My atheism manifesto

I am trying to make a distinction between the following two statements;
1. There is no evidence of god's existence.
2. There is evidence of the non-existence of god.

My atheism is based on (1) above.

Let me just change one of the word to see the effect:

1. There is no evidence of Zeus's existence.
2. There is evidence of the non-existence of Zeus.

Do you believe in Zeus? I don't think there is any Christian who would believe in Zeus. Do you have (2), ie evidence of the non-existence of Zeus? We don't need to, because the burden of proof is on the claimant who asserts that Zeus exist. If there is no evidence, the default position is Zeus does not exist.

Why, when I substitute Zeus with god, the whole argument has changed so that I need to provide evidence for non-existence of god? Is it not that (1), ie no credible evidence of god's existence is sufficient to put the debate of god's existence to its end? When someone comes up with some evidence that shows god's existence, we shall debate whether the evidence is valid and sufficient to support the god existence claim.

Without god, the whole christian argument falls apart. Without god, Jesus cannot be the son of god. Without god, Jesus cannot be sent to world to give salvation to people. Without god, there is no "original sin", we don't need Jesus.

If we take Jesus as a great teacher and try to live by his teaching, is there anything wrong?

Yes, the first thing is Jesus' teaching is based on him being the son of god - which when god's existence is in doubt, the teaching lost its credibility. When Jesus claim that he is the son of god - that's a false claim, deliberate false claim. That makes Jesus a fraud. Can we have our trust in someone who is propagating a false claim? Should we live by the teaching of someone who is a fraud?

There are many better moral teachers who do not require a god to "dupe" people into being good. For goodness sake, we can be good just because we want to, we like to and we enjoy being good to other human being. We empathy. We share joy, sadness, pain and excitement with our fellow travellers. We are mutually dependent.

Let this world be a better world when we are no longer divided by religion!

There is good people doing good things. There are bad people doing bad things. If these bad people can get away without ever being punished, so be it. If you really insist, you should become a law-enforcing officer. Do the right thing by the book. Let's improve the world by actively promoting fair and just laws.