{"id":555,"date":"2010-07-07T11:01:41","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T11:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/07\/what-do-atheists-think-of-christians.html"},"modified":"2010-07-07T11:01:41","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T11:01:41","slug":"what-do-atheists-think-of-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/07\/what-do-atheists-think-of-christians.html","title":{"rendered":"What Do Atheists Think of Christians?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday,<\/b> I mentioned The Outsider Interviews,<\/i><\/a> a book and DVD describing what non-believers think about believers. It was brought to my attention by blogger and author Hemant Mehta, the “Friendly Atheist<\/a>.” In his post about the book\/DVD<\/a>, he asked his readers — most of whom are nontheists — this question:<\/p>\n

If Christians would listen, what would you say to them?<\/i><\/p>\n

The responses are challenging (to say the least) but as we mentioned earlier, they are responses that Christians need to understand and be aware of. You can read an almost comprehensive list of them here<\/a> without having to dig into hundreds of comments.<\/p>\n

For the sake of our discussion, I thought I’d list a few of the answers to the above question.<\/p>\n

Christians…<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 are hypocritical.
\u2022 need a spiritual
\nbeing to cling to.
\u2022 hold modern beliefs which aren’t Christ-like.
\u2022 think
\nthat philosophy, science, postmodernism, movies, etc. are out to get
\nthem.
\u2022 tell others how to live their lives.
\u2022 are judgmental.
\u2022 are narrow-minded.
\u2022 reject reality.
\u2022 believe that God created
\nthe heavens and Earth in 6 days.
\u2022 think they are horrible and
\nunworthy.
\u2022 have been brainwashed into believing something that makes
\nthem intolerant and hateful.
\u2022 are trapped in a religion that takes
\nadvantage of good intentions.
\u2022 limit their understanding of the whole
\nwide universe to the Bible.
\u2022 manipulate family members to isolate and
\nreject atheists.
\u2022 think that moral behavior is impossible without
\nbelief in God.
\u2022 have been told what
\nto think by their Church.
\u2022 think that atheists are ignorant, angry or abused.
\u2022 condemn others.
\u2022 think shellfish are ok, but homosexuals are not.
\u2022 are
\narrogant.
\u2022 have not read the Bible.
\u2022 don’t use
\nevidence based in reality.
\u2022 have not researched science.
\u2022 fear
\natheists.
\u2022 think asking
\nquestions and searching for answers is a bad thing.
\u2022 are being spoon-fed.
\u2022 play the victim.
\u2022 are raised to
\nbe judgmental.
\u2022 take the Bible seriously, but disregard other holy texts.
\u2022 do not have a
\nscientific mindset.
\u2022 hold nonsensical beliefs.
\u2022 use
\nwords, actions and votes to express disrespect for another’s sexual
\norientation.
\u2022 are on the
\nwrong side of big issues like slavery, segregation, discrimination
\nagainst blacks, discrimination against women, discrimination against
\ngays.
\u2022 made war, tortured others, fueled the Inquisition, destroyed
\ncultures with missionary work.
\u2022 close their eyes to progress and
\nscientific evidence.
\u2022 wreck families and ruin lives.
\u2022 are unwilling
\nto change their opinion on whether god exists or not.
\u2022 don’t read the
\nBible critically.<\/p>\n

Yes, the list contains offensive stereotypes.<\/b> <\/p>\n

Yes, many of these are generalities that may apply to some Christians but of course not every individual. <\/p>\n

Yes, many of these descriptions make me feel annoyed, upset, or uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

But before we get defensive and start citing Scriptures about persecution and how the world will hate us and all that, we need to read the list again and ask ourselves this: What does it say about me? What needs to change in the way I treat people to repair this perception?<\/b> <\/p>\n

Because regardless of what we Christians may think about the list, we need to understand that this is the perception many nonbelievers have of us, and perceptions are often based on reality. <\/p>\n

We can say over and over how important it is to love our neighbors and we can throw around words like “mercy” and “grace” and we can sing about how the world will know us by our love. But the truth is that we’re not doing a very good job at loving people, because the perception of Christians by non-Christians — judging from this list from an admittedly narrow focus group — isn’t good.<\/p>\n

As a Christian, what am I doing that causes others to think about me this way?<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, I mentioned The Outsider Interviews, a book and DVD describing what non-believers think about believers. It was brought to my attention by blogger and author Hemant Mehta, the “Friendly Atheist.” In his post about the book\/DVD, he asked his readers — most of whom are nontheists — this question: If Christians would listen,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-questions","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Do Atheists Think of Christians? - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/07\/what-do-atheists-think-of-christians.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Do Atheists Think of Christians? - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Tuesday, I mentioned The Outsider Interviews, a book and DVD describing what non-believers think about believers. 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