Atheism and those that follow god have interacted with each other since man learned to talk.
The earliest known religions were animist, giving human-like powers to the wind, the sea the earth, and so on, and did not fuse them into a single entity for probably at least 1,000 years after the dawn of writing. There is even a theory among archaeologists the that main Hebrew God Yahweh (there were others) was a mistake, based on stories Canaanite goatherds got from travelers about a great city of a similar name, but mistook it for a god (due to language issues) and then adopted it as their own, with the stories of its feats. Yahweh is also the name Phoenician god, which is why, in the Bible, Yahweh is married to the Phoenician goddess Asherah. (Thousands of Asherah figurines have been unearthed in the area where the earliest versions of the Bible stories probably took root in the oral tradition.)
The first known case of atheism is Plato's account of Socrates, thousands of years later, tried for atheism because he believed (more as a matter of logic) that there must be only one God. Let me say that again: the first known atheist was taken to trial for refusing to accept the full pantheon of gods in ancient Greece, believing in just one God. (He voluntarily committed suicide by drinking hemlock from a cup, in a scenario that in some ways is imitated in the Passion of Christ. In many ways the Jesus story seems to be a rewrite of Socrates.)
Some false gods and false ways were narrowed down.
The Babylonian/Sumerian gods, many of those of Egypt, and those of India and China, were or have been around as long or longer than the Judeo-Christian ones. Besides, if you put all the Christians, Jews and Islamists in one place, you would have to concede that they all believe in the same God. Yet you would observe thousands of versions of beliefs in that same God, thousand of ideas how He is to be served, and genuine strife and conflict among them -- even to the point of violence -- with each group believing it has the one true version.
Even Vikings changed to follow Christian ways.
They were conquered. It's unclear how much Christianity was forced on them, and how much they adopted by osmosis. I think there are some records that show that they were allowed to merge their animism with Christianity at first.
And religious people change to other religions and some to none at all. We would worship like....um, wizards,other humans for special things they do oh ya some kinda do already(athletes), the stars, the sun, drugs,and other things... False idols come to my mind.
It's simply a matter of history and chance, particularly the successions of wars and who won what turf. If the Moors had not been stopped in Spain, Ferdinand and Isabela might just have well been the Caliphs, and Columbus perhaps Omar the Navigator, and all of this discussion would hinge around the question of why so many infidels are congregating online.
But why do people always claim "its gods fault". Get so angry at god.
I doubt that there's any anger. Atheists are speaking against the policies of Christianity. One of them is that God loves his creations. Another is that God intervenes in and controls every detail in everyone's lives. The issue that atheists consider logical fallacy is that if these premises are true, then God must be responsible for all of the murder, mayhem and calamity in the world. It's not anger, it's simply an appeal to logic.
That would admit randomness, not a well accepted idea in many Christian circles.
And we have free will, if I don't have free will I would not be typing.
That's pretty much a religious concept. A biologist would trace these to primal urges, motivations and the evolution of speech and reason.
And with the Christian god we are limited in our free will. We can not change to a animal for example. We are "let loose". But we have limitations.
Psychotic patients probably reveal the true underlying structure of the human mind and some of the complexes of ideas involved in concepts of freedom, choice and constraints. The problem with interpreting free will in a religious context is that it avoids the underlying biological causes for human behavior.
Direct our anger not directly at god or gods but where it needs to really be placed. Like be mad we built a damn and the weather destroyed it. And so the house got destroyed and flooded. Get mad over the government for limiting a road that was going to be built to help your business. And for not doing more to keep it going yourself.
The question in my mind is whether it is ethical to persuade ignorant and vulnerable minds to adopt a religion at all. Missionary programs have done incredible damage throughout history in erasing indigenous cultures and promoting war and genocide. Worst of all, religion encourages fallacy upon fallacy, and enslaves minds, leaving the victims unable to consistently apply right thinking. Thus, it may not even occur to you that the debate over whether to put a highway through your back yard was cut short and put to a vote, because another bill concerning prayer in the classroom, or the teaching of evolution, or abortion, or any of 100 things the Christian politicos want to do, has stolen your time from the legislative process. If there is any anger at all, I think it's all pointed in that direction.
