Just a brief note to offer my appreciation of finding a dialogue on atheism which is intelligent, rational and entertaining. Too many sites offer up the same fundamentalist attitude more usually associated with religion, in the process belittling and undermining the scientific and intellectual viewpoint of atheists, and no doubt driving us into individual seclusion – ashamed to associate ourselves with such childish name calling…

So, keep up the good work, and heres to the abolishion of accepted ignorance when everybody is finally shaken awake…

I completely agree that there are too many atheists who inadvertently give other atheists a hard time. Let’s fight ignorance, not each other!

Being an atheist means you dont believe in anything, meaning there ARE NO RULES you dumb ass website!

But being a moral person means that there are rules, whether or not you are an atheist.

While I have your attention, I recommend not addressing Web sites directly — they are not alive.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I am very much like you in that I attempt to think things out thoroughly, and logically. I have a few atheist friends. But they are the type that give ‘us’ a bad name. I recall several times in which my ‘friends’ (for lack of a better word) have said ignorant (in my opinion) things.

One example of this dialogue follows:

Susie: I just believe in God because it feels right.

Johnny: You’re a moron. God isn’t real. If you were smart you would know that.

And in one similar situation (unrelated matter and different people) my friend actually gave the middle finger to the sky and said, “F**k you, God”. Which is really quite contrary in that he claims to have no belief in any God(s).

Other situations come to mind, but I shan’t bore you with them.

But to return to my initial thought process: I believe in tolerance. My Christian friends certainly out number my athiest friends. We have no quarrels. Live and let live I say. They can believe what they want to believe, and I will believe what I want.

I also quite enjoyed the section of your site referring to the things “moral athiest” should do. I follow the almost exact same rule-set. Many Christians believe that athiest simply have no moral guidings, that lack of belief and lack of morality are a singular concept.

But once again I applaud your attempt to make available a better understanding of our beliefs.

Thank you. You seriously made my day.

I really appreciate your writing — it’s letters like this that help me get through all the hate mail!

Very sorry to hear that you have some intolerant atheists in your circle of friends. The people you describe come across like knee-jerk or rebellious atheists, not people who have reached their beliefs through a process of deep thoughts. They give the rest of us a bad name.

I hope you and your Christian friends are able to have interesting conversations about your beliefs. That kind of sharing helps everyone grow.

Thanks again for writing!

You said that there are arguments that atheists make that are as bad as the arguments that Christians make. Can you name some? I can’t think of any.

There are, unfortunately, plenty of them. A few that seem to come up a lot:

• Item X is the Bible is not literally true, therefore it is a mistake. (Add to this any argument about the Bible’s content that does not take into account translation and the context in which it was written.)
• Parts of the Bible are wrong, therefore all of the Bible is not true.
• God couldn’t make the earth stop turning to stop the sun in the sky because if he did then everyone would fly off.
• Because he didn’t have a father, Jesus would be a clone of Mary.
• Religion is always harmful.
• Christians do not follow their own teachings, therefore their teachings are wrong.
• Religious people are stupid.
• There is no evidence that God exists, therefore God doesn’t exist.
• God isn’t omnipotent because he can’t make a rock that he can’t move. (Actually, an omnipotent being that is also perfectly moral could make a rock that it couldn’t move.)

I’m sure more will come to mind as I think about this. And if any of my readers can think of more, please send them in!

Well said. But point is, I AM a student who is an atheist and I AM boycotted by most students in my school. There’s graffiti on my lockers, any books lying about, snide remarks in the corridors (most just slinker away, leaving the corridor empty), I’m totally ignored by the students, sometimes teachers and all. The fact is, I took up atheism when I was 7 years old (although my parents are not) and I never spoke about it. I don’t HAVE any problems talking who follow any religion. I mentioned the fact that I’m an atheist in school when I was 11 years old, and since then students have been gradually abandoning me. I said nothing then. For three years about it. But when I was 14, almost everyone had deserted me, and a sea change came across the behavior of others when a new kid came in (extremely religious fanatic). And then started this campaign of vendetta and misinformation against me, and atheism. I still didn’t do anything initially, because I held the view that religion should NOT be brought into the academic sphere. But when posters and pamphlets spreading rumors about me, and (ridiculous) ones about secret societies of atheists, they kill people, secret rituals, devil worship etc. started appearing on the school campus. I guess they were jealous too, because I’ve been to spelling bees, numerous quiz contests, math olympiads, computer symposiums, LUGs, the Intel Science and Engineering Fair, (I’m crazy about science!) and I have been winning many of them.

I held your viewpoint in those days, and initially tried to present the rational side of atheism, keeping my cool. But then, things only got worse. Like my website (the link given below) was hacked etc. Incidents like this made me depressed, ever known how it feels to have NO friends at school, huh? I had seek medical attention from psychologists (talk about atheists requiring shrinks in school) and for a brief period was prescribed Prozac.

I had had enough, and then I too, went on the offensive. With stronger arguments, I got converts (as I mentioned earlier). And with more rational arguments, people did start to see some sense in me, that I was not Satan’s remote-controlled being. And also tearing apart (eh, hacking, that is) of the sites / MySpace / Zorpia / hi5 / email addresses of all those making any vicious attacks against me. It worked for me at least.

It’s affected me so much that I couldn’t bear it any longer and I had to change my school. At least I have an atheism club here (5 members, that’s it though). I’m happy here, there are still whispers behind my back, but outright rejection, no.

You talk about children not being allowed to play. Ever asked how those children feel? Did they ignore YOU at school? Ever felt how lonely you can be with practically no friends at all when in school? And what irks me more is when they try to bring in science to prove their point. They’re trying to pollute a pure medium free from bias, and frankly, they don’t know the scientific principles properly most of the time (poorly informed), which irritates me even more.

Most people are not ready to take up atheism, acceptance is found only when numbers grow. I found that pointing out discrepancies in their reasoning puts more faith in my comments by other students. And it is they who are being irrational and discriminatory, not me. I never ignore a person simply because they’re religious.

I very much sympathize with your plight, and although I don’t care to go into details about my personal life at this point, I think I know exactly how you feel. You’ll note that I don’t use my real name on this site, and the site is registered through a company (Pants Aflame) that keeps my name off of everything.

You are, in a certain sense, an atheist in a war zone. I completely agree with you that you should defend yourself and point out discrepancies in others’ reasoning and behavior. Where it’s possible that we disagree (and at this point I’m not sure we do) is when you talk about using “strong arguments.” If by this you mean defending your position to the best of your ability, then we are in agreement. But if you mean “strong” in the rhetorical sense of being forcefully presented, then we disagree. However, after hearing more from you, I don’t think this is necessarily what you mean.

I would also like to make sure you understand that I never would say that an atheist should keep that fact a secret, or be a doormat for religious people. But I think that atheists must be careful lest their defenses perpetuate the immoral behavior of others. To take an extreme example, when a minority riots to protest being treated as second-class citizens, it will reinforce the belief of some in the majority that “those people” are like animals and not in control of themselves.

Obviously, you have to do what you feel you have to do to make an awful situation worse. The religious people you describe here are behaving in an incredibly immoral manner, so I can understand your strong reaction to them.

Where I think you are incorrect is in how you wrote about the correspondent who had written to me. Your note about her came across as very mean, even though she had done nothing to deserve this treatment. She is not one of the people abusing you at school. You say that you don’t ignore someone just because they are religious, and this speaks well for you. However, I’d suggest that you go a step farther and not speak ill of someone just because they are religious (or scientifically ignorant, for that matter). It’s that kind of behavior that makes you look biased and irrational, even if you are neither of these things.

Hmmm. I did make a sweeping generalisation of vocab when saying that ‘time did not exist before Big Bang’, but my point was that with ’such people’, as that writer, it’s better to that we don’t start of with the spin of particles and debates about their existence because it will not go into their head. Without demeaning them, it’s better to give them in pretty simple terms that they are wrong (mostly that is, not opposed to them as in human beings). Many people with weaker backgrounds in science may read her comments, and think ‘oh yes, science is totally stupid, this little girl has proved it’. It’s necessary to point that out, maybe just politely saying that she may refer to this URL which will answer her query on quantum particles, whatever, is under discussion.

I do know of the fact what Sir Stephen says about our finite unbound universe. Maybe I slipped on my vocab again. BTW, you like Michio Kaku’s works? Even he’s awesome, but a bit more philosophical.

My point is, mails from theists are far more strongly-worded, and I’ve had many a delightful conversations with them which they peppered with words like ‘hell’, ‘eternal punishment’, and ‘we have overwhelming evidence’ (which, somehow, they’re generally not able to quote) etc. So if we people take a similar stance sometimes, I’ve found it works. At least, I have converted a few that way, and they’re very vocal atheists now. Sometime, it tests my patience, and the overt self-righteousness, especially Christianity displays on this topic (my poor tasteless joke – in other religions, they don’t leave you alive to protest).

I think what we have here is a difference in philosophy. Despite the joke on which this site’s home page is based, I do not make it a goal to convert people to atheism (and I don’t even like using the word “convert” in that context — it sounds too religious). Instead, my goal is to help people understand atheism and discuss religious issues in a calm, rational manner, and to examine their own beliefs to make sure they make sense.

For this reason, when someone spews hellfire at me, I don’t get defensive or start spewing reason back at them. Instead, I try to politely explain that I understand their position but disagree with it. Far more often than not in my experience, this turns a rant into a conversation.

Another think I try to keep in mind is that there are usually more than two people in any discussion. If someone is berating me for being an atheist, there are usually other people around who are interested to see what will happen next — be these other guests at a party or passersby on the street. Even if I can’t win over the person ranting, I can at least show those who might be listening that the atheist is behaving better and making more sense than the religious person. I think that this helps atheists everywhere, because it plays against stereotype and because the more people who think of atheists in a positive way, the more people might consider it as a possible philosophy.

I believe that there are some people who are going to be religious no matter how many reasons you can give them for being otherwise. It’s just a part of their makeup, and it’s possible that they are even better off than they would be as atheists. I’m not going to “convert” these people, but what I can do is try and make sure that they don’t see atheists as evil or immoral. I think that fighting this bias is even more important than trying to increase the number of atheists, because so long as that bias is there atheists will continue to be treated as second-class citizens by some, and biased people will be resistant to examining their faith because they are afraid of becoming “like those atheists.”

I have heard from atheist parents living in small communities whose children have nobody to play with because there are no other atheist children, and the religious parents won’t let their child associate with an atheist. I’d rather work on getting rid of that bias so that atheist and the theist children can play together than try to badger people out of their beliefs or look down on those who do not agree with me (not that I’m saying you do this).

I have so much confidence in my philosophy that I believe that once the biases against atheists and against self-examination are eliminated, atheism will spread itself.

Sheesh. I can point out a few discrepancies in that correspondence with the ‘Young Girl’. She obviously has no working knowledge of science, and is still trying to bring it in. Albert Einstein never said ‘every action has an equal and/or opposite reaction’. Newton did. And it’s not and/or it is and. Also, opposite reaction does not mean ‘less reaction’ as she says. Plus, Newtonian physics does not include all circumstances. And Newtonian physics is for particles, chemistry is different.

Apart from that, the statement ‘energy can neither be created nor be destroyed’ is only true in ‘classical’ physics; E=mc^2 talks about exactly this, and this is how nuclear reactions take place.

Also, eminent physicist Sir Stephen Hawking HAS talked about effects before causes.

There was no time before Big Bang, she obviously doesn’t know that. And mention cosmic background radiation to her, in relation to Big Bang.

And you went wrong at a point saying Stephen Hawking says Univerese has no origin. His life’s work is based on Big Bang. Please read his ‘Brief History of Time’ carefully. BTW, for that girl, tell her to hang on until 2007-08, because Sir Stephen will publish a book for kids (with help from his daughter) about the origin of the universe.

Universe is infinite was chucked out of the window long ago. Point out to her that this was first done by a Christian priest, later taken up by Edwin Hubble (universe is expanding…)

Did I mention I’m an atheist?

I guessed that you are an atheist.

In fact, though I don’t mean this to sound as harsh as it does, I feel that letters like yours are part of the reason that theists have such a resistance to discussion with atheists. You come across as very condescending as self congratulating. Your statement that the correspondent has “no working knowledge of science” sounds nasty both because it is untrue (much of her knowledge of science is just very basic and outdated) and because it ignores the fact that, despite her ignorance on this topic, she is apparently making a sincere effort to increase her knowledge.

I agree with most of your points about the science of the correspondent — in fact, I pointed out most of these things in my responses. Other inaccuracies I didn’t think worth pointing out as they were not germane to the conversation. Our disagreement about Stephen Hawking may be one of vocabulary, in that he speaks of a finite unbounded space in which our universe exists, and that space can also be referred to as the universe. This allows for the big bang to occur within a universe that does not require anything outside of it. The statement “there was no time before the big bang” is also a very complex one, so I’d say that your seemingly condescending statement about her “not knowing that” is misplaced.

My point here is that yes, it’s fun to be able to pick apart the arguments of uninformed theists, but that should not be a goal of atheism. Discussions of this sort should be conducted in a way that helps others see why atheism makes sense, not in a way that makes them feel attacked or badgered, or that makes them want to avoid atheists in the future.