ATHEISM - A CRUTCH? IS ATHEISM A CRUTCH LIKE RELIGION IS?
It would be strange if the religious person was allowed to have their crutch and have others making crutches while the atheist isn't allowed to do the same thing with atheism! But that is what happens!
It is strange how when told religion and faith are crutches that the religious will say to you that your atheism is a crutch. That is admitting they think religion is a crutch.
So some object that if religion is a crutch or necessarily a crutch then
atheism is a crutch too or can be. Perhaps the atheists wants to believe
there is nothing to fear after death for they feel they should be punished
after death for their sins. Or perhaps they like to feel that they are their
own own God and therefore hate God. This assumes that atheism is protective
against God. But that implies that there are no real atheists but only
people who fool themselves that they are atheists. But there are. You cannot
call atheism a crutch. Most atheists stress the importance of logic and
reason and evidence and it is not their fault if these things tell them that
religion is superstition.
Some say that atheism is a crutch for if there is no God to answer to then
there is then no accountability for the way you live your life. But most
atheists live reasonably good lives.
If atheism is a crutch then everything is a crutch. Belief in God or atheism
cannot both be crutches for they are polar opposites.
And even if both could be crutches, the question we should ask in the light
of the fact that a smaller crutch is better than a bigger one is, "Is
atheism the biggest crutch or is it belief in God?" In fact atheism would
not be the biggest crutch for the simple reason that if the atheist just
wants independence from God the believer wants a lot more than that. The
believer wants God to punish those who hurt them and to protect them and
bring them to Heaven forever when they die. And the atheist is unlikely to
want independence from God when the atheist seeks to avoid being independent
of others to the extent that they end up not caring how they treat them.
The religionist says, "God tells me in my heart that this religion is true."
The atheist says, "The evidence tells me religion or God is superstition."
Who is the most humble person? The religionist would need to know as much as
God be so sure that God is speaking. The atheist is set on going wherever
the evidence leads. The believer is arrogant and the atheist is humble or
should be! The atheist has no crutch while the believer is happy to imagine
he knows what he does not know at all.
Also the atheist does not have the celebrity complex. The celebrity wants to be celebrated by as many people as possible, preferably millions. The believer feels celebrated by God whose opinion in itself matters more than what of millions of fallible puny humans think. They think god sees exactly how great they are so unlike pop stars they don't have to use an act to impress the stupid. When you look at it that way how could anybody say atheism is anything like a crutch?