Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainThere are many things that annoy me about what theists say about atheists. The one thing that irritates me the most is the suggestion that atheists lack morals and are ethically-inferior to their theistic counterparts.
Most atheists I know are very ethical people. I describe myself as a 'agnostic', or a 'weak atheist' if you will and I take offence to the suggestion that I'm lacking of morals. There are many greater activists than me, and many greater activists who are atheists, but I do what I can. I donate what little I can spare to good causes, I have participated in protest marches against war and political bias in the media. It's better than the do-nothing prayers that many theists limit themselves to.
Many theists do take a break occasionally from telling us and the other people they don't like how we’re going to hell. They supposedly “help” people, by participating in prayer circles whilst the rest of us actually try to do something to help. Many theists do help, and there are Christian, Jewish and Muslim charities which actually do help in tragedies ranging from natural disasters to famines due to war/political mismanagement.
Yet people like the Jeebus freaks are expecting to be 'rewarded' in the afterlife. How is this moral? To be kind to your fellow human under the pretence that you're going to be rewarded by your deity does not sound very kind. In fact, it is disingenuous and not moral at all, it sounds like a transaction. Then there are those atheists and certain theists who are genuinely kind, and show concern for others, just for the sake of being good people. They do not expect to be rewarded.
Who holds the moral high-ground?
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Of course, that's just my opinion - and that doesn't necissarily mean that J-C theists are morally bankrupt. My problem with the ethical system stems from exactly what you pointed out - the expectation of reward or the avoidance of punishment. It might be true that we all typically act on these motivations and that it sets a higher standard of ethical conduct - but I wouldn't want to call the person who does someone a favor with the expectation of that favor being returned as acting "ethical". People should do the right thing for it's own sake.
But yeah, it annoys me too to hear morally ambiguous theists claim the moral highground simply by virtue of believing in God. I've known plenty of shitty human beings who happened to believe in God, and plenty of shitty ones who didn't to.
My basic thought is that there is zero correlation between religion (or lack thereof) and morality
Religion and the promise of heaven/hell have people operating on the level of toddlers. "I won't poke my sister's eye out because if I do, I get spanked. If I leave her eye alone, I get $5." Yeah, that's moral.
And as you said, some religious people do good things. However, sometimes those good works are not strings-free. You have to listen to the preaching to get the glass of clean water.
Damn, I didn't poke my brother's eye out and I got bupkis.
I LOVE your term weak atheist. I'm a full blown atheist. I'm writing to admire you for writing and recognizing that. I'm pretty knew to atheism and have never seen the term before, but LOVE it.
I always thought to myself. If you are agnostic, then you do little to nothing to acknowledge a deity, which means you are atheist without putting up the fight. Not sure if that is offensive or not. You obviously put up a fight
Which is good!
I very much appreciate your comments. The term 'weak atheist' isn't my own creation, but I think it is a good description of agnostics like myself. As you're right to point out agnostics are de facto athesits.
BTW, welcome to the site. I'm sure you'll enjoy it here. 
I just saw your post and I wanted to second procrastinate later's welcome.
Also, if you're interested, this introduction to atheism might help explain some of the terms and ideas we throw around.
