Why are people afraid of atheism?

[gadgetlady 4]

I should clarify -- regardless of their age, I would say no to SAW. And Schindler's List and Passion of Christ would depend on their sensitivity level. They're a no for me and I'm 41.

[tapshoes 2]

I have been following this thread with interest. I believe that it is normal to wish one's children to hold the same values and beliefs as oneself. This is only human nature. I know that as an atheist I would be inclined to shield my children from religious influences until they were old enough to sort through the information with what I would consider to be reasonably well developed critical faculties. It is understandable that believers feel the same way.

I agree - this thread (while sometimes unecessarily volatile IMO) has been a fascinating read. Protecting is one thing; denying or damning another viewpoint is another.

As the product of an atheist and a Christian, I was exposed to both views (and was taught to respect both). I was encouraged to attend a church - any church to appreciate the beauty and peace that the structures and the people offered. I attended christian (of all denominations) churches, a synagogue, and when I found one a mosque. Equally, I was encouraged to read science and learn how the marvelous entity (the body) has changed over millenia.

I read everything - from religious, to science, to fantasy. I saw movies from the Wizard of Oz (is it fantasy, demonic or a parable), to religious (and I don't mean a light hearted Going My Way with Bing), and found pleasure in all - and never thought of any of them trying to 'convert me'.

I thank my parents for not shielding me - I believe it has enriched my life and made me accepting of all view points, exposed me to wonderful literature, architecture, and movies. I can remember having great discussions with a minister asking difficult questions about different religions and the role of evolution on earth, extra-terrestrials, and the limits of knowledge. I had good discussions with religious and atheist friends about behaviour and punishment, evil and choice, angels and life after death and going to the white light.

Every parent must do what they believe is right; I just hope parents present alternate views without hatred or ridicule.

Life really is too short.

[TommyO 5]

For the record, I am not anti Christian as a matter of fact I beleive strongly in the rights of an individual to believe what ever they want. I also believe that it is important to be able to disagaree about ones beliefs and to be able to debate. If I disagree with you it's not because I hate you it's because I disagree with you. If you should decide to take it personally I have no control over that.

It, too often, is convenient to claim to be persecuted when you have nothing of value to add.

[TommyO 5]

Gadget, here is my question. You maintain that the bible is a literal document. Some would say that it is written by man and so up for interpretation, you say no it was written by man through God. Given that you beleive that the world was created in 7 days (Actualy 6 plus one for a nap). So the bible is literal but in the bible says that the earth was a circle and the term circle is used because man is too stupid to understand Sphere at that time in history. I understand that man might not be able to understand what a sphere is but I bet someone who was omnipotant could explain it. But he couldn't explain it to man so he use the term circle okay. Why is it not possible that God wouldn't have simplified the whole genisis thing or the flood thing to stupid man. I mean really, God could have took a piece of clay and roled it into a ball and said "Hey stupid this here is a sphere"

And how do we figure out what parts God dumbed down and what parts God explained in detail and who gets to decide. I continually here fundamentalist Christians say how the bible is literal but as soon as you point out something from the bible that is just plain silly the response is "you need to understand God was explaining this to an idiot" So the world was created in 7 days but I will use the term circle because you are too stupid to comprehend what a sphere is.

As an old freind would say "It don't make no sense to me"

[gadgetlady 4]

Gadget, here is my question. You maintain that the bible is a literal document. Some would say that it is written by man and so up for interpretation, you say no it was written by man through God. Given that you beleive that the world was created in 7 days (Actualy 6 plus one for a nap). So the bible is literal but in the bible says that the earth was a circle and the term circle is used because man is too stupid to understand Sphere at that time in history. I understand that man might not be able to understand what a sphere is but I bet someone who was omnipotant could explain it. But he couldn't explain it to man so he use the term circle okay.

It's really not as complicated as you make it out to be. The Hebrew word for circle and sphere were interchangeable; the word for "circle" can also mean "sphere".

Here's a great article on the question of whether the Bible should be taken literally: Stand to Reason: Do You Take the Bible Literally?

I hope you read it all. It's extremely well written and answers a lot of your questions as posed above. Here's an excerpt:

When someone asks, Do you take the Bible literally?, I respond by saying that I try to take the Bible with the precision I think the writer intended.

If we back up one step first, here’s how you can lay the groundwork for this answer. If they ask me if I take the Bible literally, I would say that I think that’s the wrong question. The question itself creates some confusion.

For example, what if I asked you if you read the sports page literally? You would pause, wouldn’t you, because there is a sense in which you read the sports page in a straightforward way. You read it with the understanding that the writer is trying to communicate something to you in a clear fashion, and the means he uses to express himself is meant to give you a solid grasp on the details about which he speaks - say which team was victorious in a game. You get an idea of what took place. You don’t think when you open the sports page, Gee, should I read this literally or not? You just read it and it’s the language itself that the writer uses and the conventions that are presumed by all readers that allow the process of communication to take place. You’re not scratching your head and thinking, Gee when he said “the Angels devoured the St. Louis Cardinals,” was this cannibalism? Am I supposed to take that literally or not?

The point is that language works a certain way and in everyday communication we understand that and never think twice about this process - until we come to the Bible. Then topics comes up that some may be disinclined to believe for whatever reason. Maybe it’s for philosophical reasons, such as a presuppositional bias against miracles. The objection may be theological or personal. In other words, there may be reasons people have that incline them to dismiss the plain sense of the Bible, the sense that we would use to read any other kind of document. But people don’t want to dismiss Jesus entirely so they find ways to understand the passages they don’t like that treats the words differently than they do in everyday use.

. . .

It’s the wrong question. It’s like asking if you take the sports page literally. Well, you take it in a straightforward way in the literal sense the writer meant them, but you don’t take each of the words literally in a wooden kind of way that ignores all the conventions of language we constantly use to understand each other. Think about the language sportswriters use to describe victory, for example: devoured, crushed, mangled, mutilated, stomped, pounded. You don’t take those literally. You realize that those words are figures of speech meant to communicate something that literally happened in reality. We don’t dismiss the accuracy of the writer because we think he literally means these figures of speech.

Every day, we take the writing with the kind of precision it seems that the author intended and we get an accurate sense of what the writer meant to communicate. That’s not a problem when it comes to the sports page, but it does raise problems for some people when it comes to the Bible because they don’t want to accept what the author seems to be telling them.

Edited May 8, 2008 by gadgetlady

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Without a God, we're still left with "where did the STUFF that evolved into the STUFF that we are now come from?" No matter which direction you go, you still have a question mark at the beginning. I've seen Dawkins posit that we might have been seeded by another entity, which of course begs the question where did the other entity come from, or who seeded them (or it)? I find it rather funny that Dawkins, when asked where they came from, falls back on the same flimsy "lightening in goo" theory. Where the heck did the lightening and the goo come from? I can ask you endlessly where the first cell came from, and you can ask me endlessly where God came from. It get us nowhere.

Okay, I think what you aren't comprehending is that with a God we're still left with "Where did any stuff come from including your God." What I see is that you don't know so you came up with an entity that answers the questions in your mind.

Me... I don't know. I don't know where stuff comes from. Not a clue. It would be fun to know the real answers but in the meantime, I don't have the slightest idea where stuff came from but I'm not going to make up an answer just so I can say I have an answer even if it is a wrong answer.

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Wow! Wake up on the wrong side of the bed much? I was using a very simple metaphor to explain a very complex idea. I guess the "metaphor" part of it wasn't clear to you.

I was just trying to explain why belief in God to Christians is VERY different than belief in nothing (or something that doesn't exist to them) to atheists. The original poster asked a very simple question and I replied with a very simple answer. Your response was rude and condescending. I do not, and never will, agree with you. But I didn't feel the need to be rude or ridicule you.

And Gadgetlady: I agree with everything you are saying. I saw a bumper sticker quite awhile ago that made me laugh out loud. Paraphrasing it (as I don't have the picture to show you) it said, "Right now, even Darwin believes in Creationism". Just thought you'd get a kick out of it :-)

I wasn't trying to be rude, I was trying to make a point. You made an assumption that atheists work hard at not believing and that simply isn't the case.

We don't have a belief in nothing, we lack belief. There is a difference.

You spent so much time complaining about how rude I was, do you care to answer the question?

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Yes, another good point Gadget, some people may say they are atheists, but they really are anti-christians... and of course, I'm not referring to anyone here either, but it does make sense.. same way some people hide behind religions to hate and do evil, some people hide behind atheism to hate Christians as well..

There are anti-christians out there. Personally, I refer to them as fundie atheists. They look as silly as fundie christians.

They are both extremes and typically lack any common sense.

[MacMadame 81]

All it would take is one time, under any circumstances, to disprove any theory. If a theory is validated 1 million times, there can be no scientific guarantee it will happen 1 million and 1.

So you think maybe some day the Sun won't rise in the East? :frown: I wouldn't bet on that. I'm guessing you wouldn't either. so there is so much about science that is repeatable. In fact that's part of what makes it science... in order for an experiment to be accepted has having proved or disproved a hypothesis, the experiment has to be repeatable.

Again, what makes it a theory is that it can't be proved via experimentation. But it has to fit the facts that are known. If it doesn't, then it's not a scientific theory.

But unlike you, if my child (being a child) wanted to be exposed to something that I didn't agree with...I wouldn't let them.

Personally, I WANT my kids to be exposed to things I don't agree with. I don't know everything and there are tons of ideas out there. How are they going to learn to examine ideas for merit, if they only ever hear the party line?

This is not the same thing as saying an 8 year old can't see Saw, IMO. Deciding when something is age-appropriate as part of being a parent. But now that my son is 16, I let him go to see things I don't like or disagree with all the time. Heck, I let him go to church when he was younger and wanted to go with his friends and that's something I don't agree with. :tt2:

[ELENATION 0]

There are anti-christians out there. Personally, I refer to them as fundie atheists. They look as silly as fundie christians.

They are both extremes and typically lack any common sense.

Yeap, fundies, fanatics of an idea or belief, it can go both ways...

[BJean 16]

Tommy there have been many, many books and studies done about whether capital punishment is a deterrent to people considering murder. It has been proven over and over that it is not a deterrent. I'm not as familiar with studies about other crimes but I do know that the number of recidivists all across the board is astounding.

[TommyO 5]

Gadget, sorry I read you article and it seems to talk in circles. When I read the paper I assume that it was not written by someone who got the story from God. All of these arguments that I hear about who/what/where/when/why interprets the bible hold no Water and always talk in circles. Isn't it a little odd that someoene would compare how we read the bible with reading the sports page. All I want to know is "Is it literall or not" As soon as you say it's literall but you have to intepret certain things I'm out.

Now I must return to my marning coffee and the sports section.

[green 6]

I wasn't trying to be rude, I was trying to make a point. You made an assumption that atheists work hard at not believing and that simply isn't the case.

We don't have a belief in nothing, we lack belief. There is a difference.

Very cogently expressed, Wasa. Bravo! It is not that we choose perversely not to believe, it is that there seems to be absolutely no reason to believe. We see zero evidence to support belief, is all.

[jlstinger 1]

I find it interesting all of the talk from atheists about good and bad, right and wrong. It seems to me these terms are meaningless outside of a theistic worldview. If we are the product of random cosmic and chemical chance to somehow talk about living as a good human being wreaks of the highest form of arrogance. Somehow atheist seem to miss this point. Why be a good human?

[brandyII 9]

Maybe because they choose to not because they're scared into thinking they'll go to hell if they don't! Still worshiping the great pumpkin, brandyII. I wish I could learn to just shut my beak, and in more ways than one!!!!!!

Edited May 12, 2008 by brandyII