amy2x:
What’s your family think about your hate of God?
Evid3nc3:
I don’t hate God. You are confusing atheism with misotheism. In order to hate God, I would have to believe in God. I don’t hate things I don’t believe in. That would be as irrational as saying I hate Harry Potter just because I don’t believe he is real.
amy2x:
Ummm… if you are aggressively pushing Atheism (naturalism?) and secular humanism AFTER being a Christian; then for all intents and purposes: YES, YOU DO HATE GOD; seeing as you are doing everything you can to distance yourself from Him and get Him angry.
Evid3nc3:
Ummm… amy2x, if you are so aggressively pushing Monotheism (Yahwism?) and Christianity AFTER being exposed to Polytheism; then for all intents and purposes: YES, YOU DO HATE ZEUS; AND THOR; seeing as you are doing everything you can to distance yourself from Them and get Them angry.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
I tried informing a responder to one of your videos (vekl) of the same thing, though it seemed my words fell on deaf ears.
It seems that when ever one points out the cruelty that is illustrated in the bible the opposing side will some times take it as proof that the atheist really believes in God.
It’s a very strange suspension of ones thinking abilities. I’m pretty sure that if I were to express that I thought Megatron wasn’t a very nice guy (robot) I don’t think the same person would accuse me of believeing in Megatron and hating him.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
lol. Great point.
July 4th, 2011 at 7:20 am
I think a lot of that comes from a poor ability to distinguish between criticism of a concept and criticism of an existent thing. This happens because the person in question so dearly believes that the concept does reference a truly existent thing that the former collapses into the latter.
For example, it’s very possible to despise the concept of God inasmuch as it can be seen in many cases to pollute people’s minds, without believing that said concept is instantiated as an existent being. Some theists, however, believe so very hard that God must exist that the idea of separating out a conceptual God from the “real” thing doesn’t even enter their minds. Perhaps it seems a sort of blasphemy to them, on an almost subconscious level.
July 4th, 2011 at 7:24 am
I think you are dead-on. Exquisitely articulate analysis.
July 12th, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Well not that I’ve ever been in the position of believing in God with even a modecum of ernestness, but I imagine to these people it may be as odd as criticising (I’m sorry for the tired analogy) the sun.
For one, OF COURSE it exists, I can FEEL it’s warmth, and I’m SURE it’s responsible (for its part) for life on earth, how else would we have just the right circumstances to produce life? Secondly if somebody gets skin cancer they may have brought it on themselves, don’t hate on the sun if it punishes you for not wearing protection.
It’s hard for me to comprehend somebody conceptually criticisng the sun, and to somebody who has felt God and is certain he is the source of all life and everything else I can understand that confusion.
However, the difference here is that the sun is self-evident and it isn’t reported to act with intent… at least according to most people. So I’m not sure how far I can really sympathize with theists on that count.
October 14th, 2011 at 5:49 am
I started noticing the same phenomenon when I began to tell my former church peers that I was agnostic. I was in essence saying “I don’t believe in the tooth fairy anymore” and they were hearing “I don’t believe in President Obama.”
A large part of our reality is what we perceive to be true. When someone is certain that God is as real as the president, it’s a complete non-sequitar to suggest otherwise. This was my own experience pre and post deconversion so I can testify that they won’t be able to remotely comprehend it unless a time comes when they too are able to entertain the idea that there may not be a God. In their minds God is as sure as gravity. That’s where smiling and nodding comes in handy. :)
July 12th, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Just regarding what Thinking Sapian said about cruelty in the bible; I once played a game called Black & White, by Lionhead Studios. You play a god. Long story short, when I was beneficent, my followers did nothing but make demands of me and do nothing for themselves, couldn’t even regulate their own society without my divine will. When I was wrathful (after snapping under the weight of demands), they grovelled and it only strengthened their belief in me, which I found to be despicably weak.
I quit that game in disgust. If I were God, I’d love the godless more than anyone, they’d figure stuff out for themselves instead of bothering me all the time. I was maybe 14-15 when that occured to me, and it’s been one of the more memorable contributions to my outlook. Evid3nc3 presented a far more thoughtful and dignified path to invalidating intercessory prayer, but mine works for me.
I’d never be so tactless as to actually use it in a conversation but I smirk and remind myself of this (kind of like imagining somebody in their underwear; takes some of the bite out of their inflamatory statements); my response to the “God hater” routine: I don’t hate God, I don’t think he’s real, but if he is, he might actually hate you.
July 12th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
LOL that’s awesome!
You should definitely use that in conversation! There’s post in that: playing god made you an atheist… that’s just awesome.
Also makes perfect sense; I’m with you in that if I were God, I’d respect the godless more, blind faith is a terrible thing.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Meh. One of my pet peeves; and by that I don’t just mean that Christians seem to misunderstand where my distaste for their religion lies but also their inability to look at what they believe objectively.
I think John Loftus is mostly right with his outsider test for faith; if you look at your own religious beliefs with the same scepticism you reserve for other people’s beliefs, they become very hard to justify.
I don’t hate your god or any god. I do not hate troll’s or ogres or fairies. I do, however, feel differently about people who do foolish things in the name of a non-existent entity.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Well said.
July 12th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Tried that very same thing with an aunt of mine. Her argument was that people were given their time on earth to find Jesus, and if they didn’t… oh well. I asked why they would want Jesus when they already had Muhammad, or Buddha. Her response was that they aren’t the right ones, and those people are just brainwashed. When I held my hands up expectingly, gesturing that she continue logically from that point, all I got was a blank stare. You know, I think I would have gotten further with a brick wall.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
I had a similar conversation with a friend of mine.
Friend: Why do you hate God?
Me: Which one?
Friend: There’s only one God.
Me: Not if you’re a Hindu. But I don’t believe in any of those gods.
Friend: I don’t believe in them either. They’re not the one true God.
Me: So… do you hate them?
Friend:
I think there’s a lot of merit to the Socratic method.
June 27th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
lol. Well done.
June 30th, 2011 at 9:32 am
There are Christians out there who actually hate Zeus and Thor as they’re Satan’s avatars.
July 1st, 2011 at 7:03 am
This is funny..
July 4th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
I hate Harry Potter. I also don’t believe in him.
July 4th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
I don’t really understand this mindset either. It would be like starting to hate santa claus once you stop believing in him. Sure the fat bastard isn’t around to give you presents any more, but he doesn’t exist, so there really isn’t anything to hate. Now hating the people who lie to you and spout lies as truth, well that is a different story.
July 5th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
I think the questioner is really asking why do you hate the concept of God.
July 5th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
I don’t think so. Check her quote:
Concepts don’t get angry.
July 6th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
I’d hate God if he existed.
Any moral person would.
July 7th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
I agree! Hating a being who would enforce eternal torture isn’t hard or surprising.
All I can say is, thank God there is no God.
July 7th, 2011 at 7:13 pm
I don’t know… the idea of god is incredibly plastic. There are some god concepts, even among Christians, that don’t include eternal torment. I don’t see any reason to prefer one god concept over another. If the god of some of those god concepts did exist, the world would undoubtedly be a better place. However, as it stands, the hand of God looks identical to the probabilistic outcomes of random processes.
Anyway, I think it’s kind of ironic and a little funny that there’s more convergence for ideas about unicorns than there is for gods.
July 7th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Unicorns are more awesome. Fact.
July 12th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
I don’t think it’s ironic, it actually makes perfect sense. Regardless, I’m totally using that point, that is hilarious.
July 19th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Jonathan, regarding your statement “I don’t see any reason to prefer one god concept over another.” There *is* one reason: the date and location of one’s birth. When and where a person happens to be born is the single most reliable predictor of his religious belief. It’s also one of the strongest pieces of evid3nc3, in my analysis, that none of the deities humans worship are real.
(I’m not disagreeing with you, just chipping in my two cents.)
July 19th, 2011 at 5:49 pm
ha! That’s very true, Suzanne. I was pointing out that there’s no reason for me, an unbeliever, to prefer one concept over another. However, thinking about it now, I do have a pretty strong preference for some god concepts over others. I much prefer the gods whose followers don’t want to kill or harm me, or limit my freedom. So, I supposed I was wrong. :)
July 17th, 2011 at 6:39 am
Whenever I see this argument, I always remember the NonStampCollector video about Voltron. I recommend anyone check it out if they haven’t seen it already (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnbXlkNavwo).
January 16th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Hey buddy…I just want to say that I appreciate your work. As a pseudo-Christian, I tend to align myself more closely with Marcus Borg. I see scripture as the human response to God and not God dictating holy writings. We really need to stop blaming God for the things we do individually and culturally.
I also agree with Paul Toscano, an excommunicated Mormon, that perhaps faith is to give God the benefit of the doubt.
Because I no longer identify with the institutional church and concepts of orthodoxy and tradition have little to no meaning to me, I am considered a ‘hater’ as well.
I’m also working toward a degree in Biblical studies and concentrating on redaction criticism. As I have studied, I have distanced myself from the pious and narcissistic traditional Christian mindset. Religious elitism and the arrogance of certainty are, IMO, the enemy of Faith and God.