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It’s time for an atheist reality check.
There are three different kinds of atheists: True believers, fad or convenient believers and those angry at God.
True believers believe there is no God because that’s what their parents or peers believed, so they add it to their other hardwired beliefs and protect it the best way they know how.
Fad or convenient believers are just what the terms imply. But if and when they need spiritual help or guidance, they’ll end up praying to the God they don’t believe in.
Those angry at God deny his existence because he didn’t do the things they wanted him to do, but they won’t hesitate to forgive and forget when they desperately need him the next time.
Of course, all three must believe God exists before they can deny his existence. They have to first believe before they can disbelieve.
Myself, I only accept real as things or events I can detect with one or more of my five senses. Everything else is immaterial fantasy. If it has no substance or can’t be demonstrated, it’s not real.
RICHARD L. STOVER
Grand Junction
17 Responses to “The three kinds of atheists”
Posted February 19th, 2009 at 6:58 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
“There are three different kinds of atheists: True believers, fad or convenient believers and those angry at God.” When are people going to realize that #3 is just plain stupid. How can you be so mad at something that you start to believe that it doesn’t exist???
I am so pissed off at the Easter Bunny right now… So now I don’t believe in him anymore.
As far as “True believers”, atheism is a lack of belief, so this is also a contradiction… I truely believe that I don’t don’t believe…
The second one unfortunately can be true… There are people who are atheists for horrible reasons. I really wish there weren’t, but there are. The hard part about this is only they themselves know whether or not it is really what they believe or not.
From reading your failed definitions I see that most atheists according to you are theists who are in denial.
I think you must have read Ray Comforts new book to come up with such idiotic points. So your opinion is that all atheists must believe in god, but you somehow don’t see that as a contradiction of terms. As far as “I only accept real aas things or events I can detect with one or more of my five senses” tells me that you obviously don’t believe in God, which means that you must be an atheists, but since atheists believe in God, you can’t be that either… So you must be absent… Atleast of thought.
Posted February 19th, 2009 at 8:25 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Letter writer: “Myself, I only accept real as things or events I can detect with one or more of my five senses”
We must then assume that, if Mr. Stover only believes what he can detect with his own senses, that he has to be an atheist. After, all there is no way that he can detect such a being with his physical senses. The question then arises: Why is he effectively criticizing himself?
Mr. Stover then must also believe that “human rights”, “civil rights” and ethics are not detectable by the five(5) body senses either. Perhaps he concurs with the position stated in a Daily Sentinel editorial article some years ago that “rights” are mere abstractions.
Mr. Stover: “Of course, all three must believe God exists before they can deny his existence”
Some of us have to wonder by what tortured type of thinking the gentleman arrived at that conclusion. It is not at all necessary that one “believe” in something before “not believing.” If the individual never believed in something, he/she never did. Prior “belief” is never any necessary cause for not believing.
Mr. Stover: “Those angry at God deny his existence because he didn’t do the things they wanted him to do..”
Not so at all. One cannot be “angry” at something that does not exist, or which one cannot perceive. As to ascribing “motivation” to conversion from atheist to non-atheist, the gentleman may presume too much. A “believer” may be angry at a deity, but he/she still believes. The only thing that changes is their evaluation or perception of that deity.
Mr. Stover: “True believers believe there is no God because that’s what their parents or peers believed..”
That is not necessarily so. A person, when he/she gets older,can reach that conclusion by him/herself. Mr. Stover is also arguing against himself by in attempting to make his point. We could also say that many will believe in a “god” because that is what their parents believed and what, as a child, the child was “told” to believe. And, in that case, is any belief in that “god” created in the child’s mind, have any more validity than one who never did “believe” in a deity; i.e. god?
Perhaps Mr. Stover could clarify his arguments as, from his letter, all of his arguments disintegrate, even with but a cursory examination.
Posted February 19th, 2009 at 8:31 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
CORRECTION TO FIRST SENTENCE OF Para: 3. It should read.
Mr. Stover then must also believe that “human rights”, “civil rights” and ethics not being detectable by the five(5) body senses do not exist either.
Posted February 19th, 2009 at 8:51 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Wow. I need a cigarette. This is like something pulled straight from “News of the Weird.”
“Myself, I only accept real as things or events I can detect with one or more of my five senses. Everything else is immaterial fantasy. If it has no substance or can’t be demonstrated, it’s not real.”
Fer sure - this letter is not real since it has zero substance. Time to up the dosage on those meds, Dick.
Posted February 20th, 2009 at 7:55 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
“Myself, I only accept real as things or events I can detect with one or more of my five senses. Everything else is immaterial fantasy. If it has no substance or can’t be demonstrated, it’s not real. ”
It would appear that Mr. Stover himself defined a fourth kind of atheist - and included himself in that number.
Posted February 20th, 2009 at 8:49 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Sorry Mr. Stover, there are a lot of atheists and a lot more kinds of Atheists than you know. A great many more. They are called individuals.
Posted February 20th, 2009 at 9:06 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Indeed, davinci. These are the individuals who have chosen the path of intellectual honesty with themselves, their children, and the magnificent world that surrounds them. Hence, the word “atheist” really has no place in the dictionary - it’s a word that really has little or no meaning.
I guessing most of us here are not racists; making that a conscious choice. We’re all fairly clear on what defines a person who is “racist”, on the other hand. However, is there a word that we need in our daily vocabulary to describe & pigeonhole the “non-racist”?
That’s why similar labeling words like “a-theist”, “non-believer”, “not-a-god-squad-member” have no real purpose or meaning in the dialouge.
Posted February 20th, 2009 at 11:21 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
3 types eh? Myself, I’m skeptical for scientific reasons. I’m not at all angry or a fadist (is that a word?) My folks were and are good religous people and they made a great effort to imprint that on me. Certainly the moral part did but the religion didn’t. I don’t fit any of the three types but then real human beings tend to be just that and not card board cut outs that can be easily defined and labeled. Sorry if that bursts anyone’s bubble.
Posted February 20th, 2009 at 12:01 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Chancho, I agree with you for the most part, other than the fact that all labels are used to point out characteristics that stand out. For example the term racist at a Klan meeting would also have no real purpose. In this context I think atheist does have meaning, since the majority of people are believers of some faith, there is a meaning, although a vague one, for the term atheist.
Cs1960… I agree, just as there are many different types of Christians. You can’t narrow down all atheists into a few types.
Posted February 21st, 2009 at 9:33 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Chancho: So does that means that if there is white - there is no need for the word black? If everyone understands “up”, do we not need the word “down”? There are all kinds of colors, all degrees of difference. Why not let language take its course with these differences. Banning a word is silly since we all know that the word “chair” is not a chair, at least you can’t sit on the word “chair” so comfortably.
Posted February 21st, 2009 at 9:42 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
So…is it, then, the consensus of opinion that Mr. Stovers’ letter is just a piece of ridiculous babble?
Posted February 21st, 2009 at 9:50 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
I would respectfully refer to it as free speech.
Posted February 21st, 2009 at 9:53 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
No question there. I was referring to content.
Posted February 21st, 2009 at 10:13 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Yes, typical of what the Sentinel will choose to publish, over say, a story about the effects of mining uranium, irradiated gas from Rulison, or how we missed the boat on the stimulus package because Obama is a Muslim.
Posted February 21st, 2009 at 10:20 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Wow, I need more coffee now.
Posted February 21st, 2009 at 10:25 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
I have decided to stop believing in the existence of this letter, because it hurts my brain.
Posted February 21st, 2009 at 11:08 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
DC… Yes the letter is ridiculous babble. I just wish he wouldn’t have made it so long.
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