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[Cat in a Sack]

What is your point of view on atheism and atheists in general?

Do you think is an Abomination or good do you belive we are uneducated on religion or smart on the subject, do you think we are good people or bad do you think we are going to haven or hell what is your point of view on the subject of Atheism and atheists?

[jimwalton]

It depends on the person. Most atheists I dialogue with are polite and respectful; only some are antagonistic, a few are hostile, and a handful are downright nasty. But that's more, I assume, because of their personality, not because they're atheists.

Obviously, atheists defend their beliefs and interpretations, just as I do. It's usually fairly good dialogue.

I find that most atheists I dialogue with don't know the Bible very well. A few do. Since almost every question and post is on the same, say 12 subjects, it seems they get their questions, criticisms, and Bible texts from the Internet, not because they've done the research. If they were really reading the Bible, there would be a lot more to talk about, but it always focuses on the same dozen subjects.

> Do you think is an Abomination or good

Neither. Atheists are just normal people trying to make their way through life. (Sure some are downright nasty, but those are the minority, in my experience.)

> do you belive we are uneducated on religion or smart on the subject

It depends on the individual. It's all over the map. It doesn't have to do with atheism, but with whether you are a person who does research or cut-and-pastes sound bites.

I do hear a lot of distortions and misunderstandings, like...

• Religion is a mental disease
• Religion makes otherwise normal people say and do wicked things.
• God is like Santa Clause for grownups.
• My Mom said she’d rather kill her children than deny God, yet called me selfish
• Religion is the enemy of education
• Prayer is a delusional conversation with someone who doesn’t exist.

> do you think we are good people or bad

It depends on the individual, just like anyone else. You'll find good and bad people in every vocation, every religion, every position, every culture. It has nothing to do with atheism.

> do you think we are going to haven or hell

Well, an atheist can't go to heaven. Heaven is for people in a love relationship with Jesus. It's sort of a self-contradiction to think an atheist would want to spend eternity that way.

I do find, in my conversations with atheists on the forum, that almost all of you cannot begin to substantiate what you believe about life and the world. All protests, but no positions. You're antagonistic, but with nothing to defend and nothing to gain. You attack only to bring down, but have nothing to offer. That part is frustrating.

Atheism portrays itself as intellectual, but with no answers to the ultimate questions of life. You believe in science (as do I), but you know science doesn't bring meaning. Intellectual questions eventually turn into questions of meaning, but you just have an empty hand when it comes to questions of meaning. In other words, atheism fails the test of providing sufficient reasons.

I find in my conversations that atheism is like a truth system that doesn't believe in truth, except the truth of science. But science is only good in talking about the natural world, nothing else. It's great where it goes, but it can only operate in its own arena. Atheists can't seem to expand their thoughts any further than science, which I think is limiting.

[Theo]

> uneducated on religion or smart on it

Increasingly, more and more people in Europe and the US are raised in irreligious households. It's become much more common for parents to raise their children in a secular manner because the parents themselves are not very religious in the first place (see here for some studies on how much parenting impacts the religiosity of children - it plays a huge role). We don't really expect a secular family to raise their child with religion, and thus don't expect said child to grow up with religion in the household.

In addition, for the US (and I presume also for Europe, but I can't comment definitively), STEM is continuously taking over the Liberal Arts since college is now seen as a gateway into a career, rather than as a tool for deep learning. High schools and colleges are consistently cutting liberal arts programs, going so far as to remove entire History departments all together. Some of the most prestigious American Liberal Arts colleges, like Amherst College (which is ranked as one of the best liberal arts colleges in all of America), are now suffering from a loss of interest from students and thus are struggling to stay financially afloat. Every year, several liberal arts colleges across the US will announce that they are having money woes or their closure.

How is this related to your question? It means that there are no areas for your typical Gen-Z or Millenial to learn about religion in a meaningful sense. They won't learn it in the household because their parents won't teach them. Their primary school won't teach it because almost no US states require religion as part of a mandatory curriculum (and those that offer classes are typically only available as electives or advanced classes). And students who are increasingly seeking STEM degrees for sake of the a good paycheck (which they can't be blamed for, of course) won't generally receive a great Liberal Arts education alongside their STEM degree. Yes, they'll take a history course or two as required by the school, but nothing more advanced than that, generally.
Therefore, for the average non-religious individual, the only way for them to get a religious education is through self-education. They have to study it on their own because no one else will teach them. Ergo, most non-religious (atheists, Nones, agnostics) will be ignorant of the Bible and of religion more broadly. True, they might know the very basics like Jesus being the Messiah, Muslims having the Quran, and Jews celebrating Hanukkah, but we generally wouldn't expect much else because these individuals are, quite obviously, too busy with life to teach themselves religion in any meaningful sense.

This ignorance on the non-religious persons' part is not their fault, which I would like to strongly emphasize. They have no control over how their parents raise them or what classes are offered at the high school and college level. They have no control over the secular culture they inherit.

Now, you might counter, "but people are searching up all these religious argumentations online. But I think you have to take a step back and ponder on how your average individual is using the Internet in general. For example, look at the top selling apps in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. What are they, generally? Games and social media or other forms of entertainment. The top selling apps aren't anything educational (on religion or otherwise), but are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and a few games like Candy Crush. Your average person isn't reading a lengthy peer-reviewed paper on their phone as they lay in bed at night: they're flicking through their Twitter or Reddit feed, or maybe watching Netflix. Just compare the view counts to the latest music video on YouTube to any popular atheist vs. theist debate. The difference is staggering: billions compared to a maybe a million. Go on YouTube and look up lectures posted by actual religious studies academics who actually know what they're talking about and are employed by Harvard, Yale, or similar ivy league schools: the view counts tend to be less than 10,000, if even that.

Run a quick search on popular atheist forums for some of the most well known philosophers of religion - William James, Charles Taylor, Max Weber, Whitehead, Hegel, Plato, Aquinas etc - you'll generally come up empty, even though these are exactly the type of individuals anyone interested in learning religion maturely (academically) should study

So, what I'm trying to get at is that is true the majority of the populace is not well versed on religion in any meaningful (keyword: meaningful) sense, no more than your average person walking around the streets is well versed on Quantum Theory or the history of their own country. Yes, they know the basics they learned in first grade, but after that? Probably not anything substantial.

All that being said: I believe our environment shapes our understanding of ourselves, and that our consciousness is informed by those we interact with, and that our ideas aren't "our" ideas because we inherit them from others, much like Hegel argued. The relevance here is that the majority of non-religious have their irreligiousity informed by their environment - that is, we live in a "secular age," and most of those who are secular became such because the culture they live in is individualist, secular, consumerist, etc. That is, they don't actually choose to be secular, but simply become such due to the milieux they inhabit. I don't necessarily blame them for that.