Alternet has posted a useful guide for those too afraid to ask certain questions of atheists, of for those too cock-sure about atheists they don’t believe they need to ask them. It’s by Greta Christina, ‘How Can You Be Moral?’: Here Are 9 Questions You Don’t Need to Ask an Atheist — And Their Answers.
Greta’s point is that certain questions “have insult or bigotry or dehumanization woven into the very asking”. That may be so for many, but her answers are there for the genuinely curious nonetheless.
1: “How can you be moral without believing in God?”
I think that question genuinely perplexes many people who have always been taught and mix with others who never question the idea that God is the source of morality.
2: “How do you have any meaning in your life?” Sometimes asked as, “Don’t you feel sad or hopeless?” Or even, “If you don’t believe in God or heaven, why don’t you just kill yourself?”
Oh, that one, especially, genuinely perplexes many believers.
3: “Doesn’t it take just as much/even more faith to be an atheist as it does to be a believer?”
4: “Isn’t atheism just a religion?”
Now those two questions do bug me just a little as per Greta’s larger point. Just a moment’s half-attentive thought should alert one that they are silly questions.
5: “What’s the point of atheist groups? How can you have a community and a movement for something you don’t believe in?”
There I do feel myself parting ways with Greta’s thought. Greta’s answer: Continue reading “9 Questions Asked of Atheists”