Why do Atheists get so much grief?

Because people's worst fear is the fear of death, and to be an atheist is to say our existence is pretty much meaningless since once you die it's all over - your existence is terminated completely.

A lot of people can't handle that. People need to have meaning in their life, and are threatened by atheism. We are evolved to belief in god...it's imprinted into our genetic code as a means of survival and enduring suffering. It's not a coincidence that people who are spirtual live longer lives.

 

Fear of Death is nothing compared to Fear of Eternal Hell Fire.

Fire Insurance is a big selling point for the religious.

 

That's how religious folks look at it. Religion is bourne out from the fear of death originally - it's part of how folks find comfort - there's a ritualistic aspect of that many people (the vast majority of humanity) take in as a means of not just hope, but the essence of who they are. Think about it - religion permeates through every aspect of a person's life. And deep down inside, it addresses a persons worst fear - that of death.

This isn't all on a conscious level, we are programmed to fear death - think about it, it's simple natural selection that fearless ones would be selected out.

An atheist is rejecting everything most people fundamentally believes in down to the very core of who they are. Even people of other religions belief in god. But an atheist is a scary person to someone who can not accept a world without god.

I am not justifying, merely explaining.

I am not a religious person.

 

In my experience, groups typically think that they are vilified more than they actually are. A lot of Christians feel that their faith is under attack from atheists. From your perspective, that may seem ridiculous. You think that your beliefs (or lack thereof) are under attack from religious groups but that assertion would seem ridiculous to them.

 

I would suspect Christians fear death far more then hell. If hell was so terrifying, wouldn't most people be pious?

I think you can motivate people a lot more with the fear of death then the fear of hell.

Which is more terrifying - a guy with a gun to your head, or a preacher telling you that you will go to hell?

 

Neither.

It's the preacher that's telling you that you will go to hell AND has a gun to your head that will do the trick.

 

Somebody who is a true Christian embraces death. To die is to gain. What a Christian may be scared about is the actual act of death (ie drowning, burning alive, suffocating) because that is a natural fear of the unknown.Of course, what is considered Christian in they eyes of the average joe, a catholic or the Amish is all debatable depending on the dogma, religious affiliation or just plain ignorance.

 

Fear of death is not the fear of the act of dying. It's the fear of non-existence.

A true Christian doesn't embrace it...the circumvent it like every other believer of god does. If you believe in an afterlife, then you believe you don't die. Problem solved!

 

Personally, I think both sides get an equal amount of it. It's because of their definiteness. You ever said "Why do agnostics get so much greif?", nope. Why? Because Agnostics (true agnostics) have no sense of what is definitely right and wrong, they simply don't know. The people who say they know must take the burden of expressing their opinion. The problem is, there are a lot more knowers of God than knowers of Nothing, so the per capita of grief is disproportionate while the amount of grief per side is equal. Want no grief? Know nothing and have blind faith in either direction.

 

I don't feel like atheists are overly villified. Sure, some conservative religious types think they're all self-centered, greedy, kitten-killing hedonists. But then again, some atheists think all conservative religious types are brainwashed, mindless, sex-hating, gay-hating zombies. I call it even.

Yep. That's essentially my position, though it's not literally the fear of "death," but the fear of non-existence.



I was big into philosophy back in college. I took some very high-level courses just for the sheer hell of it. I remember having this whole "existence of god and assignment of meaning" conversation for about an hour one day with about 15 people in Philosophy of Mind.

So it was me against a bunch of conservative catholics, essentially. My position in a nutshell was that "there is no higher meaning; meaning is arbitrarily assigned by humans. And there's no afterlife. And I'm okay with that." What I found interesting was that most of my opponents' primary arguments against this idea summed up to "that can't be, because it's too depressing." Seriously. That's what it boiled down to. The professor even took the liberty of pointing this out to them.

That said, I'm never going to say "I'm an atheist, the end, it's that simple." Nobody can prove there's no god, and no one can prove there is. Since neither can be proven, I can't really discount either position, can I? But if I HAD to choose one, I'd say there's no god. Take a look at the bigger picture of history, and the evolution of the god concept seems too sociologically and politically convenient not to be made-up.

 

Most theists that I know believe in Science/Humanity/Evolution.

I certainly do. However, I do not reject the notion of God. Au contraire mon frere. Carry on....

 

I don't give atheist grief for their beliefs. I just don't understand how anyone cannot believe in a creator......especially based on science.

 

Be careful: one can choose to believe in science/humanity/evolution AND God (take, for example, ME ). One does not preclude the other. To be clear: atheists reject the notion of God. That is the only thing that makes them atheists. It's not science/humanity/evolution.

I actually agree with this, and have personally witness atheists begin treated with disdain and contempt, like they were woefully ignorant or, for lack of better term, "broken" because they didn't believe in God. I found it very disheartening.

Good for you! You should be proud of your beliefs. Just remember: there is a fine line between being proud and forcing your beliefs on others. Sadly, many Christians cross that line all the time. Crossing it yourself won't help your case much.

Again, be careful: atheists do not corner the market on caring about people. That being said, it is amazing to see how atheists are treated in America. I watched Bill Maher's Religulous and was very disappointed. Not because I disagree with him, but because his argument was very weak. He seemed more intent on making fun of Christians than really trying to get them to question their beliefs.

One stat he mentioned did stick out to me, however: 16%. That the percentage of Americans who are atheist. Larger than the population of African Americans, GLBT, not to mention any other religion except Christianity. It seems to me that to vilify (and if you think atheist are vilified, check this out) 16% of our population for ANY reason is wrong.

 

Well, it IS pretty depressing if you think about it. Remove the possibility of an afterlife, and we are reduced to machines serving a Darwinian master. We exist merely because of thermodynamic and natural selective processes. Nothing more. We are no more than the applied rules of physics unfolding itself into complete entropy. Human existence has no more meaning then a bug's existence.

That's not something many people...including atheists...are willing to accept. But that is the implications of what scientific evidence tells us. That we in fact are very very complex robots, our emotions merely a part of control to get us to take certain actions - namely around survival and reproduction.

I see this as a distinct possibility...but I don't rule out that there is something "more". In fact, even though I suspect there is nothing more, I allow myself to buy into it a bit, because, it's like wanting a happy ending for a movie...why not? What use is it to be an atheist at the end of the day? It doesn't really get one anywhere...believing in god makes life more tolerable - it might be an illusion, but heck, everything we attach meaning to really is an illusion because as you have pointed out - nothing has any meaning.

I think the kind of thinking here....is actually dangerous for a lot of people because it could turn them into nihilists. As for me. I figure that no matter what, it's pretty freaking amazing that a bunch of randomly vibrating mathematical strings has the ability to be self-aware of itself and gets to play around for a handful of decades.