
there you go. There is your introduction to what you're about to see.
Hi, everyone. My name is Hemant Mehta and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
Professor Thomas asked me to answer a bunch of your questions and I have them right here.
So, let's go through this.
Chloe asked, "If you suddenly came across evidence that there is a god,
will that change your opinion?"
I'm going to say, "Yeah".
I mean, the whole reason I'm an atheist is because I don't see that evidence,
but if someone could show it to me,
I should be able to change my mind. I mean, it would be wrong to me to say,
"I'm still going to be an atheist even when evidence of God's staring at me in the face".
The problem is that a lot of people say,
"Here's evidence of God's existence".
And it's just bad evidence.
Or they say that, "Prayer works and here is how I know prayer works".
And if you actually look at it,
it's not good evidence of that.
So, look, if there was evidence of God's existence,
yes, I would change my mind and I hope all atheists would change their mind.
The problem is that I haven't seen that evidence yet.
Alice, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Alice and Adam asked,
"Christians have a church. Where do you go to worship humanism?
That's a good question that a lot of atheists are trying to figure out right now.
So, I don't actually go anywhere.
When I want to practice my humanism, I guess,
I've kind of done... been doing a lot of stuff on my computer. I write about it. That's my way of expressing my beliefs.
I make videos that I put on YouTube to express those beliefs.
And you know what? Lately there's been a movement
in the UK and even in America here,
where people are trying to say: Let's get a bunch of humanists together once a month,
where we can sing songs and hear inspirational "sermons", so to speak,
and gather with our friends, because Christians do that and that stuff isn't specific to Christianity.
So, they're starting to do that all over the world as well.
So, some people prefer "worshiping" with a group of friends.
I pretty much like to do it on my own, so I don't have to leave my house very much.
But it just depends on who you ask.
Natalia asks, "Why did you choose to be a humanist?"
Well, I chose to be a humanist because at some point, I think when I was about 14 years old,
I stopped believing in God.
I knew what religion I was raised in,
and I started questioning that religion, and it stopped making sense for me.
So, I became a humanist around that time. It probably took me a couple of months to get used to that,
that word, that word "atheist".
But I did it because
I realized all the reasons I had for believing in God
weren't good ones.
And that, if I started poking holes in my arguments,
it worked, like I really could poke those holes.
So, I chose to be a humanist because I stopped seeing all that evidence for God
that I thought I had.
Sam and Will asked, "Why is science more important than having faith in a religion?"
Well, I think science...
I don't know that is more important, and I think if you ask a lot of religious people,
they won't say it's more important,
but I think science is important because it says,
"Here is evidence for what I believe
and even if you don't believe it now, here's all my proof".
"I can show you, I can factually show you why this is real".
Whereas in religion
you don't have that evidence. All you say is, "I believe it
because I want to", "I believe it because it makes me feel good", "I believe it because
a holy book told me to believe it".
I don't think that's very convincing,
but I think science is very convincing.
And not only is it convincing, I think whether or not you want to accept it,
the proof is right there. So, I think is a more powerful way of showing people what's true.
Jack asks, "As a humanist, what is the most important thing to you and what do you care about the most?
I guess I would say the people around me;
my family, my friends. I'm a teacher, so I care about my students, like I'm sure
Mr. Thomas cares about you guys.
So, as a humanist, I think it's the people around me
and the work that they do. So,
hopefully, you know, I think a lot of humanists say, "I want my family to do well", "I hope my
career, the profession I go into
is one that makes me happy".
So, that stuff means a lot to me.
Eleanor asks, "Does the idea of having just one life ever scared you?
Man, that's a tough question.
No, it doesn't. The idea of having one life doesn't scare me. It actually... It inspires me.
And the reason is I believe that, you know, I will be alive for, you know, I don't know, 70 years, 80 years, whatever long
human life is.
And it's my job to make the most of that life.
And I think that means, you know, I am so fortunate to be alive right now.
I need to make the most of this life while I have that chance because I won't get another one.
And that inspires me to do a lot of things that, I don't know, if I believed in an afterlife,
maybe I would put it aside.
So, you know, I'm not saying that believing in an afterlife makes you
not want to live a great life.
But I think, for me, the knowing that I just have this one life and only life for a short time,
it inspires me to do as much as I can.
A couple of other questions. Madison asks, "What's the best thing about being a humanist?
The best thing about being a humanist...
Well, I don't have to go to church every Sunday. Does that count?
I like the fact that I feel very confident in my beliefs.
You know, I could... If I sat with you and I had a conversation, whoever you are,
I think I can make a convincing case
for why you don't need to believe in God. And I can be confident about that.
At the same time, I know a lot of Christians and a lot of religious people who would say the exact same thing, "If I sat with you I could convince you to believe in God".
But I think that's a thing that I'm happy about. I can feel very confident in knowing that what I believe is true.
George asks, "Why do you not believe in God? Because I'd just like to know".
He's asking what reasons I decline faith.
As I said, I don't believe in God because I don't believe there's evidence for God. It's about as simple as that.
And Samuel asked, "What's the hardest part of being a humanist?
Well, I would say in
the United States, anyway, the hardest part about being a humanist is that most people don't understand it.
Most people think if you don't believe in God, you are a bad person.
You're an immoral person; you're going to cause chaos everywhere you go.
And it's up to me to convince them like, "No, just because I don't believe in God,
I'm still an educated person, a moral person; I try to do good".
And it's hard to convince people. I think if I said I was a humanist and I wanted to run for president,
I would get very few votes
because most people would just see that phrase, "Oh, he doesn't believe in God. I'm not going to vote for him".
And that's the hardest sort of prejudice to overcome.
Ruby asked, "You believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy?"
I do not!
I did at one point,
but then at some point, when you start asking questions about how Santa Claus works; so how the Tooth Fairy works.
You come to this realization that, "Wait a minute, I think there's more of this story that what my parents always told me about".
And I think you guys should be asking those questions as well.
Mary -Marie- asks, "Do you have any special days or festivals to celebrate?"
Not religious ones or not atheist related ones. I know some atheists have tried to celebrate Darwin's birthday.
Or they've tried to celebrate,
you know, a HumanLight festival around the time of Christmas.
I'll be honest with you; I still celebrate Christmas with my family, even though none of us are Christians.
I still celebrate religious holidays... I get religious holidays off of work.
And I don't mind taking those days off either.
But no, I don't celebrate anything specifically because I'm an atheist.
Ethan asked, "If you don't believe in God, who do you believe created everything?"
Good, very good question. People are still asking that question today, even at high levels.
Who do I believe created everything?
I don't know.
I think the world just came into creation on its own.
But how that happened and why it happened? I don't think those are questions I could ever answer for you in any good way.
But that's a great question and it's one a lot of adults still struggle with.
Jodie asked, "What do you follow the most out of the humanist rules?"
You know, I would say it's probably the golden rule:
I treat others the way I want to be treated. I think if I'm a good person,
then hopefully they'll be good people too.
So, I try to live by that.
So, I hope those answers worked for you, guys.
And if you have any other questions, just ask your teacher, and I'm sure he'll give you good answers too.
Thank you so much; I appreciate it.
My name is Hemant Mehta, and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
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