Posted by Holly Ordway in Apologetics | 8 Comments
Why Is Atheism Attractive?
At the heart of atheism is an appealing premise: “My will be done, not Yours.” If atheism is true, and there is no God, then everything really is all about me, and what I want, and what I can get.
No wonder it strikes such a chord in our self-obsessed culture.
Put your finger on the pulse of modern culture: it throbs with “me, me, me.” Advertisements tell me: “Indulge yourself! You deserve it!” I can buy my lunch and my coffee made “my way.” I flip open a magazine, or browse the best-sellers, to find ten easy tips on how I can have what I want, right here, right now.
Put one way, this is selfishness. But the spin on it in our post-Christian culture is that it’s empowerment, self-actualization. We are told to follow our hearts, seek our deepest desires, do what feels good. Indeed, if atheism is true, there is no ultimate purpose to life, so we might as well go for self-indulgence, whether through hedonism or through constructing one’s own “meaning” in life.
In contrast, if the Triune God is real, then such a focus on the self is ultimately destructive. Christians believe that we are alienated from God by the Fall, and damaged by our own sins; if we are left to our own devices, we will go wrong. To follow our own whims is to wander without guidance farther away from the path that leads to true self-knowledge in relationship with God who knows us completely.
If God is who Christians say He is, then our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, not toys for abuse or pleasure. If God is who He has revealed Himself to be in Christ Jesus, then the path to true selfhood is the narrow way, the way of the Cross, the way of denial of self and love of God.
In other words, the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a significant obstacle to self-indulgence.
No wonder atheism is so popular.
Yet atheism is a curious hybrid. On the one hand, it provides for a rejection of civilization entirely. If there is no God, then there is no ultimate source of objective values, and we can make or break rules as we please; good and evil are reduced to preferences. I like chocolate ice cream and laws against murder. You like vanilla and enjoy killing small children. Sure, why not?
On the other hand, atheists don’t generally advocate anarchism and a return of barbarism. (Who would run the publishing houses to print their books?) In fact, atheists show a remarkable streak of optimism about human nature. The atheist feels, almost as an article of faith, that the human race is perfectible. Despite all the colossal failures of utopianism, especially the ones of the 20th century that ended in mass slaughter, there remains the idea that this time, we can get it right all by ourselves. We can perfect ourselves through legislation; through restructuring society; through genetic manipulation; through drugs. We can make ourselves be happy – or so we think; it never works, but the atheist can only try again.
Atheism claims that we are in control of our selves, and thus our own destiny; it is the perfect faith for a culture that is obsessed with both perfection and self-will.
If we allow our Christian faith to be described in terms of personal gratification, we are buying what the world is selling, just under a different brand name. Christ did not die for us so that we would be comfortable and happy today. He died for us so that we would be saved.
To die to self, to die to sin, is not a comfortable experience. Confronting one’s own sin and repenting of it yields sorrow, not happiness. Hope and peace lie on the other side of that repentance, but we must go through pain to get there – not around it.
If we allow Christianity to be all about fulfilling my needs, getting my prayers answered, feeling good about myself and my family, and improving my relationships, then we are making the same pitch as the atheists: it’s all about me.
And trust me, atheism is a lot less demanding than Christian faith. I’ve been there; I know.
But in our frantic consumer culture, as we become less real and less present to each other, and even to ourselves, as we desperately project ourselves outward into the media to remind ourselves that we exist… we may slowly realize that atheism may promise easy self-fulfillment, but it delivers nothing but despair.
Christian faith is harder. It costs more; in fact, it costs everything. It also happens to be true.
Jesus told his disciples to count the cost. Why are we afraid to recognize that there is a cost?
In the face of atheism, let us not be afraid to speak the truth: the Christian life is the way of the Cross. Let us reject the idolatry of personal fulfillment. Let us remember that Christ calls us to come and die.
Then those who have sought to find themselves, searching high and low, grasping after all the good things of the world only to find them slipping from between their fingers, may be ready to listen when they hear something new: the hard, true words of our Lord: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)
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“At the heart of atheism is an appealing premise: “My will be done, not Yours.” If atheism is true, and there is no God, then everything really is all about me, and what I want, and what I can get.”
First paragraph is utterly wrong; you’re obviously working on false premises, so I won’t try and delve further.
However, here’s a quick crash course:
Atheism is only the lack of a belief in a deity. It implies nothing about behaviour, background, or related philosophy.
Most Atheists who’ve thought critically about their surroundings would probably define themselves by their reaction and drive toward others: Secular Humanist is a commonly ascribed to description. That’s anything but self-focused.
Please try again.
From what I can gather of the views of secular humanists and athiests like Daniel Dennett, Bertrand Russell or Carl Sagan, the “idolatry of personal fulfilment” is conspicuous by its absence. I fear you have been bashing a straw man.
Thanks for the comments. Let me try to clarify a bit.
First, to say that something is attractive is not to specify whether it is true, good, or helpful necessarily. It’s simply a descriptive term about whether we find something appealing, or not. It’s useful to identify what might make an ideology attractive (at least to some people – not necessarily to all) because it helps us see where we might have blind spots or assumptions we don’t want to question.
Second, to say that atheism is self-centered is, again, not making a value judgment. Let me explain further.
If there is no God, then there is no transcendent source of moral authority. I don’t think that’s controversial.
If there is no transcendent source of moral authority, and we still want to make judgments about what is good or bad, or what we should or should not do, how do we make those judgments?
Without a God as the source of authority, the only reasonable authority to make those judgments is the human being him- or herself. In other words, if atheism is true, then each individual person is truly in the driver’s seat as far as morality goes, because there is no higher being with authority over the individual. Atheism is, thus, ideologically self-centered – simply as a fact (similar to saying that the solar system is sun-centered).
Now, many atheists choose to act in ways that are helpful to the community and to others (and I, for one, am glad that they do). But on what basis does a person decide that X is a good cause, and Y is not worthwhile? How does an atheist decide what constitutes right behavior? Is it enough to just not do harm to another, or is it necessary to actively do good? If so, how much good is it necessary to do, and at what cost to oneself?
My larger point in this piece is that if atheism is true, then the individual is entirely and completely in charge of making those decisions.
This situation – of being morally in control, of being the captain of one’s own ethical ship – is very appealing in its own way. Or, to be more specific, it was appealing to me when I was an atheist, and I suspect I wasn’t alone.
If atheism is true, then it so happens that this situation is both appealing and true. (I would say that it is also problematic in many ways, but that’s not what I’m arguing here.)
What I would like readers to take away is that we should not equate “I like it” with “therefore it’s true,” or “I dislike it” with “therefore it’s false”, whether it’s atheism OR theism that we find either appealing or unappealing. Recognizing our own reactions (on either side) is helpful as part of the critical thinking process.
BuncyTheFrog says: “Atheism is only the lack of a belief in a deity.”
Interesting definition. Where did this come from?
On this view, are babies atheists because they lack a belief in a deity? Are kittens atheists for the same reason? I’ve always understood atheism as a claim know something about reality: that God does not exist.
The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines atheism as “the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/
“‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism…”
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/
To understand this definition you must first understand what theism means. Roughly speaking theism is the belief in a God or Gods.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theism
So if atheism is the negation, or rejection of theism then it would therefor mean – Rejecting belief/not believing in a God or Gods.
Similarly if we look at the literal Greek, the prefix a- or an- means without. So if a theist is someone with a belief in a God or Gods then an a-theist is someone without a belief in a God or Gods.
To answer your question, babies would be considered atheists simply because you cannot believe in something you have no knowledge of.
The second part of the Sanford definition is debatable “…the denial of the existence of God.” Certainly everyone denies the existence of some God, usually the God of another religion that they themselves don’t follow. Atheism is strange in this sense as we normally define ourselves as what we do belief not what we don’t. So typically someone who identifies as an atheist has no belief in a God nor a religion to speak of. For example many Buddhists are atheists as they don’t see Buddha as a God, but they identify as a Buddhist not as an atheist.
There are two main categories of atheism:
Weak/agnostic atheism, and Strong/gnostic atheism. Agnostic atheism asserts no knowledge of the existence of a God or Gods but holds that one does not believe. Gnostic atheism asserts knowledge that there are no Gods.
Although it is possible for atheists to assert that God does not exist, it is not a requirement to be called an atheist.
Regardless of the type of atheism be it gnostic or agnostic, atheism is not akin to egoism and doesn’t assert anything remotely close to what this article claims. This article only works as a device for bias Christians to be affirmed in their beliefs about atheism, and in no way addresses atheism itself.
Hi Holly, I just now found your blog via apologeticsguy’s site and was drawn to this article.
I should state that I was a christian believer for about 20 years, and I really believed it. I was involved in church events, played music, volunteered, taught apologetics classes, etc. This was most recently at Bridgeway Church up in the Sacramento area (but before it was called Bridgeway).
Each person’s experience of faith or lack of faith is no doubt different, so I can only speak for myself here. When I gave up my faith and stopped believing in god, I did so not because of selfishness, but because I had thought about it for so long, and it seemed the only rational option. It made the most sense.
Never was there any choice in the matter for me to believe one way or the other. Either I really think there is a god, or gods, or I really don’t think there is. I can’t make my mind really believe something that it really believes is wrong. So I never had a chance to “weigh my options” on either side. I was not able to first think of the fun things I could do if god didn’t exist and then decide he didn’t exist because that list was irresistible. I ended up thinking there was no god because I really thought there was no god.
The implication of your article seems to be that atheists are drawn to lack of belief from their own selfishness. This is, of course, what I have read through the years in christian literature and was taught in church from time to time. But I can tell you for sure, at least in this one case, selfishness had nothing to do with it. It was all critical thinking.
I didn’t want to believe there was no god. I wanted to believe there was! That’s why I got into apologetics – I wanted to know what good reasons there were to believe. That brought a lot of knowledge my way, a lot of arguments for the existence of god, and a lot of new ways to think about things. I am grateful for that, but after years of it, I changed my mind.
In a comment response, you said,
“If there is no transcendent source of moral authority, and we still want to make judgments about what is good or bad, or what we should or should not do, how do we make those judgments?”
I submit that we non believers make these judgments the same way believers do – we use our moral intuition and our reason. Everyone who considers themselves a moral person finds their morality the same way, religious or non religious.
How does a believer decide what’s right and wrong in a given situation? How do you do it? By referencing the bible? Of course not. We all use our moral intuition and our reason. No doubt there is some good moral teaching in the bible, but that’s not how believers know what’s right and wrong. My whole point is this: we ALL do it the same way, there is NO difference. The innate moral sense we all have does not suddenly go away when you stop believing in god. We just disagree about the origin or source of the moral intuition that we already have.
interestingly, I believe I have become an increasingly moral person since I stopped believing. I was never an immoral person (thanks Mom and Dad!), but I think I have taken more of an interest in other people thanks to my acceptance of evolution and the realization that we are all connected to every living thing on earth in a biological way. Also, with this life I am living most likely being the only life I will ever have, with no reward or punishment afterward, I treasure it more and want to make it better. I could go on and on about why I think secular culture is more moral than religious culture, but that is getting a bit off topic.
Anyways, I enjoy a bit of thoughtful discussion, but never with nastiness. You don’t have to worry about getting that with me
-Eric Burton
http://doubtingeric.blogspot.com
Hi Eric,
Thanks for your very thoughtful comment!
We have one very important thing in common, which is a commitment to truth. I admire that. I think the only good reason to hold a worldview (whether atheism, Christianity, or any other) is that you believe it to be true.
I would never suggest that atheists believe what they do because they are selfish. Not at all! Rather, I mean that there are certain emotional aspects of atheism that can make it attractive — other than the belief that it’s true. I recognized this in myself, actually, while I was still an atheist; that although I had started out as an atheist because I felt it was true, when I started to have doubts about atheism, I realized that I had an emotional attachment to it. Even when I recognized that there were good reasons to think it wasn’t true… I would have preferred that atheism was true, because it would allow me (rather than God) to be the final arbiter of my life.
I’ll leave you with a question. I agree completely with your statement that all people, non-believes and believers alike, have a common moral sense. We don’t need religion to tell us that good is good and evil is evil.
So… where do we get that knowledge from? What source could account for its presence in the human heart?
I wrestled with that question for a long time; it’s not an easy one.
“I would never suggest that atheists believe what they do because they are selfish.”
Reading your article again, I am confused how you can assert that this was not its central thesis.
“At the heart of atheism is an appealing premise: “My will be done, not Yours.” If atheism is true, and there is no God, then everything really is all about me, and what I want, and what I can get. No wonder it strikes such a chord in our self-obsessed culture.”
Seems like you are saying that atheism is appealing because it’s all about the individual. Our self-obsessed culture responds to this in a predictable way.
“Put one way, this is selfishness. But the spin on it in our post-Christian culture is that it’s empowerment, self-actualization. We are told to follow our hearts, seek our deepest desires, do what feels good. Indeed, if atheism is true, there is no ultimate purpose to life, so we might as well go for self-indulgence, whether through hedonism or through constructing one’s own “meaning” in life.”
Next, you say that Christianity is a selfless alternative to the selfish world view that atheism stems from.
“…the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a significant obstacle to self-indulgence. No wonder atheism is so popular.”
The question posed as the title of the article, “Why is atheism so attractive?” seems to be answered. Because it appeals to our selfish nature. I’m not sure that you are implying that atheists are more selfish than anyone else, just that our innate selfishness is what makes it attractive. I don’t know how anyone could read what you wrote and think anything different.
Now in your case, you say that it was difficult to give up your lack of belief because of an emotional attachment to it. You would have preferred atheism to be really true because it was an easier life than surrendering to Christ and living under divine authority. I think I understand that. But please realize that the exact opposite of your no doubt abridged story of atheism to belief is directly the opposite of mine.
I had a very similar emotional connection to christianity. I thought living in a manner that realizes the god of the bible exists and cares about my life was way more comforting than what atheism could offer. After all, it gives some purpose to the universe. Even when I recognized that there were good reasons to think it wasn’t true, I resisted. But reason won out, and I had to admit that I really didn’t see a reason to believe in god. That was scary! But ultimately, my fears were unfounded. So we had similar crises of faith, but directed in the opposite direction. For me, my lack of belief makes the world a lot less comforting as an insignificant speck, but I accepted it because I really think it’s the truth.
Ok, regarding moral knowledge. I will readily admit that I am not 100% sure where our moral intuitions come from. I tend to think they have a social and evolutionary genesis, and have become a part of our neurology that we are born with.
I will not say that we learn right and wrong ONLY from social learning while children, but that seems to be a large part of it. But there seem to be certain core moral truths that are not learned during life – they seem to be already known. We are not born with a blank moral slate on which is simply imprinted by our parents, and that is the only source of our knowledge of right and wrong.
But I will say that I do not believe these moral truths are transcendent in the sense that they are outside of humanity, implanted by a creator. How could I think that? I don’t believe in a creator.
Again, I admit I don’t KNOW exactly where the intuition comes from, but I have reasons to suspect it’s biological and social. I have no reason to think it comes from a god. What I do know is that it definitely does not come from the bible! But you have not asserted that, so I will not attack it.
In anticipation of your response, I should admit that if it were possible to demonstrate that our innate moral sense is implanted by a god, I would believe in a god. But I cannot imagine how anyone could ever do this. The best I think we can get is to agree that it is an interesting question, but not one with a clear answer. Yet.