Religious believers often ask atheists why we are angry at God as if to suggest that if one doesn’t believe in the existence of a deity, it must be out of anger for that deity. In other words, those religious believers who ask that question are discounting the possibility that atheists just haven’t been presented with valid evidence to conclude that a god exists, let alone evidence for the existence of a particular God. The assumption is that atheists really do believe in God, but are angry with God and claim a lack of belief out of rebellion.

Interestingly enough, a group of studies were published in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which suggests that atheists are actually angry with God… at least that is how CNN has reported it. Since the study was not yet available online at the time of this article, I e-mailed the principle author of the study, Dr. Julie Exline, for more details.

Dr. Exline was kind enough to send me a copy of the study and some bullet points related to the study. She also wrote, “There has been a lot of confusion (and some oversimplification and misinformation) about the atheism findings.”

CNN reported that, “atheists and agnostics reported more anger at God during their lifetimes than believers.” This makes sense when you realize that many atheists were once religious and some were even deeply religious. When atheists realize that the whole thing is made up and that they have spent much of their lives around a fictional story, they might feel some anger not necessarily at God, but at themselves. This was exactly what these studied have shown:

“Some atheists and agnostics reported anger involving God, particularly on measures emphasizing past experiences (Study 2) and images of a hypothetical God (Study 3).”

This is emphasized in one of Dr. Exline’s bullet points (emphasis by Dr. Exline):

* The idea of anger toward God can be relevant for SOME (not all!) people who don't believe in God (e.g., atheists, agnostics).
--For example, some nonbelievers have anger toward God as part of their history, and some report anger when prompted to focus on a residual or hypothetical image of God. (The thinking might be like this: “If God did exist, then he would be a jerk.”)
--IMPORTANT: ** We are by no means claiming that all nonbelievers are angry at God.

As you can see, this bullet point also makes it clear that many atheists and agnostics are angry at the character of God. The term “anger” isn’t really the right term however. Many atheists (myself included) tend to dislike the actions and character of a fictional God in much the same way we dislike the actions and character of a fictional Voldemort from the Harry Potter series (although Voldemort is a far more interesting character to say the least). Both are extremely malicious characters from my point of view and that of many atheists.  

The study also states:

"Therefore, we predicted that seeing oneself as a victim, independent of the other factors described above, would predict greater anger toward God."

This points to another reason for the anger many atheists have toward the fictional character of God. We live in a society in which many of the followers of that fictional character discriminate and persecute those who don’t believe in that fictional character. Some atheists risk their jobs and many risk their relationships with family and friends by coming out of the closet as an atheist. As a result, often time’s atheists feel victimized and that becomes a source of justified anger.

So yeah, many atheists are angry, but not necessarily at a fictional character. Instead, we tend to be angry at those who worship that fictional character. As for the fictional character himself, if that character is as described in the Bible, then he is a real jerk and has far more anger issues than any atheist. Any rational person would be justified in strongly disliking such a fictional character.

Please check out the Atheism 101 series for frequently asked topics

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