Are there no atheists in foxholes?

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I might have asked this long ago, not sure. But here it goes.

There have been few people that given some circumstances in their lives, they have considered their views about reality and wether they would accept Christianity or contemplate alternative beliefs.

From anecdotal experience I can say that an atheist started to think of God when he thought his life was in danger, and there are some other cases in which some wonder about an afterlife, fate, mysticism and so on, although not always necessarily invoking a diety, but still.

Yes, I am familiar with that, but the issue is not about military atheists but atheist people in general, more like civilians who have no training on the matter, and how many of them would hope for something else given fear and high to extreme stressful situations and given that, some could even change their beliefs.

Eh, it depends on the person. Even if they were lacking, it would say more about people than atheism. Particularly given that all foxholes are a testament to the godlessness of the world.

I would have said "some of the above", lol. But it's hard to put so many options. I've heard a lot of atheists who sound as if they are just angry at God/religion, some who seem like they would end up in 'foxholes', and others who seem to think 'atheism....huh that sounds cool'. Not very many who seem like genuine atheists. But that's just me and the people I've met, not trying to generalize.

I prefer my foxholes to be packed with atheists. Seems like they'd be more focused on the task-at-hand.

-I've had a gun pointed at me by a teenager that was slightly shaking by fear and anger. There was no doubt I could have been shot, which ended with him lowering the gun as the situation was defused (I just had the bad chance to be in the area where he came back with a gun to shoot some others).

-I was arrested and in jail for 2 weeks for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, which I was guilty of in respect to that I did perform the act, but it was completely justifiable and for lack of a better word for a good reason. Before I was ROR'd (release own recognizance) and the charges dismissed, it was theoretically possible that I could have been fully charged and sentenced to 5+ years in prison (or perhaps it's jail, I get them mixed up) for doing what to me is so matter of factly the right thing.
That DOES mean processing the realization of being raped and physically harmed in other ways as a realistic consequence of serving that much time and not being a hulking mass.

At no point did pathetic thoughts of "god" or higher power mumbo jumbo come to mind.


I do consider it in a sense accurate to call me an atheist, though I have long since moved from using such a useless term overall.

Anyways, the no atheist in foxhole thingy is such a load of bullpucky. Actually, there was a section on the richarddawkins.net specifically dealing with this topic You can really learn how cowardly and delusional many believers tend to be by researching this topic. The irony that death and life become meaningless and without value in subjective and objective terms if it was true that there are no atheists in foxholes would be something to savor for comical value if it wasn't so sad by revealing the state of the human mind too often.

I'm sure there are some atheists who, in times of extreme fear, will start to believe in God or some kind of afterlife. Certainly not all, though. Dan Dennett, for example, wasn't in a foxhole but he did suffer aortic dissection, and he didn't give up his atheism.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett06/dennett06_index.html

Anyway, even if every single atheist out there decided to convert in such situations, so what? I presume that when you are very close to death, you're probably not going to be thinking rationally - so the fact that people have irrational thoughts here is to be expected.

It seems like a lot of religions focus on conversion when one is stressed or in some sort of negatively altered state where they can't think things through (converting people when they're sick, hungry, dying, etc.) - and I can see where a person in such a state would be more susceptible to being converted or accepting ideas that they would otherwise reject - but I would not consider that to be revealing the person's true feelings or being an ultimate rejection of their atheism or previous beliefs.

People are a mixed bag. You can't generalize.

It probably depends upon why the person is an atheist also. People today tend to have a general carelessness concerning worldviews and consistency of beliefs, especially as teenagers where the most important things to them are often revolving around the seeking of respect in those who they respect. For some of them, they've never really seriously thought about the issues or otherwise just hear the caricatures concerning people who believe in God and don't want to be part of that crowd. Certainly there are some who are atheists for logical reasons, but I think that many are just playing with words and titles until something brings the importance of the issues to their minds.

The phrase, 'there are no atheists in foxholes' is basically the same as the phrase, 'humans tend to retreat into emotion and illogic in very stressful situations.' Also, 'humans tend to grasp at straws when they see no other solution available.' It is not the same as, 'even atheists recognize the truth of religion when they are stressed.'

Perhaps it is just a retreat to illogical emotions due to the fear of ones own death having a high possibility of being imminent. However, what if the thoughts aren't just illogical due to a high stress situation but instead the realization of ones own mortality leads them into consideration of a subject which they had no concern over previously? It's not just a matter of stress or emotionalism, but of a trigger of thoughts on a subject passed off or ignored when otherwise occupied in a less lethal environment. But then again, that is not to say that their thoughts are correct just because of the subject they think about.

I think that 'someone who has not previously thought about the subject' is more properly classified as an agnostic agnostic, as opposed to an atheist or an atheistic agnostic.

This is a bit like my friend assuming that I must have converted to Christianity because something really bad must have happened to me. Nothing bad happened, I just came to the conclusion after a lot of consideration.

i would say it's more accurate to say that there are ONLY atheists in foxholes.



how much faith are you really showing your god if you're hiding in a hole?



physical intervention (foxhole, sandbags, other cover) > divine intervention (apparently nonexistent)



now, if you had TRUE faith, you could dispense with the foxhole foolishness. you could strap a bomb to your chest, put a big jacket over it, walk to your enemy's home, and blow up his kids, confident that your god will reward you.



also: LKL is totally right.