Religion & Spirituality

Joey Nelson: Atheists Have No One to Thank on Thanksgiving

By Austin Cline, About.com GuideNovember 24, 2009

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I read a lot of material written by religious theists -- mostly Christians -- about atheists and atheism. I see a lot of different myths, misconceptions, mistakes, and even outright lies. Too many to count, in fact. One characteristic which I see that is common to so many different myths and lies, though, is the failure or refusal on the part of Christians to show any interest in learning something factual about the subject they are writing on.

It seems very clear to me that when they sat down to write something about atheists and atheism, they decided to rely entirely on their religious ideology instead of spending even a second doing the most basic research. What this means is that the "atheism" and "atheists" they write about aren't the atheism and atheists of the real world, but rather are just props in a religious ideology. These Christians aren't writing about real people with real histories, real feelings, and real interests, but cardboard cutouts that can be invested with whatever nonsense the religious ideology happens to require at any given moment.

Joey Nelson writes something at his Spiritual Questions Blog which is, in my opinion, a very good (or perhaps very sad) example of this phenomenon:

Perhaps, in an unguarded moment, an atheist will look up this Thanksgiving and say, "Thank you" to the One who has made their life possible. Otherwise, the thing about atheism is that you have no One to thank.

Did Joey Nelson ask any atheists about what or whom they have to thank on Thanksgiving? Certainly not. Did Joey Nelson spend even a minute doing a single search on Google or Yahoo? Of course not. Joey Nelson is relying entirely on his own ideology to answer his own question -- instead of investing any time or effort to find out what or whom atheists might thank, he assumed that without any gods to thank, there can't be anyone to thank.

Now, it should go without saying that asking an atheist about whom they might have to thank or doing a Google search aren't unusual or unexpected activities. You don't have to have a Ph.D. in philosophy or science to think of doing such things. So why didn't Joey Nelson bother? I can't answer in his specific case, but my experience with so many Christians behaving in basically the same way leads me to believe that they simply don't care.

What real atheists feel, think, and do doesn't matter. To a certain extent, we aren't real human beings with real feelings, thoughts, desires, and ideas. We are objects in their ideology and targets for their apologetics rather than independent persons who might have thoughts and positions that don't match up with what the believers' ideology tells them. If by chance some example of what we actually think intrudes on their narcissistic musings, it's all too common for them to deny that this can be true and insist that we "really" think or believe whatever their favorite apologists told them.

I think that it's fair to reduce matters to a fairly simply formula: people who care at all what you actually think, believe, or feel will ask or make some effort to find out. People who don't care what you actually think, believe, or feel will just make lots of assumptions about you based on what they have read or been told by others (and those others almost certainly don't know you) and insist that you fit into some hole created by their ideology. Anyone who says that they care what you actually think or feel but then proceeds to tell you what you really think or feel without asking is not being truthful or honest about your or their intentions.

Joey Nelson: Atheists Have No One to Thank on Thanksgiving

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