Does God Hate Atheists?

God looks on you with great compassion and love, even if you look on him with scorn and derision.

When I was an atheist, I was convinced that God hated me.

Part of that was the abuse I dealt with as a child. I hated myself, and I was convinced that I was defective and worthless; and so the idea of an all-knowing God also hating me made a certain amount of sense.

But part of it was the church. A lot of folks told me I was going to Hell. Some were regretful, others were gleeful. But I figured a God who would torture me for all eternity probably didn't love me all that much.

Now, I'm not writing to try to solve the problem of Hell. I have no idea what happens when we die. Frankly I'm not even sure these days what I think happens when we die; my views oscillate between different conceptions of what Heaven and Hell might be as I pray and as I read different theologians. Inasmuch as my views are fixed at all, I think Hell is a place that (to borrow from C.S. Lewis) is locked from the inside.

But disregarding all of that, my belief that God hated me did profound damage to me in two ways.

First, it is profoundly dispiriting to believe that the maker of reality, the one being who knows everything about you and who sees every thought in your head and every action you've ever taken, hates your guts. It made me feel even more worthless and miserable in my own skin than I would have otherwise. It convinced me, on a deep level, that I was irredeemable. And, it colored my perception of everything that had happened to me or that ever would happen: if God truly hated me, then I should expect mostly bad things to happen to me. I should brace myself for the idea that any happiness would be fleeting, that any good circumstance would eventually be ripped away from me, and that I would end my life broken and alone.

Second, the idea that God hated me made me despise God in turn. This seems to be how our minds are wired: when we think that someone dislikes us, even if they actually don't, we become more likely to dislike them in turn. As Shane Parrish writes: "We tend to dislike people who dislike us (and, true to Newton, with equal strength.) The more we perceive they hate us, the more we hate them."

Apart from the fact that my anger kept me from seeking a relationship with the God of love and joy and peace and connection, nursing that anger was also one more thing keeping me miserable.

But the truth is that God doesn't hate atheists, any more than He hates Christians. The truth is that, while He may approve more or less of each of our actions, He loves us all equally as his precious and cherished children. As theologian Michael Wear writes in The Spirit of Our Politics, "He looks on you with great compassion and love, even if you look on him with scorn and derision."

We can see this love in the writings of the Apostle Paul. Paul writes that:

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39, NLT).

So if you've ever felt like maybe God hated you—whether because of something in your own past, or because of something that someone in the Church told you—and if you've ever felt the weight and sorrow of that belief, then I invite you to lay that sorrow down. The truth is that God does not hate you. Instead, He loves you more than you can possibly imagine.

---

Heal the West is 100% reader-supported. If you enjoyed this article, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or becoming a founding member. I greatly appreciate your support.