Distrust of Atheists

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an atheist, I am not surprised by this study. People are generally shocked to find out I don't believe in god, and tell me things like, "But you're such a nice person." I do think that most Americans equate belief in god or participation in an organized religion with morality.

The reason I became an atheist is because I grew up christian and about 50% of the people in my church were awful people most of the time. Now don't get me wrong, I don't in any way think all christians are this way, but the fact that these "Sunday christians" were so willing to be terrible people and then come to church and raise their voices the loudest (and with the most judgment) made me question the faith.

Not only that, but the church's more literalist beliefs (in e.g., 2 Timothy wrt women's role in culture), seemed bizarre in a modern world with gender equality. Also, to restate what a few PPs have discussed, it was the teaching of my former church that a murderer who underwent a deathbed conversion would go to heaven, but that anyone who didn't accept Jesus as their personal savior and confess their sins (e.g., atheists, people who believed other religions, people in isolated cultures who had never heard of Judeo-Christianity) would go directly to hell, regardless of the decency of their lives. Years of this sort of dissonance between the church's teachings and my own personal views on morality led to me questioning and eventually renouncing my faith.

I do personally think that humans are predisposed to religious thinking due to brain anatomy, so I don't think less of people who believe in god. However, I do not in any capacity believe they are more moral or good people than those who do not believe in god.

But PP, don't you realize that idea--that God would "accidentally" let bad people party in heaven while good people were tortured for all eternity--is not a reason to not believe in God? Don't know you that most Christians throughout history would find such a belief abhorrent, and directly contradicted by Jesus' words, not to mention reason and logic?

Put aside those childhood memories and ask the big questions: where did this all come from? Doesn't creation have a Creator? Someone who set everything in motion? Who is this Creator? How do we have the ability to reason? Who gave us that ability? Who was Jesus, really? When did Christianity start to splinter, and why? Does ancient Christian theology make sense--is it reasonable? Is there such a thing as right and wrong?

Ask the big questions, and don't trip up over bad theology. And you'll find God. Because He is Truth itself.

[Anonymous]

I'm not the atheist you're responding to, PP, but it appears your logic is this:

I assume I am right and I, above everyone else,knows the truth
I assume we were created and there is a creation therefore there must be a creator
I believe in my concept of the creator which happens to be my god
Therefore my concept of god is "the truth"

I hope you see the flaws in that. If not, I don't trust your ideas of good vs bad theology. Your logic could be applied to any concept of god... Or to aliens, pink unicorns, and space monkeys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, that study doesn't seem very scientific. Subjects were told to choose between "teacher", "atheist teacher", and "rapist teacher". Those were the only choices given, and I'm assuming they were told they must select one. Sorry, but I can't give this study any credit whatsoever. I hope it wasn't government funded- I'd be pretty annoyed if my tax dollars went to pay for that one when there are a lot more important research questions out there.

The study was not limited to those 3 options. No matter the options, the atheists were consistently chosen as the least trustworthy. You can find the study online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an atheist, I am not surprised by this study. People are generally shocked to find out I don't believe in god, and tell me things like, "But you're such a nice person." I do think that most Americans equate belief in god or participation in an organized religion with morality.

The reason I became an atheist is because I grew up christian and about 50% of the people in my church were awful people most of the time. Now don't get me wrong, I don't in any way think all christians are this way, but the fact that these "Sunday christians" were so willing to be terrible people and then come to church and raise their voices the loudest (and with the most judgment) made me question the faith.

Not only that, but the church's more literalist beliefs (in e.g., 2 Timothy wrt women's role in culture), seemed bizarre in a modern world with gender equality. Also, to restate what a few PPs have discussed, it was the teaching of my former church that a murderer who underwent a deathbed conversion would go to heaven, but that anyone who didn't accept Jesus as their personal savior and confess their sins (e.g., atheists, people who believed other religions, people in isolated cultures who had never heard of Judeo-Christianity) would go directly to hell, regardless of the decency of their lives. Years of this sort of dissonance between the church's teachings and my own personal views on morality led to me questioning and eventually renouncing my faith.

I do personally think that humans are predisposed to religious thinking due to brain anatomy, so I don't think less of people who believe in god. However, I do not in any capacity believe they are more moral or good people than those who do not believe in god.

But PP, don't you realize that idea--that God would "accidentally" let bad people party in heaven while good people were tortured for all eternity--is not a reason to not believe in God? Don't know you that most Christians throughout history would find such a belief abhorrent, and directly contradicted by Jesus' words, not to mention reason and logic?

Put aside those childhood memories and ask the big questions: where did this all come from? Doesn't creation have a Creator? Someone who set everything in motion? Who is this Creator? How do we have the ability to reason? Who gave us that ability? Who was Jesus, really? When did Christianity start to splinter, and why? Does ancient Christian theology make sense--is it reasonable? Is there such a thing as right and wrong?

Ask the big questions, and don't trip up over bad theology. And you'll find God. Because He is Truth itself.

Sorry, PP. I am the PP you are responding to. I addressed only the morality- and ethics-related reasons I became disillusioned with and broke with religion.

I am a scientist by training, and I have asked myself all of those questions. I do not believe in "creation", and I think it's a logical fallacy to believe that a deity is responsible for the existence of the universe. I studied physics and chemistry, but I am somewhat of a biology enthusiast, and I can tell you, I think that the idea that some big guy in the sky is cranking out people and animals for our little blue-green marble is pretty far from "truth."

Rather, my personal reflection led me to find that: 1. there is no afterlife, because life depends on the physical body, 2. the laws of physics and cause and effect dictate what will happen in our universe, 3. People can't understand the universe because we did not evolve to need to understand the universe, that said, we are capable of empirical thought and reason, and through those, our knowledge of the world and universe can come closer to being complete (e.g., a sort of Pragmatic Peirce-inspired idea of scientific thought), 4. As I said above, the brain is a weird and wonderful thing, but it's evolved some interesting ways of dealing with reality, insofar as humans have structures within the parietal lobe that seem to dictate their level of spirituality and belief in religion. This means some people will believe and others won't, and some believers will be stronger in their beliefs. It also means that believers are not always capable of understanding that non-believers are valid in their thoughts and views (as belief holds an element of biological determination and is therefore not always something people can put aside for empathy's sake).

So, no, I will not ever find god. But in its absence, I've found a lot of very meaningful and beautiful things in the real world instead.

[Anonymous]

I think atheists need to put on an "I'm an atheist" campaign the way the Mormons have. Problem is, we aren't a group in any real sense so who would pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Put aside those childhood memories and ask the big questions: where did this all come from? Doesn't creation have a Creator? Someone who set everything in motion? Who is this Creator? How do we have the ability to reason? Who gave us that ability? Who was Jesus, really? When did Christianity start to splinter, and why? Does ancient Christian theology make sense--is it reasonable? Is there such a thing as right and wrong?

Ask the big questions, and don't trip up over bad theology. And you'll find God. Because He is Truth itself.

I'd venture a guess that all atheists have asked themselves the larger questions of the universe and the possibility of god(s). What makes us atheists is that we came to a different conclusion than you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, that study doesn't seem very scientific. Subjects were told to choose between "teacher", "atheist teacher", and "rapist teacher". Those were the only choices given, and I'm assuming they were told they must select one. Sorry, but I can't give this study any credit whatsoever. I hope it wasn't government funded- I'd be pretty annoyed if my tax dollars went to pay for that one when there are a lot more important research questions out there.

The study was not limited to those 3 options. No matter the options, the atheists were consistently chosen as the least trustworthy. You can find the study online.

Please show me where. All I can find is the abstract (without purchasing the article):

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=browsePA.volumes&jcode=psp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an atheist, I am not surprised by this study. People are generally shocked to find out I don't believe in god, and tell me things like, "But you're such a nice person." I do think that most Americans equate belief in god or participation in an organized religion with morality.

The reason I became an atheist is because I grew up christian and about 50% of the people in my church were awful people most of the time. Now don't get me wrong, I don't in any way think all christians are this way, but the fact that these "Sunday christians" were so willing to be terrible people and then come to church and raise their voices the loudest (and with the most judgment) made me question the faith.

Not only that, but the church's more literalist beliefs (in e.g., 2 Timothy wrt women's role in culture), seemed bizarre in a modern world with gender equality. Also, to restate what a few PPs have discussed, it was the teaching of my former church that a murderer who underwent a deathbed conversion would go to heaven, but that anyone who didn't accept Jesus as their personal savior and confess their sins (e.g., atheists, people who believed other religions, people in isolated cultures who had never heard of Judeo-Christianity) would go directly to hell, regardless of the decency of their lives. Years of this sort of dissonance between the church's teachings and my own personal views on morality led to me questioning and eventually renouncing my faith.

I do personally think that humans are predisposed to religious thinking due to brain anatomy, so I don't think less of people who believe in god. However, I do not in any capacity believe they are more moral or good people than those who do not believe in god.

But PP, don't you realize that idea--that God would "accidentally" let bad people party in heaven while good people were tortured for all eternity--is not a reason to not believe in God? Don't know you that most Christians throughout history would find such a belief abhorrent, and directly contradicted by Jesus' words, not to mention reason and logic?

Put aside those childhood memories and ask the big questions: where did this all come from? Doesn't creation have a Creator? Someone who set everything in motion? Who is this Creator? How do we have the ability to reason? Who gave us that ability? Who was Jesus, really? When did Christianity start to splinter, and why? Does ancient Christian theology make sense--is it reasonable? Is there such a thing as right and wrong?

Ask the big questions, and don't trip up over bad theology. And you'll find God. Because He is Truth itself.

Sorry, PP. I am the PP you are responding to. I addressed only the morality- and ethics-related reasons I became disillusioned with and broke with religion.

I am a scientist by training, and I have asked myself all of those questions. I do not believe in "creation", and I think it's a logical fallacy to believe that a deity is responsible for the existence of the universe. I studied physics and chemistry, but I am somewhat of a biology enthusiast, and I can tell you, I think that the idea that some big guy in the sky is cranking out people and animals for our little blue-green marble is pretty far from "truth."

Rather, my personal reflection led me to find that: 1. there is no afterlife, because life depends on the physical body, 2. the laws of physics and cause and effect dictate what will happen in our universe, 3. People can't understand the universe because we did not evolve to need to understand the universe, that said, we are capable of empirical thought and reason, and through those, our knowledge of the world and universe can come closer to being complete (e.g., a sort of Pragmatic Peirce-inspired idea of scientific thought), 4. As I said above, the brain is a weird and wonderful thing, but it's evolved some interesting ways of dealing with reality, insofar as humans have structures within the parietal lobe that seem to dictate their level of spirituality and belief in religion. This means some people will believe and others won't, and some believers will be stronger in their beliefs. It also means that believers are not always capable of understanding that non-believers are valid in their thoughts and views (as belief holds an element of biological determination and is therefore not always something people can put aside for empathy's sake).

So, no, I will not ever find god. But in its absence, I've found a lot of very meaningful and beautiful things in the real world instead.

PP, I appreciate your thoughtful and reasonable reservations about the existence of God. And I wish so much we could sit down over tea and discuss these ideas thoroughly...but I need to bring my kids to the dentist, and we are limited to this anonymous forum...

But quickly, your comment about the big guy in the sky shows that you are still somewhat influenced and perhaps limited by childish ideas of Who God is, what God is like. He's not a bearded old man. He's not like any myth or legend. God is our name for the Unmoved Mover. He is absolutely consistent with all our knowledge about physics and empirical thought and reason, because He created those things--He is the author of them. He is the reason for laws of physics, because He made them. His existence is reasonable and knowable, but also mysterious, because we are limited beings and He is unlimited; we exist in time and He is outside of time; we began and He has no beginning or end; we are finite and He is infinite.

He has revealed some things about Himself to us through our reason (such as Aquinas' five proofs for His existence), and He has also revealed some truths about Himself throughout history (the one most meaningful to me personally is that God is a communion of persons, a Trinity), and He has written His Word on our hearts, so He is always with us. So there is always hope for all of us, that we will get to know Him in this life.

What I hear in your words is a great deal of knowledge about Him already. You find things meaningful, ordered, and beautiful. Those are value judgments you have made. Those indicate you are able to make distinctions between order and disorder, beauty and ugliness, meaning and mere existence. The ability to make such choices is integral to our humanity. Therein lies our free will. And all of those aspects of your existence celebrate and reveal God to you.

The greatest scientists the world has ever known found their Creator through their work. God made you, so He knows how to find you--He already has, always has. Maybe someday, you'll find Him right back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not the atheist you're responding to, PP, but it appears your logic is this:

I assume I am right and I, above everyone else,knows the truth
I assume we were created and there is a creation therefore there must be a creator
I believe in my concept of the creator which happens to be my god
Therefore my concept of god is "the truth"

I hope you see the flaws in that. If not, I don't trust your ideas of good vs bad theology. Your logic could be applied to any concept of god... Or to aliens, pink unicorns, and space monkeys.

None of the above is valid.

Creation indicates a beginning. The laws of physics indicate an Unmoved Mover.

The definition of God is a Supreme Being, so by definition, there can only be one. Absolute truth is inherently exclusionary, because X does not and cannot equal -X. But God and His own truth are not possessed by the few; again, by definition, they transcend all, are universally applicable, to all people at all times, just like the laws of physics.

There is no way I, a limited and finite human being, can know everything, because I am not God. It does not follow that there is no such thing as God.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not the atheist you're responding to, PP, but it appears your logic is this:

I assume I am right and I, above everyone else,knows the truth
I assume we were created and there is a creation therefore there must be a creator
I believe in my concept of the creator which happens to be my god
Therefore my concept of god is "the truth"

I hope you see the flaws in that. If not, I don't trust your ideas of good vs bad theology. Your logic could be applied to any concept of god... Or to aliens, pink unicorns, and space monkeys.

None of the above is valid.

Creation indicates a beginning. The laws of physics indicate an Unmoved Mover.

The definition of God is a Supreme Being, so by definition, there can only be one. Absolute truth is inherently exclusionary, because X does not and cannot equal -X. But God and His own truth are not possessed by the few; again, by definition, they transcend all, are universally applicable, to all people at all times, just like the laws of physics.

There is no way I, a limited and finite human being, can know everything, because I am not God. It does not follow that there is no such thing as God.

Sorry but to correct the record, physics does not indicate an unmoved mover. We have no idea what came before the instant of creation for our universe. It could have been the slingshot crunch from the last universe's collapse. The whole thing could be a huge yo-yo. Or we may be a tiny bubble of our own, completely unaware of the billions of universes around us.

Actually the idea that the laws of physics are universal is not agreed upon. There may be universes with their own physical laws. This is a real topic of investigation for physicists.

As for your comment on monotheism, it is a tautology. If you define God as a Supreme Being, then that makes him a single being but only because you defined him in that way. It does nothing to prove that God is a single being. Even the Bible makes this kind of hard to accept. The mystery of the Trinity has not only three forms of God but three separate consciousnesses. We know this because two of them talk to each other, so they have separate thoughts. If they have separate bodies and they have separate thoughts, it is hard to argue that they are one being unless you want to use another tautology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe what Ernie Pyle said, "There are no Atheists in the foxholes." When trouble comes, e.g., a child is very ill, a spouse, whatever, then I cannot help but believe an atheist does not pray, "Dear God, please save my child," I was brought up to believe in God and the power of prayer and I still believe and, my life has been far from easy. I still believe and I still pray.

That is completely ignorant and very misleading. There are plenty of atheists in foxholes (literal or otherwise). Why would you feel that in order for others to cope with difficult situations they have to agree with you first? Doesn't that seem a bit egocentric to you?

Do you even know who Ernie Pyle was? You sound very angry and bitter. You also have a problem with comprehension.

Ernie Pyle was Gomer Pyle's first cousin.

Ignorance is never funny, just sad and pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe what Ernie Pyle said, "There are no Atheists in the foxholes." When trouble comes, e.g., a child is very ill, a spouse, whatever, then I cannot help but believe an atheist does not pray, "Dear God, please save my child," I was brought up to believe in God and the power of prayer and I still believe and, my life has been far from easy. I still believe and I still pray.

That is completely ignorant and very misleading. There are plenty of atheists in foxholes (literal or otherwise). Why would you feel that in order for others to cope with difficult situations they have to agree with you first? Doesn't that seem a bit egocentric to you?

Do you even know who Ernie Pyle was? You sound very angry and bitter. You also have a problem with comprehension.

Ernie Pyle was Gomer Pyle's first cousin.

Ignorance is never funny, just sad and pathetic.

The idea that atheists find faith in moments of desperation is something that must be comforting to Christians, but it is not generally true. Quite a number of people seem to lose their faith in the wake of a tragedy or injustice, however.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not the atheist you're responding to, PP, but it appears your logic is this:

I assume I am right and I, above everyone else,knows the truth
I assume we were created and there is a creation therefore there must be a creator
I believe in my concept of the creator which happens to be my god
Therefore my concept of god is "the truth"

I hope you see the flaws in that. If not, I don't trust your ideas of good vs bad theology. Your logic could be applied to any concept of god... Or to aliens, pink unicorns, and space monkeys.

None of the above is valid.

Creation indicates a beginning. The laws of physics indicate an Unmoved Mover.

The definition of God is a Supreme Being, so by definition, there can only be one. Absolute truth is inherently exclusionary, because X does not and cannot equal -X. But God and His own truth are not possessed by the few; again, by definition, they transcend all, are universally applicable, to all people at all times, just like the laws of physics.

There is no way I, a limited and finite human being, can know everything, because I am not God. It does not follow that there is no such thing as God.

Yet you are claiming to have/know truth. Based on belief and assumptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not the atheist you're responding to, PP, but it appears your logic is this:

I assume I am right and I, above everyone else,knows the truth
I assume we were created and there is a creation therefore there must be a creator
I believe in my concept of the creator which happens to be my god
Therefore my concept of god is "the truth"

I hope you see the flaws in that. If not, I don't trust your ideas of good vs bad theology. Your logic could be applied to any concept of god... Or to aliens, pink unicorns, and space monkeys.

None of the above is valid.

Creation indicates a beginning. The laws of physics indicate an Unmoved Mover.

The definition of God is a Supreme Being, so by definition, there can only be one. Absolute truth is inherently exclusionary, because X does not and cannot equal -X. But God and His own truth are not possessed by the few; again, by definition, they transcend all, are universally applicable, to all people at all times, just like the laws of physics.

There is no way I, a limited and finite human being, can know everything, because I am not God. It does not follow that there is no such thing as God.

PP, I know we've been over this before in other threads. Claiming you faith as a truth does not make it true. You are assuming that there has to be a creator because there was creation. People, since we were the ones to come up with language, defined a lot of gods, even gave them personalities and names. That doesn't make them real.

You cannot prove god anymore than we can disprove his existence. Please, just accept that we have given it a great deal of thought and arrived at a different understanding.

[Anonymous]

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