To be an atheist means you don't believe in God. However, it is not an uncommon experience for us to be asked by Christians why we are angry with God. This can be a difficult question to address because it in a certain sense it doesn't make much sense at all, I don't believe in God, I truly don't think he exists, therefore I am not mad at him, it doesn't make sense for me to be mad at him.
I think one of the reasons for this confusion is that religious people, especially people who grew up in their religion, have a hard time imagining what it is like to not share their beliefs. They believe so strongly in God that it is pretty much unimaginable that someone doesn't. And so they conclude that I must also believe in God deep down I am just trying to deny it, I am so angry at God that I am choosing to ignore what is obviously true. Something along those lines.
Although I think there is some truth to that explanation, I was thinking about it this morning and it felt a little bit unsatisfying. There is a lot of anger among atheists, and it is often aimed at Christianity, is it really a surprise that sometimes Christians interpret this as anger at God? Furthermore, there was a period of time when I was angry at God. There was a period of time when I didn't consider myself a Christian anymore but I wouldn't call myself an atheist yet, I believed there was some kind of God and I thought he was an asshole. If someone knew me back then and heard me talking shit about God, and now heard me call myself an atheist, is it really that unreasonable for them to say "he's not really an atheist, he's just angry with God." They'd be wrong and if we had a conversation about it I'd be happy to clarify, but if we never talk about this specifically it would seem a reasonable conclusion for them to draw based on the evidence at their disposal.
Do I have a point here? I dunno, I guess it is to cut the theists some slack. Explain to them how their thinking is incorrect, but also understand that depending on their experience with atheists, it is perhaps not such an unreasonable conclusion to draw. Also, if you just assume that they think this because of my first explanation, aren't you doing the same thing to them that you are pissed at them for doing to you?
Theists pick up on us commenting on how messed up the old testament God was/is. They miss the part that we think the fictional character of God is messed up and not any real deity--because we don't believe in those.
ReplyDeleteBTW, is your blog supposed to be family friendly? I could use a word other than "messed" but didn't know if it was appropriate.
I don't mind a little bit of appropriate profanity here and there. I don't typically use it because I don't want to turn people away, and I don't often find it necessary. Also, the more rare it is the more impact it has when you break it out. I do use it on occasion though, for example, I already wrote my post for Monday and I was a little worked up when writing it, I dropped an f-bomb or 2.
DeleteI think you bring up some great points Hausdorff. It really depends on where you are coming from. One could reply, "well, are you angry at Zeus? Is that why you don't believe?" That's usually how I would have responded, but after reading this post, I'll probably go about it a bit differently. The idea of Zeus being real to anybody is absurd. It's never really been presented as real to anyone (save a very small few) in our contemporary setting. I was pretty sheltered as a child and VERY religious. I wasn't even aware that there are atheists, and honestly, I don't even think I would have known what that word meant. If you would have told me that some people don't believe in God I probably would have thought that that was silly.
DeleteI do agree with Grundy also, that when we talk about how messed up the character of the OT god is, we are working in a certain framework. I think it's the same as reading Harry Potter and saying Voldemort is a horrible character. We don't say this because we believe he is real, it's because he's the "bad guy." I've gotten frustrated in a few conversations on this topic. "Well you are talking about how messed up God is, you must believe he exist." It can be exhausting trying to unravel certain indoctrinated ideas. I figure indoctrinated because, like my example above with Harry Potter, they would probably never use the same reasoning anywhere else.
I think we get irritated as non believers because it's generally frustrating when someone tries to tell you what you think or just assumes what you believe. When I can, I always try to ask questions rather than just assume, or I will say something like, "People that are X that I've talked too, usually believe Y. Is that something you believe?"
How dare you, sir! Voldemort is awesome.
DeleteIn principle, I really like the idea of point out that you would never accuse someone of being angry with Zeus, or any other God that they don't believe in. In principle, it should demonstrate how silly their declaration that we are angry with God really is. Unfortunately, it never seems to have that kind of impact. It seems to just get waved off, "of course I'm not angry with Zeus, he doesn't exist". They never seem to realize that is exactly how we feel about their God.
DeleteIf an ancient God like Zeus isn't going to work, obviously neither is a character that was always assumed to be fictional like FSM or he who shall not be named. (btw, you guys are throwing his name around pretty casually. I hope no one is reading these comments out loud for their own safety)
Even though it ticks some believers off, the best analogy I can think of is Santa Claus. Many people really sincerely believed in Santa when they were children, but at some point they found out that he was not real. That's the closest that most people come to a "deconversion" experience. So now when they claim that we are "mad at god", that's like us claiming that they are "mad at Santa". They're just in rebellion against Santa, after all! But even if they don't love Santa, Santa still loves them, and come xmas eve someday, they'll go back to Santa and leave out the milk and cookies again, just wait.
ReplyDeleteThis is very true, the analogy is actually pretty perfect. Yet, when you I this kind of argument my experience is the Christian takes offense and just shuts down. They view it as being talked down to. Maybe that is not such a terrible thing, perhaps they will be offended in the moment but the argument will stick in the back of their mind somewhere. I am afraid they would just dismiss it out of hand though.
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