I'm James Maxey, founder of the Church of Matter. I've been an atheist for thirty years, and have spent these last three decades debating and defending my beliefs.
What is the Church of Matter? The name pretty much captures it. It will be a congregation of like-minded people who gather not to seek the guidance of imaginary spirits, but to better understand our material world and our material lives. We live in a universe of breathtaking beauty and wonder. We also live in a world filled with problems, like poverty, disease, and environmental degradation. Yet, all of these problems are essentially material problems. Unlike spirit, which can never be understood because it doesn't actually exist, matter yields to study. Every material challenge that confronts us can eventually be understood and solved. The Church of Matter seeks to incrementally improve the world by promoting the study of matter.
When and where? Thanks to the internet, our church need not have boundaries. Anywhere, anyone with access to a computer may join us for discussions. That said, if you happen to be near Hillsborough, NC, on most Sunday nights around 7pm, drop me an email. I plan to host weekly gatherings in my home to host these conversations. If you don't live near Hillsborough and want to take part, perhaps we could work out a virtual meeting through Skype or some similar technology. We are limited only by our creativity. Finally, of course, I will be blogging here. I wish I could say I'll do it every week, but my experience with my other blogs shows that this would be a promise quickly broken. Still, drop by once a month or so for meandering essays on atheism, mortality, morality, and whatever else I may scrape out from the crevices of my brain.
Last, and perhaps most importantly, why? Why would an atheist start a church? Quite simply, unlike many atheists, I don't view religion as inherently flawed or corrupting. It's true that many religions have facilitated the most horrible acts of man against man, from simple predjudice to subjugation and slavery to outright genocide. But, if we accept that there are no gods, then we must accept that religion isn't the cause of these cruelties. Humans are. No god has ever commanded a man to kill another man. Men who imagine they speak to gods may make these commandments, but it is still a matter of choice for other men to listen.
The dark side of religions spring from the dark side of men. But, we must also recognize that the good in men is often expressed through religions as well. When tragic events strike like earthquakes or floods, Christians, Hindus, Muslims and other religionists are often the first to respond with aid. They are able to do so because they band together into churches, which are a wonderful, non-governmental tool for organizing humans so that their collective efforts may accomplish more than they could acting alone. A church is a wonderful tool, the invention of humans, and like all useful human inventions it can be refined and improved. Step one to a new and improved church is to build upon the truth of a material world, rather than on the fiction of a spirit world.
Our church stands on the foundation that we live in a material world, devoid of spirits. Accepting this truth, we may view the world as it is, not as some pale shadow of a higher reality. All the beauty and wonder is ours to experience now. For the challenges that confront us we must find solutions in the material world, rather than trusting in divine intervention. Fortunately, no God is needed to imbue our lives with purpose. We get one life. Make it matter.
