Recently, South Carolina pastor Phil Vander Ploeg claimed that Atheists can only be found in America and Europe. He had this explanation about people asking him “Where is God?”
“Why doesn’t God just walk into the room one day and say, ‘Hello, I’m God, I’m real,’ and then leave? God has revealed himself far more than some people want to acknowledge. It’s obvious.
“The only atheists in the world live in America and Europe. Everyone else knows there’s a god. But we’ve developed a worldview in the West that justifies our actions. That’s why we don’t believe in God.”
Surprisingly, according to a Gallup poll, America isn’t even in the top ten countries with the highest Atheist population. China has the highest Atheist population at 47 percent. The other nine are Japan, Czech Republic, France, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Iceland, Australia, and Ireland. Vander Ploeg needs a lesson in geography; he obviously doesn’t know where Asia is.
The poll also showed different factors that determine who is an atheist. People with lower incomes tend to be more religious than rich people. Education is also something to consider. 52 percent of people with college degrees consider themselves religious, whereas 68 percent of people with less than a high school diploma are religious.
Vander Ploeg doesn’t know where atheists live. He’s not the only one making crazy assumptions about atheists. There was one pew-climbing preacher who said atheists have taken land and children from Christians. This is the ridiculous remark he made:
“The atheists and the ass-gnostics … have quietened our spirit down! And we ain’t got no backbone! We said, let ’em take our land, we let ’em take our children! Somebody ought to say something! Somebody ought to say something about the abuse of the glory of God!”
If these ignorant jerks really want to annoy atheists, they can just pick a remark off of a lovely atheist bingo card our site-owner presented two years ago. As an atheist, I have heard many of these stupid remarks.
https://youtu.be/gajJOz5sj9o
Featured image via YouTube screengrab.
