What do you personally feel about atheists?

This is an opinion-based discussion, and as such the accuracy of the answers is to be questioned.

Personally I feel that they are ignorant. They say they believe in nothing...but believing nothing is believing that there is nothing and in doing so they are believing something...so they're just a walking contradiction. Plus how can they walk around and not belive in at least some form of other power in control. There is too much "freaky" stuff that happens to just be coincidences and practical explanations. There's more than meets the eye...and you have to be pretty naive not to konw that.

(reply) Atheism isn't the belief in nothing, it is the non-belief in ONE thing, the existence of gods. An atheist is perfectly free to believe anything else and be an atheist - the ignorance is yours, not ours.

So far as there not being something in control, there is - the properties of the universe. The idea that there is an omnipotent intelligent being that takes an interest in our lives and wellbeing seems to me to be conclusively disproven by the vast amounts of random tragedy - not even going into disease and such why would a child who never harmed anyone be born with crippling birth defects? Why would children get cancer and die before their minds can fully develop or they can experience 1 100th of what life has to offer?

No, that there is no conscious intelligence running things makes much more sense I think.

Answer

There are far too many personality types in the pool of people we call Atheists to give a fair assessment. I will say that the vast majority of Atheists are logical, strong critical thinkers who tend to question the world around them rather than take it at face value. They believe that they are in control of their own lives. There are no devils to make them do bad things. They take responsibility in their own lives. There are extremists, just like any group who believe passionately, but I believe that most of us are just trying to understand the world, and we think that saying, "God did it." Is a lazy cop out.

Answer

Personally, unlike the comment above that Atheists are most certainly not ignorant. What is the case is that they have a reputation for being highly intolerant. This is reinforced when they remove answers they do not like, such as this one which I am now replacing. Interestingly, the above answer which called them ignorant was left, while mine, which said they were not, was removed. Perhaps this is part of another problem of perception, that atheists are particularly intolerant of Christians. While this is continually reinforced by such actions the perception will remain.

Atheists have certainly made a choice to not believe in God or gods, which choice they are free to make. The interesting thing is they frequently claim to be intellectual and intelligent and also scholarly, yet they deliberately quote people and particularly the Bible out of context and mis-represent things in order to bolster their position. Such actions would be unnecessary if their position was so rock solid. It would appear also from deliberate ignoring of any contrary evidence, that they are desperate for theism to be untrue, since if it were they may have to answer to someone. This is what is explicitly stated as well, and so is not just my opinion.

Thus, even if every single intellectual argument would be answered, there would be still more. This, together with other things shows an unreasonableness which goes far beyond mere disagreement. The theory of evolution which contradicts known scientific laws is essentially and dogmatically true for them at all costs, regardless of any contrary scientific evidence which many evolutionists themselves admit.

First answer by Chic a bre. Last edit by PeteNco. Contributor trust: 290 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 20 [recommend question]