In response to five common misconceptions about atheism
Atheists are the least trusted minority in America today.
What, you were thinking of a different group? If so, that isn’t surprising, given that there has been great pushback (as there should be) against negative attitudes towards Muslims, members of the LGBT community and immigrants.
However, not many are quick to defend atheists. As a result, 47.5 percent of Americans would disapprove if their child wanted to marry an atheist, and 40 percent of Americans would not even vote for an atheist as president (a University of Minnesota study and a Gallup poll, respectively).
In an effort to combat misunderstanding and prejudice, I have compiled and responded to five common misconceptions of atheists and atheism.
1. “Atheism is a religion.” Yes, it sounds absurd, but this is one of the most common misconceptions. The most essential thing to understand about atheism is its definition: the lack of a belief in any god. If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sex position and “not collecting stamps” is a hobby.
2. “Atheism makes no sense because without religion, what basis would we have for morality?” How about a basis in respect for human rights, and a commitment to equality and moral progress? Atheists have the capacity to be moral (or immoral) just as religious people do — the difference is, no atheist has ever justified atrocities (bombing abortion clinics, beheading cartoonists, medical neglect/murder of children) in the name of atheism.
3. “Atheists believe everything came from nothing.” This stems from a misunderstanding of the Big Bang theory (no, not the sitcom). The truth is, although it is well-accepted the universe expanded from a singularity, scientists do not yet know why or how this process began. An atheist is simply someone comfortable saying “I don’t know” when it comes to such questions.
4. “If atheism is true, life is meaningless.” No atheist I have ever met would say that life is “meaningless.” Each one has their own interests, passions, family and friends that make living worthwhile. Consider this: if the totality of our conscious experience is limited to this one life, shouldn’t we treat it as the infinitely valuable gift that it is?
5. “People are just atheists because they are angry at God/because they hate religious people/because they don’t want to believe/because (any other made-up reason).” Atheism is not a choice. Do you, reader, believe in Zeus? Probably not. But you never chose not to believe in Zeus — you have simply lived your life without having been convinced otherwise.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I implore you to take seriously and spread awareness of the bigotry against atheists, as you would bigotry against any other minority group, in accordance with Guilford’s core values of community, diversity and equality.
Tim Riches • Nov 15, 2015 at 2:29 pm
Thanks for writing this. I would like to expand upon one point you made that is particularly difficult for many theists to understand: Atheism is not a choice.
Beliefs are not a choice. We are either convinced of something or we aren’t. Sometimes we just learn something and it changes what we believe. We just begin to think differently. We can’t choose to go back and believe in something we don’t believe. And in order to maintain religious faith, you have to give the relevant beliefs protected status, even from your own critical analysis.
“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.” (Christopher Hitchens)
Thinker • Nov 14, 2015 at 6:48 pm
Short and to the point. Very well said.
Steve Greene • Nov 13, 2015 at 7:12 pm
I almost completely agree with your discussion.
In regard to point 3, where you state, “An atheist is simply someone comfortable saying ‘I don’t know’ when it comes to such questions,” I think it is also important to add that in saying “I don’t know,” atheists intuitive or explicitly understand the inherently fallacious nature of the ‘god-of-the-gaps’ argument that is employed so often in religious rhetoric.
In regard to point 5, I happen to disagree with the portrayal of atheism as “not a choice.” It certainly is a choice. For example, when confronted with claims about Bigfoot, you make some sort of choice whether or not to accept the claim, based on some manner of judgment. We make these sorts of choices/decisions about knowledge/empirical claims all the time. In regard to claims about the Christian God (which is actually a morphed Yahweh from the Old Testament god), a person whose “manner of judgment” relies carefully on rational, critical thinking and basic evidentiary standards makes the (the judgment) that the claim(s) are unsupportable and so chooses to discount them. Since Zeus-related religion is defunct and hasn’t been around for a very long time, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. (Though it may be informative to people who believe in the morphed Yahweh to be made aware of the fact that atheists discount their beliefs in Yahweh exactly like they themselves discount beliefs in Zeus.) I can see where for many atheists, it’s really not much of a decision (a choice), in not having had much contact with the rhetoric of religious belief and in a pragmatic way not even taking the nebulous nature of religious rhetoric very seriously in the first place (seeing the stark contrast between the nature of religious rhetoric and, say, scientific discussion and it ‘close to the bone’ nature of relating to objective information about reality) – however, for many other atheists (if not most in the United States), they are people who were either raised in religious families or were at least surrounded by friends, and fellow students in school, who were religious believers and thus, in some manner, had to deal with making decisions about the religious claims all around them. In all these cases, atheism is a definite choice – a conclusion based on making rational evidentiary-based judgments they were confronted with.