The Inability of the Religious
to Comprehend the Atheist Mind

This short article was formerly a post I wrote on my forum. I liked it so much that I decided to keep it as a short article before I removed it.

The reason that believers are so bad at building straw-men

The vast majority of the arguments presented by Christian apologists on their numerous web sites, blogs and chat rooms are straw-men arguments. These are attempts at defeating atheism by stating some belief or concept they think and atheist holds and then despute it. This never works, because no atheist holds the views or ideas that the apologist states in the beginning.

This is not done because Christian apologists are bad people, or that they are intentionally dishonest. It happens because very, very few Christians can ever think like a genuine atheist. For some odd reason, the worst offenders tend to be Christians who claim to have been former atheists.

As I talk to religious individuals I am often shocked by their inability to see things as an atheist sees them. I guess part of the reason I feel this way is that I have been atheist for so long (24 years) that their mind and mine are as alien from each other as a visitor from another world would appear to the average American.

The Religious will often say things like “you think you have no faith, but atheism is a religion too”, and “you must have faith in science to believe in it.”

That always gives me a chuckle, because they just don’t get it. Atheism is an absence of belief in any gods, the exact opposite of religion. What I imagine the Christians are trying to say is that atheism is a belief system, but that isn’t true either, at least not for all atheists. Atheism is a belief system as practiced by some Western European and American atheists, but not all. I would have to admit that for me, I have incorporated my atheism into a belief system, probably not the belief system Christians suspect or think it is, but one nonetheless.

Attacking Science

It might surprise some religious believers, but I was not “converted” to Atheism by science. Instead I slowly came to realize that I did not believe in Christian teaching (or the Christian god) over a period of several years, long before I came to the conclusion that the Theory of Evolution was probably true.

And even more interesting is the fact that a Young-Earth Creationist could not possibly convert me to Christianity by knocking science or the Theory of Evolution, but instead would have to demonstrate that the Christian god was real. Demonstrating to me that Evolution was untrue would only cause me to look for a third alternative since I have already proven Genesis wrong by proving the Christian god does not exist!

I have not substituted a faith in science for religion either. My inability to believe in a god has nothing whatsoever to do with science. If all science were proved to be wrong tomorrow that would not at all mean that religion is right. Just because pigs can’t fly, does mean that cows can.

What Is Faith?

Next, we come to the discussion of “faith.” Faith as I define it is belief in something without evidence. I would go further and say that religious faith is belief in an idea in spite of any evidence. Most religious individuals mistakenly interchange the words “faith” and “belief”, which are two very different things.

For example, I have read the arguments of scientists; I have read and even performed a few experiments of my own. I have used several formulas from physics, and conducted experiments that verified that nature behaved as the laws predicted. This gives me evidence, on which I base a belief that science is probably right, about most of the suppositions they make, about the universe and how it came into being. If you could conduct an experiment that showed some scientific theory wrong, using a repeatable process, then I would have no problem casting that theory aside. Therefore, my belief that science is probably true, is not “faith.”

Now, let us look at religious faith. The belief that some big-daddy in the sky made everything, that he is watching over us cannot be proven, and cannot be verified. It is a belief with no evidence whatsoever, it is entirely based on a feeling. To have such a belief requires faith, my belief does not.

My Faith

But, I do have some beliefs based on faith. Let me explain, I cannot prove, but yet believe that truth exists and that it can be discovered through experimentation. (Maybe some philosophers can prove this, but I don’t have that skill and don’t want to take the time to learn it.) I am satisfied with that belief, I feel that it is right; therefore, that is MY faith. I believe there is a real world “out there” and that I can discover THE TRUTH if I only look for it. It is unprovable, and actually contradicts science (Quantum Mechanics), but I do not believe anything is inherently unknowable.

I have faith that if a statement is true (such as the Christian claim that Jehovah exists) then I can test the claims made on his behalf and prove it one way or the other. If you posit that this deity is loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, just, uncorruptable and unchanging; then claim that an inerrant Bible is his record. Then you have set up an easy thought experiment. All we have to do is compare your definition of God to the being presented in the Bible to conclude that no such person exists.

If you critically think about it, an all-powerful being who refuses to reveal himself is a pretty bizarre idea. Why not show himself? That way unbelievers could know what they were supposedly deciding on? Why judge people as ‘damned’ based on their inability to accept without proof? How can that make sense to anybody?

Old Testament style religions that judge people on their works makes a lot more sense than the New Testament concept that belief or acceptance of an ancient preacher is the way to eternal life.

What Do I Know?

Churches I grew up in claim that there is a Christian god that answers prayer; they claimed that laying hands on the sick would cure them, that this god performed miracles, even further that he would come and live in your heart where you could feel and “know” him. I never felt him. I prayed and prayed for years in absolute sincerity. I begged and pleaded in tears for him to make himself known and live in my heart. I tried time and again to prove that such a being existed, and in every experiment he failed. The more I looked the more the universe matched one with no god in it. After blowing many years of my life trying to get an answer from the big sky-daddy, I finally got smart enough to realize that he wasn’t there. At this point I am absolutely certain that the Christian version of God does not exist.

While I may have comfortably proven (to my own satisfaction) that Jehovah does not exist, I do not believe (but cannot prove) that no other gods exist; therefore, I am both Agnostic and Atheist. I cannot prove that no god of any type exists, but I do not believe there are any. I also think that the likelihood that any other god exists is not worth wasting any more of my one-and-only-life pursuing him/her/it.

Conclusion

To reach the average person who calls himself or herself an ahteist, the Christian has to put aside many false assumptions before trying communicate. As a matter of fact, if all you want to do is convert them, it is best if you don’t communicate at all.