If you don’t believe in God, why are you so concerned with hashing out the idea that He doesn’t exist in a blog? I ask this knowing that the times in my past when I’ve most wanted to stand up for the perspective of atheistic life were times when my own conscience shivered – because something was touching a sensitive nerve buried deep in my soul. If God doesn’t exist and doesn’t matter, why not blog about something else?
m e a n d e r s 
Well not being one of the Judeo based religions and also not being Athiest or agnostic, my opionion is that people who blog for their belief in God, and those that don’t believe in god, blog their thoughts for the same reason. A lot of Christian bloggers out there are trying to convince those who are not Christian to become Christian. To convert people to their way of thinking. The Athiest is doing the same thing. Trying to show why they don’t believe in god and why people should not be converted. Same argument, different sides of the coin. I also believe that both sides need each other. Could you have day, if you didn’t have night. Could you have free will that is spoke of in the Christian bible if you didn’t have non believers vs. those who believe?
Peace
When somewhere around 50% of the American electorate believes the universe is less than 10,000 years old, we have something of a problem. The public does not understand reality, and freethinkers are naturally frustrated by this.
Another recent study showed that atheists are among the least trusted minority. There’s no reason for this. All the atheists I’ve met are regular people who just don’t happen to believe in a god.
A lot of it also comes from passion. I’m personally fascinated by apologetic arguments, and that’s why I tend to blog about Christianity.
Regarding the age of the universe, there are a myriad of possible explanations ranging from the whether or not Genesis should be interpreted literally to God having created the earth in an already-aged state. Then there’s the possibility that it isn’t really that old and there’s an explanation for the data that we’re getting from carbon dating that we don’t understand yet. Who knows? Either way, the primacy of the nuts and bolts of creation within the context of this discussion is debatable in my opinion.
I have no doubts that many atheists are very nice people. I have a friend who claims to be atheist and he’s one of the nicest people to be around that I know. So then, why are atheists distrusted? Atheism has no more foundation. It is true that plenty of folks who claim to have a moral foundation are screwed up beyond belief, rendering their “morals” useless, but, that’s another topic all together. I know plenty of Christians (myself included at times) that do a sub-par job reflecting the moral ideals of God.
Where does the “passion” come from? I had passion when I was on the other side of the fence on this topic, too, but, that was because it always hit a sensitive nerve in me. Why do you have “passion” for this topic?
Thanks for reading the blog and thanks for your comment.
I don’t think we need to worry about the the “myriad” of ways to interpret Genesis right now. We probably don’t need to worry about this either, but I’ll quickly point out that carbon dating isn’t what scientists use to date the universe; I’m pretty sure this method only works for materials up to 60,000 years old. My point was that around 50% of the American electorate abandons the established scientific consensus for a faith-based non-scientific non-answer. I consider this a sort of big deal – something definitely worthy of blogging about. We’re already behind in the test scores, and now we have “religious problems” with reality.
I’m not really sure what you’re getting at here. Are you suggesting atheists inspire distrust and hatred because they don’t have a strong enough moral system?
This is a somewhat intellectual objection I’m cynical enough to believe the average layman never even thinks about.
These standard laymen who don’t worry about deep theology are usually the people who ostracize atheists to the internet. For example, I’ve overheard people who think atheists worship the devil.
Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god. There is no dogma, doctrine or morality in the simple definition. So no, atheism by itself does not have a system of morals. That being said, most atheists do have a system of morals and consider themselves humanists. I personally believe morality is based on the idea of a cooperative society, but this is another topic best saved for another time.
My personal passion for religion in general doesn’t have anything to do it “striking a nerve” or anything of a personal, emotional nature. I’m fascinated by the human mind, and what inspires it to make what I see as irrational leaps of faith. I can tell you’re looking for a bigger explanation, but I can’t really think of one. Sorry about that.
Stephen,
My opinions and yours are clearly different when it comes to why some people may distrust self-proclaimed atheists and thats OK with me. From my perspective, there is a very strong correlation between an atheist’s passion for blogging about the idea that there is no god and, while that view is different from yours, I respect your right to hold that opinion. It just doesn’t make sense to me. As far as taking an “irrational leap of faith” goes, which is more irrational: to believe in no God and be unhappy and unfulfilled or to believe in God and to have peace, happiness, and fulfillment? You may be 100% living with the perception of a godless life, but, I tried it for some time and couldn’t pull it off. I decided to live life more abundantly instead. Thanks for posting again. You are always welcome here.
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