How would you feel about this?

Almost all of the people close to me believe in God so it doesn't really work for me. I am an atheist.

One close member of my family doesn't believe in God, but I wouldn't care too much if he changed his mind. I would only think he were foolish.

I am an atheist and I'd feel concerned.

I'm not convinced that there is such a thing as an atheist.

I'm neither, but either way, I wouldn't care. People are free to believe what they wish.

> I'm not convinced that there is such a thing as an atheist.

Interesting. Explain please

I know Christians, and one live atheist. I know liberals, I know conservatives. I still love those that are not in agreement with me.

I don't believe in God and it would depend. A lot of my family are Christian and it doesn't bother me at all as they do not care what I believe in - however, they're not all biblical/evangelical/judgmental/citing scripture kind of people - that would certainly freak me out.

I am an atheist and I would be disappointed.
Ultimately, I wouldn't care. I'm often disappointed in people, so what's one more?

("Upset" is too strong a word for the amount of emotion that I would invest to learning of such news.)

It depends on who exactly and what the circumstances were. If it was someone I was close to, who had professed their atheism, I would be surprised and concerned. I suppose I might feel personally rejected. However I haven't had this experience. What I have experienced is the increasing evangelism of a good friend of mine. She was raised in a Christian home, but felt she was largely "going through the motions" until our second year at university when we went together to a series of sessions similar to the Alpha Course. I recognised it as brainwashing (yes, it's a strong word, but I don't use it lightly - this wasn't the relatively gentle promotion of faith that I had previously encountered with the Church of England, this was much more close-minded and forceful, albeit wrapped in a warm and welcoming exterior) but it helped her to discover her faith and she was baptised the next year. In the time since then, she has become more dogmatic and less tolerant of people that her church disapproves of. She believes that only her branch of evangelical Christianity is true, and that most Anglicans are not Christians at all. She reduced a mutual (also Christian) friend to tears in her vocal disapproval of her non-religious boyfriend. I love my friend, but the chasm between us seems bigger every time that I see her.

This is kind of limited, but I guess that's okay because it really seems like everyone on the internet is either Christian or Atheist.

I was raised Catholic, then Atheist, then LaVeyan Satanism, and now I'm theistic.

I do not even have any friends that are Atheists. My closest friend is from a very VERY Christian family, my other friend is kind of Christian or Catholic or whatever, but it doesn't really take a part of their life, honestly they just don't consider it at all. It's just the "normal" thing. The only atheist I know in person is my brother. My dad is sort of agnostic-ish.

My two cents is, my friends that are believers in God need to just take a second to think about it. But they just don't, because it's normal to them, so they don't take a second look at anything, and they take it for granted. This annoys me, I'd like to know someone I can have any kind of intelligent discussion with.

> It depends on who exactly and what the circumstances were. If it was
> someone I was close to, who had professed their atheism, I would be
> surprised and concerned. I suppose I might feel personally rejected.
> However I haven't had this experience. What I have experienced is
> the increasing evangelism of a good friend of mine. She was raised
> in a Christian home, but felt she was largely "going through the motions"
> until our second year at university when we went together to a series
> of sessions similar to the Alpha Course. I recognised it as brainwashing
> (yes, it's a strong word, but I don't use it lightly - this wasn't
> the relatively gentle promotion of faith that I had previously encountered
> with the Church of England, this was much more close-minded and forceful,
> albeit wrapped in a warm and welcoming exterior) but it helped her
> to discover her faith and she was baptised the next year. In the time
> since then, she has become more dogmatic and less tolerant of people
> that her church disapproves of. She believes that only her branch
> of evangelical Christianity is true, and that most Anglicans are not
> Christians at all. She reduced a mutual (also Christian) friend to
> tears in her vocal disapproval of her non-religious boyfriend. I love
> my friend, but the chasm between us seems bigger every time that I
> see her.

Sounds like she is bordering on mental illness.

Hang on, I hope you don't see me as being on the opposite side of the spectrum

Matters not one way or another to me. I could care less if anyone else believes in God or not. Just as long as they keep it to themselves. Nothing worse than bible-thumper neighbors in your face.

I am an atheist and I wouldn't care.

Somewhere in between upset and wouldn't care... probably more like, "Huh? ...oh, yeah, that's fine, whatever. Meh" I think I'd mostly just be kind of surprised they cared enough about it to change their belief. I might be interested in the process by which that happened, though it's probably too personal or inexpressible. Some part of me might have a vague desire to talk them out of being a believer but I probably wouldn't say anything. It probably wouldn't affect me much. Well, maybe if it was my wife, then it would be more of a big deal and it would affect me and be kind of annoying. Though, also surprising.

I recently talked to a friend who started doing AA and he said he's a believer now. He was agnostic before. I wasn't upset and I did care. We sort of talked about it. I was interested in what his beliefs were and he explained, though it seemed personal and it didn't seem like something I could fully understand. He knew I could be a flaming atheist, so he was a little cautious. But, I don't think I ended up saying much. His experience with alcoholism was more interesting. The change in his belief was more of a footnote.

I am an on the fence believer in God... and feel like such a hypocrite sometimes ...A good family friend is the priest that married me and him and his wife and there kids so he and I talk Theology all the time... as to the question it would not bother me either way

I'm in the middle, where I'm a sort of a religious atheist (don't really believe in god, but still do most religious things out of tradition). But I'm generally all right with what most people believe in. What I can't stand is when somebody decides to argue with me, trying to prove to me that god does exist or that I need to drop all the notion of God's existence.

There is no proof that they exist. Sure, people can go around claiming to be atheists, but how do I know for sure?

> There is no proof that they exist. Sure, people can go around claiming
> to be atheists, but how do I know for sure?

Ok, ask yourself these two questions:

1- Do you believe in Father Christmas?

What's your answer? I would guess your answer is NO. But can you prove that Santa doesn't exist?

2- Do you believe in God?

If you say yes, then fine. But can you prove it? If the answer is no, then can you proof it? No!

I would answer NO to both even though I cannot prove they don't exist.

Therefore, should we all be slight believers in Santa? No of course not. But what's the difference between Santa and God? Both were made up by humans

Yes, it isn't possible to prove or disprove the existence of anything, really. I feel quite certain that my own consciousness exists. Beyond that, it's all speculative.

You probably know this already, but working along those lines, it appeared to good old spanner-in-the-works Descartes that the idea that we can only be certain our consciousness exists makes the idea of a creator more realistic... pretty good argument, I reckon, if you accept the total bosh of global scepticism.

Yes

I choose not to check any of the options, becaue "being a believer in God" does not mean the same thing to everyone. My God belief would most likely appall a liberal Christian.
To answer the question, if they became an athiest, that is, someone that I know very well did that, I would be confused but I would not judge.
And it isn't that I "wouldn't care" of course I care, I care enough to support them with their decision. If they cared about it anyway.

I just saw what I wrote and I am leaving it because it makes me laugh.
>| if they became an athiest, ...

It may come to a time for a choice. And I will compare it to the time I was dating this guy in high school. I really liked him...I was even beginning to love him in the short time we dated. I was seriously considering a full time commitment. But he chose drugs. There was no me in that life. I mean, I was doing drugs also, but when you love someone, either a friend or mate, there are certain interferences that will totally seperate two lives from being one.

I am a believer in people's right to believe as they will without me butting in

I'd be a bit worried about the state of their mental health.

Seriously.

(I'm an atheist)

Its up to them. I'm not going to go preach to them