A list of things that skeptics and non-believers are sick of hearing from theists who always say it like a broken record
If you are an atheist, you probably heard almost all of these things from religious people, especially from Christians. And if you are a Christian that has a very distorted view of atheism, this should be a warning from you. Until now, it is not new that atheists still have a negative connotation among the religious majority, just for existing. Heck, even the word "atheist" was used to be considered as a dirty word, and even a bad and dangerous accusation to any person who questions the religious authority. But because of the modernization and the ever growing tolerance of non-belief, we, atheists, are finally achieving, albeit slowly, the acceptance that we deserve. But despite of it, there still exists many statements that are meant to misrepresent, belittle, and misinterpret the non-believers. So here are some of the stereotypes that people, especially the religious ones, must stop saying, or at least, think about them first for many times, before saying to atheists.
1. "You secretly believe in God, but you just deny him and you just want to sin."
■ I have never encountered any atheists who stop believing in the existence of God just because they have this secret overwhelming desire to jerk off or to do drugs. It's like two robbers who say that they stopped believing in cops in order for them to commit burglary. As far as I know, most of atheists stopped believing because we looked at the evidence, and we found none, and we realized that we don't buy onto these stuff anymore. It's as if after we become non-believers, we suddenly want to become nefarious sinners that wants to take away your wife anytime. Not only that it is insulting, it is also an arrogant thing to say since it kind of shows that they are assuming moral superiority, as if theists are somehow nobler than atheists.
2. "If you believe there is no God, how come that you are not out there killing and raping people?"
■ You mean, the only thing that stops you to rape and kill people is your god belief? I'm glad that you're religious, then! Geez. If you think that the only thing that stops you from murdering and raping people is that you think that there is a metaphysical entity that is always watching you, then you are not being moral, you are just being blindly obedient. This stereotype is predicated upon the idea that atheists are inherently immoral people because "they don't have God in their lives." Look, we are atheists, and we are one of your neighbors, that just want to live our own lives with morality and dignity. We just have another and much better source of moral values other than your religion and your holy book.
3. "So you’re worshiping the Devil?"
■ I'm actually embarrassed to say that I genuinely thought that atheists are devil worshipers when I was still a Christian, and it haunts me that I really used to believe this embarrassingly stupid stereotype. I usually hear this from elderly religious conservatives who actually believes in the existence of literal Satan, who is out there deceiving people, which is obviously ridiculous. This misconception might be traced from the Gospels where Jesus introduced the false dichotomy of either you're with me or you're against me (Matthew 12:30, Luke 11:23), and normally, Christians would think that anyone who are "against" Jesus are of the Devil. Like, really? There is no "neither" option? Some atheists reply to this misconception by sarcastically saying, "If I don't believe your Sky Daddy, what makes you think that I worship your Ground Troll?" which is kind of an asshole thing to say. But nevertheless, no, we do not worship the devil.
4. "Why do atheists always think they are smarter than everyone?"
■ Atheism is not a necessary component of being an intelligent person. Mere lack of belief in a deity doesn't suddenly make you rational. Just saying that you are an atheist is not enough, you also need to have a dose of healthy skepticism, critical thinking, and openness to the possibility of all of your beliefs being wrong. That's why I always prefer using the label "skeptic" or "rationalist" rather than "atheist," although that label can also be handy at some times. But professing that you are a skeptic or a rationalist in words is still not enough if you seriously don't consider the possibility that you are still prone to the cognitive biases and logical fallacies that religious people usually commit.
5. "If humans came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?"
■ Anyone who says this misconception is tantamount to saying, "I don't have any slightest basic comprehension on how evolution by Natural Selection actually works." According to the overwhelming scientific evidences for the Theory of Evolution, humans did not came from monkeys, but humans and monkeys have a common ancestor that lived and became extinct millions of years ago. Because of countless random mutations, genetic variations, environmental pressure for survival, geographic location, and sexual selections, the species of Homo sapiens and monkeys diverged so much that they are not the same species anymore. Maybe you should pay more attention to your science teacher, if you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of the people who have no problem accepting the fact that biological evolution really happens, happened, and will still continue to happen. Your inability to understand evolution is not a valid argument against it.
6. Citing Bible verses about atheists being fools
■ Those Christians who doesn't have anything to say other than quoting the Bible is exciting and irritating at the same time. As if giving me some Bible verses will magically convert me to Christianity. My all time favorite is Christians quoting Romans 1:18-23 and Psalm 14:1 as a way for saying to atheists that they are fools that don't do anything good.
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." - Psalm 14:1 (KJV)
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things." - Romans 1:18-23 (KJV)
Dear Christians who have the habit of quoting the Bible to atheists, what's exactly the point that you are establishing? Is that suppose to mean something? As if we are not aware of those verses? Plus, you're kind of showing to us how really intolerant your religion is. And beware of your usage of the word "fool" to us, you might end up in hell (if there really is one) according to Jesus himself.
"But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." - Matthew 5:22 (KJV)
7. "Why do you hate God?"
■ You know, there's a big difference between atheism (absence of belief in any god/s) and misotheism (hatred of any god/s). This myth was more popularized by, in my opinion, the worst Christian movie that I ever watched, God's Not Dead (2014) (1), aka The Motherload of All Atheist Stereotypes Movie, where one of the leading characters Jeffrey Radisson, a philosophy professor who pushes his atheism to his "innocent" students by signing a declaration of "God is dead" to pass, and he became an atheist because "he hates God" for "taking away his mother." (Just watch the whole movie, it's full of bullshit.) The point is, why would I hate someone who I don't believe exists in actual objective reality? I mean, I don't believe in the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, does that mean I hate it? Of course not. We don't hate God just because he didn't "answered our prayers" or he gave us a very difficult "challenge." We are not immature to think that. However, if you ask me the question "Do I hate the God of the Bible as a literary/mythological character?" then my clear answer is YES, in a sense that I also hate Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter and I hate Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones. If you read the Old Testament, you will know what I mean.
8. "What if you’re wrong?"
■ This is an argument known as the Pascal's Wager, introduced by French mathematician and apologist Blaise Pascal in his book Pensées (Thoughts). He argues that either God exists or not, if the Christian is right, he will gain infinite reward in heaven, but if he's wrong, he will lose nothing; if the atheist is right, then he will lose nothing, but if he's wrong, he will lose by receiving infinite punishment in hell. So, the rational bet is to believe that God exists. Yay, I guess? How about I backfire the question to you: what if you're wrong? What if you're worshiping the wrong god all along, and every time you pray, you're making the true one madder? Oooh, seems that you have much more gods to bet on. And are you really sure that if your god is all-knowing, wouldn't he know in advance if you really sincere believer or you're just faking your belief? I think an omniscient and all-wise deity would definitely prefer an honest skeptic who genuinely seeks for answers rather than a calculating "fake-it-till-you-make-it" hypocrite who's half-heartedly going to church acting like he cares at all, hoping that he will gain an infinite reward on a mere gamble.
9. "You were never a true Christian to begin with."
■ What does it even mean to be a "true" Christian? If you're a Protestant, you might believe that Catholics are not "true" Christians, and Catholics might also say the same thing to them, as well as to Eastern Orthodox Christians, to Jehovah's Witnesses, to INCs, and to others. Every Christian ever professes to be the "true" Christians while dismissing the "other" Christians as damnable heresies. But they will tell one thing to atheists, that they all have "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." So, when they encounter an atheist who used to be a Christian (like me and many atheists that I know), they just dismiss them by saying "You're never a true Christian to begin with," because "a true Christian will never give up their faith no matter what," and "they never have a true personal relationship with Christ." If you ask me, if being a true Christian constitutes a genuine personal relationship with Jesus, then I believe that there really is no such thing as a "true" Christian, because no one really had a genuine personal relationship with Jesus, only that there are people who think that they have a genuine personal relationship with Jesus.
10. "Atheism is also a religion!"
■ I heard some atheist replying to this misconception by saying that "Atheism is a religion, like abstinence is a sex position; like bald is a hair color; like 'off' is a TV channel," but I think this is slightly inaccurate. There are religions who doesn't necessitate belief in any deity, like some sects of Hinduism and Buddhism. There is also a Jewish sect called Humanistic Judaism where these Jews are culturally Jewish but they are actually atheists. However, that doesn't mean atheism as a whole is a religion. It doesn't have any creeds, it doesn't have any dogmas, it doesn't have core beliefs, it's not a moral position, and it's not a political position of any kind. It's just a label concerning one question: Do you belief in the existence of any god/s? We simply answer NO. That's the only thing that we are similar. Groupthink is not a thing in atheism, unlike religions. We can have different political beliefs, moral opinions, and scientific understanding. This myth propagates because of the theists' accusation of atheists taking things on "faith." How does a lack of belief in any deity a belief itself? How does the rejection of faith takes a leap of faith? Do you believe in fairies? No? Does that mean you're an a-fairyist? If not believing in any deity is a belief system, does that mean not collecting stamps and not playing golf is a hobby? Of course not. Unlike the religious who hold to their beliefs dogmatically and without challenging it, atheists (at least most of them) don't dogmatically believe that there is no God. I mean, we can be wrong, we never removed that possibility. Just give us evidence, and we can change our minds anytime. Most atheists (as far as I know) are rationalists and skeptics, and the basic admission of fallibilism and demanding evidence is not a component of any religion at all. Atheism in and of itself is not a dogma, but it can be treated as a dogma, which I think is counterproductive and just causes disservice to the atheist community.
11. "Where did the universe come from, if God didn't do it?"
■ I honestly don't know, and we still don't have any definitive answer to that. Even though the evidence seems to point out to the Big Bang Theory, we can still ask "What happened before the Big Bang?" And does it even make sense to ask that question? It's like asking what is the north of the North Pole. We still don't know, and we must not stop asking, because our curiosity is our fuel to continuously search for answers. Saying "I don't know" is a much more honest position, rather than merely saying "God did it" for the sake of cognitive closure. Concluding God as the answer is not an answer, it's a cop-out for the lazy minded who's already contented to easy answers. I'm uncomfortable not knowing the answers, but I'm more uncomfortable pretending that I know them.
12. "Why are atheists always so angry?"
■ Because the religious always give us reasons to be angry. Religious organizations interfering with political affairs, denying reproductive health for everyone because it "violates" their scripture, religious indoctrination of young children even though they are not matured enough to question their beliefs, using religious scripture to justify hate and bigotry towards homosexuals, pushing the mandatory Bible reading in every public schools, you name it. If you think about it, these kind of problems must not be the problem for atheists alone, it should be a problem that must handle by everyone, regardless of your religion. Because above from being an atheist, I'm a secular humanist. I believe religion and government must be separated at all costs; I believe that the government must not favor any religion at all in order to give way for the toleration of other religions; I believe that humanity should always be favored over any sacred dogma and primitive superstition; I believe that the progress of our scientific understanding must not be stifled; I believe that questioning every authority, including religious ones, trumps blind obedience of it. And if the religious fanatics still continue to hinder that, atheist, and by extension, everyone, has the right to be angry, and we have right reasons to do so.
13. "You just don’t understand Christianity."
■ It's a shame that many Christians who accuse atheists ignorance about their faith, are mostly not aware that most of us used to be Christians before deconverting. Most atheists know the core tenets of Christianity, many atheists already read the Bible, many atheists used to go to church, and many atheists used to feel the experience of the so-called "presence of the Holy Spirit." Heck, many atheists know so much about Christianity, and yet they still found reasons to reject and criticize it. Bart Ehrman, for example, is a New Testament scholar and a former fundamentalist Christian, who became an agnostic atheist despite of his deep comprehension and scholarly understanding of Christianity and its scriptures; and the aforementioned Dan Barker was also used to be a very very devout Christian preacher before becoming an atheist; as well as Matt Dillahunty, and Seth Andrews. Many of us have a great understanding of the Bible and of the Christian theology, or maybe a good enough understanding of it, enough to point out its flaws. Maybe you just need to consider the possibility that there's really something wrong with your religion.
14. "When you are suffering, you will call out to God."
■ It's not like whenever we are experiencing hard times, atheists suddenly believe in the existence of God real quick. Belief doesn't work that way. Belief requires conviction. In order for you to believe something, you need to be convinced of it. Why would I force myself to believe something that I can't help but not to be convinced? No matter how many times we experience problems, we cannot just will ourselves to believe that there really is a god. It's nice to have the pan-galactic omnipotent and all-loving creator of the universe to be my shoulder to cry on and a friend to tell my problems, or some kind of like a father figure to me. But merely wishing something to be true doesn't make it actually true. I have no choice, I am simply not convinced that there really is one. And besides, some Christians also have this weird fetish of fabricating stories about deathbed conversions of famous non-Christians like Charles Darwin and Christopher Hitchens, just to show the point that whenever we are closer to death, we just suddenly convert to Christianity just in case the Judeo-Christian God really exists. I am not afraid of death myself, because let's face it, why fear the inevitable? Everyone dies, and there are no exceptions whatsoever. And if I died and it turns out that the capriciously minded God of the Bible is the real god and he send me to hell for merely not believing in his existence, there's really nothing I can do about that. My mere existence into this finite but beautiful world is already enough for me, and at least I did my best to live a good life using my finite but precious time.
15. "It’s just a phase, you’ll get over it."
■ This is actually an offensive thing to say to an atheist, because it implies that we didn't thought about this stuff. It's not like that we are just "rebelling against God" or we just rebelling against our parents' religion because atheism is "cool" and "edgy." I'm actually annoyed of atheists who became an atheist because they think it's cool. Imagine if I say to a Christian that "Oh, you're a Christian? Nah, it's just a phase, you'll get over it." Does that sound offensive to you? I wouldn't blame you if you do. Atheism is not like an emo phase or a menstrual period that occurs to someone, and then will go away for anytime soon. Sure, I may be just a teenager, and phases seem to be a teenage thing, but I didn't leave Christianity not because I'm just being rebellious to my family's religion. I put a lot of thought into it. I thought about this for years! It's a very long and painful process. It's hard to let go of something that is ingrained to you during your childhood to the point that you think it's already part of what makes you "you." Sometimes, I hear some Christians saying that "they used to be an atheist" and treated it as a "test" for their faith before eventually coming back as devoutly religious. Perhaps that's because of their fellow Christians saying to them that it's just a phase and they are just testing by either God or Satan. I remember the time when I was still a confused Catholic and I used to go to the church of one of my friends. My friend's brother became my church mentor, and I told him my "atheistic tendencies" and he said that it's just a phase and I will get over it as long as I "accept Jesus in my heart as my lord and savior." Well, turns out that it didn't help, and the voice of reason in my head is stronger.
16. "Why do you celebrate Christmas?"
■ When was the last time you celebrated by cooking a great meal because it's finally Friday and it's your rest day? The word "Friday" came from Old English Frīgedæg which means "day of Frigga" and Frigga is the Norse goddess of love and marriage and the wife of supreme Norse god Odin (and the day "Wednesday" was also named after him). So pray tell, does celebrating Friday means worshiping the Norse goddess Frigga? Of course not. You celebrate Friday not because of religious reasons, but because it means something to you. Same to us atheists who still loves Christmas. We celebrate it not because it's the "birth of Jesus" but because it's a celebration of love and generosity. It may not mean something to us for religious reason, but means to us for personal reasons. And let's face it, who the hell doesn't like Christmas? If I ask you what is your best Christmas memories, there is a very high chance that it has nothing to do with Jesus. Maybe it's the family gathering, the gift-giving, the reconciliation of relationships, the Noche Buena, the money that your ninong and ninang gave you, the Christmas decorations, Santa Claus, you name it.
17. "Have you ever heard about Jesus?"
■ Hhmmmm....tell me more about this Jesus guy. Oh, he was born of a virgin and crucified? Wow! He died for our sins? That's nice! He is the son of God? Praise be to Jesus! Sarcasm aside, we all know about Jesus! It's not as if we are atheists because we never heard the name "Jesus" before. Or maybe what Christians who say this meant is that we know Jesus literally but we don't "know" Jesus in a sense that we accepted him as our Lord and Savior. Like what I've just said, most atheists that I know are former Christians who used to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, "felt his presence," and then they changed their minds.
18. "Why do you believe everything that scientists say?"
■ Because scientists don't declare infallibility. They admit that they can be wrong and they are willing to change their minds based on what the evidence says. Scientists have intellectual honesty and intellectual humility. Unlike apologists and preachers who are in the position of unwavering certainty, where they openly profess that they cannot be wrong in any way, or if the evidence will turn against their position, they will going to believe anyway. That's dogmatic position, and I don't trust any people who boasts that they have the absolute truth. To paraphrase Albert Camus, if absolute truth really exists, it certainly doesn't belong to the people who claim to possess it. Anyone who says to you that have the inerrant word of the creator of the universe, and they definitely know what this creator wants, they are lying to you. But perhaps, the word "lying" is a bit more harsh, maybe they are just honestly mistaken. Admire the people who want to know the absolute state of reality, but suspect those people who claim that they already know it with absolute certainty. Intellectually honest people are not like that. That's why I trust scientists more than preachers, theologians, and apologists. However, maybe not all scientists personally think that way, but basic fallibilism and falsifiability are both essential and necessary components of the scientific method itself. We trust the scientific method because it works and it's a self-correcting process. If a theory produces a testable and falsifiable empirical predictions under the expectations that the certain theory is true, then we can at least confidently say that the certain theory has a some kind of correspondence with actual objective reality, but if it fails to produce expected empirical predictions, then it is reasonable to say that the theory must be thrown out of the window. In short, if it works, then great. But if it doesn't work, then it will eventually show to you. Just change your wrong belief and replace it with what the evidence actually indicates. It doesn't matter whether our objective reality is just an illusion, as long as it has a continued reliability of producing consistent results, the scientific method can be trusted.
19. "I’ll pray for you."
■ The overall sentiment of the sentence in and of itself is nice. It can be a Christian's way of saying that he/she cares about me. But in some context, it might be an implicitly offensive thing to say. Like in a debate, or just a heated conversation between an atheist and a Christian, where the atheist's rebuttals starts to make sense to the Christian, and here's the Christian, cannot think of a much better answer and give up by saying "I'll pray for you." As if there's something wrong with the atheist? And besides, it seems like it's the Christian way to say "Fuck you" if they are losing an argument. On other occasions, the devout might say to a sick atheist "I'll pray for you." Okay, that's nice, at least he/she is nice to him, and shows a genuine concern. But mere thoughts and prayers doesn't do anything to make things better. If you really want to make a difference and actually show that you care, give him a food or drinks or better yet, medicine, in order for him to feel better. This is also the same when it comes to natural disasters when they say "My thoughts and prayers are in them," and then feel proud that they did something even though they produced nothing. To paraphrase Robert Ingersoll, a helping hand makes more difference than a praying one.
20. "What morals will you teach your children?"
■ This is a very offensive things to say on the behalf of atheist parents who raised their children with a very moral life without the need of religious dogma. As if religion is the only thing that you can introduce to your children in order for them to learn morals? Many people think that despite of its flaws, religion at least instills morality to us. Except that it's laughably false. Morality doesn't come from religion, it comes from us, humans, from our built-in evolutionary desire to be nice to each other. Some Christians might say that the virtues like humility and the Golden Rule are Christian ideas that atheists are just stealing, as if Christianity holds the monopoly for all of the great virtues. I hate to break it to you but Confucius already said that you should not do bad things to others if you don't want them to do bad things to you, five centuries before Jesus was born. And the Golden Rule is not even an original Confucian idea, since Jews, Egyptians, Zoroastrians, Greeks, Taoists, and practically every religion ever, already figured this out independently. That's because humans already have the innate sense of reciprocal altruism that was refined by evolution over time. So no, Christians don't own all moral virtues, and it's disgraceful to think that atheists are incompetent parents because of their distorted view of the nature of morality.
21. "Hitler was an atheist!"
■ Oh yeah, Hitler also championed animal rights and led the first campaign of cigarette banning, does that mean all of animal rights activists and anti-smokers are Nazi supporters? It's a worthless, meaningless, complete red herring. Hitler was a Roman Catholic, and he was not excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church despite of his atrocities. He may not be a sincere Christian (although that's debatable), but he was certainly not an atheist either, because he hates atheism since he associated it with communism, Bolshevism, and "Jewish materialism." He is almost certainly a theist, if not a Christian. He also admired known Christian anti-Semites like the Father of Protestantism Martin Luther (who wrote a book named "On the Jews and Their Lies").
Perhaps Hitler was a sincere Catholic during his early Nazi days, but only changed his mind during the war; or perhaps Hitler never been a sincere Catholic all along and his public declaration of being a Christian is just a political move to meet his own goals. We may never know. But the thing is, it doesn't matter whether Hitler is an atheist or a Christian. The Nazi Party and its members and supporters are MOSTLY Christians. It was the devoutly Christian Nazis who did the killings for Hitler.
22. "STALIN!"
■ As if all atheists are like the wicked Joseph Stalin? The reason why this Stalin argument doesn't work against atheism itself is because Stalin (and by extension, all Communists) treated atheism (a part of Marxist-Leninist ideology), as an unchallengeable dogma. However, modern atheists of this century are very far from the dogmatic minded Communists. Communism may necessitate atheism, but atheism doesn't necessitate communism. Most of us became an atheist not because of our blind devotion to Communism but because of our honest inquiry, healthy skepticism, and rational criticism of religion, just like many of the Enlightenment philosophers did. I don't want to remove religions from people and imposed atheism as a dogmatic principle that everyone must hold no matter what. That's not what we want. We want a neutral secular government that doesn't favor any religion, to give way of having freedom and tolerance of all religions, including no religion. We equally condemn the actions of Stalin and other violent and intolerant communist leaders just like how religious conservatives condemn them. These dictators get rid of God not because they hate religion, they get rid of God because they hate competition. They made themselves their own gods. Whether a dictator is a theist (like Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Idi Amin) or an atheist (like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot) , it is true that absolute power corrupts absolutely. A government or any institution that tells people what they can believe or cannot believe is a very bad idea, a violation of human rights (freedom of and from religion), and we already observed that in history, whether the tyrants are god-believers or not.
23. "You are being disrespectful to me!"
■ So what? What's your point? Is that suppose to be an argument? The problem is that religion is specifically designed to make people think that it is a part of their personality, that's why it's not surprising why many religious people cannot discern the difference between rational and constructive criticism of religion and douchey disrespect of it. Religion doesn't deserve respect, religious people do. Only people deserve respect. No idea is sacred, and no matter how precious you think your religion is, it needs to be examined, scrutinized, and criticized. That's how our ideas progress, that's how we move forward. We eliminate the bad ideas and refine the good ones. And the moment that you whine that I'm disrespecting you as a person because I criticize your cherished dogma, you are hindering that progress. It's fine to have religious beliefs, and we respect your right to express them, but you must not expect others to respect your ideas, by treating them as unchallengeable dogmas.
24. "I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist."
■ This is kind of connected to number 10, and I am honestly so sick of hearing this strawman from theists, especially from Christian apologists. They may say some bullshit like "Atheists have faith that the universe and life on Earth existed just by blind accident," except that we don't believe that! It is a complete utter strawman of the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution, as if all atheists accept those theories. I accept the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution because they have empirical evidence and pragmatic predictions that can be measured and tested. It doesn't need faith, the scientific method rejects taking things on faith. Some of them also say this idiotic strawman like "Atheists have faith that something can come from nothing." Where in the universe did we said that we believe that? And besides, isn't it the Christians instead of atheists who have faith that something can come from nothing? They claim to believe that their spaceless, timeless, immaterial God of the Bible can create something from nothing by mere words, a literal Abracadabra (Aramaic word for "I create as I speak"). It doesn't take faith to not be convinced about the existence of God and the validity of religious claims. You know what takes a leap of faith? If you believe that the pan-galactic, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, all-present creator of universe that necessarily exists outside of space and time, loves you, cares about you, hears your prayers, communicates to desert dwellers via ancient literary book, knows what is right and what is wrong, intervenes through the violations of the laws of physics (aka miracles), has a lot of strong opinions about what you should do while you're naked, and will send you to an eternal paradise after you die if you believe in his existence. That takes faith, a lot of leap of faiths! Because even though they have no empirical evidence whatsoever or have empirical evidence to the contrary, they still buy into that. I don't even get why Christians love to say this, since they are the ones who proudly profess to public that they take these extraordinary claims on faith.
25. "Your life must be so depressing and hopeless."
■ Most religious people erroneously assume that the lives of atheists must be "doom and gloom" because "we don't have God in our lives" and "we have no meaning and purpose." Life itself might have no inherent meaning and purpose, but that doesn't mean we cannot have one. Meaning is not something that you can find, it's something that you create. Life is an opportunity to pursue our own meaning. We all have different meaning and purpose, and it's alright if you consider your religion and God-belief as you own purpose. But YOUR sense of purpose is not THE ultimate purpose. I just don't consider clinging into fantastical delusions as my sole meaning of life. I prefer pursuing it in the real world, right here, right now.
26. "You are not an atheist, you are actually an agnostic."
■ I am agnostic. I don't know if there actually exists a cosmic creator of the universe. But for practical purposes, I am an atheist. Since I am not convinced that there really exists a cosmic creator in reality, I can't help but not believe it. These labels are not mutually exclusive, you can be an agnostic and an atheist at the same time. Because agnosticism deals about knowledge of God's existence, while atheism deals about belief in God's existence. Do I know that God exists? No. Do I believe that God exists? No. Even theists themselves can be an agnostic too, it's just that they tend to lean on theism. Some people (even some agnostic themselves) think that if you are an atheist, that automatically means that you know for certain that there is no God. Although some atheists might think that way, but not all atheists profess a certain knowledge that no gods exist. Many atheists are agnostics. Even the famous Richard Dawkins himself does not profess unwavering certainty about the nonexistence of God. To make it short: we are epistemologically agnostic and pragmatically atheist.
27. "You just have to have faith."
■ So you believe that God gave me this brain to think and I am not allowed to use it to question him? You see, this is usually said by a believer when having a conversation with an atheist and when the atheist points out the inconsistencies and flaws of his/her religion and he/she cannot reply any answer, they simply say "I don't know the answer to that, you just have to have faith." Saying that "You just have to have faith" is tantamount to saying that "Shut up and stop thinking. Just take my word for it." Do you really think that I will be satisfied with that? Faith is a cop-out, a mere ad hoc excuse on questions that we cannot answer. It stops us to pursue rational inquiry. That's one of the reason I don't like religion, it teaches us to be satisfied with easy answers for the sake of cognitive closure. I don't want to take things on faith, I want to know it.
28. "Have you read the Bible?"
■ A 2013 American Bible Society survey found out that 88% of interviewed American Christians own a Bible (so that means the remaining 12% don't even own one), and the majority of American Christians (57%) only read their Bible four times a year or less, and with only 26% of them read it on the regular basis (2). Although there are no official census about Biblical literacy in the Philippines, the point is, it seems that Biblical illiteracy is not an atheist problem but a Christian one. I don't want to repeat my previous points that I said on numbers 9, 13, and 17, but I'll say it again, many of us atheists have a good understanding of what the Bible says, we just found so many reasons to criticize and discredit it. Sure, there may be some atheists out there that argues with Christians and takes the Bible out of context, but I personally prefer to know the historical and cultural contexts of a particular verse before I quote them, and if we find valid reasons to use them against a Christian, then I will use it.
29. "You don’t act like an atheist."
■ Pray tell, what do you think a "true" atheist should act? Dude, we are your neighbors, and we also just want to live a great life like yours, what do you expect us to do? Kill you and rape your wife? This is connected to number 2 where some people think that atheists are inherently immoral because "they have no moral compass" for the consequences of not believing in the existence of any deity. Look, there is no metaphysical reason that stops me from murdering people, it's just that it's counterproductive, it harms someone's well-being, it's breaking the social contract, and it has bad consequences to me. It's just much better to ground morality through reality, instead of an imaginary deity. And besides, what if I tell you that "Oh, you're a Christian, you don't act like a Christian," what would you feel? You will be offended, right?
30. "Why just keep it to yourself?"
■ I will backfire the question to you, why just keep your religion to yourself? We don't complain about Christians proudly proclaiming their religious beliefs to the public (as long as they will not push them to other people). But why when an atheist says that "I don't buy your claims, give me your evidence," we suddenly must shut up and stop being outspoken? If this is not double-standard, then I don't know what it is. Let's face it, the numbers of people with no religion (atheists, agnostics, spiritual but not religious, people who just don't want to wake up early on Sunday, etc.) are rising, and Christians can't just shun us, or burn us in the stake like they did in the past. We're here, get used to it. However, I am personally not that much of an outspoken atheist, and I usually express my sentiments about religion in my essays and my comments on atheists Facebook groups. Although all of my classmates, some of my professors, and some of my friends know that I'm an atheist, I'm not that kind of atheist who publicly broadcasts their atheism to everyone. I'm just saying it whenever I asked. It's not even my habit to share anti-religious and atheistic posts on my Facebook timeline, since I don't want to have trouble with my devoutly religious family and friends, for the sake of not wasting my time arguing to them. But whenever someone offers me a discussion about my beliefs (or should I say, lack of belief), I'm open to have a rational and fruitful discussion. Look, I will not tell you to shut up about your religious beliefs as long as you will not tell me to shut up about my religious criticisms, and then we call that a deal.
31. "Where do you think you will go when you die?"
■ I don't know if there really is an afterlife, but I don't think there is one. I don't think I'm going to heaven, and I don't think I'm going to hell either. Death is just the cessation of sensation, you just cease to exist, and that's it. I think after we die, we just go into nothingness. I mean, why fear the inevitable? And I find it weird and absurd why theists find that so depressing. You will never feel what nothingness will feel like, because in order to have sensations, you need consciousness, and consciousness is the process of your neurons in your brain, and when you die, that process will stop, and so does your sensation. I don't know what it feels like to be dead (because first and foremost, I'm still alive), but my guess is that it's like a deep eternal sleep with no dreams. That's nice. But that doesn't make our life and everything that we do in this world to be pointless. They might say some shit like "If there's no God and there's no after life, what's the point of doing anything at all? Why pursue something that will ultimately end up in nothingness?" What? It's like saying "What the point of eating if I'm just going to shit it on the toilet later?" Moreover, I think the concept of afterlife devalues this current life that we have. Life is precious precisely because it has an end. Why anticipate something that is nothing but meaningless and pointless existence?
32. "Why do you only pick on Christians? What about Muslims?"
■ And when I criticize Islam, a Muslim might say, "Why do you only pick on Muslims? What about Christians?" Enough of these whatabouteries! It only evades the issue on the problems of Christian dogma. I criticize Christianity, not because I have a bone to pick on Christians, but simply because Christians have the most established and sophisticated apologetics. There are a lot of bullshit ideas on Islam, and they are all worth to point out, but so does Christianity. Have you ever recalled the last time when a Muslim lead a prayer in your class? No, because it's always the Christian one. Have you ever recalled the last time when a group of Hindus protested to erect a statue of Krishna in the front of a house courtroom or any government property? No, it's always been the Ten Commandments. Have you ever recalled the last time when there are Jewish symbols everywhere during the Hannukah and Rosh Hashanah? No, it's always about Christmas and Holy Week. You see, it's always the Christians who have the biggest influence in the Philippines. And you still wonder why many atheists have the most tendency to criticize and complain about them?
33. "You can’t disprove God!"
■ As if that automatically means he exists in actual objective reality, and it's on the atheist to disprove it? Anyone who says this has no idea how the nature of burden of proof works. What if I tell you that there is an invisible, intangible, and incorporeal mind-sucking goblin that loves to be on the top of your head and slowly sucking your mind atom by atom, causing you to say stupid things? I don't have proof that it's true, but you can't disprove it. See how stupid it sounds? For crying out loud, the burden of proof lies on the one who makes the positive claim, not on the one who rejects it, especially if the claim is unfalsifiable. Anyone can assert that God exists and anyone can make convoluted rhetoric and mental gymnastics supporting its existence, but only a true competent living God can make a clear-cut and undeniable empirical evidence that demonstrates his existence and can produce testable and falsifiable empirical predictions under the expectation that this deity exists. I already explained to my last essay God's Existence and the Null Hypothesis how why the mere lack of evidence alone is already a more than enough justification to reject the proposition "God exists in actual objective reality," and I'm not going to repeat everything that I've just said there.
34. "Just open your heart, and God will reveal himself to you."
■ So does that mean he just reveals himself to someone who's already severely credulous? Why just reveal himself to someone who is really unconvinced and revealing himself with undeniable demonstration like what Jesus did to Paul of Tarsus in his way to Damascus? The problem with saying something like "God, if you're real, just reveal yourself to me," is that, you're already preparing your mind to expect any answers. A mind that is so ready to believe anything will take literally everything as a confirmation of it, and we call that in psychology as confirmation bias. If you really want to know what's objectively real, you will not find it by anticipating your preexisting biases to be true. That's why we should always practice healthy skepticism and always consider the possibility that all of our beliefs and knowledge are probably wrong. I might eat my words one day and I might change my mind about the existence of God. But to theists, let me ask you this: do you consider the possibility that your deity maybe, just maybe, doesn't exist in reality? If not, then you already admitted that you are close-minded.
35. "What happened to your childhood?"
■ I grew up in a broken family. My father left us when I was still 4 years old and the last time I saw him was during my 4th birthday. My family is a Typhoon Ondoy survivor way back September 2009 when we were still living in Marikina City, and that was the time when my single mother was still at her work. The flash flood from Marikina River nearly killed us, and my mother thought that all of us were dead (but fortunately we were not). We relocated to Taytay, Rizal and lived for 10 years and counting. But way back December 2017, our house that we used to rent was burned by a fire caused by a faulty electrical wiring from our neighbor's house, but fortunately, we saved a lot of essential things, except for our important documents like birth certificates and clothes of my mother and two of my brothers. They all burned down to ashes. NONE OF THESE EVENTS MADE ME AN ATHEIST WHATSOEVER. Even after our house was burned down, I was still a Christian, and I also used to go to an evangelical church for a short period of time months after. What made me an atheist is my love of history and philosophy. Reading the history of all religions made me doubt the validity of Christianity as the "one true religion" and reading philosophy made me doubt the existence of God. I would say that my overall childhood is fine, although there are some tragedies and sad stories, but these things don't really have much emotional impact to me. So no, don't assume that an an atheist have a very tragic childhood that made him/her an atheist. Just ask them what made them an atheist, it's not that hard to do.
36. "You just want yourself to be your own God!"
■ Why would I want to be my own thing that I don't believe in in the first place? Not believing in the existence of any gods doesn't make me my own god, any more than not believing in the existence of leprechauns make me my own leprechaun. Theists who loves to say this condescending and arrogant misconception often cannot discern the difference between mere disbelief from outright disobedience. They are indoctrinated to think that because the idea of God is in the center of their thinking, they automatically assume that this same idea of God is also in the center of everybody's thinking, where this deity is "knocking to all of our hearts" expecting us to open it, and here are atheists "choosing to disobey God, and replacing him with themselves as a substitute." As if all humans worship something by default? Some Christians assume that atheists just "knows about God but chooses to disobey him," and they just do whatever they want according to their own whims, as if they are somehow not accountable for their own actions. However, I can't blame Christians for thinking this way since, they also believe that this is the exact sin Lucifer was committed. "Nobody tells me what to do! I define what's right and wrong! I know better than God!" It's just saddening how many of them are brainwashed to think that way. The thing is, whether or not God exists, all of our decisions still have objective consequences and we are still responsible for our own actions. It's not like we can do whatever we want, killing and raping other people because "we are our own gods." Atheism doesn't absolve you from personal responsibility and it doesn't make you a divine being.
So, what do you think are other things that believers must stop saying to atheists? Is the list not enough or is it too long? Leave a comment if you have your ideas, and I would love to know them!
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Date Published: July 10, 2020
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