Atheism is an ideology that’s both misunderstood and more uncommon than one might initially believe. Simply put, it’s the lack of belief in the existence of a deity or deities. In the last century, there has been a gradual shift away from organized religion in a world increasingly exposed to scientific thought and reasoning. For some, technological advances and greater education made a belief system obsolete. In 1966, Time Magazine published an article with the headline “Is God Dead?” For a growing number of people, the answer to that question is “yes”. In fact, eleven percent of Americans born after 1970, were raised in secular, or non-religious, homes. This trend has continued into the twenty-first century, but gains for atheism remain slim. According to the Pew Research Center, three percent of Americans who responded to their 2014 Religious Landscape Study said they were atheists. This is a very low figure, especially considering that nearly twenty-three percent of Americans reported being non-religious in the same study. Calculating a worldwide figure of atheists is difficult to the variety of ideologies associated with non-believers. For examples, followers of philosophical principles of Buddhism or Confucianism don’t believe in a religion in the traditional sense. Furthermore, there are others who don’t subscribe to a religion but believe in a higher power, also known as deists. Reports have placed people that don’t have a faith at fourteen percent of the world’s population. In the modern world, it’s truly surprising to discover that so many still cling to the idea of God or gods without any tangible evidence to prove the existence of such. Why is that the current situation?

The first thing to look at when confused about the number of atheists is to look at how others view them. In the United States, the public has negative perceptions about atheism. Once again, Pew Research Center provides the information necessary to back this claim. A representative sample of 3,127 Americans was asked to rate a number of groups on a scale from one to one hundred (one being the coldest and one hundred being the warmest).

The results are interesting, to say the least: the respondents rated Jews and Catholics the highest with sixty-three and sixty-two points respectively. Atheists, meanwhile, received the lowest rating with forty-one points. Only Muslims were more poorly received. As an atheist myself, it was shocking to find out how poorly my fellow citizens view atheism. Initially, I thought that the reaction toward my beliefs would be either positive or ambivalent because of the previously-mentioned shift away from religion in recent years. I’ve personally never had a bad experience from telling someone that I’m an atheist. Usually, the person I mention that to responds with an “Okay cool” or “That’s interesting”. A lack of negative reactions is likely due to living in Ann Arbor, Michigan my entire life, a liberal environment where religion isn't taken as seriously than somewhere such as the Bible Belt. There must be something about the ideology that most Americans detest, thus preventing them from becoming atheists themselves or at least viewing them in a more positive light.

I adopted atheism about a year ago for a few reasons. First, I didn’t like the constraints on life religion imposed. After all, why would people abstain from eating pork or drinking alcohol or not eat milk and meat in the same meal because a book told me to? Why should I have to go to ceremonies if I don’t want to? Second, I despised the actions that some did in the name of their faith. People killing one another because of conflicting beliefs was and remains nonsensical, as does not seek medical care for a sick child and praying for his or her recovery. Granted, these examples are extreme, but I no longer wanted to be associated with believers anymore. Third, I was dissatisfied with the explanation of the world it offered. Am I really supposed to believe that God created the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh, and the first woman was created with a rib from the first man? I was brought up in a secular home, and science played a huge part in my upbringing. I viewed religion as anti-science, specifically because of creationists quoting Bible passages to justify them saying things like the Earth is seven thousand years old and God created the Earth in seven days. Such statements were ridiculous. God never appeared as a tangible force, and people just told me to believe in Him and he would help. My search for the truth using evidence and logic prevents me from believing in something that someone can see, touch, hear, or feel. There is no scientific process to prove the existence of God, therefore, he doesn’t exist to me.

Along with a god, some form of an afterlife is an essential component of religion. To believers, these ideas cannot exist without each other. In other words, if there is no god, there is no afterlife. Throughout human history, people have been obsessed with the concept of existence after mortal death. People want to believe that death is only the beginning and that they somehow live on for eternity. Meanwhile, atheists tend to view death as the end of consciousness and the beginning of something known as eternal oblivion or nothingness. This directly clashes with the worldview of believers and likely contributes to the negative view religious people have toward atheists.The study What If They’re Right About the Afterlife? Evidence of the Role of Existential Threat on Anti-Atheist Prejudice explored this concept. The abstract states:

“Terror management theory posits that the uniquely human awareness of death gives rise to a potentially paralyzing terror that is assuaged by embracing cultural worldviews that provide a sense that one is a valuable participant in a meaningful universe. We propose that pervasive and pronounced anti-atheist prejudices stem, in part, from the existential threat posed by conflicting worldview beliefs. Two studies were conducted to establish that existential concerns contribute to anti-atheist sentiments. Experiment 1 found that a subtle reminder of death increased disparagement, social distancing, and distrust of atheists. Experiment 2 found that asking people to think about atheism increased the accessibility of implicit death thoughts. These studies provide the first empirical link between existential concerns and anti-atheist prejudices.”

As stated above, people’s existential beliefs and anti-atheist tendencies flared when reminded of their own mortality. It stems from the fear of death, and the fear if that the atheists are right, nothing awaits them after their passing. For many people, that’s a scary proposition. Naturally, people felt threatened when their most powerful worldview was challenged. As such, they reacted with hostility toward those who would contest what they held dear.

Not only do atheists challenge the conventional belief of an afterlife, there are common misconceptions about atheism that may make our way of life less appealing to believers and possible skeptics. Some of them are based on misunderstandings, while others are borderline insanity. Sam Harris, neuroscientist, and famous atheist wrote an article entitled 10 Myths - and 10 Truths - About Atheism to address some of these fallacies. One of the points that are more understandable is saying that atheists believe everything in the universe arose by chance. To disprove this, Harris evokes Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, in which the famous atheist brings this up as an attack used by religious people against the theory of evolution. While the universe and life beginning on Earth were brought about by chance according to atheists, its continued advancement is a “combination of chance mutation and natural selection”. It’s dishonest to claim that we only believe in chance, rather we tend to embrace scientific processes in order to search for a higher truth. Another myth says that atheists lead meaningless lives. Since atheists tend to believe that life on Earth is the only existence, wouldn’t it make more sense that we would try to make the most out of what we have while still alive? That point makes no sense and just defeats itself. Something more idiotic that Harris refuted was the notion atheists have no morality. Since atheists don’t have a text that has guiding principles, some religious people conclude that we don’t live our lives with any sort of an incentive for being a good person. In response, he wrote:

“If a person doesn't already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won't discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.

We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn't make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.”

In other words, humans don’t need holy texts and religion to be morally sound. The example using slavery is telling, while the Bible and the Koran allow slavery, slavery is now banned in most countries today. While slavery used to be a component of numerous cultures from ancient times up until the early modern period, it’s now viewed as abhorrent and morally wrong. These books are filled with both negative and positive quotes, with loving your neighbor and killing apostates existing side-by-side. What’s considered moral also changes over time, while the holy book’s content does not. Even in the past, certain actions such as murder were seen as universally wrong, which were brought about by thousands of years of societal development, which Harris refers to as “thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.” Religion has served a purpose in the past, but should now be considered irrelevant as a form of moral guidance.

It’s not controversial to state that most people are decent and reasonably intelligent, and are not irrational by nature.While we have moments where emotions override our conscience, that doesn’t necessarily mean we are illogical beings. So, despite the inherent irrationality of religion and believing in God, there must be something that compels people to still practice religion in the modern world. Fear of death is one possible explanation, but there has to be something more than that. Humans are very social and come together over common causes. A study published in the American Sociological Review found that when studying Catholics and Protestants, people gained life satisfaction from networking with people at religious services. Another study conducted by Harvard researcher Robert Putnam found that twenty-eight percent of people who attended a religious service weekly were “extremely satisfied” with their lives. By contrast, almost twenty percent of non-religious people reported the same feeling. This makes sense for sociological perspective. Religion involves congregation for prayer and other ceremonies. Over these events, people bond and create communities, thus fulfilling the basic need of affiliation.

It wouldn’t make sense to label the skepticism surrounding atheism to be based solely on fear and mistrust. Many continue to see religion as a way of life, a cultural feature rather than something designed to explain the world and how it works. It brings people joy and connection, and therefore, is something that they are not willing to give up yet. Perhaps the best way to help atheism as a cause is to dispel the negative stereotypes associated with it by just allowing time to pass. As more and more become unsure about the existence of a deity, their relatives and families will have more points of reference to compare he or her to what they consider the stereotypical atheist. One archetypal image is less than flattering: a fat, smelly white man with a neckbeard who wears a fedora. We are also portrayed as nihilistic buzzkills who don’t have any purpose. Obviously, this isn’t all of us. Furthermore, hopefully, people will grow more tolerant of their worldviews being challenged instead of reacting with hostility. Maybe religion will slowly fade away and non-religious societies will flourish all over the world. Only time will tell.