Athiests

I'm an atheist myself, so I'm trying not to be biased here.
But because I was once indeed Catholic, I was once against atheism.
In my mind I thought "All of this goes against what the church tells me. And I should believe in the church, right? These people are doing bad, wrong, and immoral things."
Or something like that. To be honest, being young, I was just being smothered by blind religion. I was taught to think like that. No room for myself. And some Catholics don't know they don't believe in God until they speak for themselves.
That is how I see it.

 

Reasons why religious people 'hate' atheists:

-Part of their religion encourages them to or else they won't get a good afterlife
-Xenophobia
-They can get away with it

As for why they think we have no morals, this is usually simply a 'god of the gaps' argument. Morality isn't conclusively explained by science as of yet, so the religious can insert god as an explanation and therefore anyone who doesn't believe in god doesn't have morals. Of course this is rubbish.
Religion certainly doesn't provide humankind's morals - most religions (certainly the Judaic ones) have terrible moral codes, with things such as 'non-virgin brides must be stoned to death' and so on - and the only reason we don't still have these morals are because of secular and atheistic influence overriding them.


(yes, xenophobia may not be entirely the correct word to use, but it is close enough)

 

Is it possible to hate something that doesn't exist? Anyways, lots of atheists do disrespect religion. I do it all the time. We (well, many) view religion as something silly, and as something that is holding back society. Religion also discourages logic and reason, which is something many of us atheists view as an extremely important thing. But anyways, if they can hate the sin but love the sinner, I can hate the religion but love the religious.

Anyways, as to why they don't like atheists other than that they often make fun of religion is the opposite values such as reasoning, logic, and questioning vs blind faith and non-questioning among other things. They are also told they are bad people.

As to why they say we have no morals. That's just because they are ignorant and believe people don't do bad things because God says so. Well, it's actually part of human nature to do the right thing (balanced out and often won over by our inherent selfishness), because, at the basic level, it's give and take. I don't steal from you so you don't steal from me. I don't need God to tell me not to do something like that. Why would I do something to others I wouldn't want done to myself? Chaos would ensue without "morals" which would exist without religion. Maybe not the same morals such as going to church on sundays, not worshiping other gods, and not being atheist, but who needs those subjective morals?

 

"The biggest lie Satan wants to convince people of, is that He doesn't exist and the easiest way to do this is to proclaim that God does not exist."

So, atheism is actually "the biggest lie", the worst act of Satan. It goes against the very foundation, against the principal laws. In theological philosophy, this makes a lot of sense. That's why Pope Benedict XVI. also publicly and directly proclaims atheism as evil.


Just to be clear, I'm a life-long atheist :icon_twis

 

How can we hate something that, in our opinion/belief, doesn't exist?

I can't speak for everyone but for me, this is not true. I honestly don't care if anyone is religious or not, it's their own business and I respect the choices everyone makes and the beliefs they hold. But I am not religious, I will never be, and I want people to respect that too.

Neither is a bad thing if you ask me. But I might be biased for being both an atheist and gay

Yes indeed. We smoke, drink, fuck, fight all the time. We're abysmal human beings.
....
Oh wait, we're not. For every atheist without morals, I'm sure there's a religious person without them. We're all people, we all have flaws. But you shouldn't generalize things.

This is a very good advice. I'm not saying you should leave your religion and throw everything away but questioning the things you're told and developing your own opinions and points of view is a good thing.

 

How hypocritical of someone calling themself a "Christian" to be so judgemental of atheists. They're not any better. They're most likely worse.

I'm Christian but I don't judge people because of their beliefs, or lack of. Lots of my friends are atheists and they're amazing people. Hating anyone for anything is 100% wrong!

 

It's not necessarily disrespecting religion among intellectual atheists (who know what they are talking about), as it is pointing out holes in religious logic. which can be construed as being disrespectful.

 

I could totally disagree on the 'atheists have no morals' idea. When all my other classmates went to Christian and Protestant classes, you know what I took for that time slot? A 'morality' class. Since I was raised in a house with absolutely no religious influence, and was a confused child who didn't entirely understand what religion was, whenever someone asked me what religion I was I would reply "I'm moral! "

Cause when everyone took religious classes, I took morality classes, so that must make morality a religion, right?

 

You mean misconstrued, I take it?

 

I can see someone who is blindly religious hating an atheist and seeing them having no morals.

To them, morals=Bible
An atheist=No Bible=No Morals.

Some fail to see beyond what the Bible defines and stick morals from the bible as the only morals. So if someone doesn't believe in the Bible, they do not believe in morals, and also the person could have been raised to think that about atheist's that way.

But I'm atheist myself, or I guess... Not mainstream religious. So my view may be a bit biased. But I have seen and felt first hand how people like that think, I was raised Catholic, still am forced to go church every week with my family.

 

Atheists don't believe in what theists believe so that instantly makes them wrong and evil. Anything that is different must be immoral and dangerous then. Of course this doesn't apply to a lot of theists, but that is the vibe that I get from some of the other one's.

 

People are stupid and think that if you don't believe in their hocus pocus and have something threatening you with hellfire in the afterlife then you're going to run around with guns and shoot at people because they think because you don't believe in god there's nothing stopping you from murder and all those other things

 

I completely agree that you should always be questioning things. In fact I posted something on Facebook a day or two ago that the day you stop questioning what is right and wrong is the day you open your doors to bigotry. I also started writing a bit of a rant about how those who follow faith blindly are so like children. The only reason they need for doing something or not doing something is that it is "right" or it is "wrong."

I grew up without religion. The lessons and morals that many learn from the Bible were taught to me by my parents. It's not like I'm rebelling or anything like that. I was taught to use my head when it comes to considering what is right and what is wrong.

I think religion is like a tool. Use it appropriately and it can provide inspiration and hope. Use it for personal gain or to push your own agenda and you'll wind up an ignorant biggot.

 

not saying that I don't ..... :icon_wink

I like to think religion was invented by enlightened individuals who simply wanted people to behave decently and treat one another like human beings; also, having higher powers allows for a simple explanation to the unknown, and human's like to know things, it makes us feel secure.

 

Well, most lesser-known things are hated, simply because it is human anture to fear the unknown. They don't understand it. The more they know, the more comfortable they are with it. Which is why there are homophobes, xenophobes, etc. The more obscure, the more scary. Its why I don't try to explain my religious beliefs unless I have plenty of time and a willing and interested conversational partner.

 

its misinterpreted and misunderstood

my best friend is an atheist, he studies all religions a lot

he doesnt hate religion, though he hates the catholic church (as a whole), but that is because of the things the catholic church is against like gay marriage and other things, and things they do, though he can be fine with individual church communities

he doesnt impose atheism on other people and thinks religions should do the same

he has morals, he will stand up for people if someones picking on them or bothering them
DnD perspective - Lawful Neutral-ish

 

I like your friend.

(and the DnD reference, True Neutral here. )