Why apostates (and atheists) are so angry
February 9, 2011
Some of the angriest people you will ever meet are apostates and atheists. They put on a mask of Enlightenment, but if you scratch the surface of their know-it-all exterior, you find they are angry at people who align their convictions with Scripture and, more significantly, angry at God.
Isaiah 8:20-22 says people who contradict God’s instructions and teachings are angry because they are homeless, weary and hungry:
Look to God’s instructions and teachings! People who contradict his word are completely in the dark. They will go from one place to another, weary and hungry. And because they are hungry, they will rage and curse their king and their God. They will look up to heaven and down at the earth, but wherever they look, there will be trouble and anguish and dark despair. They will be thrown out into the darkness. (NLT 2004)
A rebellious spirit leads a person to reject God’s ways. The problem is that we have no other spiritual home but the Lord’s house. So a rebellious soul is left to wander in darkness — homeless, weary and hungry. Anger grows because the rebel’s deepest needs are unmet. The anger may be directed at the king, who the self-worshiping rebel may think is responsible for taking care of him. His anger certainly is directed at God, who is the only source of those needs being met. The rebel may even deny God is real, yet be fiercely angry with God.
The rebel cannot see the beauty in God’s world. Because he rejects God, he is preoccupied with the fallenness of the world. His outlook on life is cynical and his expectations of the future are pessimistic. In conversations with believers, the rebel continully brings up “the problem of evil.” The understanding believer does not struggle with that issue. He knows the world is fallen and under a curse because of sin. He knows the only hope for deliverance from evil lies in being redeemed by Christ. He knows even the most awful circumstances are but an opportunity for people to turn to the God of Grace for consolation, healing, and freedom.
But the rebel lives in complete darkness. And even that complete darkness is nothing compared to the darkness he will find when, in the end, he is thrown into outer darkness.
I suppose I’d be angry too. But I’d have no one but myself to blame. The solution is for the rebel to admit his own inadequacy and “look to God’s instructions and teachings.”
Isaiah’s advice: “The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else.” (v.11)
Related: CNN – Anger at God common, even among atheists
Rabbi David Wolpe: Why are atheists so angry?
