Why are atheists streotyped as Satanists?

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Permalink Reply by William Young on January 24, 2009 at 4:17pm

I once tried that on a christian. What was hilarious is that he didn't know what the word mythology meant. His response was hilarious "It is the only mythology"

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Permalink Reply by Tedster on January 25, 2009 at 12:16am

That is really funny. :- )

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Permalink Reply by SNM on January 25, 2009 at 7:54am

I think that theists (at least those that belong to Aramaic religions) are primed to be less moral than atheists on average, and a lot of it stems from the very reason that atheists are deemed by them to be "satanists."

The underlying assumption here is that of original sin. It is part of their religion that all humanity is thoroughly depraved, evil, and sinful, and that we can only rise above this depraved state through god. Since we are totally depraved, by what their doctrine really teaches, and since it's a recurring theme in the gospels that "he who is not with me is against me," the personal reality many might build from their belief system leaves no other conclusion than that atheists are in league with their satan (though I doubt that many christians have thought this out consciously, or to this degree). If you accept the premise that you are totally depraved and forgiveness or grace or "being washed in the blood" or totally submitting to some perfect god is the only thing that keeps you or others from murder, rape, pillage and all manner of evil, then you are going to tend to be a little more susceptible to "human weaknesses," and what's more, you will erroneously believe that without the threat of eternal punishment that is keeping you in line, atheists will be subject to uncontrolled rampages of unconscionable atrocities.

Also in play is the magic forgiveness card. That they, in their minds, are forgiven of all this vile sin, and we are not, naturally promotes a sort of caste system. Some of them leave it at two casts, "saved" and "unsaved," (i.e., you have to pick exactly the "right" religion, which happens to be the one they picked). That makes sense within their framework, but others seem to have an entire hierarchy, with wiccans and atheists falling at the bottom. This is not really consistent with the underlying reasons they put us in league with their devil, but logic and consistency is not a strong suit of their beliefs in general. I still think that it makes sense from the perspective that wicca is traditionally their whipping boy religion, and atheism is just plain scary and threatening to them because it disavows any gods. Atheism doesn't accept a premise first and then fabricate evidence (or simply accept a premise without evidence) and therefore does not stand a chance of ever acknowledging the theist's particular god. Since christianity historically both competed with and borrowed from the pagan religions from which wicca derives, it is more of a threat than Eastern religions, which evolved separately and are not related, or splinter sects which borrowed from them and shares many of their core beliefs.

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Permalink Reply by LeaT on January 25, 2009 at 10:51am

I think you are mostly correct especially if we consider the true biblethumbers. I just want to point out how to avoid original sin through baptism here, and it thus screws up your premise a little :) Aside that, I agree wholly on everything you said though. Although I must point out as well that Wicca is actually mostly based upon Eastern religions, among those Hindusim but it doesn't mean there aren't elements which can be found in Christianity as well. It also of course depends on which Wicca we are talking about, but what I personally think make Abrahamic theists to despise Wicca is that it puts women equal to or even above men; and that the female is an equally important part in the world foundation in comparison to an absolute male ruler. Even though most people don't really say or admit flat out that god is most often considered a man, we can more less assume that is the case, sadly.

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Permalink Reply by LeaT on January 25, 2009 at 10:44am

The problem in this case is that religious people lack education about the very thing they propagate so much, namely theology. They de facto think that an atheist must necessarily hate god (in their world the lack of belief just doesn't exist, they cannot seem to generally grasp the concept itself) and since theistic satanists hate god, then atheists too must be satanists. Of course, they also mix up Laveyan satanism and theistic satanism as well; afaik, few of the latter actually exist at all.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Brightman on January 27, 2009 at 4:44pm

I have to be honest, i think it is a sterotypical generalistaion that christians especially consider anybody who do not subscribe to thier belief system as being evil. Indeed there was proof of this during the early period of christianity where followers of Ba'al ze bub ( an emergent alternative) ended up being outcast, and there god had his name twisted from Ba'al Ze bub (lord on high) to beelzubub (lord of the flies). and as a result the god was deemed as the anti christ, almost as a way of evolving a survival strategy for ther religion by using rhetoric, lies and mis-information.

As to whether atheists do bad things because of unbelief is unfounded. Yes there are and have been bad athesits ( just look at Stalin) but on the whole we experience low crime rates, lower divorce, and happier home lives. You only have to look at scandinavia for that who have some of the lowest crime rates in the world, but the highest rate of atheists/agnostics

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