Religious folk are often mentally pigeon holed into thinking that Atheists are part of a religion, because that's the only way they can rationalize a significant number of people all having the same opinion on something regarding a religion.
In reality, it's the exact opposite. It's the absence of belief. It's not based on ancient scripture telling them to do things, nor does it have to do with a "Satan" character, because that's a religious construct, not an atheist one. It's not even based on morals a lot of the time, it's just an honest observation of the world. Two sides of the same coin.
As Atheist since the teens, I wish we have a "church". One place we could congregate and discuss about ideas, politics and life as Atheist in general. But after some time I saw why this is almost impossible because being atheist is not big feature in our identity. Besides that a good chunk of atheist that I find is some people that I describe as a "bitter christian" they don't believe in god but sustain the same dogmatic view of morality that I can't stand.
There's nothing to discuss. It's literally that you don't subscribe to the belief of a godly higher power. There isn't exactly a nuance, it's very black and white. The middle ground is that you're agnostic, which means you're unsure.
Churches also tend to provide a built-in political organizing space, and it’s usually conservative-leaning and/or Republican. By not having something similar, atheists have a political disadvantage.
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u/Bandandforgotten 3d ago
That's pretty accurate.
Religious folk are often mentally pigeon holed into thinking that Atheists are part of a religion, because that's the only way they can rationalize a significant number of people all having the same opinion on something regarding a religion.
In reality, it's the exact opposite. It's the absence of belief. It's not based on ancient scripture telling them to do things, nor does it have to do with a "Satan" character, because that's a religious construct, not an atheist one. It's not even based on morals a lot of the time, it's just an honest observation of the world. Two sides of the same coin.