There's a chasm of difference.
Apparently I am not sensitive to it.
Despite the prattling concerning the supreme rationality of the atheist position, very often the actual motivation behind taking it has nothing to do with reason, but instead an arbitrary choice.
Is it supposed not to be?
It's only after the fact that reason becomes important, by which I mean they'll learn the main talking points and seek out material which tells them what they want to hear.
Someone put it nicely, but I long forget where I heard it. "Many atheists are atheists, simply because they disliked what they think God had to say."
How does that work? An atheist who thought God existed enough to say something could hardly be an atheist. A Maltheist or LHPer, perhaps, but not an atheist.
That's not to say there aren't atheists who after serious soul searching honestly conclude atheism. But it's usually up to the individual to be honest with themselves and their motivations.
But why would soul searching be at all necessary? It is certainly legitimate, but hardly needed.
For example, the atheist that tells me how stupid Thomas Aquinas is, and parrots counters to the "five ways", without ever bothering to read a word of the actual text in context and in light of the Aristotelian framework in which it was constructed; is clearly an atheist with an ideological agenda, not a truth-seeking one.
Perhaps. Or perhaps he finds himself presented with some interpretation of the Five Ways in a context that demands that he takes a stance, genuinely finds them wanting, and speaks his mind.
It has happened to me personally often enough. I am embarrased that people bother to mention the Five Ways to me. Faithfully represented or otherwise, what they present me is not worth considering by anyone. It is just a tedious insistence in the appeal to exceptionality with no convincing power at all.
I don't particularly doubt that such a scenario as you describe happens, and happens often. But to the extent that it does, it is a testimony of how incredibly careless and abusive the proselitism of theism is of the Five Ways. Obviously enough, most or nearly all atheists would hardly bother mentioning them if there was no perception that they are supposed to be relevant.
Which, by the way, is enough of a puzzle in and of itself.
Are the Five Ways supposed to say something, to mean anything at all these days? I truly wonder how many theists understand or see any meaning in them. I expect very few people who do not come wanting to believe will see any value or meaning in them. I trust it has always been so, in fact.
But then again, I find Aristotle difficult to follow as well. Maybe if I did not I would see some value in Aquinas.
All the same, if it bothers people that I summarily dismiss the Five Ways as worthless, maybe they should have made more of an effort to present them to me in a meaningful way, with proper context, to begin with (assuming that can be done; I stand doubtful). I can hardly be expected to accept the blame for their failure to convince me that their goals are worth my consideration.
Same goes for the guy that rants against the Bible, but has never actually opened it. Again, this is not someone who really cares about the truth.
That makes sense,
if you disregard the possibility that he has simply deduced some of the Bible's attributes by seeing how and why it is presented by its preachers.
In a pragmatical sense, it is painfully obvious that opening the Bible and readin it does not at all help in its acceptance. If anything, it is much higher in myth than in reality.
Being more pragmatical even, one can hardly be surprised that Bible preachers that show a basic failure at grasping the fundamentals of moral and ethics (and they are a dime a dozen) end up being taken as evidence that the Bible is of very dubious value.
If anything, we should all let go of the relutance to say that aloud. The truth
will indeed free us all, if we only accept it.
However, the atheist who asks tough questions concerning the justifications for theism, (and is not simply trying to win an augment) is an entirely different beast and one I'm actually more sympathetic to than you realise.
Fair enough. Do you however realize that atheism does not need to justify itself, and yet we are constantly accused of lots of failures that are not ours to fix?
That is a reality, and the fault IMO stands clearly on the shoulders of immature proselitisers for theism. Far too many people actually believe that pressuring others into theism is some sort of constructive endeavor. They can hardly blame us for employing whatever self-defense means we find at hand.
