Recently I have become fascinated by Atheism and Atheistic philosophy.
I want to ask you guys (the Atheist community here) what should Christians know about Atheism?
For starters, it's not a faith or a belief. It is the absence of both. I cannot point to the absence of a cat on my floor and say it means there is an animal in the room, can I?
But you should also know that the vast majority of atheists have no problem with people believing in religions. We recognize that everyone believes things that don't have evidence at some point in their lives, that some of these things turn out to be true and others don't. The only problem arises when we are forced to act in accordance to the non-evidence-supported beliefs of others.
What type of Atheism do you agree with and why?
There's really only one form: A lack of belief in gods. This commonly coincides with agnosticism (admitting we don't know if there are gods or not, the same way we can't say for sure that fairies don't exist, but still don't believe in them until proven otherwise). But it can also be paired with spiritual nature worship, Wicca, Buddhism, or several other religions that don't specifically require belief in gods. None of these are mutually exclusive actually.
What are your opinions on other forms of Atheism or famous figures of Atheism?
I do like to read PZ Myer's Pharyngula blog and keep tabs on the atheist community that is growing like a well fed bacteria culture in the petri dish of the internet. I'm trying to read 'The Selfish Gene' by Dawkins but I keep having to put it down and lie down and think about stuff to get it straight in my head. What he's saying makes perfect sense but does so from such an unusual perspective that it's disorienting. I think it's interesting that The Selfish Gene, one of his first books, has almost no mention of religion in it. It's pretty much purely about genetics and biology. Compare that with 'The God Delusion'. The same with Myers--if you look at his earliest blog posts, a lot of it is just silly rambling, talking about why I.D. is dumb and evolution makes sense. Fast forward six years and his blog is much more 'militant', anti-religious and loud about it.
I think it's because both of these guys, respected experts in their own fields, started with the intention of teaching people about genetics and biology, but quickly realized that many folks simply aren't capable of hearing it because their religion gets in the way of scientific truth. I doubt either of them woke up one morning and thought, 'Hey, my mailbox is totally empty of hatemail and death threats, what could I do to fix that?' It was something that snowballed.
What are you opinions on anti Religion and anti Atheism movements and discrimination?
The anti-religious movements can be summed up as thus: Believe what you want. Believe whatever you want. But don't hurt anybody else because of your beliefs, and don't force us or our children to join in your rituals, and don't make laws about things based solely on your religion that affect all of us, and please stop telling us we're going to hell because it's as annoying and ineffective as being repeatedly slapped with a noodle.
As far as anti-atheism goes, I see a lot of lies being perpetuated about atheists. That we're immoral, unethical, and even dangerous. That we're unhappy and our lives are empty. (We aren't and they aren't.) That it takes as much faith not to think something exists as to think it does. That we're communists/fascists/marxists/socialists etc. That you have to be an atheist to be a liberal, and vice versa. That we 'hate' god. That we only don't believe in your religion because we want the moral license to be hedonists. That we think we are our own gods.
Every time I drive home or visit my grandparents, I see several religious billboards along the road that have been there for years. Yet when atheists put up a billboard, or a bus sticker, it is quickly vandalized. When a student insists that his school not lead a prayer at a school function due to separation of church and state, the school does so anyway and the kid drops out due to death threats, physical abuse, and social ostracizing while his teachers openly rant against him. The christians in the town were all the while claiming that this was persecution against their beliefs. Our previous president said outright that he didn't think atheists could be patriots, and could barely be considered citizens. In the army christian officers abuse and berate atheists under their command, knowing full well that any attempt to argue or resist can get them cited for insubordination.
How do I feel about anti-atheist discrimination?
I want it to stop.
