Is atheism hypocritical?

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Hypocrisy, I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

A hypocrite is someone who doesn’t practice what he preaches. He’s preaching about how greed is bad on one side of his mouth while encouraging you to donate to his cause with the other.

Is an atheist hypocritical because they might convert on their deathbed or in times of grave distress? I don’t give atheists a whole lot of love on Quora but I have to give them a pass on this one.

Look, the reality is, is the average atheist is about as “devout” as the average theist. Theists often say they believe in God, but their actions often indicate that their motivations lie elsewhere.

I used to listen to this local Atlanta band, where I knew two of the band members, they worked at the bar I went to. They were these three white head-banging dreaded-up metal players with this tall, charismatic black rapper. I don’t want to out him on the Internet but he was the cousin or nephew or whatever of a member of a famous rap group that you’ve definitely heard about.

Their music was fresh, interesting, hilarious, and probably most importantly, well-produced. The problem was there was a big mindset difference between one half of the band and the other half of the band. The rapper and other vocalist, what they call in the metal biz a “screamer,” were far more motivated by money and success than the other side of the band, who really just wanted to make good music.

They eventually broke up and my good buddy who was their bassist later told me about the rapper guy, just how utterly shallow and self-serving he was. But the guy was just so interesting. You don’t ever really meet people like that, cats that are just so nakedly out for themselves, very often. Or at least we didn’t.

He had gotten shot once before the band broke up and the joke was that he got shot on purpose because it would be good for his image. It would not have surprised me at all if it were 100% true, the circumstances surrounding the incident were very unclear in my recollection.

He’d obviously had a taste of the good life as a kid and just wanted to capture a piece of it for himself. Not a problem except he was willing to step on and over everyone else to get there, even the people who wanted to help him.

So I finally ask my buddy, so what is he doing now? I shit you not, he had found God and was going to church. Did he change? Not even a tiny bit. His whole stated motivation was because he thought it would be easier to find an audience because if you can believe in God, you can believe in anything. Yeah, good luck with that.

Now, I’m not trying to tar all theists with the brush of this one weirdo. But when it comes to hypocrisy, having beliefs makes you way more vulnerable to having your actions not match your stated motivation than not having beliefs. Atheists don’t have anywhere to hide. If they have crappy personality traits, they can’t dress it up with a veneer of piousness and call it a day.

I’m not saying that an atheist can’t be a hypocrite, just that having big beliefs makes it a lot more likely. Sure, in crazy situations that we don’t face but maybe once or twice in a lifetime perhaps including the afterlife, an atheist might have a weak moment. But theists play with the fire of hypocrisy every day.