Yes. It’s much more humane.
This is definitely the hardest mental shift. Intellectually you can say to yourself “the whole idea of a deity is irrational and contradicts itself” but if you grew up religious your internal moral compass is programmed to scream at you when you even think certain “heretical” thoughts, for lack of a better term.
You can say that again.
My stepmom just finished up with a truly awful year plagued by health crises. As a devout Catholic, she wastes hours of her life agonizing over what it was she did to “deserve” such treatment from her god.
I wish I could help her to understand that life is just a crap shoot. No “deserve” is involved. She is tormented by her perceived “failures” and it is painful to watch.
Although sometimes she prefers to believe she has been singled out for especially harsh treatment because she is better able to withstand it due to her faith. IOW, she’s better than the rest of us.
I agree with @gdave and would add that some of the self-proclaimed atheists are “born again” after it and others go back to being atheists.
Then there was W.C. Fields.
Fields was also known for his personal disdain of religion. He said he had an aversion to Christianity because of the hypocrisy he saw in Christians. However, censors prevented him from working religious humor into his films.
Fields died in 1946 much as he lived. It is reported that he was caught on his deathbed reading a Bible. When asked about this, he responded, “I’m looking for a loophole.”
This too shall pass.
There’s an excellent Terry Pratchett quote from Men at Arms:
…when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, “Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!” or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!
That’s where I am. I’m a confirmed atheist, but if I drop something on my foot I’m going to shout “oh god!” or “Jesus!” It’s just a cultural thing. It doesn’t mean I believe what I’m saying.
" > You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
Marcus Cole, Babylon 5"
Did you feel tears welling up inside you when your mother read “Three little kittens lost their mittens”? Do you still get the sniffles at the movies? Then you already have the spiritual guidance within you. It’s been bottled up and you need to release it.
If your answer was No, then you may need the fear of God to control you.
True. Even for people like myself who were raised in secular homes where religion isn’t mentioned still carry a hard wiring for deism. The overall culture is very religious and it seeps into your own mind.
Sure, and normally I would just agree to disagree, but this is a saying that many atheists find offensive, and I think your interpretation might make some people think it is a reasonable thing to say. So here’s why I don’t think it is.
Firstly, it doesn’t say anything about people behaving “as if”. The meaning is intended to be that people convert to religion in moments of crisis. So it’s used to imply that atheists are either just pretending, or just want to sin, because deep down we all know God exists. It’s the classic “I know your mind better than you do” argument.
Note that if the meaning of the saying was just that people pray in moments of crisis, but may still be atheist, what would be the point of that? The proper response to that would be a shrug of the shoulders.
Secondly even if it were just about rituals and not belief, it’s an absolute claim. It’s not saying “some” or “many”. It is literally denying the existence of anyone that doesn’t pray in that moment, which is of course particularly offensive to atheists that have actually lived through such events and not done that.
Heck, I have never been in a combat zone but there are times where my life was in danger. I didn’t pray.
Simply untrue. I was raised in a devout family. My parents did everything parents do to raise their children Christian. But I never believed any of the bullshit, even at age five.
I think “grateful” is a perfectly cromulent term. In this context it means deliberately cultivating an awareness of the good in one’s life, and a sense of humility at how much of it actually happened by chance rather than exclusively by one’s own design.
Pray to me! I will accept payment, just like the alternative.
I think that would make you an exception to the rule.
I had some very scary situations in Afghanistan and Iraq and it never occurred to me to pray or appeal to a god. In those instances, I remember thinking “we’re in a really bad spot here and we’d better keep our shit together or we are fucked.” I wasn’t raised in a religious tradition though.
The one time I wish I was religious is when someone else has endured a great deal of tribulations, I just think that religion has a good vocabulary for I wish you well and empathize with you.
I think some people are more, or less, hard-wired to be religious than others, by nature (rather than just nurture).
Here are more examples of things that people say in intense situations, but absolutely no one really means it, no matter what end of the spectrum they’re on: “Holy shit!” and “Fuck me!”
I never assumed that the atheists in question weren’t sincere about their atheism. For me the larger issue is that people of all stripes often change their tune when the heat is on. The guy who proclaims that abortion is wrong may recant when his teenage daughter comes home pregnant. People who are anti-government interference suddenly want a bailout when their company goes bankrupt. I’ve known a fair number of people who have to reconcile their “gay is wrong” stance when a beloved family member comes out. Etc. Hold a person’s feet to the fire and some will change their tune (but some will not).
As new information comes in or new situations present themselves, people change their minds about lots of things. Notice how many people Trump drove away from the GOP, for instance. That doesn’t automatically mean they were wrong all along or are suddenly liars or hypocrites or anything else. Throughout life, we re-evaluate a lot of things. And if it weren’t for subtle nuance and context, couldn’t the SCOTUS take a lot of days off?
If I were king, I’d take “under God” out of the money, the pledge, etc. What is this “swear on the Bible” (or for that matter, the Quran)?. What would Pastafarians swear on? Whatever people believe is their biz, but it isn’t supposed to be the government’s.
I’m not totally sleepwalking, but this expression got past my radar. Ignorance fought.
No doubt true, but I also believe it would be a rare five year old who would be an avowed atheist in a family of true believers. If little kids buy Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, God is real enough to most of them, especially because their parents aren’t pretending about their faith.
For the record I’m another exception. Raised mormon in a family of mormons. Of all the children in the family, I’m the only one for whom it never ‘took’ - and it really is a case of it never happening. At no point, even as a child, did I find any of it credible in any way. It was just another story among other stories.
But the claim is that when the shit hits the fan, atheists will turn to God. Why would they turn to God? How about “There are no disbelievers in Santa in foxholes.” Or maybe “There are no deliverers in Odin in foxholes”, if you want to stick with characters that allegedly have the power to do something?
Nope. The phrase comes from a presumption that God is the (real) entity to turn to for help, and that all atheists believe that too, deep down. The phrase is unavoidably based in that premise, and it is indeed an assertion that atheists aren’t sincere in their beliefs. If you don’t see that it just means that you’re so acclimatized to seeing the christian god as the one to go to for succor that you don’t realize that atheism doesn’t do that.