By HITCHENS_JNR
Added: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:38:01 UTC

Hello!

I was inspired to write this by the discussion on the "Four Horsemen" video. There's a part of the video where they discuss the "image problem" that atheism has, especially in the US. Many people seem to asume that atheists are pessimistic, joyless, cruel, uncharitable, untrustworthy etc etc. Christian apologists are quick to whip out the argument that Hitler and Stalin were atheists (even though Hitler probably wasn't, and even though Stalin probably learned a lot about how to control people through fear in his youthful studies at an Orthodox seminary, and even though Christians are bound to lose any arguments about cruelty and oppression, seeing as how their religion is caked in two thousand years' worth of heretical blood!!) Opponents of atheism always raise the spectre of social Darwinism, and some of its crueller tenets, as if this is a necessary consequence of a lack of faith in God. Then there's that famous survey which shows that atheists are the least trusted group of people in the US.

Anyway, two questions suggest themselves:

1) Where does this mistrust of atheism in public and private life originate?

2) What do you think atheists can do to improve how atheism is perceived in the world at large?

I wonder how many believers who are seriously questioning the existence of God are deterred from becoming atheists because of nasty preconceptions about what atheists are like?

TAGGED: ATHEISM