As a Christian I have several good reasons to spread Christianity. Imagine Hell as the edge of a cliff that humanity is blindly rushing towards. God and other Christians plead for men to stop and choose another path, but like lemmings, mankind continues forward towards doom. As a witness to others, I am one more opportunity for someone to turn away from the cliff. That is why I attempt to spread Christianity.
I have spent much time trying to understand our world from the point of atheism and had little success. Above all, I can't understand why some atheists so fervently try to spread their lack of religion. I'm not talking about the people who have a belief system that includes atheism and try to witness the values of their beliefs. I'm talking about people who encounter or actively search for religious and try to inform them that their beliefs are incorrect and should be abandoned. If you truly believe that these brief few years of existence is all you have, can you not find a better way to use your time?
I understand that the world contains people who do terrible things in the name of religion. People have done terrible things in the name of science as well. People have done terrible things in the name of love, in the name of fun, and in the name of family. There is no call to eliminate love or science from our world, however, as there is with religion. None of the concepts listed above are inherently evil. People can exercise love, science, or religion in non-evil or even good ways. Anything, taken to an extreme, can become evil.
Most of the religious people I know treat other people more respectfully because their religion gives them incentive to be better people. If everyone was a Christian, for example, would the world be a better or worse place than it is today? Christians* do not lie, do not steal, do not murder, and they love unconditionally. If everyone practiced those behaviors, the world would be a fantastically more friendly place to live. If you encounter one who calls them self a Christian, but looks down on or mistreats other people, you would probably have faster and longer lasting results by trying to help them become better Christians than by try to strip their Christianity from them.
Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who studied what it took for people to become what he called "Self-Actualized", which is to say, "reached their full potential." Maslow called out the need for a religion or religion-surrogate in order to achieve this. This raises several doubts in my mind about the lack of intentional design in our humanity. More relevant to this discussion, however, it highlights an important issue: We have a real, psychological need to fill the role of God in our lives. We need this as a system to live by. Without it, we are ill-defined. If someone uses religion, in a non-evil way, to fill this gap, why take it away from them?
Again, I have many reasons to spread religion to everyone I can find who's willing to listen. People are healthier spiritually, mentally, and socially by believing in a god as long as they keep an open mind and use religion moderately as opposed to stretching it to the extreme and embracing zealotry. To spread atheism is to take spiritual security and replace it with fearful mortality, to take social unity and replace it with evolutionary selfishness, and to take mental stability and replace it with unguided ambiguity. By taking God away from man you fill his life with gaps which he must find new surrogates to fill. What good reason do you have to spread atheism?
*I am defining Christian as "One who is like Christ". Not to be confused with "Any person who calls himself a Christian"
I am no expert on psychological profiling, but I believe that the phenomenon you have illustrated here is the product of sever insecurity. You, for example, have a firm religious belief; this belief is the culmination of serious contemplation, rational deduction and at least a dash of faith. You have no need to bring into question, attack, or attempt to tear down another’s belief system to validate your own because you are secure in your carefully considered religious stance. My assumption is that the person(s) that inspired this blog knows enough about religion to debate the issue, but does not know enough about themselves. This lack of self-identity can often cause people to become defensive, excitable, and vicious.
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