What is the main reason for atheism?

Question

Are really just angry people who need proof for everything?
Are they just too vain to admit that there is something higher than us?
Why must they do everything they can to prove that theists are wrong and wasting their time?
Why would they rather depend on science that cannot help them after death?


And please.. no b*tching.



I'm 15, in highschool and i just want to know why atheists are atheists. I'm doing a report.

I said "and please no b*tching" well all of your answers seem angry to me. Why must you be offended so easily when you guys see Christians as stupid for not seeing the "truth"? And yes you can argue that some Christians do that to , but why do atheists have to "see" to believe? One thing that almost all theists and atheists agree on is that we are better than animals. But i believe we aren't. I believe that God made all animals divine with no potential of evil or hate towards one another. If you guys are atheists, why are you wasting your time talking about religion and spirituality? I thought religion only holds you back, so why are you putting your heart and soul into typing your beliefs about life? And that is the real reason why i asked this question. Are any of you guys really atheist. Why don't you stick to your beliefs. Oh, i forgot, that's becuz religion holds you back!

It's also like saying the big bang made it all happen, end of story. This is not about Christianity alone. This is about the belief about intelligent design. Theists "should" really be asking, " How did he really do it?" "What was the process exactly like?" I'm a Catholic, and most Catholics don't take geninsis seriously, or even take the Bible as a good source of knowledge. Most atheists try to jam into my head that there is no meaning of life. Our lives don't matter. So why bother trying to discover how life started. Atheist should really just live their life since there is no hope after death. That makes atheists vain for trying to tell every one the origin or purpose of life. So they can make themselves feel superior. thats the belief right? Survival of the fittest.

Answer 1

They are mentally healthy and emotionally stable. They are under-represented in prison populations and divorce statistics. They have contributed to society's progress in countless ways, and they go through life using common sense, logic, and rationality to reject superstition and bigotry.

Answer 2

Firstly: atheism isn't a religion, which means that people who call themselves atheist only share the idea that there is no god, but that is about the only thing that binds atheists together: every atheist has other ideas. Compare it with catholics, protestants, baptists, new born christians, etcetera, but a lot more.

Now to answer your questions:
1. No, what have I got to be angry about? I admit, I'm getting exasperated by the stupidity of mankind sometimes, but it makes me laugh as well sometimes.
2. No, being vain would mean that I believed there is something higher than us, which I don't. So there is nothing to be vain about.
3. I don't, I only try to make people think for themselves and not parrot other people. Christians tend to do this a lot, but not all of them. A lot of atheists do this too.
4. What would I need science for when I'm dead?

It's an interesting report you are making, only I'm curious: has anyone explained to you what it means to ask unbiased questions? I encourage you to ask around.

Good luck!

************
Added after reading your comments:
- I have read most of the answers, but to be frank, I don't see that much anger. Maybe you are looking for it?
- And where do you get the idea that atheists tell you there is no meaning to life? The meaning of life is development, making yourself better, to learn, to help others, to contribute to mankind and humanity by thinking about cause and effect and your role in it. Everyone has their own ideas about this and yes, a part of this group is religious. So what? If that helps them be better people then I encourage them. But make up your *own* mind, and do not copy other people's minds.

Answer 3

"Are really just angry people who need proof for everything?"

I am not angry at the moment. I do believe that something must be proven as fact before it can be taken as such.

"Are they just too vain to admit that there is something higher than us?"

It has nothing to do with vanity. I do not believe that I am the highest form of life possible, or the best form of life even on our own planet. There are many life forms that are better at adaptation and survival than humanity. I simply do not believe in any god/godess.

"Why must they do everything they can to prove that theists are wrong and wasting their time?"

I can't say that I have been guilty of this. I try and debate on a philisophical level, and point out flaws in logic. Everyone lives there own life as how it fits them. I can say though that I adamantly fight against theists imposing their dogma on my lifestyle. Just because they believe it doesn't mean I should adhere.

"Why would they rather depend on science that cannot help them after death?"

We all depend on science. I support science as an attempt to understand the way the universe works. I also support science as the attempt to better our ways of life. I could likely survive for a bit without science, but I think humanity would fail without any science (Remember, even a sharpened stick is some science). We as a species are not well adapted to surviving in the wild with no form of technology at all. We do not have sharp claws, or sharp teeth. We do not have hardened skin. Our muscle structure is much weaker than most predators, and we are very slow runners. On the whole we would either be doomed without any science, or evolve to suit our environment. Of course if we evolved we wouldn't be the same species any more, and so no more humans.

The "after death" doesn't concern me, as I don't believe there is anything there.

Hope this helps you understand a bit.

Answer 4

Well, your report is off to a bad start. Atheists aren't 'angry people'. Why isn't asking for evidence considered a virtue? Why should taking things on faith without looking into it at all be considered a good thing? If I told you that you owed me a million bucks, and you just don't remember, you'd be skeptical, right? Isn't that a good thing?

Main reason for atheism - lack of any proof whatsoever in any gods, ever.

Depends on what you mean by 'higher than us'. If you mean a superior intelligence, sure. There are plenty of people out there smarter than you and me. But there's no evidence for a god. If I told you there was a superintelligent dinosaur out there who personally designed you, would it be considered vain to be skeptical of that claim? Of course not.

If you were spending all your time and money on something that didn't exist, wouldn't you like to know about it? If you were persecuting people (atheists, homosexuals, women in general) for absolutely no reason, shouldn't we try to get you to stop?

How do you know there's anything after death? There's no evidence that anything happens besides us dying. Why spend your whole life waiting for the afterlife that probably doens't even exist? Make the most of this life - you probably won't get another.

Answer 5

If you're doing a report, you're doing so with prejudice. You are assuming that atheism is a negative, at least that's what I gather from your tone.

It is a philosophical stance. One chooses to believe only that which is capable of being proved. Religion accepts on faith, without proof. Atheism chooses to require proof of a being before pledging alliegance to such. It's not arrogance, anger or anything else.

As far as "do everything they can to prove that theists are wrong", the same can be said of theists. If there were less people preaching hellfire and damnation, and pushing religious agendas on an unwilling population, then perhaps atheism might be less strident in their tactics. As it stands, atheists, homosexuals and others are constantly condemned by the believing public as evil and vile. Don't they have a right to be vocal as well?

Answer 6

You realize you'll get very mixed answers here?

My answer is that the rise of science in the 18th and 19th centuries created new ways to think about some questions that had previously been the province of religion and that religion had offered the wrong answer. As this thinking grew stronger it became possible to provide more and more explanations for religious questions.

Add to this the enormous death and destruction caused by the Thirty Years War between Protestants and Catholics and some people began to think that religion was more trouble than it was worth. Society and government were dominated by religious views and participated in a lot of oppression.

Finally, the standard of living in Western Europe and America rose significantly in that time period making people feel more confident and able to solve their own problems.

So, to summarize, incresed scientific knowledge, politics and economics all contribute to the expansion of atheism.

Hope this helps and good luck with your assignment.

Answer 7

I'm not an atheist. As a matter of fact, I'm a Christian. It is sad that people turn to not believing in God b/c they don't have any evidence. They believe in books written by people, and yet there is no evidence backing up what the books say. Even though someone tells you there is evidence, you have never actually seen this evidence yourself. So atheism, to me, doesn't make sense. I think that atheists are just people who have had bad experiences in their lives, whether they admit it or not, and that have a hard time believing in things that are foreign to what the world's logic tells them. It's just like the Theory of Evolution. If Evolution is true, then why are there still monkies?? I hope that helps :)

Answer 8

In my case, fifteen years as an adult being a serious bible-studying believing Christian which led me to atheism.

Amongst all the other things (which supported the conclusion) it was careful study of the bible and the history of the Christian church which convinced me that, at core, Christianity was not what it claimed to be.

It was, and is, question of truth versus comfortable illusion, basically.
And your final question is too loaded with assumptions to answer except with another:
How are you sure *anything* can help you after death? Try a bit more doubt! It's a wonderful tool in the hunt for the truth.

And please, in your report don't add to Charles Fort's category of "The Damned" by misusing or ignoring data.

Answer 9

I am an atheist simply because I do not believe in God. I think I stopped believing in God when I was in my early teens just because religion didn't make sense to me anymore. Christianity is no different than those "crazy" polytheistic religions that were practiced in ancient Greece and Rome. I have no problem with Christians, just so long as they keep God out of the government, and they don't try to push their beliefs on me. People have tried to convert me many times, but it doesn't work, because they fail to understand that I cannot make myself genuinely believe the things they are telling me.
Hope this helps!
Lieberhaeschen

Answer 10

My brother claimed to be atheistic for a while... What I saw in him was that he felt that his belief in God didn't explain the bad stuff that was happening. He felt that if there were a God, and if God were as loving as he'd been taught, these horribly sad things wouldn't have happened....

I think he's going to another church, now. He's made a lot of life choices that have brought sadness and pain to our family. I'm learning how to love the sinner without condoning the sin. It's a fine line to walk.

Answer 11

I am not angry. I do not hate god. I do not hate anyone. I just don't believe in God. The reason is logic and evidence. I was a christian. I realized that I did not really believe in miracles, the biblical accounts of creation, Jesus' birth and resurrection, ect. I decided to be true to what I knew and became an atheist. Its a very liberating thing.