Atheism For Those that Don't Know What It Is

[Solitary]

http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/a/BeginnersBasics.htm?nl=1

There Is No Fundamentalist Atheism: Since atheism is just disbelief in gods, there is nothing for atheists to be "fundamentalist" about. So why has the label become popular?

Disbelief in Gods Isn't Another Belief: Many people have the mistaken idea that disbelief in gods is still just another belief. This misconception can be eliminated through a better understanding of the basic terms of debate: belief, knowledge, disbelief, faith, and denial.

Atheism is Not the Same as Communism: You can support communist or socialist politics while being a theist and you can be an atheist who is staunchly opposed to anything and everything even remotely socialistic, never mind communist.

Atheism is Not the Same as Nihilism or Cynicism: Atheists can hold many different philosophies (including nihilism) or attitudes (like cynicism) but they aren't required to hold either of those.

Atheism is Not a Choice or Act of Will: Christianity requires that beliefs be choices in order to treat disbelief as a sin and as deserving punishment, but voluntarism of beliefs makes little sense. It's more reasonable to view beliefs as forced conclusions from the evidence before us.

Atheism is Not the Cause of Millions of Deaths: The extreme death and destruction caused by theistic religion has led some believers to try to argue that atheism is worse, but while some atheistic philosophies can inspire violence, atheism itself has never done so.

Myths About Atheism

There Are no Atheists in Foxholes: Not only is it false that life-threatening experiences magically transform atheists into theists, it's easy to find examples of where such experiences cause theists to become atheists.

Atheism Does Not Require Faith: You don't need any sort of "faith" to disbelieve in gods, just as you don't need faith to disbelieve in elves or Darth Vader.

Atheism Does Not Require Omniscience: You don't need to search the contents of the entire universe to have good reason to disbelieve in or even deny the existence of gods

Atheism is Not Incompatible with Morality: There is nothing about morality and ethics which requires the existence of or belief in gods. Secular atheists have no more trouble behaving morally than do religious theists.

Atheists Can Have Meaningful, Loving Lives: No matter how important belief in a god or following a religion may be to believers, secular atheists have no problem living good, meaningful lives without any of that.

Atheism is Not a "Bad Bet": Pascal's Wager is one of the most popular arguments offered by believers, but it's also one of the worst ones they could possibly choose.

More Myths About Atheism: There are far too many myths, misconceptions, and outright falsehoods about atheists and atheism to list on one page.

Solitary

[AllPurposeAtheist]

One of the dumber memes I saw today and previously: Just because science can explain it doesn't mean god didn't do it..  Really? Like Hiroshima?

[Solitary]

  But how about all the things science has explained, and it used to be unexplained, so God did it? It's amazing how many people know everything about God and never met Him, Her, or It. Maybe God is a super dooper quantum computer, and our brains are just connected to it, and the universe is just the box He came in.  It seems like a lot of people coming here lately, think like that.  If I thought that was true, I'd jump off the highest building without a parachute. Solitary 

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Dinosours invented the internet.. Look at Al Gore..  Internet.. Dinosaur..  Godidit..

[Nam]

Dinosours invented the internet.. Look at Al Gore..  Internet.. Dinosaur..  Godidit..

I knew it!


-Nam

[SGOS]

Christianity requires that beliefs be choices in order to treat disbelief as a sin and as deserving punishment, but voluntarism of beliefs makes little sense. It's more reasonable to view beliefs as forced conclusions from the evidence before us.

Many of them claim they make an active choice to believe.  It makes it obvious that they lack self understanding and haven't given much thought to what they themselves are actually doing.

[stromboli]

Good post, Sol. That deserves to be a stickie.

My personal experience with religion is that it starts either as a default "well I'm here, let's get it over with" situation or one set of beliefs having preference over another. I'm the type that has to be very convinced before I change my mind, but not afraid to challenge my beliefs. Just took awhile.

[Solitary]

You're just saying that because it's true.    Thanks!

[the_antithesis]

Atheism in a nutshell:

"What's a god?"