It Takes As Much Faith To Be An Atheist

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

5. Atheism is a religion too, or, it takes as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a Christian.

All atheism means is a lack of belief in a god or gods. That’s it. It is no more a religion than not collecting stamps is a hobby, or ‘off’ is one of the channels on tv. An atheist is simply someone who has concluded, for whatever reasons, that there is most likely no supreme being running the show. Painting atheism as a religion is a tactic some Christians use to get their religion into the public forum. They will say that atheism or secularism is just another belief system and therefore it shouldn’t be given any more weight in government than any other religion. They’ll say that by banning things like prayer from schools, the government is endorsing atheism over other religions. No. We just want to keep the tv OFF so that we don’t have to argue about which channel to let the kids watch.

“Atheists worship science” is a variation on this theme of atheism as a religion. Atheists like science because it isn’t personal. Science doesn’t care who wins a war. Good science is honest inquiry, without a preconceived idea of a desired result. A scientist might have a suspicion about the way a particle behaves, or whether a certain chemical modification might eradicate a disease. He might hope fervently that his suspicion turns out to be true, but if it does not, he doesn’t change the data. He goes back to the drawing board. He revises his theory and he experiments again. Computers, medicine, cars, microwaves, and all the things we use every day are the result of science. We don’t need to worship science to appreciate all that it can do for us. Which is a better way to understand the world, observation and study, or an ancient book?

Penn Jillette makes an excellent point about why science and religion aren't two sides of the same coin. “If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.”


Part 6 - Atheists Are Angry With God