Alise Write

(Quick comment: Welcome to new readers over from the r/atheism channel and those here from Rachel's blog! If you're just catching up on the series, you can read all of my posts here, and catch all of Daniel's posts here. Thanks for stopping by!) Myth: Atheists refuse to accept that they sin This is probably not technically a misconception about atheists. Most atheists would probably say that they do not sin. In fact, the mention of sin to an atheist will probably result in confusion or scorn. So why am I including it in the series? This is another one where I think the language that we use is causing more harm than good. "Sin" is a very church-y word. When I talk about sin with any of my atheist friends, it is more likely than not that they will hear me speaking about … [Read more...]

  Myth: Atheists believe they are God As I have worked through this series, one of the things that has surprised me is just how many beliefs that Christians have about what or who atheists worship. A number of the misconceptions that I have come across are variations on a theme and that theme is that everyone must worship something. Sometimes the belief is that if atheists don't worship something externally, they must turn that focus inward and worship themselves by believing that they are God. Sometimes this is borne out of the idea that in order to be an atheist, one must assert an absolute knowledge that there is no God. If one conveys any kind of certainty in the lack of God, they can encounter the accusation that they are somehow omniscient and/or omnipresent. Ipso … [Read more...]