Myths & Truths About Atheism

[Kyuuketsuki]

Greta Christina's Blog has an article, "Eleven Myths & Truths About Atheism" which she freely admits is based on Sam Harris's, "10 myths and 10 Truths About Atheism" so I thought maybe we should do our own?

So here's some based in these:

• Atheists believe there is no god: No, atheism is about disbelief in current claims to deity not actually insisting we know there is (indeed cannot be) a god or gods.
  
• Atheism provides no basis for morality: A brief survey of human history and culture demonstrates that morality varies implying it depends on culture, on society, on people. Religionists promoting this idea however tend to refer to scriptures that as often as not enshrine morally repugnant ideas.
  
• Atheists believe that life is meaningless: Most atheists appear to live fulfilling and meaningful lives without any form of god to provide meaning.
  
• Atheists are sullen, angry, unhappy, disrespectful, intolerant, and mean: Character assassination only works if it's true and the atheists I've met seem to have just as much fun, as much love, as much friendship in their lives as anyone else, they seem to relate to people just as most others do ... in short they are just human.
  
• Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history: Hitler was a Christian, Stalin a failed priest, Pol Pot an atheist and all instigated appalling pogroms against groups of people for no morally supportable reason but what's more important is that these people did what they did not because of being religious (though it’s debatable with respect to Hitler) or because of any other theistic stance but because they were megalomaniacs.
  
• Atheists are arrogant: Some are, some aren't ... atheists vary so much that it's hard to characterise them in a specific character mould.
  
• Atheists treat science as a religion: I'm sure there are some who do but typically no, most rational atheists tend to view science as exactly what it is, a methodology for explaining observable phenomena. Science is not a religion and no atheist I know of treats it that way.
  
• Atheists are just being trendy: This sounds like the old claim there are no atheists in foxholes i.e. we're just doing it because we can but when the chips are down we'll come crying back to mama (or papa). It's a ridiculous idea not only because there are many people who have been in metaphorical foxholes (times of great crisis) including soldiers in real foxholes who haven't come whining back to a religious POV but also, as an atheist, I reject all deity so which god would I choose even if did decide to believe in one once again?
  
• Atheists are whiny: So acting responsibly and defending one's rights is whiny? If so yeah sure ... I'm whiny as hell.
  
• Atheists are just angry with God: It's news to me, scared of the religious institutions and what their follower's might do sure, but how can an atheist be scared of a god he or she doesn't actually believe in.
  
• Atheists are arguing with straw men criticising the worst, the most outdated aspects of religion in the most simplistic way and ignore more modern, thoughtful & complex forms of religious thinking: That's possible but in my experience the more modern and complex, modern theological ideas are just variations on themes that have already been exposed and debunked a million times.
  
• Atheism is dogmatic: Atheism isn't a philosophy, how can it be dogmatic? Sure atheists themselves can be dogmatic, they are human and exhibit various characteristics (quite likely involving dogmatism in some cases) but as a group, no they aren't.
  
• Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance: No, they it is, as yet, unknown how the universe came to be ... that is an open question and not in any way the same as saying, "the universe arose by chance"
  
• Atheism has no connection to science: True but a good understanding of science does tend to lead people to disbelief.
  
• Atheists are closed to spiritual experience: Like any other humans atheists experience love, friendship, excitement, awe and so on and whilst that typically doesn't include the religious idea of spirituality there is nothing specific about atheism that means an atheist cannot have spiritual experiences.
  
• Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding: Not at all, disbelief in god doesn't specifically mean a disbelief in other supernatural concepts.
  
• Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society: Not in my experience but religionists tend to ignore the fact that religion can be detrimental to society. In addition there have been meta-studies that imply societies without religion are better than those with.

I can answer these pretty much off the top of my head (indeed I gave brief answers) but I'd like to know if any of you have better answers or can suggest more theist nonsense claims about atheism.

Kyu