I Am An Atheist
A common atheist meme is "if you need religion to tell you not to kill or steal, it's not religion you need, it's empathy" and another being "people ask me what would stop people from killing and raping as many people as they want if they didn't have religion, and I tell them that I DO rape and kill as many people as I want, and that number is zero". To be honest, this is seriously low hanging fruit on the atheist's side; you clearly don't' need religion to tell you to do those things, and to the atheists credit, it can sometimes encourage you to commit those acts, but what about more specific virtues/codes of ethics which have traditionally stemmed from "divine" edicts?
To illustrate this point, I'll give an example of various ethical virtues that are primarily found among religious populations, but which I think secular cases could be made to justify. You may not agree these are good things, but I do. 1)Vegetarianism: I think it's morally superior not to eat animals, yet this is something that is emphasized through Hinduism and Buddhism, and while there ARE atheists who also embrace vegetarianism, it's not nearly at the rate of Hindus. It's pretty obvious to me and should be to you, that if every Hindu in India became an atheist, that that the nation would eat far more meat. 2)Charity: Now, am I saying atheists don't give to the poor? No! Am I saying they aren't generous ever? Of course not. HOWEVER, because of the commandments of tithing which various religions have, charities are larger than I suspect they would be without that pressure of a call from on high. 75% of charities in the USA go to and through places of worship or religious charities. 3)Sex. I think atheists are right to love transgendered ppl at a higher rate than religious people do, as well as homosexuals. But atheists seem to have a myopic view of sex where they think "if it's consensual, then there's no problem with it" which I strongly disagree with it and have a billion posts explaining why; it's possible for consenting to sex to be the wrong decision to make, in fact, more than possible.
the irreligious have a higher suicide rate than religious people do, and your first instinct is to attribute that to the fear of hell, however, it is higher than populations which don't even believe in hell. This could be a correlation and not causation, but it could also be that a dependent variable is what's correlated to religion, meaning if you take away religion, higher suicide rates may follow. It is possible that the explanation is one which benefits the atheist's side, because higher IQ is also correlated with higher rates of suicide, and the average atheist's IQ is higher than the average IQ of any religious population, #Facts.
Ultimately, this comes down to a question of what would serve as a replacement to religious systems as a means of giving us the baby in the bathwater of religion, like community, decent family structures, and ethics. The assertion from most secular humanists is that the "good" in religion can rest upon reason & rationality, but can it? Where's the pathway from logic to altruism? David Hume famously said, "you cannot derive and "ought" from an "is"" and as far as I can see, he's right. Where is the logical fallacy found in the lifestyle of thieving, killing, raping, and getting away with it? The other proposition I hear from secularists is that it can rest upon human empathy (as seen from the first quotes I began this post with), which I actually agree with! I donate to the poor because I have compassion for them... but, do human beings have enough empathy to lead them towards making the sacrifices needed to achieve peace?
To illustrate this point, I'll give an example of various ethical virtues that are primarily found among religious populations, but which I think secular cases could be made to justify. You may not agree these are good things, but I do. 1)Vegetarianism: I think it's morally superior not to eat animals, yet this is something that is emphasized through Hinduism and Buddhism, and while there ARE atheists who also embrace vegetarianism, it's not nearly at the rate of Hindus. It's pretty obvious to me and should be to you, that if every Hindu in India became an atheist, that that the nation would eat far more meat. 2)Charity: Now, am I saying atheists don't give to the poor? No! Am I saying they aren't generous ever? Of course not. HOWEVER, because of the commandments of tithing which various religions have, charities are larger than I suspect they would be without that pressure of a call from on high. 75% of charities in the USA go to and through places of worship or religious charities. 3)Sex. I think atheists are right to love transgendered ppl at a higher rate than religious people do, as well as homosexuals. But atheists seem to have a myopic view of sex where they think "if it's consensual, then there's no problem with it" which I strongly disagree with it and have a billion posts explaining why; it's possible for consenting to sex to be the wrong decision to make, in fact, more than possible.
the irreligious have a higher suicide rate than religious people do, and your first instinct is to attribute that to the fear of hell, however, it is higher than populations which don't even believe in hell. This could be a correlation and not causation, but it could also be that a dependent variable is what's correlated to religion, meaning if you take away religion, higher suicide rates may follow. It is possible that the explanation is one which benefits the atheist's side, because higher IQ is also correlated with higher rates of suicide, and the average atheist's IQ is higher than the average IQ of any religious population, #Facts.
Ultimately, this comes down to a question of what would serve as a replacement to religious systems as a means of giving us the baby in the bathwater of religion, like community, decent family structures, and ethics. The assertion from most secular humanists is that the "good" in religion can rest upon reason & rationality, but can it? Where's the pathway from logic to altruism? David Hume famously said, "you cannot derive and "ought" from an "is"" and as far as I can see, he's right. Where is the logical fallacy found in the lifestyle of thieving, killing, raping, and getting away with it? The other proposition I hear from secularists is that it can rest upon human empathy (as seen from the first quotes I began this post with), which I actually agree with! I donate to the poor because I have compassion for them... but, do human beings have enough empathy to lead them towards making the sacrifices needed to achieve peace?
