What Would an Atheist Say to God?

Why did you stay hidden? Why did you stay silent? Why did you demand faith instead of providing evidence? Why did you reveal yourself in a book full of historical innaccuracies and theological contradictions? If you knew that the vast majority of humans you created would end up in hell, why did you create them? Why did you create hell? How is infinite punishment justice for a finite crime? What is the point of torturing someone in hell if they can never get out of it and never learn? Why woul...

 What Motivates an Atheist to Do Good

It is asked, what motives an Atheist can have to do good? The motive to please himself and his fellow-creatures; to live happily and peaceably; to gain the affection and esteem of men. "Can he, who fears not the gods, fear any thing?" He can fear men; he can fear contempt, dishonour, the punishment of the laws; in short, he can fear himself, and the remorse felt by all those who are conscious of having incurred or merited the hatred of their fellow-creatures. Conscience is the internal testi...

 Underreported Atheists

The authors of the study, published earlier this year, adopted a novel way to measure atheist identity. Instead of asking about belief in God directly, they provided a list of seemingly innocuous statements and then asked: “How many of these statements are true of you?” Respondents in a control group were given a list of nine statements, such as “I own a dog” and “I am a vegetarian.” The test group received all the same statements plus one that read, “I do not believe in God.”...

 Laura Betzig: Culture

What if the 100,000-odd year-old evidence of human social life—from the arrowheads in South Africa, to the Venus figurines at Dordogne—is the effect of nothing, more or less, but our efforts to become parents? What if the 10,000-odd year-old record of civilization—from the tax accounts at temples in the Near East, to the inscription on a bronze statue in New York Harbor—is the product of nothing, more or less, but our struggle for genetic representation in future generations? [...] ...

 Decline of US Religion Between 2007 and 2014

To be sure, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith.1 But the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally mass...

 Korihor Does Not Deny God, But Does Not Believe in God

48 Now Korihor said unto him: I do not deny the existence of a God, but I do not believe that there is a God; and I say also, that ye do not know that there is a God; and except ye show me a sign, I will not believe.

 Asimov: Rationalism VS Atheism

I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.

 The Not-Believing-In-God-Glasses

But then I thought, "But I don't know how to not believe in God. I don't know how you do it. How do you get up, how do you get through the day?" I thought, "Okay, calm down. Let's just try on the not-believing-in-God glasses for a moment, just for a second. Just put on the no-God glasses and take a quick look around and then immediately throw them off. So I put them on and I looked around. I'm embarrassed to report that I initially felt dizzy. I actually had the thought, "Well, how does the...

 Lord Bacon's Apology for Atheism

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and createth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no farther, and we see the times inclined to Atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times: but superstition hath been the confusion o...

 What Humanism Can Learn from the LGBT Community

So, what can the godless movement learn from the LGBT movement? Bullet point number one: coming out. Coming out is the single most powerful political act that LGBT people can take—and it’s the single most powerful political act that godless people can take. Consistently, polls show that the one factor most likely to predict whether people support gay rights is whether they know a gay person personally. (Or, to be more accurate—whether they know that they know a gay person.) And I think ...