Man, Si Robertson* from Duck Dynasty really finds atheists threatening. A few months ago his brother fantasized about us being raped and murdered. Or, more to the point, about an atheist man watching his wife and daughters getting raped and murdered, because in Robertson’s world, women don’t have their own opinions but are merely extensions of their fathers and husbands. Now Si’s pulling that trick of arguing that we don’t really exist:

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Robertson also said that in life-and-death situations, atheism ceases to exist. “Because if you get in a serious bind, the first thing you’re going to do is look around and say, ‘Oh (God) please help me.'”

Atheists get this one a lot, and not just from idiot Christian bigots like Robertson. I’ve heard this from people who actually have more invested in their religion than simply believing a Sky Fairy tells them everything they want to hear, whether it’s that black people like segregation or that it’s okay for grown men to marry teenagers. You hear the “no atheists in fox holes” nonsense from all corners.

It’s also just plain wrong. I can’t speak for other atheists, but I’ve had a couple of serious and scary situations in my life and never once did I pray to any god. When I had my car accident in college, for instance, I very distinctly remember thinking that if I’m going to die, then that means that I’m dead. No thoughts of afterlife, no bargaining with god. Just a simple thought that death means dead, that there will be no more thoughts or feelings. Luckily for myself and my family, I did not die. But I didn’t have that atheist in a fox hole situation, either. I’ve just never felt that there’s a god looking out for me.

Not that there’s any shame in having residual belief that crops up in stressful situations. Robertson’s argument rests on the belief that atheists are people who had religion and de-converted. And I don’t know, maybe some of them do find themselves praying out of habit in stressful situations. Or maybe they don’t! I wouldn’t know. But it is just a habit, and I don’t think reveals anything about how they actually feel. But it’s also clear to me, from personal experience, that if you don’t have that habit trained into you, that is not actually how you react to stress.

But Robertson’s argument gets even funnier:

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“I don’t believe — there’s no such thing as an atheist,” he told the Christian Post in an interview published on Friday. “Because there’s too much documentation. Our calendars are based on Jesus Christ.”