I invite everyone to be brave. I wish we all were brave and rational and responsible and self actualizing. I am not being elitist, I am only stating the obvious. Being brave is why the atheist community is small and people flock to churches by the thousands.

I am unaware that there exists a direct correlation between bravery and the number of adherents to any particular ideology.

I personally think that those who prefer others before themselves and choose to be of service to humanity (all humanity) instead of indulging their own self-interest or promoting the exclusive interests of their own group or nation are the most courageous human beings.

@mrdunn. When I use the term brave, or your own term, courageous, I refer to the fact that religious people seek the mental comfort of believing they will not die but go onto an eternal life, or that they will be protected by god as they live their day to day, or that their god will love them forever and will not abandon them, etc. Conversely, atheists live their lives without that mental safety net, they know that none of those “protections and promises “ exist, and in that sense, they have the bravery and/or courage of living and enjoying life in a way that would terrify any believer.

You are, of course, entitled to your own opinions @Rodatheist, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
Your comments vis-à-vis religious people reveal more about your preconceptions than they do about the aspirations and motivations of said religious people.
Superciliousness is the camouflage of insecurity.

@mrdunn are you suggesting that the vast majority of Christians do not see god as their savior, and that they do not seek comfort from their fear of death through their belief in the promise of life after death, and that they do not ask for protection from their god against all dangers of life (deliver me god from x, y, and z) (and their famous “rapture“, and that they don’t ask their god for cures for their ailments? Are you suggesting those are MY FACTS? Because if you do, perhaps we have met different kinds of Christians. And my argument is that people that go through their lives without expecting salvation from a god are, in my view, and I don’t think I am alone on this one, brave and courageous. And changing the conversation to my masked insecurity does nothing to address the argument. Please put forward an argument, not a diagnosis of my personal foibles; at least that is what I think is expected at this site, not petty personal squabbling.

@Rodatheist "put forward an argument"? Ok, my argument is your statement is false because you have mistaken your opinion for fact.
I would never presume to speak on behalf of all religious people but I can recognise hyperbole when I see it and thousands of people flock to churches because they lack the courage to face life’s uncertainties and challenges is an obvious example, and that’s why I challenged you.
I do not agree with your opinion @Rodatheist, produce your evidence for a direct correlation between atheism and bravery - that is not based purely on your subjective opinion.

It was the pointing out of your perceived foibles of religious people that led me to contemplate why you considered it necessary to announce to all how brave you feel being an atheist. Now it appears you are offended when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.

Thank you for putting forward an argument. Now we can talk about your argument and see if it holds. Consider this: if millions of Republicans say, with their own voice, that they are fiscal conservatives, then, if I say that the vast majority of Republicans are fiscal conservatives, that is not my opinion, I am not speaking on their behalf, it is not my fact, and I am not mistaking my opinion for a fact. I am simply describing. Plain and simple. Would you agree with this premise?
If you don’t, say why. But if you do, then in the case of mi description of Christians, when you argue that my statement is false because I have mistaken my opinion for a fact, it follows that because I am only describing, I have to conclude that your argument that my statement is false is not correct.
Now, hyperbole? You think it is hyperbole when I say they go to church to seek protection by their god? Have you listened to their prayers? Have you listened to their songs? Eternal life , the rapture. Am I making this stuff up? Hardly!! Hipérbole? If describing what they do sounds like hyperbole, it is perhaps because they are pretty serious about their stuff. Good for them.
But I must insist: A person that walks a high wire thinking that there is no safety net below is more courageous than the one that walks it believing the net is there. It has nothing to do with me personally, I am saying it for all of us that walk the wire thinking there is no net.

@Rodatheist . . . . and herein lies the problem. When people start insisting that their group/creed/nation are superior, more important, more intelligent, more courageous, than other groups, creeds, or nations, then there arises a real danger, not only for the individual, but for whole societies. This inherent sense of superiority can easily give rise to prejudicial thoughts, attitudes and actions toward ”others.” Prejudice leads to estrangement and creates divisions, which are the root cause of conflict in the world.
If you really want to model bravery @Rodatheist, then abandon your prejudice.

After reading your comment, I thought it made sense, so I went back to read my original posting and all my subsequent comments; then I saw it. I did not find in any of my posting or comments any suggestion from my part that atheists are “superior”. It was you in your first comment who interpreted my words “we are the few” as meaning that I considered my group “more important or relevant than others”, or that I was “supercilious” like you said on the third comment, or “superior” like you said on your last comment. But I did not say any of that. Those were your interpretations of what I said. All I said was that we are brave and that there is not a lot of people like that. Two simple descriptive statements. So I don’t see any need to defend myself against those changes. I just enjoy and feel good being an atheist. I feel brave. I see few like me around me. If you want to ding me for that, by all means, go ahead; make use of your entitlement to your opinion. I can take it; I am a proponent of personal responsibility anyway.

Good luck Rod, I wish you all the best.

Thank you. Good exchange.

Hmm... I may need more clarification on these ideas before I can give an intelligent answer.

More difficult buy ohhhh so rewarding.

Do you really? wish that you could just cruise along passively? It looks to me that you have gone through many significant changes in your life, perhaps most of them by choice, but I could be wrong. So, it strikes me as peculiar that you would just want to cruise along. : )

Well, children abused by their parents still feel they need them and will cry when separated from them. So, the believer may or may not get the protection (well, they don’t because there is no God) but they are not brave because they need to feel someone is protecting and loving them

I fully agree on the very important role of the support that as social beings we get from family and community. I am a humanist and that is why I adhere to the premise of being the authors of the meaning in our lives. But at the deeper level, if and when family and community are exhausted, I accept to be alone and not having the irrational satisfaction of feeling protected by a higher power.