Thank God I'm An Atheist
From time to time some religious leader, somewhere, seeking to be provocative, will announce, smugly, that of course all morality comes from religion and therefore atheists, those scum of the Earth, have no morality.
By David Horton, Contributor
03/18/2010 Updated November 17, 2011
From time to time some religious leader, somewhere, seeking to be provocative, will announce, smugly, that of course all morality comes from religion and therefore atheists, those scum of the Earth, have no morality.
Let's leave aside for the moment, the fact that not only is there absolutely no truth in this proposition but the reality is in fact the diametric opposite. The most immoral people on Earth are, always have been, religious, while all atheists are extremely moral people. Let's also leave aside the obvious remark that if it were true then the more extremely religious you were the more moral you would be, and this would make members of Al Quaeda, say, or the people who blow up abortion clinics, extremely virtuous.
So, let us behave as the climate change deniers do and set aside the real world. Let us pretend, just for the moment, that morality did come from religion. This would mean, would it not, that the only reason some people have for being moral, the only reason that stops the average citizen of, say, Kansas or Waziristan, from murdering and raping and robbing and blowing things up and being really nasty to contestants in reality shows, is a belief in an imaginary being.
These people have to have an imaginary friend tell them what's right and wrong?
Thank god I'm an atheist.
"Darwin was the first to use data from nature to convince people that evolution is true, and his idea of natural selection was truly novel. It testifies to his genius that the concept of natural theology, accepted by most educated Westerners before 1859, was vanquished within only a few years by a single five-hundred-page book. On the Origin of Species turned the mysteries of life's diversity from mythology into genuine science." -- Jerry Coyne
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.