Religious Role Projection
This seems to come up a lot and in many different forms. Often times, Christians or some other believer in the Abrahamic God will accuse atheists of being the very thing that they themselves are. For example, it is not uncommon for a Christian to claim that the atheist position (that no credible evidence has been presented for the existence of God) is an arrogant position to take. So Christians even claim that atheists are, “know it alls.”
The irony is that atheists aren’t making any claims. We are simply saying that Christians haven’t proven their claim. That is some how considered arrogant. Christians often claim not only that their deity absolutely without a doubt exists based on no credible evidence, but they are also claiming that their god is the only god that exists. Isn’t that the more arrogant position?
I also sometimes here that atheism is dogmatic. Or that we indoctrinate children. Those two claims are just laughable at how ridiculous there are. Do Christians look in the mirror and see what traits they see that are negative and then call atheists those traits? Is that how it is done?
I could go on, there are many instances in which some Christian or another will attempt to project their role onto non-believers. I can’t tell you how many times I hear that it takes more faith to be an atheist or that atheists are proselytizing. Some Christian even called me and evangelical atheist. Really? Those things just seems completely ridiculous to me.
The really funny part is that when these Christians say these things, they think they are being insulting. But if they truly think all these traits are bad traits, than maybe they should realize that these are all religious traits and stop projecting them onto atheists.
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, faith, Projection, Religion