
Why Are Americans Still Uncomfortable with Atheism? - js2
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/29/why-are-americans-still-uncomfortable-with-atheism
======
Johnny555
I once had a long conversation with a religious relative, and I think it boils
down to her not believing that someone can be "moral" without believing that
god is watching.

Somewhat relevant:

Why Did God Create Atheists?

There is a famous story told in Chassidic literature that addresses this very
question. The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the
world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson. One
clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God
create them?”

The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important
lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist
performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need,
and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious
teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In
fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner
sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply
because he feels it to be right.” “This means,” the Master continued “that
when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that
God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist,
imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’” —Martin
Buber, Tales of Hasidim Vol. 2 (1991)

[https://randysrandom.com/god-create-atheists/](https://randysrandom.com/god-
create-atheists/)

~~~
i_made_a_booboo
Mildly hilarious how Japan is a ridiculously safe place crime-wise and has
pretty high moral standards and is pretty much entirely atheist. They visit
temples because they visit temples and it's just expected that that's what you
do because everyone does it ala being Japanese circular logic. The same
circular logic is responsible for their moral standards.

Turns out it's not God thats responsible for morality, it's the existence and
enforcement of norms by members of the community that is.

~~~
Johnny555
_Japan...has pretty high moral standards_

Well.... that depends on your morals, Japanese pop culture still sexualizes
young girls... and the trains have dedicated "female cars" so woman can avoid
groping in the regular cars. Women are distinctly in a lower class than men.

Japan is a very clean and safe country, but I wouldn't hold it up as a beacon
of morality.

~~~
i_made_a_booboo
And Americas full of drug addicts, school shootings and cops killing black
teenagers. And that's despite all those Christians, their morals and their
prayers.

And as it turns out women and black people were distinctly lower class than
men until a few decades ago. Religion didn't change in that time. But the
social norms that various communities enforce on each other did.

And that's my whole point. Religion has nothing to do with it. It's the same
dynamics that exist in every group that are what cause the phenomenon of
people behaving themselves according to a set of rules.

My one and only point with my example was not the absolute morality of one
place vs another but the fact that a place basically devoid of all religious
belief doesn't automatically devolve into debauchery, chaos and total
amorality. They seem to think that's what will happen. It doesn't but that
doesn't stop them believing that.

People arguing the point completely miss the fact that humans don't care at
all what's true. They care who's side your on and that's all they try to
figure out.

------
codeulike
As someone from the UK, where atheism is so uncontroversial that people barely
talk about it, it is kindof baffling how much everyone in the USA seems to go
on about god, and atheists in the USA seem to have some sort of uphill battle
to be recognised as people who could be vaguely competent at anything.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Even here on the left coast, I find it surprising how many people are
unwilling to admit their atheism, out of some sense of social threat. I was
talking to someone from the UK last week who I thought put it really well -
what's happening in the US right now is the final throes of a generation who
desperately wants to return to their mental image of the past, unwilling to
see their own racist, xenophobic, self-absorbsion. I throw religion in that
same bucket, as they've (by which I mean the baby boomers) have convinced
themselves that association with Christianity == good / holy / right / just /
White / American, making it challenging to move forward socially /
politically. Bet in 2020 we'll continue to hear the same trope as every other
election that sure, we let that black guy get elected, maybe a woman could get
reelected, but there's _no way_ we'll let some atheist get elected.

~~~
foobarbazetc
The weirdest part about all this is that Obama was deeply religious (though
the black church is scary or something), but Trump is obviously an atheist.

Yet they’re treated exactly the opposite by the evangelicals. It’s a bit of a
mindfuck until you realize it’s not really about religion at all.

~~~
wolfgke
> but Trump is obviously an atheist.

I doubt this: he rather either believes that he is personally chosen by God or
God himself. :-)

~~~
thawkins
There is only one god that trump worships, himself.

~~~
krapp
The difference between God and Donald Trump is that God doesn't believe he is
Donald Trump.

------
lj3
Maybe it's because Americans like to be alive and atheists have an alarming
tendency to kill themselves. I don't know why, but humans are hard wired for
religion.

[http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.16...](http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.12.2303)

[http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/155/5/413.full](http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/155/5/413.full)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26661826](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26661826)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26110867](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26110867)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25862549](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25862549)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25863908](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25863908)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24115346](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24115346)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24908151](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24908151)

~~~
memebox3v
In the uk its a non thing. 50% of my friends are atheists. Its such a non
issue that it hardly ever comes up. The first time i had a problem is when i
couldnt have a church wedding because I couldnt morally profess a belief in a
christian god. My mum in law was very very unhappy. In fact ive felt socially
threatened amongst my developer friends when I have been inable to say that I
am atheist (I think in a certain sense God is the world and in another sense
it also silly to make a claim for or against god, since I believe its
impossible to say anything for certain). That opinion gets me ridiculed!

~~~
beatgammit
So you're agnostic.

As an American, I honestly haven't run into this. I am religious, and most of
my coworkers are religious, but we have had an atheist and an agnostic in our
group (we're all developers) and it really didn't seem to matter. Religion
rarely comes up in a professional setting, and it didn't come up when we did
things outside of work as friends.

As long as you aren't aggressive against that which you don't believe, there
really shouldn't be any problems. Most of the problems I run into are from
atheists and agnostics picking a fight with theists. Treat others with respect
and you'll get it in return.

~~~
robotron
Are you saying that the most reviled, despised, and shamed group in America
"picks fights" against the juggernaut of believers? The mere act of stating
we're a non-believer is considered militant. Attending a gathering of other
non-believers is considered aggressive and obnoxious. Why would that be?

Treat others with respect? Do atheists get any respect from the religious?
From our own government? Is it respectful to get religion (theistic or not)
and god shoved down my throat everywhere I turn?

~~~
lj3
Where do you live? Not the US, surely. I don't recognize the America you're
describing at all. Christianity is probably one of the most tolerant religions
on the planet. Christians regularly turn the other cheek and love to "live and
let live". They only get aggressive when people try to interfere with their
ability to practice their religion.

If you haven't noticed, there's a war against christianity in the US. Nativity
scenes being shut down. Not being able to pray in school. The constant attacks
from popular culture and the media. Atheists tend to be especially vocal about
the fact that they shouldn't have to see, think or hear anything even
tangentially related to Christianity (although they have no problem with
Islam. Go figure.) Christians see this as an attack on their ability to
practice their religion.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Oh you...Where are atheists lining up to protest nativity scenes at churches?
No one gives a fart about Christianity being practiced, until it infringes on
other rights. Nativity scenes? Nothing wrong with them as long as other
religions can partake as well. Christians don't tend to like Satanist scenes
though.

Christians in America are however attacking abortion rights. They also attack
marriage rights, gay rights, transgender rights, help for the poor, human
rights, and basically everything that Jesus was for. To claim that the
majority of Americans are practicing anything Jesus stood for is quite frankly
silly. No one has said kids can't pray in school, what's been said is that you
can't _force_ prayer in school unless it's a religious school,in which case
religion rules.

This silly "Attack on Christianity" ginned up by Fox News and the religious
right is absurd in a country where the vast majority of the country proclaims
to be Christian.

------
Ws32ok
Let's explore religion for a moment and why it tends to hate atheism so much.

1\. People who believe are threatened by those who do not. It is disconcerting
to have belief systems attacked or ripped out from under you. "Those who are
not us can't be trusted." Groups tend to passionately hate individuals who
don't want to be members.

2\. Non-belief has definite consequences in most religions. Conformism is a
trait of religious people. Leaving is unacceptable to many. Muslim extremists
have definite opinions about apostasy.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy)

3\. Santa Claus is a good example. A kid is told about Santa. Presents appear.
One day the older brother figures it out. He is told, do you want presents or
is Santa not real? I think this is a microcosm of multiple belief systems.
Remove the possibility of presents/rewards and multiple religions vanish in a
puff of smoke.

4\. It's an amazing coincidence that people tend to have the same religion as
their parents and community. And this saves them from eternal damnation. What
about the people who existed before the religion was created?

5\. Religion has no monopoly on morality or virtue. Evidence has shown that
religious people are quite capable of breaking rules. Multiple religions cite
divorce as "a bad thing" yet plenty of religious people do it. Murder, theft
and cursing still exist.

6\. Validity of religion in general can be exposed by getting a religious
person to explain why they would not convert to another. Their reasons
increasingly become more difficult to defend. Remember that it is likely only
one belief system is true and all others are false. And your religion was
likely chosen before you were born. This is an awkward truth many don't want
to discuss.

7\. If you've read this far, please know that I'm not atheist.

------
std_throwawayay
Atheism also seems to wrongly be a catch-all for things like Agnosticism which
is nothing like Atheism.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism)

"Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the
supernatural is unknown or unknowable. An agnostic can also be one who holds
neither of two opposing positions on a topic."

~~~
bachmeier
I basically assume that when someone makes a statement about atheism, they're
actually talking about agnosticism. Those who claim to be atheists are hostile
to being told their beliefs actually represent agnosticism, and when providing
them a link to this article[1], they have claimed the author is wrong. That is
an indicator that most participants in discussions of atheism have not spent a
lot of time studying the subject formally (which is probably the rational
choice).

[1] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-
agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)

~~~
aidenn0
The majority of self-described athiests that I know are global athiests under
some variation of the Ockham's Razor argument of section 5 of that.

The particular example of intelligent life in another galaxy is rather odd,
since we actually do have reasons to believe such life exists inasmuch as we
have pretty good ideas about how life came about on earth and a lot of
evidence that similar conditions should exist elsewhere.

------
wolfgke
"The reason that atheists were not allowed to testify in court for so long was
the certainty that witnesses who were unwilling to swear an oath to God had no
reason to be truthful, since they did not fear divine judgment."

Just a consideration: What if you believe in a God that has much more
important things to do than punishing believers who break an oath in
His/Her/Its name? I mean: being of such supreme intelligence, how can
he/she/it not rather deal with things that are so far away from our
intellectual understanding as it is for, say, a polyp to think about string
theory?!

------
everybodyknows
To my particle physics professor of many springtimes past, God was the creator
of the puzzles to be solved by people like himself.

Becoming satisfied with that has nicely simplified my life.

------
jim_bailie
That's like asking why atheists are still uncomfortable with religious faith
and spirituality.

~~~
wolfgke
> That's like asking why atheists are still uncomfortable with religious faith
> and spirituality.

Because if you accept religious arguments, you can also perfectly argue using
similar arguments that also the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) exists.

~~~
beatgammit
And that's fine.

As long as you don't use religious arguments in an academic or professional
context, it doesn't matter what unprovable thing you believe in.

I'm religious, but if we met in an academic or professional context, you'd
likely think I'm agnostic because I try to limit myself to arguments that can
be proven using observable and repeatable evidence.

If you believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists, then have at it. Just
don't try to justify a bunch of colanders as a business expense as insurance
against an angry FSM, but feel free to wear one as a religious symbol on your
own dime.

------
jkmcf
I’m more interested in why so many Christians quote the Old Testament to
justify their non-Christian attitudes and actions.

