September 11th
by Jason Stotts
I remember September 11th, 2001. I was a senior in high school. It was early morning on the East coast and I had just gotten to Government class. Someone rushed into the room saying that “a plane had flown into a building in New York.” We, the class and teacher, were incredulous that something like that could happen, so we turned on the TV that was in the room and watched the fires burn after the first crash. Then I watched live as the second plane slammed into the second tower. We were all…I’m not sure I can even put it into words. A great tragedy was unfolding before our eyes and as the second plane hit, it was clear it was no accident. We watched the worst attack on US soil in more than 200 years unfold before our eyes and we all sat there silently, shocked by what was happening on the news.
I remember it all too clearly and how I felt that day, the day I saw America and all that she stood for attacked.
I am still shocked today, not so much by the attack, but by what we have failed to learn from it. On September 11th, we were not attacked by “terrorists”. On September 11th, we were not attacked by just Islamists. On September 11th 2011, the ideals of a secular America came head to head with the ideals of religion. It is not terrorism or just Islam that is our enemy, it is religion at its very core.
September 11th is one more instance in a long battle between those who believe in reason and this world and those who believe in faith, magic, and other worlds. Reason and faith are incompatible and completely hostile to each other: it is either/or. Either you believe that men are free to live their own lives, pursue their own happiness, and achieve their own values in a world that is real; or you believe in magic, mysticism, talking father figures in they sky, and any other nonsense you can come up with about golden plates in New York or aliens on interstellar 747′s. You can either have civilization and reason or the barbarism of religion. You cannot not have it both ways. Religion is irrationality through and through and irrationality is poison to the mind. You must purge yourself of the poison of religion. You must see it for the threat that it is in all its instances and you must fight against it.
On this September 11th, commit yourself to the purity of reason and renounce all forms of irrationality and faith so that we don’t have to watch the rest of civilization fall as we watched the twin towers fall.
Meh, I’ll keep my faith. Unfortunately religion can lead people to do stupid things. Then again, Godless people have done some stupid things as well. I guess you’re only fallacy is assuming that people use reason in only a pure way, or that by possessing reason without religion will naturally produce civility. Human beings, being animals by virtue of evolution means that barbarism will always exist. What do I know? I’m just a barbaric Christian.
Jeramey,
A couple of things:
First, “atheist” is not a group. To say that someone is a-theist is to say they don’t believe in gods. But you can’t define people by negative concepts like that. It would be like saying we’re all a-blue-unicorn-ists, since we don’t believe that we’re riding blue unicorns. So, certainly people have done things who didn’t believe in gods, but that doesn’t tell you why they did do those things (and it’s pretty clear that the absence of their belief in the christian god was not the reason).
Second, I don’t think people would always use reason perfectly. But, if they keep faith from their minds and keep them open to reality, they can learn from their mistakes and grow. Whereas with faith, you focus your mind only on what doesn’t exist and through that you can justify anything.
~Jason