{"id":17893,"date":"2015-01-17T12:06:12","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T17:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=17893"},"modified":"2015-01-17T12:06:12","modified_gmt":"2015-01-17T17:06:12","slug":"ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html","title":{"rendered":"Ten Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Brilliant<\/a>
Brilliant Atheist?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Not long ago I was engaged in an email conversation with an atheist.<\/p>\n

He wrote to me out of the blue responding to a blog post I had written.<\/p>\n

He seemed friendly enough so I went along with the conversation, first assuring him that I don\u2019t argue with anybody online.<\/p>\n

Arguments are out. Discussions are in.<\/p>\n

So we exchanged about a dozen email each before signing off in a friendly way.<\/p>\n

The conversation revealed the usual situation: I didn\u2019t believe in the God he didn\u2019t believe in either.<\/p>\n

Like so many atheists I have come across, he was brought up in a conservative Evangelical or fundamentalist family and rejected that religion. He did not believe in that god so he convinced himself he didn\u2019t believe in God at all. In rejecting a simplistic religion he rejected the God of that religion.<\/p>\n

When I began to explain the Catholic understanding of God as being \u201cexistence itself\u201d or \u201cultimate Reality\u201d the conversation began to get interesting.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t bore you with the details of our exchange, but on pondering the conversation this morning I realized that I\u2019m actually grateful for atheists.<\/p>\n

Here are ten reasons why:<\/p>\n

1. They\u00a0ask the questions<\/strong>\u00a0The death of Christianity is to be uncritical and unthinking. So many Christians turn up at church on Sunday and as soon as they hit the parking lot it seems they turn their brains off. It\u2019s like they sit down in the pew and subconsciously say, \u201cFor an hour now I\u2019m going back into Sunday School mode. I\u2019m going to pretend I believe in some fairy tales and a some medieval doctrines that we all know aren\u2019t really true, but for an hour it will make me feel good to think that they are. I have found, for instance, that a huge majority of adult Catholics are firmly resistant to any form of further catechesis. It\u2019s kind of like, \u201cDon\u2019t you try to catechize me Father. I\u2019m a cradle Catholic!\u201d That\u2019s crap. Atheists see that and shake their heads and say, \u201cI\u2019m outta here.\u201d So I\u2019m grateful that they challenge that complacency and hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0They want the truth\u00a0<\/strong>Most atheists I\u2019ve come across have examined religion, albeit on a superficial level, and they really do think it is untrue. They\u2019ve usually been taught a fundamentalist understanding of the Bible and once they get some education they wonder if a whale really did swallow Jonah, if the Red Sea really split wide open and if Methuselah really lived 900 years. They\u2019ve been told all that stuff is true (and much more) and they insist that it is not and that religion is selling people a bill of goods. They want to discover the truth, and I\u2019m grateful for that.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0They dislike hypocrisy and humbug\u00a0<\/strong>Like most critics of the church they see the lives of people who call themselves Christians and say along with the atheist Bertrand Russell, \u201cIf the Christians are so redeemed, why don\u2019t they look more redeemed?\u201d In other words, they see our hypocrisy, complacency, corruption and inconsistency and challenge it. They see our violence, paranoia and stupidity and challenge it. They see our institutionalized, fossilized and dead religion and conclude that it\u2019s all bunk. \u00a0That\u2019s okay and I\u2019m grateful for it. Isn\u2019t that, after all, what Jesus did in response to the religious leaders?<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0They\u2019re realistic\u00a0<\/strong>They live in the modern world with modern scientific discoveries and modern technologies and they wonder why people need to cling to ancient belief systems. They see themselves as down to earth, realistic and practical. They honestly don\u2019t see why religion is useful or how it helps people and we have not always been very good at putting our religion into gear and using it to make a difference in our lives and in our world. They see us living like everyone else in the world, then going to church for an hour a week and they don\u2019t see the use of it. \u00a0I don\u2019t see the use of that kind of religion either, to tell you the truth.\u00a0Continue Reading<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Image<\/a> via Bing<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not long ago I was engaged in an email conversation with an atheist. He wrote to me out of the blue responding to a blog post I had written. He seemed friendly enough so I went along with the conversation, first assuring him that I don\u2019t argue with anybody online. Arguments are out. Discussions are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":17894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTen Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Not long ago I was engaged in an email conversation with an atheist. He wrote to me out of the blue responding to a blog post I had written. He seemed\" \/>\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.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ten Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not long ago I was engaged in an email conversation with an atheist. He wrote to me out of the blue responding to a blog post I had written. He seemed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-17T17:06:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/149\/2015\/01\/Brilliant_Atheists.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1315\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"987\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html\",\"name\":\"Ten Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-01-17T17:06:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-01-17T17:06:12+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\"},\"description\":\"Not long ago I was engaged in an email conversation with an atheist. He wrote to me out of the blue responding to a blog post I had written. He seemed\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Ten Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ten Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists","description":"Not long ago I was engaged in an email conversation with an atheist. He wrote to me out of the blue responding to a blog post I had written. He seemed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ten Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists","og_description":"Not long ago I was engaged in an email conversation with an atheist. He wrote to me out of the blue responding to a blog post I had written. He seemed","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html","og_site_name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","article_published_time":"2015-01-17T17:06:12+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1315,"height":987,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/149\/2015\/01\/Brilliant_Atheists.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html","name":"Ten Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-01-17T17:06:12+00:00","dateModified":"2015-01-17T17:06:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad"},"description":"Not long ago I was engaged in an email conversation with an atheist. He wrote to me out of the blue responding to a blog post I had written. He seemed","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/01\/ten-reasons-why-i-am-grateful-for-atheists.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Ten Reasons Why I Am Grateful for Atheists"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","caption":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}