Isn't it the easiest thing in the world to be an atheist?

Question

All you have to do is embrace sin and immorality. What's the big deal? Any idiot could do that.

Answer 1

Yes, it's the easiest thing in the world, while you're in the world. There aren't too many atheists in fox holes or on death beds. It's easier to pretend God doesn't exist when "you" are the center of the universe. And even easier when our culture continues to attack reference to Him at every turn.

Answer 2

Ohhhhhkay...let's start from the beginning.

Number one: People of faith do not have a monopoly on morality, they merely believe that their moral code was set down by a supernatural source, rather than societal and personal sources.

Number two: It's very true that if you take the black-and-white rules of "good" and "evil" out of the picture, what you're left with is human beings. Even human beings of faith live in states of grey, trying to attain a level of morality with which they are comfortable. This does not depend on having a faith system. Ergo atheists too are complex creatures trying to do the best they can. Pure "good" and pure "evil" are not humanly attainable things, we're all somewhere on the scale of grey.

"Sin and immorality" are entirely subjective descriptions. People of one faith very often think people of another faith are immoral and sinful. Heck, people who claim to be of the same fundamental faith have killed each other before now because of the sin and immmorality they find in each other - Catholics and Protestants anyone? The only way to prove that one definition of sin and immorality is definitive is to be right about which god exists and the precise meaning of their words. As no religion has been proved that right yet, you run the risk of "embracing sin and immorality" by somebody's definition - which might be the right one - every time you do anything at all. Just because they don't have their moral code prescribed for them in a supernatural book, atheists feel no more particular compunction to "embrace sin and immorality" than anyone else.

And finally - you're right in as far as you go. It would be easy to self-define one's moral parameters very low and say "there's no god to stop me doing what I want". Arguably though, it would be just as easy to set them equally low and say "God told me this was the right path". The yearning that is within human beings is - very generally speaking - to be a good neighbour, to help each other, to make a difference. That's why very few people - atheists or people of faith - choose to delude themselves into setting low moral standards for their lives. The challenge is to set them as high as is practically maintainable, and then live up to them. Atheists do that quite a lot.

Answer 3

few things in life are easy. especially contemplation of the nature of the universe and life. but if your the type of person who dosent like to think, sure, you can easily just decide there is no god and be done with it.

sure embracing sin and immorality at a whim is easy (although i dont agree with your implication that being an atheist means embracing immorality). but embracing a created, or programmed image of Jesus is just as easy. any idiot can do either with relative ease.

thanks for asking.

Answer 4

Clearly you don't have the slightest idea of what it means to be an atheist. We don't embrace anything but life. And don't believe there is sin period, we do however have moral and ethics based on what we believe to be right not because we are afraid of punishment. Every war in history was fought in the name of or for some god. Think of all those lives slaughtered in the name of god. Then maybe you'll rethink the definition of sin. And it's never easy to attempt to live a quite peaceful life with all you christian fundamentalists shoving your ridiculous childish beliefs down our throats.

Answer 5

Being an atheist isn't elementary. purely as believing in a faith/faith of any kind isn't elementary. No kind is elementary i'm going to tell you what i discover to be the least confusing ingredient interior the international, respiratory. It has no longer something to do faith, and you do no longer would desire to even think of roughly doing it. i assume napping could be an elementary ingredient to boot, yet respiratory is way less confusing.

Answer 6

Are you okay, let me help you up, let me help you brush the dirt off, here sit down, take it easy, is this your cap, let me shake out sand&dust, it says JESUS LIVES on the front, that's nice, you better take some leaves out of your hair before you put your hat back on, Let me get you some water, is this your christian souvenir stand scattered about, wow you need to be more careful, I'm going to dampen one of your Tshirts, this one, it says HOW WILL YOU GET TO HEAVEN, here take this Tshirt and try to wipe some of the blood and dirt from your face, that's a mean fat lip you got, and I think you'll have a shiner, take some deep breaths, you really got to be more careful, SIN is the wrong word to be throwing at the atheist's, and you played the morality card, wow. You need to take something good from thisss- whoopen you got. I know it seems there wouldn't be much good from you being beat-up at your christian souveneer stand, but just look at the responce you got. You need to read carefully the answers you got, ther'es some good reading in most of the answers. Read them 3 or 4 times, let some of that sink in my freind. Atheist's don't have it easy in this country, they're surrounded by sheeple that have woven their way into policy and politics. The (easiest thing) is to get all your answers from a book wriitten 2000 years ago by males in the Middle East. Hang in there buddy, you'll recover.

Answer 7

As a rule, atheists that I have known live far more ethical lives, and behave much more 'morally' than most so-called 'Christians' that I have known. In other words (behavior-wise), the atheists, in general, are more 'christian' than the Christians.

It is very sad (and scary) to find out that there are people incapable of behaving ethically as a matter of self-realization... and need some imaginary supernatural force to ensure your proper behavior, for rear of some kind of eternal supernatural punishment. I dread to think of what their life will be like... and the lives of everyone around... should they come to realize that all of their controlling beliefs are the product of the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of an ignorant bunch of Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat herders.

Cooperation and altruism are inate properties of human existence... a more sophisticated version of the social organization that you can see among pods of orcas, packs of wolves, lion prides and troops of chimpanzees. Moral consensus, moral conscience and mutual empathy are evolved survival traits. These are social constructs... the social lubrication that allows people to exist together. People come away with the misconception that they don't exist, absent religion. The religious puppet masters try to perpetuate that idea, in order to protect their conduits to wealth and power... but that is a canard. This has to do entirely with human nature.

People who don't agree with that should chew on THIS for a little while. Christians make up about 75% of the US population and 75% of the US prison population. No big surprise there.

Atheists, on the other hand, make up about 10% of the US population... but they only make up 0.2% of the US prison population. Now, isn't THAT a surprise? That means that on a per-capita basis, atheists are FIFTY (50) times LESS LIKELY to be incarcerated than Christians. Pretty strange, huh, for a group that has no god-given guiding moral principals?

I can only think of two possibilities that might reasonably be said to account for this discrepancy:

1. Atheists are of a higher ethical and moral caliber than Christians, and thus are less prone to do the same kinds of nasty things that land so many Christians in the slammer;

OR,

2. Atheists are, overall, a lot smarter than Christians and thus, they are less likely to get caught in the course of their transgressions.

It's GOT to be one or the other... take your pick.

(Statistics from US Bureau of Prisons, 1997)
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Answer 8

Beg to differ. I may indeed be an idiot, but I'm also 45 years old and immorality would look damned silly on me. Immorality -- real, thoroughgoing, health- and sanity-risking, headline-raising immorality -- is a young person's game.

As for sin, have you noticed that the only ones who talk about it -- the churches -- also claim to be the only ones who can cure it?

Answer 9

Yeah, I would say it's pretty easy to be an atheist. Actually thinking for yourself really comes pretty easily for me. Questioning what people tell me because I care about what could potentially pollute my mind really isn't that hard. And not accepting a concept because I'm not blinded with fear from the consequences of doubting dogmatic concepts - really ain't all that difficult

On the other hand, it must be really difficult to believe in God just because someone sang you little Bible songs all your life and scared the living daylights out of you when you were little, to make you think that if you didn't believe in "God" you would spend an eternity in some fictional Hell.

It must be hard to just accept something just because you've been told it all of your life. It must be hard to think for yourself. It must be hard to fathom that someone somewhere along the chain of command of your church, probably doesn't have YOUR best interest at heart. Surely there couldn't have been Catholic priests that raped altar boys. Surely David Koresh wasn't real. That stuff was all made up by that damn liberal media.

Answer 10

Wrong. Most atheists are not immoral. I, for one, am a moral person, I do not believe that murder is good. I may sin, according to religious beliefs, due to the fact I do not follow their religion and believe in their god. You're only 1/3 right.

We do not attempt to sin, we do sin indirectly by not believing, but we are moral. So...

Answer 11

Plenty of religious people are into sin and immorality.

They're just hypocrites about it.

Not all atheists are necessarily immoral or sinners (except for the bit about everybody being sinners.) Not believing in deities doesn't mean a person is amoral.