After seeing yet another inaccurate straw-man portrayal of how an atheist thinks over on a blog somewhere, I decided to actually share with anyone who’s curious exactly how this atheist thinks. So I’m taking your questions, which you can leave in a comment here, and I’ll answer. I’m trying to avoid putting the strawman on the other foot, if I may mix metaphors, and only use questions that I think a legitimate believer might ask. Don’t be afraid you’re being “offensive” or whatever, I really don’t mind if it’ll help people understand my point of view.
The questions I already have planned are:
- How did you become an atheist?
- Why an atheist and not an agnostic?
- If you don’t believe in God, why have any morals at all? why not just do whatever you want?
- How can you be so certain, given how huge the universe is and how little mankind knows about it?
- How can you say this is all there is?
- Isn’t the atheist worldview depressing?
- Isn’t it better to believe in God and be wrong than to not believe and be wrong?
- Is there anything that could make you choose to believe?
Feel free to submit any others in the comments.
Here’s my badly-phrased question:
Do you have any kind of spirituality?
I ask because I knew an athiest who surprised me by expressing some very spiritual thoughts about how the universe worked and the afterlife. I asked him if he thought this matched with his atheist identification (versus being a taoist or something else) and he identified pretty strongly as an atheist. Between him and learning about Secular Humanist churches, my ideas of atheism were thrown off.
No questions from me, because I’m probably only one or two notches removed from you on the Belief in Metaphorical Creators Scale. For my part, it’s precisely because the universe is so huge and we have so little understanding about it that informs my lack of faith. Simply put, it’s beyond my belief that we have somehow figured out exactly what’s going on and who’s in charge.
I’m perfectly willing to accept that someone/thing created the Universe, but not the notion of an activist God that roots for one side over another in soccer matches, and who handed down his Word 2,000 years ago to a world coincidentally without mass communication or sophisticated scientific analysis, then left us to work out the rest for ourselves despite the obvious need for clarification.
Do you like waffles?
I’d add the common question, “How can you live without a purpose in life?”
I didn’t think I had a question, but your last planned question “Is there anything that could make you choose to believe?” raised one, because you have an absolute stated position of non-belief there. If you’d added “in a God or Gods”, I wouldn’t have felt that way, but you didn’t, on purpose, I suppose. Do you see atheism, then, as actively NOT believing in more than just a deity? Is atheism as you practice it basically a position of rejection? Does that negation include, say, anything that must be taken on faith, whether it refer directly to a higher power or not?
I’m not sure that’s stated in a way that anyone but me knows what I’m getting at. Feel free to ask me to further explain my questions if they seem not to make sense.
–Anarkey
Even though I’m not an atheist myself I’m not shocked or amazed that others are. Nor do I find it all that mysterious. I’m actually more surprised when I occasionally hear things like “If you don’t believe in a God, what keeps you from just killing folks and stealing money from old folks?” Morality isn’t religion.
One of the most elegant atheist arguments I’ve ever seen came from some Fark forums and it might be of interest to you.
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours.” — Stephen Roberts
What do you think is the origin of choice? For example, do you think mechanistic explanations are the only one? If so, where and how does choice arise, if at all? If not, what other explanations are available, and how do they fit in?
Do you consider yourself an evangelical Atheist? By that I mean, do you think we should all be Atheists? What are the benefits of Atheism? (aside from knowing/believing you are right)
How certain are you in your Atheism? Would anything less than 100% certainty make you an agnostic or is there still room for doubt for the Atheist.
Someone asked in a comment a question like, “Do you mind if people try and convince you otherwise, knowing their intentions are good?” Or something to that effect. I accidentally deleted the comment when meaning to approve it. So if that was yours, please repost it, and sorry.
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