"Ask an Atheist Day"

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Atheist FAQs

Addressing argument and debate

• Where does morality come from, if not God?
• Why don't atheists find Biblical prophecy convincing?
• If there is no god, how do you explain _______?
• Do you believe all this came about by random chance or by accident?
• If it wasn't God, who created the universe?
• Can you prove that God doesn't exist?
• What if you are wrong?
• Where do you think rights come from, if not God?
• What would it take to prove to you that a god exists?
• What is your evidence that atheism is true and accurate?
• Wouldn't it be safer to just believe than risk going to hell?
• Don't you have to be skeptical about skepticism?
• Doesn't you being so against God prove he exists?
• How do you know you are right?
• Don't you know that you're just supposed to have faith?
• How can anyone deny the reality of God when they see a baby?

General

• Can you prove that love exists?
• What is the point of living without an afterlife or god?
• Are you afraid of going to hell?
• Why do you get irritated or angry when we cite Bible or Qu'ran verses to you?
• Why do atheists support gays so much?
• Why don't you just sit down and shut up, and let others have their beliefs?
• Where does the meaning, and purpose of life come from?
• Do you believe in a soul or spirit?
• Where to do you go when you die?
• Do atheists have faith?
• Why did you choose to be an atheist?
• If you think we're just animals, why not act like it?
• Have you tried to believe in God?
• What is in it for me to be an atheist?
• Isn't it hypocritical for an atheist to celebrate Christmas, a Christian Holiday?
• What do you base your beliefs from?
• How can you have justice without God?
• Do atheists want to take religious freedom from Christians?
• What would it take to prove that Jesus existed?
• Would you worship god to avoid going to hell?
• Why don't you believe in God?
• Why don't you believe the Bible?
• Why don't atheists believe in Near-Death or Out-of-Body Experiences?
• How can you dismiss the Bible/Koran if you haven't read it?
• Do atheists believe in prayer?
• How are things beautiful without God?
• Why are atheists vocal about their atheism?
• Why do some atheists get offended when I say "I'll pray for you"

Major Misconceptions

• Do you only believe in what you can see, touch, feel, etc?
• Don't atheists believe there is no god?
• Aren't you just rebelling against God because you want to sin?
• Why do you ignore all the evidence around you for a god?
• Are atheists empty, unhappy people?
• Do atheists believe in nothing?
• Why are you so closed minded?
• Will you admit that there is a possibility of a god?
• What bad experience made you hate god?
• If you don't worship God, do you worship yourselves?
• Why are atheists so angry?
• Are you an atheist because of Evolution?
• Did atheism cause Stalin to murder?

Definitions

• Isn't "believing that God doesn't exist" the same thing as "not believing in God"?
• What is the difference between an agnostic and an atheist?
• Is atheism a religion?
• What is faith?
• What is an agnostic?
• What is an atheist?
• Why call yourself an atheist? No one calls themselves aSantaClausists.
• Is secularism the same as atheism?

Science

• Why do atheists have faith in science?
• Isn't it arrogant to say that science has all the answers?
• Would you believe the Bible if it predicted scientific facts?

Questions from Atheists

• Why do people believe in god when there's no evidence for it?

==
Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian," 1927-

As your Chairman has told you, the subject about which I am going to speak to you tonight is ‘Why I am not a Christian’. Perhaps it would be as well, first of all, to try to make out what one means by the word ‘Christian’. It is used these days in a very loose sense by a great many people. Some people mean no more by it than a person who attempts to live a good life. In that sense I suppose there would be Christians in all sects and creeds; but I do not think that that is the proper sense of the word, if only because it would imply that all the people who are not Christians—all the Buddhists, Confucians, Mohammedans, and so on—are not trying to live a good life. I do not mean by a Christian any person who tries to live decently according to his lights. I think that you must have a certain amount of definite belief before you have a right to call yourself a Christian. The word does not have quite such a full-blooded meaning now as it had in the times of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas. In those days, if a man said that he was a Christian it was known what he meant. You accepted a whole collection of creeds which were set out with great precision, and every single syllable of those creeds you believed with the whole strength of your convictions... (continues)
==

Sagan on scientific literacy