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Why are atheists thought ill of?

darkmoon

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I've had some interesting conversations with friends lately about athiests and been surprised to find that many think some weird things about atheists and atheism like:

-Atheists are without morals
-Atheists cannot be normal nice people
-Atheism promotes lawlessness
-Atheists are arrogant because they don't believe there is something higher than them
-Atheists don't have a sense of purpose in life
-Atheists don't deserve the same respect as everyone else
-Atheists don't respect other people
-A rise in Atheism is making the planet corrupt
-If you say you are an Atheist you are trying to convert everyone to your beliefs which is wrong but it's OK to try to convert an Atheist
-It's OK to question Atheists about why they don't believe in God but not OK for them to question why people do.

None of those things are particularly true so where do these attitudes come from? It seems the majority of people I know subscribe to at least one of these beliefs. :huh:
 
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Fluffywolf

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People don't like what they don't understand.

It's as simple as that and yet most of the hate in the world has its origin right there.
 

EcK

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Borinnngg

ok.. so lets do it fast
-Atheists are without morals
Let's look at , for example, the bible, religious groups don't follow EVERY rule in it, it also contains things such as the killing of people who don't rest on the holy day and other happy things.
So here's the issue, if we say the holy texts are the basis for morals, then, we couldn't choose among various 'stories' and say what is to be taken at second degree value or whatever and what is a moral rule to be followed.
What religious people do, HAS TO imply they follow another higher set of rules to choose what texts "teachings" to follow.
So the idea that not following the 'word ' or whatever they want to call it leads to ammorality is quite wrong (and stupid)

-Atheists cannot be normal nice people
-Atheism promotes lawlessness

Wrong and Wrong, as social animals we structure ourselves in groups and promote empathy towards people who are percieved to be like us.
We already have lots and lots of divides: political, social and so on. Nationalities for example. Those divides are what allow us to display aggressive behaviors toward other countries in what we call wars by not havig our empathy triggered on as much as it could be.
It's a cultural empathy inhibitor if you will.
And religious groups act as one more dividing force in the world.
Adding numerous ingroup\outgroup conflicts in and between countries and civilizations.
Furthermore, most of religious values don't have a strong logical backbone, making them unsuited for a growingly rational world, adding more conflicts.
But the thing is, that atheists don't claim any ultimate belief. It's the religious groups that, by percieving themselves are the vessels for some ultimate truth carry they're holy wars everywhere they can, and have done so for centuries, if not thousands of years.
Replacing the 'unperfect human laws' to 'correct wrong deeds' is pretty much the very essence of what an atheist would not do.

The idea that, we canno't be moral individuals without having a godly 'big brother' watching us, does say alot about what lots of promoters of religious values think about themselves rather than magicaly applies to atheist for some unknown and unjustified reason.

-Atheists are arrogant because they don't believe there is something higher than them
Do we agree that the basic religious devotee, thinks he can claim the existence of an often somehow anthropomorphic divine father figure to the universe without any kind of logical or empirical evidence and use violence if necessary if anybody denies it? :huh:
(don't tell me it don't happen, just look at any family when the kid dare say he doesnt believe in god, while the church guys keep mumbling about how it's a choice)

-Atheists don't have a sense of purpose in life
I doubt that even deserves a comment

-Atheists don't deserve the same respect as everyone else
No actually, I think they deserve more for standing up for themselves and being able to live in our world and accept it as it seems to be without the help of fairy tales.

-Atheists don't respect other people
See, when somebody starts saying stupid things and thinks it's right because he've seen it written in an old book. I'm not likely to see that individual as worth my time and attention. The issue is not the atheist, it's the religious guy talking gibberish, let's not cut a fact in half here.

-A rise in Atheism is making the planet corrupt
Corrupt based on what norms? Are all the advances in the medical fields bad things? Because let me remind my gentle readers :)D) that the opening up and scientific study of the human body has been a religious taboo for centuries, they used animal bodies to guess how the human body was made up instead, how very efficient.
How many kids died while that 'corruption' was held back by religious authorities?
and that's only one example.

-If you say you are an Atheist you are trying to convert everyone to your beliefs which is wrong but it's OK to try to convert an Atheist
-It's OK to question Atheists about why they don't believe in God but not OK for them to question why people do.

That's the very basis of absolute beliefs. Another example of such ways of thinking could be seen in mid 20th century germany..

And a good day to you too :laugh:
 

darkmoon

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-Atheists don't deserve the same respect as everyone else
No actually, I think they deserve more for standing up for themselves and being able to live in our world and accept it as it seems to be without the help of fairy tales.

Good comment. I think also that since Atheists basically have to figure out for themselves what the meaning of life is, and their purpose and morals for themselves (since no one is handing a prewritten prescription on a plate) that is an admirable thing. :rolleyes:
 

Fiver

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Because Atheism is a way of saying I'm not afraid. And that scares the bejeezus out of people.

Although, I am a pretty closeted Atheist...I think I just don't want it to define me.
 

Snow Turtle

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You should come to the UK.
The comment about deserving respect is just so wrong. People constantly forget the whole "Love the sinner, hate the sin" when it sparks high emotions within them.
 

Costrin

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A lot of times there's not much you can do about that attitude except ignore it and show by your actions that atheists are perfectly capable of being moral.
 

Totenkindly

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I've had some interesting conversations with friends lately about athiests and been surprised to find that many think some weird things about atheists and atheism ...where do these attitudes come from? It seems the majority of people I know subscribe to at least one of these beliefs. :huh:

Mostly a holdover from the mid-20th century, I think. The communists were atheists, the United States was a nice "Christian" nation, so we got a binary Yin/Yang mental system set up and sorry, atheists got the short end of that one. I think you'd find that younger generations are more accepting of people in general even if they're atheists (depending on how "militant" the atheists are), it's the older generations that get stuff stuck in their craw over it.

I do think though there are other assumptions made -- one being that you need "God" in order to be "moral," and if you do not share in belief in God, then you're ultimately corrupt. (This is pretty irrational even in just the sense that lots of bad things happen at the hands of those who claim to believe in God, obviously belief in God doesn't suddenly make a good person anymore than being an atheist makes you a bad one... but people have a hard time understanding that one, based on my experience.) I think part too might be that they just can't identify with what the "foundation" of your morality might be if it is not the God they intuit, so they have trouble trusting and depending on atheist morality; there's no apparent basis for which morality can be derived apart from God, in their minds.
 

EcK

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Mostly a holdover from the mid-20th century, I think. The communists were atheists, the United States was a nice "Christian" nation, so we got a binary Yin/Yang mental system set up and sorry, atheists got the short end of that one.
Nah I don't agree.
The communists' atheism was as doctrinal and thoughtless as most people's religious views.
It's not atheism. I don't think true atheism based on personnal views rather than massive doctrine would come back to religious beliefs as soon as communism fell.
Atheism is about adding average 1 and average 1 and saying that it equals to average 2, and that while it could be 0, it's so very unlikely that it's almost statistically irrelevant.
Atheism is really scientific agnosticism, but we can't call it that otherwise we'd be confused with all the mystics.

You don't give up that kind of logic in the lack of empirical evidence of the opposite unless you didn't understand it in the first place and simply believed it as one could believe in religious theses.
 

Mole

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Believers are sweetly gullible.

While atheists are critical.

And no one, absolutely no one, likes to be criticised.

So believers are a sweet taste, while atheists are in bad taste.
 

Laurie

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Cause atheists suck and destroy the fabric of society.
My mom and step dad are atheists
 

INA

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Because they have to be thought of as such in order to stave off healthy self-criticism among believers.

edit to add:

Believers are sweetly gullible.

While atheists are critical.

And no one, absolutely no one, likes to be criticised.

So believers are a sweet taste, while atheists are in bad taste.
QFT
 

reason

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Narrow self-interest--fear of divine retribution in the afterlife--is the only thing that prevents me from becoming a horrible, lawless, disrespectful, untrustworthy, and amoral atheist.

JUST JOKING!

Had you there for a moment, didn't I? But its not true. I don't fear divine retribution in the afterlife, because I am already an atheist. Now stop distracting me with your inane questions, and let me get back to the important business of corrupting society.
 
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Not because of anything they believe or don't believe.

More because they say things like "People who believe in God are idiots who don't understand science and logic." As if science wasn't a religion.
 

AOA

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because people suck. the end.

Guess that more-or-less sums it up.

... The question people (really) should be asking is - what makes an atheist damn special?
 

Feops

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Atheists are thought ill of because religions assert themselves as a guide to beneficial morals.

To be without such an instructor, to some people, leads to an obvious conclusion.
 

zago

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Why are atheists thought ill of? Because for the most part, people are stupid and unquestioningly believe what their parents or majority of their culture does. They are like sheep.
 
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