Recent Posts
Categories
- Bible belt (3)
- Catholic (5)
- Christian (21)
- Consumer issues (1)
- Dawkins (9)
- Family (1)
- General religion/atheism (27)
- Int'l stuff (8)
- Islam (8)
- Jewish stuff (15)
- Mormonism (7)
- Not about atheism (8)
- questions (3)
- rants (12)
- raves (4)
- sex/gender (3)
- Tangential to atheism (5)
- Uncategorized (34)
Blogroll
- Atheism Live Journal Group
- Atheist Central
- Atheist Media Blog
- Atheist Revolution
- Atheist Social
- Bay of Fundie
- Coming Out Godless
- Debunking Christianity
- Diatribes and Ovations
- Ex-Christian.net
- Friendly Atheist
- God Is Pretend
- Hypatian Shore
- Kris the Sexy Atheist
- No God Blog
- Oh My Volcano
- Planet Atheism
- PZ Myers’s Pharyngula
- Rant and Reason
- Religion Virus
- Secular Outpost
- skepchick
- Unreasonable Faith
Is faith harder than atheism?
A had a friend who I’ll call Jane who, while charming, friendly and lovely, was on the gullible side. She and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, including Tarot card readings.
Once Jane, who was raised Catholic, although I don’t know how much she practiced at the time, told me, “It isn’t hard to be an atheist. It’s harder to have faith.”
On one hand, I saw, and still see, Jane’s point. It’s hard to have faith in the face of no evidence that god(s) exist. Faith, almost by definition, requires one to believe something in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Christians who believe in “intelligent design” do so in spite of oceans (or primordial soups) of evidence. They say that their faith is just as valid as our evidence.
Still, that’s not what I thought Jane meant, and I said,
“Jane, I like you, but I disagree. It is easy to go with the flow and believe in god because that’s what you’ve been told to do all your life and because it’s what everyone else does. It’s a lot harder to think about it and ask questions. It’s a lot harder if you might get ostracized because you asked those questions.”
I swam upstream, I suppose is what I was trying to tell her… you didn’t.
And just because I can now post media again, enjoy this video just for our enlightenment.
1 users responded " Is faith harder than atheism? "

May 9 2011
I agree completely. My life would have been sooo much easier if I hadn’t decided to think for myself and question my beliefs. I hate that it is that way, but I am still glad I did question everything because I’m much happier with myself now, even if the world doesn’t get me.
Just kidding. This is Not My God, a site for the personal aspect of atheism. I'm putting together a book with that title, having already 20 interviews lined up, but I still want to hear from more of you.
I've expanded the blog to include material not related to atheism, including rants, raves, consumer issues, curmudgeonly matters and other miscellany.
Read more about Not My God on the About page
Archives
- October 2016
- October 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2014
- April 2014
- October 2013
- September 2013
- April 2013
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- January 2011
- November 2010
- September 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
recent entries
- Children and freedom from religion
- What determines beauty?
- World hunger: how does it work?
- Overwhelmed by media: drowning in the information age
- September 11th Kitsch Contest?
- Recovering Catholic (I love that expression)
- “reverse” racism in hiring lifeguards in Phoenix
- Adventures in thrift: the yeast I could do
- Better Angels of Our Nature: on Islamophobia
- Antiques, and celebrities without their makeup
Wordpress theme by Wordpress Themes & made free by Internet Marketing Center
Get Connected