I've just read an answer to a question about Atheists/Agnostics, the answerer said that non-believers "lead sinful lives".
This isn't the only time I have seen so-called religious and spiritual people making nasty and spiteful comments.
So why do religious people think that Atheists are evil? I'm not evil and nearly all the people I know are Atheists and they're not evil either.
Why do people think that Atheists are incapable of love and compassion? I love my family and friends very much and I'm always nice to people when I meet them. I regularly donate money to charity and I have given blood before. I never hurt people, I don't steal, I don't have loads of one-night stands and I try to be a good person wherever I go.
So why do you think that we are all evil and sinful because we don't believe in God?
2007-12-23 09:02:29 · 48 answers · asked by Vivi 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
They have no concept of morals that don't come out of a book. The very idea that you could be a good person without the bible telling you what to do is anathema to them.
2007-12-23 09:05:34 · answer #1 · answered by Cheryl E 7 · 19⤊ 3⤋
How could preachers market their faith to parishioners without telling them 1) that their particular faith is correct and 2) that everybody else is wrong, meaning that they are inferior and condemned to hell because they are wicked sinners. It all logically follows. I am sure a lot of the preachers believe this. They are sincere. Hitler was sincere. That may be all that preachers and Hitler have in common but the point is that merely because someone is sincere doesn't make them either right or moral.
For a lot of religious people religion offers an ideal excuse to treat other people like s**t. They (other people) are, after all, sinners, so stealing their money or cheating them or putting them in gas chambers, whatever, is really doing the Lord's work...at least as they conveniently see it. This is why so many "christians" in our government believe that 650,000 dead Iraqis is just fine, and they'd be happy to slaughter 10 times that number because other people do not count with them. Especially when stealing their oil is involved. It is in this respect that religion is a source of vast human suffering and death and war, endless religious war. And in fairness it does not just apply to Christians. Israel has treated the Palestinians abominably. And Moslems have treated the Israelis just as horribly. As mellow a religion as Bhuddism is, it provided a philosophical basis for the horrible war crimes committed by Japan in WW2. On it goes. I think it is possible that no mass crimes have been committed by the Hindus but other than that the religious people have been terrible killers throughout history.
And before anyone throws Hitler and Stalin into the picture as "athiests" it needs to be pointed out that Hitler was a practicing Catholic and Stalin trained for the priesthood as a young man. So there.
2007-12-23 09:13:12 · answer #2 · answered by jxt299 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
first, i do not think that you are evil because you do not know God. I have many good friends who i love very much who are not Christians. Some people just come across the wrong way... they get defensive and then it just goes down hill from there. About the sinful thing... You see, we are all sinful, everyone is. We all sin no matter how hard we try to be perfect. I think that when we say that someone is sinful it is more meant that their sins have not been forgiven. I hope that you feel a little better now, and i know what you mean about the nastiness... there are defenantly people who are, Christians and non christains alike! :]
2007-12-23 09:12:15 · answer #3 · answered by Jane Nicole 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
From what I have experienced, atheists and agnostics get a lot of crap because they don't believe. You're somehow less of a person if you don't believe in the divine, and because religion [supposedly] teaches morality, the lack of the presence of religion must equate with immorality.
Truth be told, I've met far more non-believers who were good people than religious people. Of course I do not mean to generalize and say that all religious people are bad, or even that all non-believers are good, but it's just a single person's observations.
Having faith and convictions is a fantastic thing, but the second you start attempting to impose that haughty-taughty morality on the rest of the country is when I have a problem with it. Not all of us believe, and just because a person doesn't believe in religion or God, or sleeps with people of the same-sex, most certainly does not mean they are not moral, outstanding citizens, and I, for one, am also tired of the religious cult in this country trying to dictate who is a good person based on their skewed perceptions of reality.
2007-12-23 09:08:42 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
I agree religious people can be very nasty as their unquestioning faith makes them narrow minded and intolerant of others. Religious people have to believe that they are right which of course makes everybody else in their eyes wrong.
They want protection for their beliefs but do not think people who don't share their beliefs should have the same protection. They are hypocrites but their blind belief makes this OK to them. At it's most extreme this thinking leads to bigotry, discrimination and persecution. It's probably the reason I don't think religion is good for people and despair at the global hatred religion perpetuates.
2016-02-29 04:13:13 · answer #5 · answered by Alex 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The thing is that many Christian's forget is that we as Christian's also live with sin in our life. We are still human and can not completely eradicate sin from our life. It is the continued grace and forgiveness from our Lord and Savior that redeems us. If you have met a person claiming to be a Christian and yet have no respect for others and do not reach out in love and peace, then that person is still very much a work in progress. It is sad when people miss- represent our Lord and Savior. brush it off. I have also heard many atheists that are nasty to other people too. I do not classify all atheists to be like that. I give all people a chance to be a new person with out classifying them
2007-12-23 09:11:24 · answer #6 · answered by Dennis James 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Well because our beliefs are much different then yours, I don't think anyone is sinful or evil if they don't belief in the same things i do. I think it just depends on the person you come across, some people just make all Catholics look bad. I'm a Catholic but i'm accepting to everyones beliefs, it all comes down to the person.
2007-12-23 09:09:28 · answer #7 · answered by coolbetcch. 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Some Christians seem to think that anyone who doesn't believe the same things that they do is going straight to hell in a hand-basket and doesn't even deserve human kindness or compassion. That doesn't seem very Christian to me. I have read the Bible too and it seems to me the teaching of the Jesus they worship was quite different than what they are practising now. Maybe they need to re-evaluate their own behaviour!
2007-12-26 12:01:31 · answer #8 · answered by suzyQ™ 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
For the same reason they think all pagans are evil.From birth "god-fearing" people are taught that people who do not believe what they believe are wrong and evil and that we are immoral because we do not believe in the same god they do so we are incapable of being good people.
2007-12-23 09:14:45 · answer #9 · answered by witcheshonor 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Those people are so brainwashed by there "religion" that they think they lead a sin less life.
I was born a catholic, but i am not a religious person and i don't believe in God or Jesus.
2007-12-23 09:21:03 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
They turn nasty no more than Atheists. They should not do so but they are human. Sometimes the accusation of sin is called being nasty but the as A Christian I we and they should know that our own eye has a plank in it rather than a speck of dust
2007-12-23 09:16:23 · answer #11 · answered by Scouse 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋