Atheists Are Arrogant

Seven Things Many Christians Believe About Atheists and Why They're Not Necessarily True

4. Atheists are arrogant.

This is one of my favorites. Which sounds more arrogant, the person who believes that the Creator of the universe loves him specifically (enough to sacrifice His own Son) and occasionally changes the laws of the universe in response to specific requests (prayer), or the person who sees the world as a great puzzle to be observed and studied, maybe someday even to be solved? Probably the most common argument for the existence of God is the one that says, “If there is no God then where did all of this come from? Every watch has a maker.” The atheist, if he is being honest, will answer, “I don’t know.” Because he doesn’t, and neither do you. You believe. You don’t know. Everything you think you know about God came from other men. It came from your parents, your Sunday school teachers, and the Bible, written by men. Is it a coincidence that when white Americans picture God he is usually an older white man who speaks English? How arrogant is it to believe that the Creator looks like us? Wouldn’t the God of the apes, if they had one, also be an ape?

There is a normal stage of development in little kids where they believe that their thoughts can control things in their environment. If they are angry at Mommy and say they hate her, then she gets sick, it’s not uncommon for them to think that they caused it. Does that sound kind of familiar? Televangelist Pat Robertson says that the earthquake in Haiti was because the Haitians worshiped the wrong God. Westboro Baptist Church says that soldiers die in American wars because our nation tolerates homosexuality. Millions of Christians believe that their thoughts can condemn them to eternal torture. Many believe that God is angry with America because we’ve taken prayer out of schools and allowed gay marriage, and that our current economic problems are a result of God’s anger. How different is that from throwing a virgin into a volcano to bless the crops? Our emotions, our wants and desires, don’t control the universe by making God happy or angry.

We do have an effect on our environment, but it’s not our thoughts that change things. It’s our actions. We need to realize that we are no more important in the circle of life than anything else. We are a part of nature. It wasn’t created for our enjoyment; we evolved the way we did because our environment is what it is. If earth didn’t have as much oxygen, we wouldn’t be here. Something else might be. It’s a simple question of cause and effect. If you get your science and history from the Bible then you know that God created the heavens and the earth and all the animals for man, in six days. If you get your science and history from, well, science and history, you know that the earth was here billions of years before anything crawled on it.

Which worldview is more arrogant?

Part 5 - It Takes As Much Faith To Be An Atheist