Self confidence and self awareness = worshiping ones self? I know that most Christians have this guilt complex and are constantly being told (and believe) that they are somehow sinful and not worthy of their Gods love. I had no idea you were not supposed to even be happy and knowledgeable either. I guess it all just goes hand in hand though.
There is so much in life to be happy about, and if you are self confident and have accomplished goals, to be proud of yourself for. Why do so many Christians deny themselves happiness and self worth?
DA, how difficult is it to believe that we are humans who have reason to enjoy our existence? Or consciousness, or joys and even pains? Why do some people need gods for this?
We were the ones who invented the gods. We endowed them with wisdom and morality. We invested them with powers, now known to be natural.
Life is a gift from the Universe. It's rare and to be enjoyed and explored in human terms. The best of such terms are those or reason and an entirely human invention, science. The worst of those terms is an ancient superstition that sufficed to answer unanswerable questions in our primitive ignorance.
DA, we have won. Most of the answers to the ancient questions have been found. We now know why we get sick, why we die, how we are born, why the plant bloom in the Spring, why the tides roll in and out. As a result of this knowledge, we can surmise that the remaining mysteries are natural in their explanations. The origin of the universe and the life within it do not require a god, indeed god gets in the way.
We win. They fail. There are many yet to be convinced, and as long as there are uncritical minds there will always be some convincing to do, but the intelligent, critical element of our constituency has progressed beyond Bronze Age superstition. We revel in the knowledge we have been able to accumulate in the Post Religious Age, and we glory in the knowledge yet to be won. We even respect our remaining ignorances, of which there are many, but we do not give in to the corrosive idea that god is responsible for them.
It's a slow process, and we will not live to see all the fruits of our efforts, but we must do our best in the here and now, for the future betterment of not only our species but for the planet for which we have become responsible. The denial and rejection of religious superstition is inevitable, unless that evil notion leads to our demise through intolerant warfare. Especially if the Parties of God choose to use WMDs.
How better, one might ask, to bring about the prophesied End of Days?
DF