Is Atheism a guilt response?
- Thread starter rjr6
- Start date
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M*W: Where did you come up with this fallacious statement? Why would atheists have unresolved guilt. Guilt is something theists have.
Almost everyone has unresolved guilt.
MW, I wouldn't bash on the guy/gal for asking a simple question. He's obviously curious about it, so why not give him a proper answer?
Cheski nailed it, by the way.
I don't think guilt has much to do with atheism. In fact, I would imagine (and this is just my feeling on it) that the particular type of guilt associated with something like religion (or lack thereof) would bring a person to religion, rather than drive them away from it. So much of religion is atonement, submission, salvation, it makes sense that religion would be a haven for those who feel they aren't living up to their potential, who have perhaps done bad things in their life, etc..
Cheski nailed it, by the way.
I don't think guilt has much to do with atheism. In fact, I would imagine (and this is just my feeling on it) that the particular type of guilt associated with something like religion (or lack thereof) would bring a person to religion, rather than drive them away from it. So much of religion is atonement, submission, salvation, it makes sense that religion would be a haven for those who feel they aren't living up to their potential, who have perhaps done bad things in their life, etc..
I'll try to actually address the question. Searching on pubmed, Google scholar, and some other research databases doesn't find anything specifically measuring guilt in atheists, but there are a number that do touch on relationships between the religious and spiritual dimensions of people and their feelings of guilt.
I haven't tried to read any of them in detail yet, and I don't know what your hypothesis is, so I don't know if they're relevant or not.
From my very brief skim of the literature, "unresolved guilt" really means all current feelings of guilt. In practice, "resolving" guilt means absolving and nullifying it.
I.e. if someone feels guilt, then it must be unresolved... because if it were resolved, the person would not be feeling guilty.
I.e. if someone feels guilt, then it must be unresolved... because if it were resolved, the person would not be feeling guilty.
I think studies would find atheists and non-religious people are freer of guilt than their religious counterparts.
I personally can't remember suffering guilt more than when I was going through my catholic education. Not sure if the guilt was to do with being a child or if it was to do with religious indoctrination... but nevertheless, without the baggage of religion, people will take life as it comes whilst religious folk incessantly analyze every moment of their life based on how they think Jesus/God want them to behave.
What exactly does unresolved guilt mean?
If by unresolved you mean unsolved, or undecided, uncertain. Then your barking up the wrong tree, Atheism is what you are from the onset, Atheist have no need to solve or decide anything unless they had been indoctrinated into a religion, those Atheist have used there reason, intellect and solved(and by solved I don't mean it was any kind of problem/difficulty, common sense isn't rocket science) and decided there stance, and thus left the (religious cult name here ).
But as for guilt, Why would they have any guilt? what is there to feel guilty about?
They have decided that there is no reason to hold a belief in a god/gods, because a belief in god/gods is irrational and unreasonable.
Have there been any studies done on gods to investigate unresolved guilt?
atheists do not feel guilty (in general), as a group, concerning their behaviour? Is atheism an attempt to escape from the feelings of guilt?
Oh I understand what you're saying. You're asking if people become atheists because they don't want to feel guilty for disobeying God. Right? You can't apologize to someone who doesn't exist. Like I would no longer feel guilty about having sex with my boyfriend because God frowns upon it, as an atheist I would have no reason to feel guilty because I would have done nothing wrong. That's true. I don't feel guilty for fornicating, like a Christian should/would, but being absolved from guilt isn't the reason I lost my faith. Guilt had nothing to do with it.
Thanks for your answer. What is the type of guilt associated with religion?
I'm not sure whether or not you started this thread as a joke or not, but if not then:
guilt is specifically a machination of Religion.
The thread does not attempt to address guilt developed from disobeying religous doctrine, necessarily. Just the feeling of guilt. Medicine*Woman seem to indicate that her idea of atheism did not allow for the feeling of guilt, and I wanted her to correct my assumption or expand on her assertion.
The thread topic developed from an honest question in my attempt to understand atheist. Though it could be construed as antagonistic, agreed.
From the hip response: Have you seen a dog look guilty?