Atheism

A community portal about Atheism with blogs, videos, and photos. According to Wikipedia.org: Atheism is the state of disbelief or non-belief in the existence of a deity or deities. It is commonly defined as the positive denial of theism, or the deliberate rejection of theism. However, others—including most atheistic philosophers and groups—define atheism as the simple absence of belief in deities , thereby designating many agnostics, and people who have never heard of gods, such as the unchurched or newborn children, as atheists as well. In recent years, some atheists have adopted the terms strong and weak atheism to clarify whether they consider their stance one of positive belief that no gods exist, or of mere absense of belief that gods exist.

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The Social and Emotional Benefits of Religious Belief

Written by vjack on

From: atheistrevolution.blogspot.com

There was a thought-provoking opinion piece written by an atheist in a recent New York Times dealing with religion and politics. I found the part about the social and emotional benefits of religious belief to be one of those intriguing topics to which I have devoted insufficient attention here. I need to think about this more, but I did want to share some initial thoughts while it is fresh in my mind.

From the article:

Belief certainly provides benefits regardless of whether God exists — not least social acceptance among other believers and the comfort of a promised heaven. It must be awkward to be an atheist in Mecca or Jerusalem — or Iowa.

I see little to disagree with here. Although the author does go on to shoot down Pascal's Wager and say that he feels the cost of belief outweighs any potential gain, this statement about social acceptance and comfort stood out for me.

Even though we atheists have a reputation for being more comfortable with the isolation many of us experience as a result of our refusal to go along with the belief of the majority, I suspect that few atheists would turn down greater social acceptance if the price were not so high. At this point in my life, I am fairly comfortable with the realization that I am not going to be liked or accepted by everyone. But this was not always the case. There was a time when this sort of acceptance was an important goal worth pursuing. Still, acceptance is not something I actively avoid.

The combination of social acceptance and comfort (even if it is a false sense of comfort) are understandably attractive to many. Even if the comfort that comes from a belief in afterlife is false, no one truly knows until it is too late. We atheists have to find our comfort elsewhere, but this is not always an easy sell to believers.

Tags: belief, religion, Pascal's Wager, atheist, atheism, acceptance, comfort

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