Essay:Pros and Cons of Atheism

Contrary to what many religious apologists like to claim, atheism can be just as much as a blessing as it can be a curse, if not more of a blessing. Here are some of the pros and cons of being irreligious:

Pros

 * Free Sundays!
 * You get to take full credit for your triumphs and accomplishments in life (and give others credit for theirs)
 * You get to admit that you don't know the exact answer to a question like "How did life/the universe come to be?" or "what happens when you die?", rather than just inserting God, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever view you so fancy.
 * No fear of eternal punishment! :)
 * You get to have guilt-and-shame-free sex and fapping!
 * You get to focus more on this life!
 * Better, more imaginative sense of morality: Doing what you think is right because you are a good person and enjoy selflessly doing good things, rather than just following orders through fear of punishment and promise of moral dessert
 * No need to fantasize about the rapture and destruction of all who are not like you in every way (beliefs, existential opinion, political opinion, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.)
 * AND MY PERSONAL FAVORITE: You don't ever have to think of anyone as deserving eternal torment!

Cons

 * No afterlife :(
 * You still have to take responsibility for your failures (but hey, at least you are mature enough to hold yourself accountable)
 * No Satan to deflect blame onto for every minor inconvenience in your life and on the planet. Damn!


 * No god(s) to deflect blame onto for things like COVID-19 and claim that it was a "punishment" for those you don't like; you still have to admit that the 2020 pandemic was caused by inept, authoritarian world leaders who spread dangerous misinformation that sowed doubt about (and sometimes even turned entire political parties against) science and medicine and cared more about their own image and instant PR at the expense of their own people (and as for Trump and Bolsonaro, even at their own expense at some point.)
 * Society hates you (we're working on that, though; don't worry).


 * Also, you are forced to read about how certain (real or perceived) perverts and bad-actors in your community are somehow representative of atheists and antitheists as a whole in the media, often facepalming at the mention of annoying, badly-defined buzzwords like "Intellectual Dark Web™", "hyper-rational™", "New Atheists™", etc. whose definitions the writers change almost daily to fit their various narratives; first "the atheist movement", or all outspoken atheists who refuse to turn off their skepticism when it comes to any one particular religion (including Islam) are evil Muslimophobic (and I'm sorry to say the word they actually use isn't even that accurate) bigots who support the Iraq war and oppose Palestine's right to exist because their "Four Horsemen™ they probably worship do, then in 2012 The Atheist Movement's sexist because a few atheist men sexually harassed women, and then in 2019 The Atheist Movement was back to hating Muslims because you know who else criticizes Islam? The Christchurch shooter! (But remember: The media thing is probably not necessarily because they are prejudiced against atheists- unless we're talking about Faux News of course- but it's merely just whatever the mercenary editors think will attract more clicks and controversy- and what better issue to do that than a group that almost nobody, Democrat or Republican, cares about in any meaningful way and is one of the most hated and complained-about groups in America?)