The only reason why the title “atheist” exists is that people believe in a nonexistent God.
It’s easy to miss that, sometimes. In a God-saturated culture, atheism can feel like a very concrete thing. For example, here in the South, where Christianity is the most prominent religion, people use the label “Christian,” for example, to treat you differently, talk to you differently, see you fundamentally differently. They make up a story to say that there’s you, and then there are the people who are going to go to heaven and praise God forever. It’s their story. And then they try to say that atheism is responsible for the resulting chasm.
But I’ve noticed that when I talk to people where belief in God isn’t around, or isn’t a big deal, atheism sometimes comes across as a weird, almost unnecessary word. It seems largely a waste of time, and it’s largely, in a matter of speaking, unimportant.
It’s like this: I’m against the theory that Elvis is alive today. But it’s not a big deal. I don’t go on message boards and talk about it. I don’t see a big need to debate about it. And God would be the same way, if so many people around me didn’t believe in His existence and used it to attempt to take over major parts of my own.
That really puts things into perspective for me. The only reason there are atheists is because people believe in God. And this only works one way. God is the positive claim — the one whose existence needs to be proven. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in God.
I think Christians seem to think that it takes over every area of my life. But the title “atheist” isn’t really an independent identity in and of itself. It’s the absence of an identity. So, my life isn’t “consumed” with atheism as if God’s nonexistence is a positive claim that is the most important thing about me to me, personally. It’s more like I’m just trying to live my life, and a nonexistent God keeps getting in the way.
Thanks for reading.
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