# What’s the worst thing about being an atheist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 25, 2023, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166 "2023-04-25T13:18:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/181 "2023-04-27T14:01:46Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > > [@RickJay](#): > > > > … **the theist believes the atheist has chosen to be an atheist.** The assumption of Pascal’s wager is that you choose what to believe. > > > > Well, now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t choose what to believe. > > Yes! This! and I NEVER get to see people acknowledging this! Thank you. Well put, too. - I agree, except I’m tempted to hashtag #notalltheists or something. Prior to being comfortably theistic I was in a state where I _wanted_ there to be purpose and intentional deliberate causation in the universe — somewhere, somehow — but I could not “choose to believe” and it didn’t seem to my understanding that it was at all necessarily so. All the freewill-determinism “compatible” stuff I encountered didn’t clear any of that up for me. Was there anything behind our apparently widely-shared desire for the good rather than the strong to prevail, or more fundamentally, behind our notion of “good” itself, did that notion come from anywhere or was it essentially just an artifact? I do think an amazing percent of people stop trying to figure stuff out and just shrug and in some sense decide _not to think about it any more_ but I don’t think that’s the same thing as “deciding what to believe”. - ETA: I shortened Napier’s quote of RickJay, apologies to all if that’s uncool. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/182 "2023-04-27T14:45:27Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > That would not convince me this was God (or “a god” or whatever). I would not conclude I’d just seen a being that stands outside the physical laws of the universe. I would conclude that there are laws of the universe we obviously don’t understand as well as we thought we did, and I’d assume that if we understood them better, the phenomenon I’d just observed would make sense within that context. Yes, but would it not convince you that there was some underlying intelligent consciousness permeating the universe? It would me. I’d think the odds of distant stars, unexpectedly, and against our understanding of astrophysics, aligning into a clearly understood message, in a language we humans understand, would be astronomically unlikely to occur naturally without intelligent intervention. This intelligence would simply be physical (obeying the physical laws of the universe, even if we don’t comprehensively understand them at this point) as opposed to being _meta_physical. And, this permeating universal intelligence could be thought of as God (or a god). It just wouldn’t be the god you learned about in Sunday school. I don’t discount the possibility that there could be an underlying intelligence within the quantum mechanical world of our universe, though I believe it’s very unlikely. And, I don’t believe it would speak to humans in English if it did exist. It likely wouldn’t know, or care about us. But…who knows? So, perhaps it’s best to take Pascal’s wager in secular terms. That’s better than taking it in religious terms, because there would be no down side if you lose. If there is a secular god, and you believe it, you can rest assure that there is meaning to the universe and that should make you happy. If you believe there’s a secular god, but there’s not, well when you die it really won’t matter to you any more, but it made you happy to believe while you were alive. If you don’t believe there’s a secular god, but there is, you’re not going to Hell for not believing. Win/win. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/183 "2023-04-27T14:52:53Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > Yes, but would it not convince you that there was some underlying intelligent consciousness permeating the universe? Not in the important sense that I needed it, no. Being able to manipulate massively huge physical objects at a great distance is certainly something my current understanding of the laws of physics can’t accommodate, but in terms of the overall presence or lack of underlying deliberate consciousness, it’s no different from Joe Schmoe’s ability to move yonder rock from here to there. Is the Entity who has just rearranged the stars to demonstrate massive power still just behaving as the result of his or her personal history and the array of stimuli that have determined his or her thinking, so the Entity in question is, like the rest of us, just the outcome of causal determinism? If not, why not? And if so, same as Joe Schmoe, yes? Now, if this Entity can make it so that being good to other people will result in you having a happy life with good outcomes — for you and me personally and for people in general including societies as entireties — well, now we’re talking. Or if this Entity can reconcile the apparent tension that we’ve spoken of, up above in several different people’s posts, about the good instead of the strong prevailing and all that, so that it makes sense to us? That would not make the Entity be God, but it would establish for me that yes there is God, even if as an abstraction, because it would make it all true and worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/184 "2023-04-27T15:11:36Z")
If there’s a being that can rearrange stars by sheer willpower, that’s a god as far as I’m concerned. Omnimax gods are a fairly recent innovation. I’d consider Q a god, if he was real. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/185 "2023-04-27T15:13:10Z")
If there _is_ a universal intelligence within the cosmos, I believe this could rightfully be thought of as a god (all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, all present), but it wouldn’t be a good God, or a bad God, it would simply be an underlying intelligence controlling the processes of our Universe. Nothing more, nothing less. That, for me at least, would make me happy—just knowing there was some meaning to our crazy world. So, you’re probably not going to be re-united with your dead granny or grandpa, and you shouldn’t invest in harp lessons in anticipation of playing on a cloud in heaven in this scenario. And, as I said, I don’t believe there _is_ an underlying intelligence, but, there could be. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/186 "2023-04-27T15:40:04Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > I don’t discount the possibility that there could be an underlying intelligence within the quantum mechanical world of our universe, though I believe it’s very unlikely. And, I don’t believe it would speak to humans in English if it did exist. It likely wouldn’t know, or care about us. But…who knows? This bears a resemblance to a position called “apatheism”, which posits that even if we came upon unassailable proof of The Deity, it would make no difference to our existence. We sometimes hear that Og has a glorious plan, but, it being in Og’s mind, it is beyond our comprehension. In which case, what would be the value of being aware of it? If it is vastly beyond our comprehension, it is indistinguishable from randomness. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/187 "2023-04-27T15:55:29Z")
Many Christians tend to treat God’s plan like the Trump/Putin 5D-chess logic: If something good happens, it’s proof that The Plan is working. If something bad happens, it’s **also** proof that The Plan is working, because it’s some cunning genius act that will ultimately be unveiled to have worked for the good, too. I’m not saying God can’t make bad things work for good, just saying many Christians use lazy or dishonest logic. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/188 "2023-04-27T16:07:20Z")
The worst thing is when people tell me that they have proof that their god exists, but I would never accept it so why should they bother? BTW, rearranging the stars to spell words then putting them back would count as evidence in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/189 "2023-04-27T16:10:12Z")
I used to be an atheist, and didn’t really see any downside to it. I’m very happy to have gotten in touch with the spiritual side of life and NOW can’t imagine living without it, but I was perfectly happy as an atheist and certainly wasn’t behaving any less morally than I do now. And I have retained my unshakable faith in the complete annihilation of my individual consciousness at the moment of death! ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/190 "2023-04-27T16:44:53Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > If they say “deities might be possible, I just don’t know” then they are regarding faith and reason as of equal value in discovering truth about existence. Sorry but I don’t see how that follows. “Gods may or may not exist” is not a statement that implies faith and reason are the same. It’s a statement that contradictory things could both be true and there is no certainty either way. That is an entirely reasonable statement to make. It’s logically no different from stating “Faster than light travel may or may not be possible” or “Jack the Ripper may or may not have been this guy.” I mean, I am an atheist, but concede there is a nonzero possibility you could stumble across legitimate evidence a god exists. I think it’s REALLY unlikely but you never know. That doesn’t mean I think faith would be how one finds that out. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/191 "2023-04-27T17:01:47Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Take Christianity. It’s hard to argue with the basic rules laid out in the Ten Commandments which come down to, “Obey my rules. Respect your parents. Don’t kill people or steal their stuff. Don’t screw your neighbor’s wife. Don’t spend your time envying what others have. Don’t worship material things. Don’t lie to people.” > > These are pretty good rules Setting aside the part where Exodus is in the Torah (Jewish, not Christian) there are some issues with those rules. Perhaps the biggest one is the distortion part. Should we abide by what we think they mean or what they originally meant? For instance, there is some scholarly contention that it says “_thou shalt not ~~steal~~ kidnap_.” You _want_ it to be about not taking stuff, but it may well be that it actually prohibited abductions (which, yes, should not be happening).        The one that is really troubling, though, is the covet thing. It does not prohibit an action, it prohibits a _feeling_. Not even a thought, but an emotion, which is pretty darn hard to control. This is thought-police territory. Really not acceptable.        Then there is the problem with the law idea to begin with, where people simply find clever ways to skirt around the literal text so that they can stay technically within the law while not really following it. But that is a whole nother discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/192 "2023-04-27T17:03:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > BTW, rearranging the stars to spell words then putting them back would count as evidence in my book. It’s certainly evidence of something, an extraordinary amount of power, but does seemingly unlimited powers make someone God? I hear God, I think Creator of the Universe, Creator of Man, Writer of 10 Commandments, Sender of Jesus. There are things that God is claimed to have done, and commanded Man to do. Without proof that those things are real, what is the debate? That there may be a heretofore unknown being of immense power that had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of the Universe, Earth, or Mankind, and has similarly nothing to do with any earthly religion? I fail to understand how that claim is even interesting, much less something that needs to be debated. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/193 "2023-04-27T17:07:48Z")
Once again, I would accept it as _evidence_, not _proof_. I would need more evidence, of course. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/194 "2023-04-27T17:11:01Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > It’s certainly evidence of something, an extraordinary amount of power, but does seemingly unlimited powers make someone God? If it told me to call it god, I probably would. I may even capitalize it. But, if it can’t show me how it created the universe, and can’t provide me with an afterlife, then it’s just a powerful entity. OTOH, I will believe in any god that convinces me that it exists. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/195 "2023-04-27T17:11:37Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > > Take Christianity. It’s hard to argue with the basic rules laid out in the Ten Commandments which come down to, “Obey my rules. Respect your parents. Don’t kill people or steal their stuff. Don’t screw your neighbor’s wife. Don’t spend your time envying what others have. Don’t worship material things. Don’t lie to people.” > > > > These are pretty good rules > > Setting aside the part where Exodus is in the Torah (Jewish, not Christian) there are some issues with those rules. Besides the commandments you mentioned, I’ve also always had a problem with “Honor your mother and father”. What if my parents are assholes? Fortunately, mine are not, but I know a lot of people I wouldn’t want to have as parents. And you can’t choose them. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/196 "2023-04-27T17:24:15Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > That would not convince me this was God (or “a god” or whatever). I would not conclude I’d just seen a being that stands outside the physical laws of the universe. I would conclude that there are laws of the universe we obviously don’t understand as well as we thought we did, and I’d assume that if we understood them better, the phenomenon I’d just observed would make sense within that context. > > I’m theistic. This, to me, has nothing to do with God. We’d have to figure out these supposed new laws, make predictions, and do experiments to determine if our ideas about them were correct. If this thing were truly supernatural, we’d fail. Much more likely that we do live in a simulation where this trick would not be hard for the simulation master to do. And a simulation master is a good approximation of god within the simulation. But I agree that this has nothing to do with worship. I’ve heard many atheists say that even if the God of the Bible showed up and proved himself to be real they wouldn’t worship him, because he is clearly an immoral genocidal monster. I agree. I’m willing to go with the lack of evidence that any god exists and the strong evidence that many particular gods don’t exist without a priori ruling any out. That’s not scientific. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/197 "2023-04-27T17:31:14Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Not in the important sense that I needed it, no. Being able to manipulate massively huge physical objects at a great distance is certainly something my current understanding of the laws of physics can’t accommodate, but in terms of the overall presence or lack of underlying deliberate consciousness, it’s no different from Joe Schmoe’s ability to move yonder rock from here to there. Ah. Moving stars around is not the impossible part of my example - Edmond Hamilton did it all the time in the '30s. It is doing it to stars hundreds of light years away and having the results show up immediately. That’s the impressive part. And supernatural does not mean giver of moral laws, as Captain Picard knows. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/198 "2023-04-27T17:38:02Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > It’s certainly evidence of something, an extraordinary amount of power, but does seemingly unlimited powers make someone God? > > I hear God, I think Creator of the Universe, Creator of Man, Writer of 10 Commandments, Sender of Jesus. There are things that God is claimed to have done, and commanded Man to do. Without proof that those things are real, what is the debate? That there may be a heretofore unknown being of immense power that had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of the Universe, Earth, or Mankind, and has similarly nothing to do with any earthly religion? I fail to understand how that claim is even interesting, much less something that needs to be debated. That’s the Pascal’s wager fallacy again. Given the God of the Bible didn’t appear to know what stars were, this supernatural entity would have to be something else. I think a lot of Christians are so steeped in environments where there is nothing else, they forget that there are other religions out there. Being Jewish I see this all the time. I get threatened with hell all the time on some discussions (not around here) and it doesn’t work very well because even when I believed I never believed in hell. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/199 "2023-04-27T18:08:54Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Take Christianity. It’s hard to argue with the basic rules laid out in the Ten Commandments which come down to, “Obey my rules. Respect your parents. Don’t kill people or steal their stuff. Don’t screw your neighbor’s wife. Don’t spend your time envying what others have. Don’t worship material things. Don’t lie to people.” As is very common, you are skipping over half of the commandments and going to the five that are more or less universally agreed upon. The first four are purely religious in nature and unrelated to moral behaviour, while the last, “thou shalt not covet,” is a ridiculous thing to ask of anyone. Any decent human being could effortlessly write a better list. > [@Voyager](#): > > I think a lot of Christians are so steeped in environments where there is nothing else, they forget that there are other religions out there. Being Jewish I see this all the time. I get threatened with hell all the time on some discussions (not around here) If a person sincerely believes that anyone who is not Christian (or Muslim; same basic argument) goes to hell, that is a rational thing to say. They obviously do believe you’re of another religion or they wouldn’t say that. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2023, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166/200 "2023-04-27T18:24:14Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Any decent human being could effortlessly write a better list. [George Carlin was a fairly decent human.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ7F7FuS-3Q) > [@](#): > > [And so, with all of this in mind, folks, I offer you my revised list of the Two Commandments: > First: > •THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE HONEST AND FAITHFUL, ESPECIALLY > TO THE PROVIDER OF THY NOOKIE. > And second: > •THOU SHALT TRY REAL HARD NOT TO KILL ANYONE, UNLESS, > OF COURSE, THEY PRAY TO A DIFFERENT INVISIBLE MAN > THAN THE ONE YOU PRAY TO.](https://genius.com/22027567/George-carlin-the-ten-commandments/And-so-with-all-of-this-in-mind-folks-i-offer-you-my-revised-list-of-the-two-commandments-first-thou-shalt-always-be-honest-and-faithful-especially-to-the-provider-of-thy-nookie-and-second-thou-shalt-try-real-hard-not-to-kill-anyone-unless-of-course-they-pray-to-a-different-invisible-man-than-the-one-you-pray-to) > > Two is all you need, folks. Moses could have carried them down the hill in his pocket. And if we had a list like that, I wouldn’t mind that brilliant judge in Alabama displaying it prominently in the courthouse wall. As long he in­cluded one additional commandment: > > [•THOU SHALT KEEP THY RELIGION TO THYSELF!](https://genius.com/1973524/George-carlin-the-ten-commandments/Thou-shalt-keep-thy-religion-to-thyself) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-worst-thing-about-being-an-atheist/983166.md?page=11)