If you don't believe in atheists is that a good reason to think they don't exist against all the evidence?

Question

I'm thinking about an answer given by Doug Lawrence to a question about atheists, quote:
"I don't believe in atheists. I don't think they really exist."

Answer 1

You can see and touch an atheist. Why would you think they don't exist?

Answer 2

If the guy has severe mental problems then yes that´s a perfectly good reason, however here I am a genuine atheist, perhaps, he actually means atheists are just liars who really do believe in God but won´t or can´t admit it.

Perhaps Doug has had his head buried in a bible for too long, and has missed just whats been goin on over the thousands of years that humans have been around. I mean does he really think that all the atheists died out after the birth of Jesus? and everyone born after the arrival of Christ automatically believes in God? he´s entitled to his opinion but he´s well and truly wrong...

I dont believe in any supreme power or unseen force, if there was one then it sucks and I renounce it right now, and may my death be my lesson to me where I will quite happily spend an eternity rotting at the mercy of another being that I don´t believe in. can´t imagine that heaven would be much more than boring anyway.

Answer 3

Similarly, some people don't believe in violence. This can be dangerous as they may go walking around at night in bad neighbourhoods thinking that they are safe until they eventually get mugged/murdered, facing the horrible realisation that violence does exist after all.

I know a guy who was opposed to Catholicism who stated to a priest, "I don't believe in priest's." He then punched the priest, thinking that the priest wasn't real. A brawl followed and both guys ended up getting arrested.

So yeah, be careful who you do or don't believe in.

Answer 4

Omg .. :))))) When the man said he didn't believe atheists exist he meant that he thinks that everyone believes in a form of supreme being, even atheists, even if they don't r4ecognize it or ar conscious of it.. this would mean that they don't "really" exist.

Answer 5

Atheists also exist as much as everyone else also exist.
Atheists exist, but their theories are false and therefore their theories don't exist factually but only in imagination. Atheists being part and parcel of God do exist, but since they want to forget God, they receive the power for this from God Himself as Lord Krishna says in Bhagava-gita(15.15),"I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas, I am to be known. Indeed, I am the compiler of Vedänta, and I am the knower of the Vedas".

Let us see a few things below as to how the atheists theories are false and thus do not exist in truth but on falsehood. Atheism is materialistic not accepting soul, afterlife, Supreme etc..

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, in his Tattva Viveka discusses with reason and logic the fallacy of Atheism which is materialistic not spiritualistic. Here it is:-

When one deeply thinks about the ideas of all these materialistic philosophers, one will see that materialism is useless and untenable. When one simply glances at them with the eyes of pure spiritual logic, one will reject these ideas as pathetic and untenable. Even ordinary material logic will show these ideas are untenable and should be rejected. This is seen in the following ways:
1. The philosophy of materialism searches for a single principle that is the root of all existence. This is a great folly. If one thinks the material atoms are eternal, the void is eternal, the relation between the void and the material elements is inconceivable, and the powers, qualities, and actions of the material atoms are also eternal, and all these things are eternal and beginningless, then he cannot accept that the material world was ever created. A person who accepts these ideas cannot reduce the material world to a single underlying principle. He must accept the simultaneous existence of many principles. What is time? That he has no power to say. In this way their attempt to find a single underlying principle that governs the material world is only the wild babbling of a child.
2. The philosophy of Materialism is unnatural and unscientific. It is unnatural because every nature has a cause. To assume that matter is eternal and is the cause of consciousness, which appears only as a by-product of matter, is very illogical. The presence of causes and effects is natural in the world of gross matter. Without causes and effects the material world would not be as it is. The philosophy of Materialism is unscientific because consciousness has the power to manipulate and control inert matter. Therefore the idea that consciousness is merely a by-product of matter is fiercely opposed to true scientific thinking.
3. Consciousness is naturally superior to inert matter. Only fools say consciousness is a by-product of matter. Professor Ferris has clearly explained all this.
4. Can anyone prove that matter is eternal? Professor Tyndall has clearly shown there is evidence to prove the eternity of matter. If someone claims that he has looked eternally into the past and eternally into the future and he has seen that matter is eternal, no one should believe him.
5. Buchner and Molescott claim that matter is eternal. That is an imagination that exists only in their heads. If in the course of time matter ceases to exist, their ideas will become lies.
6. Comte writes: "We should not try to discover the origin or the conclusion of the material world. That attempt is only childish curiosity." However, because the living entity is by nature conscious, he naturally curious to know these things. The living entity cannot perform a funeral rite to celebrate the death of his own natural curiosity. The search for causes and effects is the mother of all true knowledge. If Compte's idea is accepted, human intelligence will be destroyed in a few days. Of that there is no doubt. Then human beings will all become stunted, numbed, and unthinking.
7. No one has ever seen human consciousness created from dull material elements. Only fools believe this will ever happen. In the book I hold in my hand, a history book describing three thousand years of human history, no one has ever seen an human being spontaneously manifested from inert matter. If human life is manifest from the spontaneous interactions of material elements, then in the course of all those years at least one human being would have been spontaneously manifested from inert matter.
8. The graceful and harmonious arrangement of human beings, animals, trees, and other living entities in this world points to a creator and controller. In this way it is seen that there must be a conscious supreme creator.

In these many ways the philosophy of Materialism is refuted even by ordinary logic. Only very unfortunate people accept the ideas of Materialism. They have no idea of spiritual happiness.

Answer 6

I don't believe in atheists. I used to, but when I brought up their illustrious 20th century history, I got so many negative responses that it convinced me otherwise. Apparently the history books are wrong...

Answer 7

It's funny that he doesn't believe in atheists, who are here in front of his face--he's met them, talked with them, but he DOES believe in an invisible guy in the sky. I don't get it. Maybe we should instruct him to "just have faith" in them.

Answer 8

hhmmm hes talking out of his bum mate.