A problem I have seen is people who say that the culture we live in is based on Christian values. I ask them if the culture would be any worse off if it was developed by atheists. I don't think that our role should be to try to simply provoke people to disbelieve in god. I think that as atheists, we should educate people, on things that some Christians I have talked to don't even know the difference between.
I have a friend who thinks that atheism is the same thing as science, I had to explain to him that science is a tool of measurement and observation and that it has a scientific method. I explained to him that Atheism isn't rejection of god, it's skepticism, and you don't choose what to believe. I am still trying to build a more solid argument for why you don't choose to believe something, because I don't understand why it isn't demonstrable to them.
I also think that as atheists, we should fight the stereotype that religious people are more moral than we are. They think that since religion seems to be the basis of cultures, that means in their mind that religious morality is ingrained in all of us. That's when you see people trying to use that as accountability for enacting religious laws, or saying atheists are immoral. It seems demonstrable to me that biblical "morality" is full of contradictions, but the believer doesn't see that. They don't see that religious morality is just morality repackaged.
As an atheist, I often feel tremendous pressure, not only to reverse misnomers about atheism, but to try to battle the embarrassment of having my thoughts looked down on. It takes so much effort to try to explain something to someone who doesn't understand, as well as try to decipher arguments that make no sense and try to counteract the misconceptions. Often times I will just sit around, so disgusted and annoyed with the world, I'll feel nothing but despair and isolation.
I have a friend who thinks that atheism is the same thing as science, I had to explain to him that science is a tool of measurement and observation and that it has a scientific method. I explained to him that Atheism isn't rejection of god, it's skepticism, and you don't choose what to believe. I am still trying to build a more solid argument for why you don't choose to believe something, because I don't understand why it isn't demonstrable to them.
I also think that as atheists, we should fight the stereotype that religious people are more moral than we are. They think that since religion seems to be the basis of cultures, that means in their mind that religious morality is ingrained in all of us. That's when you see people trying to use that as accountability for enacting religious laws, or saying atheists are immoral. It seems demonstrable to me that biblical "morality" is full of contradictions, but the believer doesn't see that. They don't see that religious morality is just morality repackaged.
As an atheist, I often feel tremendous pressure, not only to reverse misnomers about atheism, but to try to battle the embarrassment of having my thoughts looked down on. It takes so much effort to try to explain something to someone who doesn't understand, as well as try to decipher arguments that make no sense and try to counteract the misconceptions. Often times I will just sit around, so disgusted and annoyed with the world, I'll feel nothing but despair and isolation.
