I was browsing twitter the other day and I came across the accusation that atheists are atheists because they want to sin. This kind of thing drives me crazy due to the complete absurdity of it. As far as I can tell, accusations such as this are rooted in the idea that everyone believes in God, they know he is real deep down, but they are rebelling. People making this claim are so drowned in how they see the world they cannot imagine an alternate view. They believe in God, they can't imagine not believing in God, so they assume I also believe in God. So how do they explain atheists? I guess they are just people who want to sin.
This is simply incorrect. I'm not rebelling against God, I don't think there is a God to rebel against. I don't think God exists and therefore I don't think sin exists. Sin is a slight against God, and again, I don't think there is a God so therefore there is no sin.
I honestly don't think God is real, that is why I am an atheist. There is no secret motivation behind it, I have never seen any evidence for the existence of God, even where you would expect there to be some, and therefore I am an atheist.
I think it comes from a place of "how can anyone think differently from me?" While I've heard it before, I don't think it's ever come from someone who I viewed as having any education. Maybe this is what feeds the "atheists are evil" or vice versa.
ReplyDeleteI think it's hard for someone with this view to actually believe that Muslims or Hindus or anyone of any other religion believe their religion just as strongly as Christians believe their own religion. If a Muslim told a Christian woman, "you don't believe in Allah just because you don't want to wear a burka, and therefore sin" it would be just as equally as absurd. Personally, I always try to take a different stance on my own ideas to see if I am making an unfair statement. Politically, if I am for candidate X and candidate Y does something that he gets smeared for that I think is messed up, I try to think, well if my candidate did that, would I still be just as pissed? It's avoiding the double standard. Now, I don't know where I am going with that.
"you don't believe in Allah just because you don't want to wear a burka"
ReplyDeleteI like that, I'm totally going to steal it.
As to the "how can anyone think differently from me?" train of thought, after going through a Ph.D. program I can say that educated people definitely do this too. I'd like to think that the more educated you are, the less you would do it. I'd like to think that the more you learn, the more you realize how much information is out there and how you really only know a small percentage of it. I hope that such thinking is at least less common as you get more educated, but it is certainly not eradicated.
Most of this that I saw first hand was in the political realm. There was a ton of "Republicans are so stupid", but there was also a fair bit of "Republicans just want X policy for Y reason". Most of what was said was BS and probably akin to "you just want to sin".
I agree with you on the political stuff. I do fall victim to doing that myself..
Deleteyeah, I think it's pretty hard not to honestly. When we decide who we vote for we are forced to pick teams. And once we do that it is easy to root for our team. I think it might just be one of those things that we should be aware of, try to minimize it, and don't beat up on ourselves too much when we catch ourselves doing it. And of course be a little understanding when we see other people doing it.
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