From: "Truth Liberty"
Subject: Re: Atheism

Q. Why do atheists spend their life-time fighting a God that doesn't exist? If I don't believe in something, I leave it there I don't spend my entire life-time fighting against it and arguing the point.

This is a very good question. It does indeed make absolutely no sense to spend one’s life fighting against a god that doesn’t exist.

Fortunately, there aren’t any atheists (that I know of, at least) who do this.

There are, however, many atheists who argue against theism, religious beliefs, and other ideas they think are ill-founded, irrational, and inappropriate for modern society. It is unquestionable that theism, religious beliefs, and irrational beliefs exist. People may disagree on what beliefs qualify as irrational, but they don’t disagree on whether such beliefs are around. Therefore, atheists can’t be accused of fighting against something they don’t believe exists.

Does this, however, completely undermine the above criticism? One could perhaps adjust it slightly to say that it makes no sense to fight against something that is irrelevant — but is theism really irrelevant? That doesn’t seem like a credible position. However wrong-headed or irrational theism might be, it can’t really be labeled irrelevant. Theism, and especially religion, have a great deal of influence on society generally. Atheists who disagree with this influence would seem to be completely justified in fighting it — just as people who disagree with the influence of bigotry and prejudice fight against them.

 

Atheiest's obviously have too much spare time on their hands, or maybe it's just their way of justifying the kind of life-style they lead. I mean it's a good theory, if there is no God then there is no accountability .... the only accountability is the law, when it comes to morals and values the law plays no part in this ..... therefore all guilt is eradicated, and if there is no guilt, then mankind can live any life-style he choose's.

I often see the claim that people are atheists in order to avoid moral accountability before God. There are, however, a number of serious problems with this. For one thing, what about the theists who believe in a god which doesn’t judge them morally? If I believed in such a god, I would still be avoiding accountability before TL’s god. Obviously, the two issues (atheism/theism & accountability) are distinct.

Another problem is revealed if we turn the claim around: is it true that people are theists merely because they lack the psychological strength and courage to stand on their own, facing the world as it is? Some do argue that and I don’t think that theists really appreciate it. This, however, is merely the reverse of the above argument.

Finally, the above argument assumes that the only form of accountability that might be contemplated is accountability before God: atheists don’t want to be accountable and, therefore, pretend that God doesn’t exist. That only works, though, if atheists also don’t think that they are accountable before family, friends, coworkers, society, etc. Do we therefore pretend that all of those people don’t exist either? Of course not — nor do we avoid being accountable before those people.

If atheists in general are no more likely to avoid responsibility for their actions than are theists, then it makes no sense to think that they would avoid theism in order to try not to be accountable. When you see someone making such an argument, it should become clear that they haven’t spent much time thinking about these issues seriously and deeply.

 

A small excert from your web page "when was the last time you saw an openly atheistic politician". Judging by some of the open life-style's politicians lead, I would have thought this would be more than enough evidence of their disbelief in God. The may not openly say they don't believe in God, but their actions certainly do.

Quite a few people seem to believe this argument, but most aren’t willing to try to make it publicly — probably a smart move on their part. For a person to say that a person’s atheism is demonstrated because they fail to lead some sort of “correct” lifestyle which is somehow “required” of a theist, they have to fundamentally misunderstand (or perhaps not want to understand) what theism is all about.

A theist is someone who believes in at least one god. Being a theist does not, contrary to what TL implies, make one a better person. Not being a theist does not automatically make one a worse person. There is no reliable connection between theism and moral/legal behavior — the only connections we can make actually suggests that atheism might correlate with better morality because the percentage of atheists in prison is lower than in the general population. Atheists are also less likely to divorce, something considered very important by conservative Christians. The Czech Republic is the most atheistic country in Europe and its rates of murder, rape, and infant mortality are far lower than the much more religious nations of America and Poland.

These correlations don’t prove that atheists are better, but they are stronger evidence than what exists for the opposite (which is zero, by the way) and effectively prevents anyone from arguing that being a theist makes one more moral, ethical, or law abiding. As for all those politicians who are leading life-styles that TL doesn’t approve of... maybe they are born-again Christians after all.

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