Sometimes you’ve just got to laugh
Did you see the “debate” between Daniel Dennett and Dinesh D’Souza? Do you, like me, consider Dinesh to be an intellectual piss ant who ought to be arrested for crimes against logic in addition to being an asshole in public? Willing to say/write that in public?
Well, pal – congratulations. You hate God.
One reason I think is that they are God-haters. Atheists often like to portray themselves as “unbelievers” but this is not strictly accurate. If they were mere unbelievers they would simply live their lives as if God did not exist. I don’t believe in unicorns, but then I haven’t written any books called The End of Unicorns, Unicorns are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion. Clearly the atheists go beyond disbelief; they are on the warpath against God. And you can hear their bitterness not only in their book titles but also in their mean-spirited invective.
And just think, there are people out there who will insist that this man knows what he’s talking about. They must be pretty damned ignorant, don’t you think?
I think that part of the problem is that many theists are so wrapped up in their perceptions that they cannot imagine a person actually not believing in a god. Thus the concept of atheism ceases to be non-belief and becomes hate of god. There seems to be an unspoken (actually, sometimes it is spoken) belief on the part of theists that if only we poor benighted atheists would open our hearts to god we would cease to hate and love puppies again.
Part of me can almost (if I twist my neck until it hurts) understand from whence comes the perception of hate. I, as an atheist (leaning towards agnostic), have a tendency to point out the fear and hypocrisy of religion, especially in all the different forms of christianity. I do not pick on theists. I pick on what I view as silly and unreasonable beliefs which have no grounding in reality. To a theist, this could look like ‘hate.’
As far as me, personally, hating god, that would be nigh on impossible. How can I hate something that does not exist? As D’Souza says, atheists do not campaign against unicorns. That’s because the unicorn myth has now been recognized as a myth by a vast majority of the world population. We even, through scientific and historical research, have a pretty could grasp of where the myth might have come from (rhinocerae and narwhals are good bets). If a vast majority of the world population recognized jesus, god, yahweh, odin, zeus, allah, et al. as myth, there would be no books arguing against their existence.
As far as fans of this worldview being ignorant, I agree. However, I would add that they are willfully ignorant. After all, heaven requires believing exactly the right thing (orthodoxy). Any new idea, or different idea (heterodoxy) threaten that right belief. If a christian is never exposed to new ideas, then they can get into heaven.
Good post. I enjoy your site.