I’m an atheist, and not one of those passive ones; I think the idea of God is a bad one, through and through. That sometimes gets me labeled an anti-theist, and I’ve learned to openly embrace the title.

I think I have good reasons for both my atheism and my anti-theism.

I’m an atheist because, as I’ve sincerely tried to figure out what the world is like through logic, reason, and empirical evidence, I’ve hit upon the conclusion there is no God.

And I’m an anti-theist because I am a secular humanist. I’ve run into a bit of disagreement over the validity of that connection lately (a lot of it from atheists), so lemme break it down real quick.

God (by “God” I mean the “God-concept” — if you’ve been remotely paying attention, you’ll remember that I don’t believe in God), by definition, would have authority over humanity, right? He would be over all creation, all animals, all people, and the entire universe.

Which means that God would (in theory) be more important than all these things. So, if you believe in God, every time you have a choice between caring about what people want and what God wants, you have to choose what God wants.

In other words, God would be more important than people.

As a secular humanist, I think (the false concept of) God should not be seen as more important than people. And a God that isn’t more important than people doesn’t fulfill most people’s definitions of God.

Therein lies my anti-theism.

This might seem very straightforward for some readers. But a lot of people (several atheists included) have some problems with this.

One is that God can motivate people to do a lot of things we like — give to the poor, raise their kids, and care about other people. Getting rid of God, the argument continues, isn’t guaranteed to make us better people; the better goal is to work towards being good, decent people, and see God as a way to motivate people to be good people. Why, I get asked, would I have a problem with that?

The first problem I have is that using God that way would be intentionally using a lie to control other people’s lives. And when you control people with a lie like that in order to get them to do good things, you can manipulate the lie, just as easily, to get them to do things that are bad. It seems better, to me, to tell them the truth and show them what honesty looks like so they are harder to fool, instead of letting a bunch of pastors they give money to decide for them what they should think and manipulate their minds and actions.

The second problem I have is that it disturbs me to think that people are being nice to each people just because God says so, not primarily because they care about each other directly. There’s still a being in that theology who is more important than people (and doesn’t exist), so people following this being would be caring about others for HIS sake instead of caring about other people for their own sakes.

I think we should get rid of the middleman (who often, in the real world, gets in the way of human relationships with His cumbersome rules) and love people directly.

Something else people say is that the mere fact we get rid of God doesn’t mean that people will treat each other better.

That’s true, of course. But I think that seeing getting rid of God as a step towards improving relationships with other people can enable us to treat each other better (if treating each other better is our goal in getting rid of God). We could do better if we found ways to love each other directly, I think, as opposed to having the way we treat each other be overruled and governed by a concept of God that has caused untold misery in human relationships.

Some people say they like religious rituals, and ask if I’m against that. No, I’m not. The best God is the one who is a myth in your mind. If the rituals make you enjoy life more, knock yourself out. Just admit that it’s a hobby, not something you actually believe in. Sometimes I read fiction for enjoyment — doesn’t mean I actually believe what I read is real. It’s part of the joy of living.

It’s like this: I don’t have a problem with you watching Star Wars and enjoying the portrayal of The Force. You can find out as much about The Force as you like. You can buy memorabilia, you can go to Star Wars clubs, you can go to the landscapes where the movies were filmed — all that. Knock yourself out.

But the moment you start thinking that The Force is real, go onto the highway, close your eyes and let the Force “take the wheel”…we got a problem.

All I’m proposing is that we don’t treat nonexistent beings that aren’t real as more important than the people who are.

And that’s why I think God is not more important than people.

Thanks for reading.

[Cover photo via Lucid Nightmare under CCL 2.0]