This is a laughable argument that usually comes from people with a very poor understanding of both their own religion and atheism. Believers of various backgrounds usually say this when they have run out of actual arguments and begin to feel like, if they can paint the atheist as a rebellious hellion, maybe they’ll win a prize!

This argument is insulting to everyone’s intelligence (both the theist and the atheist) because it’s like saying, “You know God exists, but you just think if you play dumb and pretend he doesn’t exist, you can get away with anything you want.” Surely even the most stubborn person can realize that if atheists actually believed in God and the religious claims of Christianity (for example), then we’d likely be on board with your beliefs, too… and… we wouldn’t be atheists. To be clear – if atheists knew a god actually exists, how could we be non-believers, and how would we even benefit from claiming to be non-believers?

Claiming that atheists know God exists and pretend like he doesn’t just so we can “sin” is like saying if atheists knew there would be no elevator present when the elevator doors opened, we would still choose to walk through the doors and fall down the shaft to our deaths anyway. This idea falsely portrays atheists as being so dense and oblivious of reality that we think we can just imagine things away and avoid the consequences of our actions… or we must just have a death wish.

But ironically, Christians actually do believe that they can commit just about any sin imaginable and still be welcomed through the pearly gates of heaven, so long as they accept Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior and repent for their sins. So actually, it’s Christians who often stretch reality and convince themselves that there’s a “get out of hell free card” named Jesus, and as long as you believe in him (or pretend to believe in him, as it seems many are doing) and apologize to him occasionally, you can pretty much sin freely.

The idea that Christians can commit all sorts of misdeeds and crimes, then be forgiven if they recommit themselves to Jesus, makes Jesus the ultimate scapegoat. Why? Because this flawed idea doesn’t even require that you make things right with the human beings you’ve actually harmed.

Atheists, on the other hand, tend to realize that there are real-life consequences for our actions rather than an imaginary Mafia boss in space waiting to punish us for not paying the price for his “protection.” Most of us generally try to be the best people we can in this life, because we don’t believe in the afterlife, nor do we think we get a free pass for our behavior after we die as long as we are a member of the right church.

Although atheists don’t typically believe in the concept of “sin,” we still have morals that have been honed and developed over thousands of years of human interaction and evolution, and like most other human beings, we understand right versus wrong – so we’re not rejecting something we don’t even believe in just because we think it will allow us to get away with anything we want. We reject things we don’t believe in because we haven’t been convinced those things are true. It’s as simple as that.

To be blunt, the core supernatural beliefs and superstitions of various religions tend to come across to non-believers as silly, unnecessary, unbelievable, and unsupported by evidence, so we don’t believe these things are true. Therefore, we are not atheists because we want to sin without consequences, we are atheists because we don’t believe in any gods, we don’t think “sin” is a real thing, and we don’t think the religions that view various actions as “sins” have any basis in reality. But most atheists do believe in justice and order, so we try our best to treat people right and to obey the law, and when we hurt people or break the law, we are held accountable for those actions and face consequences in the real world, just like almost everyone else who has ever existed on Earth.

On the other hand, it’s the believer whose ideology more closely matches up with the statement “you just want to sin without being held accountable for your actions.” After all, many believers think they can lie, cheat, steal, rape, torture, oppress, and kill other human beings and still go to heaven as long as they repent for their “sins,” ask Jesus for forgiveness, and ask Jesus to enter their hearts (in the case of Christianity, for example). You’re not even required to ask the people you hurt for forgiveness, just Jesus! That’s right… while the atheist has real consequences for his actions here on this earth, the theist has no meaningful consequences or accountability here on this earth, because after they die, they think they their god is the only “person” they have to answer to, and as long as they feel they’re “right with God,” they get to go to heaven.

Perhaps this is why so many evangelicals and fundamentalists are so enamored by hateful anti-LGBTQ and anti-atheist rhetoric, subjugation of women, and other acts of oppression towards minorities that have been committed throughout history. If you ultimately only answer to an imaginary friend and nobody else, you can treat anyone you dislike, disapprove of, or are even uncomfortable with like human garbage, and deep in your heart, you still think you’re good with God. And in fact, even though this level of fundamentalism isn’t required for people to be hateful towards others, if you’re a member of a highly evangelical/fundamentalist sect of Christianity, you might even be convinced that you’re actually pleasing God by viewing and treating other human people like trash.

Atheists don’t believe in God or the concept of “sin,” generally speaking. But perhaps we understand far better than anyone else how much our actions and treatment of others impacts both individuals and society. By suggesting that we call ourselves atheists simply because we think that will allow us to get away with poor behavior, you’re ignoring the fact that we really, truly don’t believe in any gods. The reality is that we know that any consequences that must be faced due to our actions will actually be suffered here on Earth, and most likely not some other mysterious location that many people hope for and talk about, but can’t even be consistently described or demonstrated to be real.