How do religious people learn about atheism?

[Anonymous]

Here is an adaptation of a question I asked in the “What do Atheists Believe?” thread. http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/729573.page It seems better suited for its own discussion:

Reading through questions posters are asking about atheists and atheism, I wonder how people got some of these ideas (e.g., atheists having a “worldview;” atheists not contributing to worthy causes because they are not religious; atheists …“who decide, screw it, there’s no punishment so I’ll just steal and murder and die rich and happy”; people thinking that atheism has theories about things, the way a belief system would.

I know when I was growing up, everyone seemed to have a religion and there was not much talk of atheism. Still, atheists were generally, but vaguely, considered to be lesser people because they didn't believe in God. The only atheist I ever heard of was the woman who took prayer out of the public schools, and she was presented as a villain. It wasn't until I started to become an atheist that I thought about atheism in any depth.

So I'm asking – do your questions about atheists and atheism come from personal speculation? from church? from your family? From books, TV, the movies? something else?

[Anonymous]

No, I don't. I dn't care what atheists think and feel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I don't. I dn't care what atheists think and feel.

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

—?Mark 12:28-31

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I don't. I dn't care what atheists think and feel.

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

—?Mark 12:28-31

And atheists love Christians?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is an adaptation of a question I asked in the “What do Atheists Believe?” thread. http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/729573.page It seems better suited for its own discussion:

Reading through questions posters are asking about atheists and atheism, I wonder how people got some of these ideas (e.g., atheists having a “worldview;” atheists not contributing to worthy causes because they are not religious; atheists …“who decide, screw it, there’s no punishment so I’ll just steal and murder and die rich and happy”; people thinking that atheism has theories about things, the way a belief system would.

I know when I was growing up, everyone seemed to have a religion and there was not much talk of atheism. Still, atheists were generally, but vaguely, considered to be lesser people because they didn't believe in God. The only atheist I ever heard of was the woman who took prayer out of the public schools, and she was presented as a villain. It wasn't until I started to become an atheist that I thought about atheism in any depth.

So I'm asking – do your questions about atheists and atheism come from personal speculation? from church? from your family? From books, TV, the movies? something else?

How do people decide that "religion" has theories about things? Clearly Marxists, say, and social Darwinists have different views of things. Just Presbyterians and Hindus have different views of things (and we can put Buddists on both sides of that, eh?) But people generalize, usually on the basis of the examples they are most familiar with.

Most Americans who are not religious base their view of religion on Christians, and often don't make much real distinction among denominations and approaches. Where I grew up in NYC, you wouldn't be far wrong to assume that anyone who called themselves an atheist (rather than agnostic) was a Marxist, and believe in dialectical materialism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I don't. I dn't care what atheists think and feel.

Nu, I hope they feel well, and not sick. I hope they think nice things about the Jews.

[Anonymous]

But yeah, a lot of it is speculation. Deductive logic, rather than induction based on actual experience. Though at least a bit of that goes both ways, though of course Christians are more common on the ground here in the USA than atheists (heck, than atheists and agnostics combined).

Whats really annoying to me personally is the number of people who assume Judaism is Christianity minus Jesus, and deduce it based on that, rather than actually learning about it from us.

[Anonymous]

So, did you hear about the agnostic who was dating an atheist? They had to break up, because they couldn't agree on what they didn't believe in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I don't. I dn't care what atheists think and feel.

No you don't what? The question is "do your questions about atheists and atheism come from personal speculation? from church? from your family? From books, TV, the movies? something else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, did you hear about the agnostic who was dating an atheist? They had to break up, because they couldn't agree on what they didn't believe in.

That sounds about right.

[Anonymous]

We go to school, they have a special class just to learn not to believe in God.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We go to school, they have a special class just to learn not to believe in God.

Interesting -- there are many classes that teach people to believe in god, but I've never heard of a class about not believing. People seem to come to that on there own, despite all the societal pressure to believe.

[Anonymous]

My initial encounters with atheists were all with people who were angry with organized religion or the God they claimed not to believe in. As an adult, I met some people who were cultural atheists since birth and they weren’t angry, just smarmy and self-righteous. I keep waiting to meet in person the happy and tolerant-to-believers atheists that I read about online. I live in one of most diverse zip codes in a very well-educated county and am a hard core science fiction fan married to a STEM-doctorate so the problem isn’t that I live in a religious bubble. I’ve never preached at anyone whether they were a believer of a different faith or a non-believer so I’m not driving them away with my viewpoints. In fact, many of the atheists I met expressed shock that I’m religious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My initial encounters with atheists were all with people who were angry with organized religion or the God they claimed not to believe in. As an adult, I met some people who were cultural atheists since birth and they weren’t angry, just smarmy and self-righteous. I keep waiting to meet in person the happy and tolerant-to-believers atheists that I read about online. I live in one of most diverse zip codes in a very well-educated county and am a hard core science fiction fan married to a STEM-doctorate so the problem isn’t that I live in a religious bubble. I’ve never preached at anyone whether they were a believer of a different faith or a non-believer so I’m not driving them away with my viewpoints. In fact, many of the atheists I met expressed shock that I’m religious.

Are you saying that you learned about atheism from the people you describe above? If so, what have you learned from the various people you've met?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My initial encounters with atheists were all with people who were angry with organized religion or the God they claimed not to believe in. As an adult, I met some people who were cultural atheists since birth and they weren’t angry, just smarmy and self-righteous. I keep waiting to meet in person the happy and tolerant-to-believers atheists that I read about online. I live in one of most diverse zip codes in a very well-educated county and am a hard core science fiction fan married to a STEM-doctorate so the problem isn’t that I live in a religious bubble. I’ve never preached at anyone whether they were a believer of a different faith or a non-believer so I’m not driving them away with my viewpoints. In fact, many of the atheists I met expressed shock that I’m religious.

Hi! Nice to meet you.