Seven Advantages of Being an Atheist, Part 2

Thanks for reading this.

I want to continue today with four more “advantages” of being an atheist. These are some of the real reasons–be they conscious or subconscious–that so many find atheism an attractive option to belief in God. Here we go:

Atheists get to blame God for everything.

This is a favorite of atheists these days. If the God of the Bible exists, they reason, then he is mean, vindictive, enjoys killing the innocent, is vain, self-centered and on his best days, confusing and contradictory. He becomes the perfect scapegoat for everything from cancer to droughts to floods to war to oppression to prejudice to ethnic cleansing to a bad economy.

This is actually an interesting argument, as it is less an argument against God and more an argument against a God that atheists can’t stomach. It reveals God as one the atheists don’t like, don’t approve of or don’t want to exist, simply because they don’t agree with what he does.

But God’s supposed bad behavior isn’t an argument against his existence, but rather an argument for his not meeting certain standards. In the chilling words of Romans 1, they put God to the test for the purpose of approving Him should He meet their specifications, and finding that He did not, they disapproved of holding Him in their full and precise knowledge. 

In other words, they wrote God off because he didn’t meet their preconceived expectations of what they think God should be. Such a posture before God is one of unbelievable arrogance, and one that is quite normal for today’s new atheist.

Atheists get to appear to be very compassionate and concerned about the poor “victims of God and religion” in the world. In truth, most are not concerned about them. But atheism gives them the bully pulpit to rage against God and sound very righteous in the process.

Atheists get to ignore those who are in need around them.

There is no moral imperative by which an atheist feels obligated to care for the poor or “least of these” around him. And while atheists are quite capable of being compassionate and others-centered people, they typically are not. They have no reason to be.

The militant atheist crowd is busy about attacking those pesky manger scenes that pop up every Christmas and threatening high school students who want to pray before football games. But you’ll find they have very little zeal for housing the homeless, serving people and families with special needs, digging wells in third world countries, reversing illiteracy, adopting unwanted children, and addressing the critical issues of the world with compassion, manpower and money–all things the church has been doing for centuries.

Atheism is popular because it gives people permission to gripe about things, blame others in the process, and still do nothing about them.

Atheists get to do anything they want.

Atheists have no reason to behave themselves. Other that what little societal pressure and responsibility they may recognize, atheists don’t need to feel accountable to anyone.

There is certainly no eternal Judge to whom they must answer, no justice waiting for them in the afterlife, and no sense of moral consciousness here on earth, so things like lying, judging, slander and most importantly, hating, all are fair game.

The point I made in yesterday’s entry drives this: self is at the center of the atheist’s worldview. And a world filled with people living for themselves is not a pretty place to be.

 Finally, atheists get to ignore what’s really going on.

This is the point I will develop further tomorrow, as I offer some suggestions for how to pray for, care for and love these new atheists.

Very few atheists claim their worldview because they have rationally followed the evidence and come to the obvious conclusion that God isn’t real. Such a line of evidence doesn’t exist. Even though they claim to be people of reason, reason is not what drove them to their unbelief. Circumstances did, and bad circumstances at that.

Show me a militant young atheist and I’ll show you a guy with a story. The stories typically involve great disappointment in or pain caused by his earthly father, significant abuse at the hands of a spiritual leader, or unbelievable suffering and loss in his formative years.

Atheism gives guys like that, guys with very difficult stories, a way out. For rather than having to believe in a God who would allow such things to happen, they can simply choose to write him off entirely. Their raging against God and the Church gives them the ability to stay just ahead of the hounds of pain and the ugly realities that are ever nipping at their heels.

That’s I why contend that there are very few true atheists in the world. Just people who are mad at God.

More tomorrow.