To the folks who say that there are no real atheists: What would it take to convince you?

Question

If you really think that atheists are just pretending not to believe in your deity, what would persuade you otherwise? How about committing the 'unforgivable sin' thoroughly and comprehensively and in several different ways? Would that make you accept that we really, honestly don't believe your god exists?

Answer 1

What would it take to convince you that many believers couldn't care less? Personally, I don't devote a lot of time concerning myself with what others believe. It's their prerogative. What is important to me is that I'm very secure in my beliefs. Live and let live.

Answer 2

I guess if you were happy I'd know you knew what you believed. Otherwise I don't believe the emotionally immature know what they believe yet and are still growing. Being informed about, say philosophy, would show a depth that was real. Skimming the waves and playing games is not really settled down yet. It's like a picture of a duck and a rabbit in one shape. One sees a duck, the other sees a rabbit. It's a matter of perspective on the same world. Not really that far apart. To see nothing is odd. Not to see both is odd too.

Answer 3

There are different forms of atheism, I am a practical atheist, or in other words I am apatheist. I don't care about God and Religion, since it has no effects on my life. It can also be considered a subset of atheism.

I have been preached to about god from family and friends, and I just walk away or say that I don't care to hear about God.

Answer 4

No because you are doing something to prove a lack of faith in a diety, therefore you're acknowlaging the diety's possible existance, and doing something in defiance of said diety. To acknowlage that murder is a "sin" and not a morally and sociatally unacceptable behavior is to acknowlage the existance of a diety who set forth the rules. If you were to do that I'd say that you were a scum sucking basta*d who deserves to live out a life of excrusiating torture and solitude with nothing but religious texts from all religions. In your cell. Let me ask YOU something. Why is it that when athiests want to prove that they are athiests do they not go after Taoists, Buddhists, Hindoists, Wiccans, Pagans, Indians, or any of the like? Why is it always Christians? They're not the only ones who don't think you can exist without believing in something. Hell Even by calling yourself an athiest your labeling yourself to a denomination.

People say there is no such thing as a true Athiest because Athiests are supposed to not believe in anything. To believe in love is to have faith in something. That and saying that you don't believe in a God, is stating a belief that there is no god which is the oxymoron to an Athiest who has no real belief. To believe in the nature of humanity is to still have faith in something. To think that you have a soul, would mean that you think there is an existentialist life out there somewhere no matter what you call it. Therefore because you have faith in something, even if you don't realise it or call it anything means that you are not an Athiest.

Answer 5

You have convinced me just as the Bible does agree with you and says there are real pure Atheists. It is just another "gospel" or by dictionary definition, "just another religion" that is practiced with zeal.

If that is the religion you do desire then that is your choice and I can accept it as being right for you. You need not perform some great act to prove it.

Answer 6

There are two kind of people :
Thinkers and believers.

A thinker cooks ,on his own, an exotic dish.
A believer eats a burger at McDonalds.

Religion is just fast food.
And slowly man is waking up
to the point that fast food is junk food
- heart attacks.

Choosing this religion or that religion
is like eating at McDonalds or at SubWay.

Buddha asks you to cook your own dish.
You know what you are eating.
Saturated or unsaturated.

Answer 7

I run into the same problem. The series of questions that Richard Dawkins asks is worth reviewing. Find him on Youtube.
He asks if they believe in Baal or Zeus and the like. Of course few people will say yes as those gods are from a different time, place and culture. And those who are so insistent these days, are almost all Christians or Muslims. Christians and Muslims always say that Ball and Zeus were false gods. You can reply that they are already atheists. They have given up Ball and Zeus. They have SHOWN themselves to already be atheists. You've given up these. Why not give up the rest? They clearly all have the same origins in stories created and told by ignorant and savage people. The old testament is full of sociopathic cruelty. In that they have given up these other gods, why are they holding onto this last sociopath, Jehovah?

And the Eucharist is a perfect example of how nutty it is. In the Jesus cult they do this witch doctor routine in which the principal shaman, the minister or priest, by magic WORDS changes wheat into meat and blue liquid into blood. We are then invited to witness cannibalism as the leader of the cult partakes of the human flesh and in the vast majority of churches, the congregation is invited to participate in the cannibalism. People who refuse communion are often scorned.
And these people who do this cannibalism twice a week have the ignorance, the blindness to self, to say the Quetzalcoatl religion of Central America was savage.
The issues Christians raise are killing and cannibalism.
What are Christians doing in Iraq today? I am not going to believe all our soldiers atheists. What is going on in Churches everywhere? They keep eating the human flesh and practicing trance inducing magic.

Same old BUSINESS that people in the God Business have always done. Same stuff that people did to control the patterns of thought in a general society that they have always done. Create anxiety and offer an impossible dream in the future. I find even relatively sane authors like M. Scott Peck to be confused about that delay, that reward in the future. It mimics the Hindu and Buddhist idea of Karma.
There is no delay. There is only now. It is all happening now. The power of choice is now. The reward is now. What did my behavior earn me NOW. And NOW. And NOW. And NOW. Now I have choice. Then is already done or still coming. It lacks reality. It has become fictive as we edit what has been and dream of what cannot arise from these behaviors or cannot be, as we live in a natural universe and ALL in it is natural.

Supernatural is just a string of words; a trance state. Nothing about it can serve as a real way to live.

I live in a place where there are evangelicals at my door, fairly frequently. It is relatively easy to focus the conversation on the disrespectful behavior of Christians as exemplified by these people being at my door to tell me I am doing my religion wrong. Who are they, in their youth and inexperience, to come criticize the way I do belief in their gods? They are clearly doing Satan's work. Etc. Etc. It is just a game and I enjoy it. When they say they are there
"To share the good news", I can respond that it is not good news to me that people who are so thoughtless and poorly educated should appear at my door, uninvited, to insult me.
You can see the tenor of my way of dealing with this problem behavior. As their intent is to change me, all of their comments can be reframed to be seen as insulting and demeaning and Anti-Christian.

They are not going to change. It is possible to look this type of behavior up in DSM, the diagnostic manual used to classify mental illness. It becomes clear reading the DSM, that people such as Christians and Muslims who insistently believe what cannot be true are mentally ill.

Unless you are a skilled therapist or linguist it is unlikely you can change them back into human beings. They almost certainly will remain zombies. They have swallowed the Kool Aid.
They will continue to be the insensitive and intrusive monsters they have become. They will continue to negatively affect Governments and social policy. They will continue the delusion that their personal cruelty and insensitivity to people different than they, is god's work.

There really is nothing to say or do that will convince them. The best plan is to stay socially different from them. Avoid doing business with people who bring up religion as part of their sales pitch. You can count on being cheated in some way. Distrust people signaling others with the sign of the fish. They are certifiably crazy. They will be intrusive and self righteous.

They will use the hypnotic of inclusive expectation to induce your positive response following development of yes sets. This is a really unethical use of this powerful linguistic tool.

Answer 8

It would make no difference to me, some are real atheists, most aren't. Plus the more that a person says about this topic the less I believe them to be a true atheist because a true atheist would not care one bit what anyone thought about them.

btw, why do atheists refer to God and Jesus so much? Why do they have names such as , "Sky Daddy", for something they say is not there to begin with? And why are they so obsessed with what others think anyway? It's like saying, "I don't believe in aliens" and then constantly trying to convince others that I don't. So, I don't believe in aliens and could careless what anyone else thinks about subject.

Answer 9

They probably just haven't met me yet.

If my level of total and utter scepticism doesn't convince them, nothing will.

Then again, I probably make most athiests look like avid believers by comparison.

Answer 10

oh so that's what this was about...

yes, i agree that some people dont know that they are being arrogant.. they think that they are the right religion so they think that everyone thinks they're the right one... just that we dont want to follow the rules of their dogma and i think, they think that we are just "playing rebelious" and pretend we dont believe in god.

excuse the double talk.