Atheist Section

How are Christians and Atheists Alike?

Are Christians and Atheists alike?

Two points to support this –

Catholics/Christians/Muslims want to behave good so they gain access to their eternal reward - heaven. (even thought a person who was a mass murdered could be 'saved' if he repents and accepts Jesus into his life - but this is one of the many contradictions of the Christian faith) Atheists want to behave good because they know this is the only life they have and they do so without any 'rule book' - it's simply their choice. They choose to do good for goodness sake. Atheists take comfort in knowing that if they want to do good and contribute to their community, this is the only life to do it in - there is no afterlife. Religious people take comfort in a heaven which is not provable and is totally based on blind faith. A reward granted for eternity for such a short time on earth simply doesn’t make sense to atheists. They point here is that both sides want to behave good and contribute to their social structure, but for different reasons.

Atheists don’t need a God to believe in to do good works. IMHO I think that most good religious people would probably be doing good even if they fell from grace. I am in the awkward position to DEFEND the Christians on this point, because even if they are doing good for a God that I know personally does not exist – they are still doing good charity work! The sad flip side is that many are doing bad thinks in the name of their religion, and since they believe those things are written in a 2000 year-old book make them right in today’s society – they have no problem with it. Curtailing stem-cell research, condemning homosexuals which their God made, not supporting condom use in countries that desperately need to reduce their Aids population, indoctrinating children and sometimes hating them for believing in something different and not supporting abortion are among my top 10.


The second point is that if you take any culture form anywhere around the world and strip away their religious answers to the question “What is important in your life?” you’ll hear all the same answers clearly. I want to provide for my family. I want to contribute to my social group. I want a good healthy life and education for my children. I want to be loved. I want to give love. All these things are true for any social structure – and they have to be. Because these things is how we evolved. It’s how we learned to get along and not kill each other. This point is also why I believe, that if religion was REALLY stripped away from everyone lives on earth, this world would be a better place. I don’t mean stripped away in the sense of taking Bibles away from Christians or taking the Koran away from Muslins – I mean that if somehow all the populations did not grow up with ridiculous myths and superstitions and had a more skeptical approach from the beginning of out civilized beginnings, we would be better off. This is one reason I am an atheist advocate.

Even though Christians and atheists are far apart on their ideologies, their behavior, in some instances, are very similar. I know for a fact that if die-hard Christians made the effort to know a good atheist, they would see many points that they would agree would make the atheist a good person. Obviously the Christian would believe that he would not be seeing the atheist in heaven, but if they confine their comparisons to this natural world and not a supernatural one, both sides would see more similarities than differences.

I spoke at Calvary chapel in Santa Ana, CA (4-21-08) to a group of apologetics.

The presentation was “ Why am I an atheist?” After a 25 minute speech, I was asked questions for about an hour. Many of the Christians had never spoken to an atheist before and were surprised how ‘nice’ I was. I mentioned that all atheists are ‘nice’, they just don’t believe in what you believe. Many issues were discussed. This presentation is available on DVD in the STORE section HERE. It brings up issues that either side will enjoy discussing.