Myth #8: Atheists hate God
Anyone with a god might feel the urge to tell a non-believer of that god that they "hate it". We here this all the time: "You just hate (or are mad at) God"; "You want to rip religion out of schools"; "You just want to lead a sinful life and avoid responsibility!"
Atheists do not hate your god. We don't believe in your God. You can't hate something that isn't real. Do you hate the Tooth Fairy? We can hate the idea of a God, or we can despise the followers of that idea, but hating something you don't believe exists is nonsense.
Now, for the charge that we just want to be rebels and live a sinful life void of any moral responsibility – we don't believe in sin either. We know right from wrong. Accusations that we are "rebelling against God" only seek to use emotion to enact a response. We can't rebel against nonexistent things. Similarly, we don't "worship Satan" because we don't believe in that either.
The accusation is hurled by those who think we hate specifically their God, like it's some sort of personal attack. But we don't want to tear you away from your religion – we just don't want you shoving your beliefs down anyone else's throat but your own. Theists should keep in mind that awesome quote from Stephen Robert: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just go one god further than you. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
There isn't really much to say on this one. You can't hate something you don't think exists. Atheists don't hate God.
-STA
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Comments: 7
My favorite response from believers when I state my non-belief is the sympathetic, so-sad response that I must have been very hurt by religion or somebody that represents religion earlier in life. That even I don't understand the pain I am in.....and that they will pray for me to heal. That patronizing "pray for the broken" attitude I get from some people pisses me off even more than the "you hate our god" attitude.
Get it through you head once and for all, people. I don't hate your god, nor am I in pain and hurting from some past incident that "scarred" me in such a way as to make me turn away from your god. Geesh!
It seems nowadays a lot of people are rejecting organized religion, but they don't want to let go of their Gods. I visit the JesusTalk chatroom on Stickam sometimes, and I always have someone telling me something like, "You've just been hurt by religion; you haven't experience the real God" or "You need to truly experience Jesus". This gets into another topic of theists thinking that if you no longer believe, then you never truly believed. I'd write a book if I kept going, so lemme just end it here by saying: I was not hurt by God because he doesn't exist to hurt me. And that doesn't hurt me either.
".....Why do you hate God? My cousin is an atheist, but I think he's wrong in his belief that there is no God. You sir, sound like you have a lot of anger inside of yourself."
I think I'll just mosey over and leave a comment about that comment.