Many religious people have distorted views regarding the attitudes and moral values of atheists unable to see them as ethical beings. Some even promote false ideas about atheists, seemingly unable to cope with the fact that there are people who simply find god beliefs empty. Some try to re-define atheism to exclude life changing emotional feelings. e.g. When confronted with an atheist who spoke of her feelings of awe, Oprah Winfrey remarked “Well I don’t call you an atheist then…” going on to redefine atheism in her terms, in effect redefining the Christian God so as to suit her personal distaste for atheists. Well I have news for you Oprah Winfrey; You don't get to decide what is or isn't counted when describing an atheist.
Time Magazine Claims “It is hard to view the Grand Canyon and be an atheist”, also claiming “awe = religion”. Suddenly awe becomes religion when it suits the religious disposition of Time Magazine editors - yet another mischievous redefinition.
Atheism says nothing about how a person feels or about their ethics, only about their non-belief in gods. The high incidence of atheists in science, parallels their oft-experienced feelings of awe and wonder, commonly being the motivating force for their scientific careers. Awe is not religion, it is a quale. An emergent property, born of the complexity of the natural world and the emergence in it, of conscious awareness.
See these also:
A View of the World From the Mind of an Atheist
Special Days
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