Why do Atheists care about religion?

Many Atheists are simply defending themselves from attacks/harassment by religious fanatics.

Why does it matter to you? "One nation under God" whatever that means. It is no special honor to the Christian God as opposed to the deist God or any other god. My opinion as a Christian is the government has a lot of nerve to thank God or acknowledge Him in any way after the messes they have created. "God" is not even a religious-specific term so it is not sectarian and so shouldn't bother anyone but the most bigoted anti-religious militant atheists around.

On the stupid little signs people like to post on buses. Again, why does it matter? Guess what... You go and start your own organization and post a sign that makes you happy, if you so desire. If there is space allotted for advertising, then a church can put a sign there, an atheist, or the Church of Satanism for that matter. If someone wants to put up a sign, let them do it, as long as it's not in violation of some reasonable order against profanity or obscenity, for example.

This is so ridiculous and stupid how many of you religious people get upset at signs that are contrary to your beliefs, and on the other hand we have atheists and agnostics who are trying to pass themselves off as being more mature and open-minded than the rest of us and they get mad about the religious people's signs.

You're all idiots.

I believe athiests keep worrying about god and religion is because for one thing: They have not fully understood the existence of god or the certifications of religion which makes them wonder about god and religion.

This makes them wonder about both at certain times of their lives as different aspects of god and religion pop up in their lives.

Everyone cares about religion - it's the same urge in all of us, just athiests feel the urge to deny it.
Its like you can think about God and how great God is...and you can start to see some infinity going up up up, and atheists are thinking the same way really, but they are focusing those feelings on denying that anything supernatural exists...so they focus down down, science, reason, to a microscopic level, going down, down.

It's all the same thing. Grasping infinity, reality, the finite and the eternal. I think all humans try to grasp it. Just some reach up, and some down. Some throw their arms wide open and say I GIVE UP, you got me, and then those people probably don't think about it much at all.

If religious folks didn't spread so many lies and disinfo, I don't think atheists would even care. They are simply offended by the fact that Christianity and others are assumed to be true based on zero evidence. "In god we trust" on money is a direct slap in the face when you look at how many have been slowly tortured and executed in his name. I certainly do NOT trust somebody that allows that blatant disregard of ethics and morality and suppression of science in society because of blind religious faith. It's disgusting.

I believe athiests keep worrying about god and religion is because for one thing: They have not fully understood the existence of god or the certifications of religion which makes them wonder about god and religion.

This makes them wonder about both at certain times of their lives as different aspects of god and religion pop up in their lives.

Here's another reason why atheists care about religion. Theists act condescending toward them and treat them like lesser people. Dismissing them as simply "not understanding" is ludicrous. It's an illogical viewpoint, yet 75% of the country thinks it's not. The media pretends like it's absurd to even question it.

Originally posted by hadriana
Everyone cares about religion - it's the same urge in all of us, just athiests feel the urge to deny it.
Its like you can think about God and how great God is...and you can start to see some infinity going up up up, and atheists are thinking the same way really, but they are focusing those feelings on denying that anything supernatural exists...so they focus down down, science, reason, to a microscopic level, going down, down.

In many ways, it's really quite the opposite of what you say. People who don't give in to the simplistic notion of "god" (particularly as explained in the ignorant fantasies of ancient desert dwelling peasants and goat herders) can ponder the same things but instead of accepting an imaginary friend, seek to understand it. I know many so called "atheists" who are open minded this way, they just don't accept the explanations given by popular religions.

While there is no such thing as a perfect society, it also seems that in general religion correlates very strongly with societal ill health. It is known that religious populations are less tolerant, less peaceful, less accepting of science, less healthy, more likely to divorce, have higher incidence of teenage/unwanted pregnancy and far more prevalence of STD infection, have higher income inequality, care less for their sick and less fortunate etc. etc. Not saying religion is a cause of any of this, it could very well be the other way round, a very human reaction to find hope amongst inequality and/or oppression, an "opium of the people".

It does seem odd that a section of a modern, educated western society would like to impose scripture (fairy tales) in science classes, showing similar fanaticism as say.....that of Taliban controlled Afghanistan. Which seems what atheists/ proponents of science such as Dawkins and the like, seem to be against. Though I'm not sure atheists have such a problem with the average cultural observance type of religious belief.

Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link between Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by other indices of charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between top-tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France 15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475 to 1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to squeeze easily through the eye of a needle.

................examined reasons for the wide variation in teenage pregnancy and birth rates among five developed countries: Canada, France, Great Britain, Sweden and the United States...........................In addition to having a higher adolescent pregnancy rate, the United States has higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among adolescents than most other developed countries............................The annual incidence of gonorrhea among all U.S. adolescents (572 cases per 100,000) is 10 or more times the level in the other four countries.

www.guttmacher.org...

www.truthdig.com...

moses.creighton.edu...