Does it really matter how we refer to one another concerning belief or non-belief? I was ticking about this recent post of mine and the more I consider, I really wonder if any of this makes any difference/ Why? The world as we know it is changing faster than most of us are able to keep up with today. Anyone aware there’s still a major European war raging in Eastern Europe? Not by any news feed. In fact it’s been fairly well covered up for several months now. What about the U.S. conflict in Iran? If it doesn’t bleed, there’s no lede. In other words, the world has become used to such tragedy to the extent that no one really cares anymore what’s going on outside of their neighborhood, much less their city, state, or country.

But I digress. What I’m trying to get to are the labels we refer to ourselves and to others as well. What does it matter if I’m an atheist or agnostic? Most people don’t really know what that means. Even non-believers, those so-called atheists, aren’t sure. I recently heard a well known atheist state in front of an audience that atheism is growing, notice the number of people now claiming to be non-religious. What? What does being non-religious have to do with atheism. A person can be non-religious and still believe in some sort of god or gods. All being non-religious means, at least to me, is that the person isn’t tied to any specific dogma. On the other side of that discussion are reports of the numbers of people recommitting to their church, especially Catholicism. That may be propaganda, but then, so may be the number of non-religious in the U.S. which has topped more than 20%. That last is from a Pew Poll, but still, might noe accurately reflect anything that is going on currently.

We a see in the above poll that, for instance, the number of people declaring themselves to be either atheist or agnostic (the same thing?) is increasing, albeit slowly, over time. I think it’s more than what the poll shows, it’s just there are still many people in the closet as to their religiosity. Think about it. A majority of Americans claim to be Christian, but if they really were, wouldn’t they at least on occasion, attend a church of their choice? Even on major holidays? The fact is that same majority do not attend any kind of religious service. Ever. It’s easy to claim something, another to show it. It’s like claiming to be infinitely wealthy but the bank account is lagging a bit. so those numbers are probably off, quite a bit because people are just socially constrained about their religious preferences. I know of people that have been excommunicated from their families because they refused to accept what the others only mouth.

I don’t know if the world would be any better if we all suddenly woke up and realized what the truth is: We can’t prove that there are gods so until those “gods” want to come out of hiding and let us know on international television that yes, they do exist, we should just go about our business the way we want to. That won’t mean that murder, rape, child molestation, and all other other vices of excess will suddenly become acceptable. All this will mean is that we don’;’t need any god to babysit us anymore. We can take care of ourselves.

We’ve been acting like we don’t need a keeper for ages on. Now it’s time to throw off the shackles and realize that in fact, we never needed them to begin.