Stumble it!Atheists are bad, bad people… man
posted in Philosophy by themaiden |A study by professor Joseph Gerteis and associate professor Douglas Hartmann a has concluded that Americans believe that a person who doesn’t believe in a god is the “ultimate self-interested actor who doesn’t care about anyone but themselves” and “that religion and good morals are one and the same”. Americans consequently “rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, homosexuals and other groups as “sharing their vision of American society.”
This is not news. I already knew it. All of it.
No, no. I’m not psychic, and they didn’t steal my research; I’ve just heard or read this atheist slander more times than I can count.
For example:
… here is why I discount beliefs such as atheism, they have no logical adequate basis for morality, or love or imagination or inference to name a few. This doesn’t mean atheists are not moral or do not love or do not have inferences it’s just that there worldview does not adequately support them.
Or:
‘If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…’
Jeffrey Dahmer, in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994.
Or:
Because the notion that there is no higher authority than nature is precisely what enables people like Mr. Kuklinski – and the vast majority of the killers, rapists and thieves who populate the nightly news.
It really all boils down to the idea that people just can’t behave themselves without oversight from some otherworldly intelligence. That is, we humans, like children, cannot behave decently unless we live in mortal terror of punishment or in anticipation of supernatural reward. We need the boogeyman under the bed, and we need a supernatural blankie. God, the good shepherd, lures us to the straight and narrow with promises of heaven like an old man luring a little girl with candy, while promising the horrors of hell if she tells. In the absence of such bribing and bullying, the idea goes, we’ll run wild like the rabid beasts we are.
Really, there are several ways to approach this position. The most obvious, and certainly one of the first things that comes to non-religious minds, is this: It is a very big assumption that God is now involved, or has ever been involved, in these matters at all. Those claiming that moral authority comes from God alone, and those not appealing to such authority cannot be moral, simply assume that God exists. This is a fairly fatal flaw, equivalent to claiming that Love descends from Cupid and that those not believing in Him cannot love at all. It is pure assumption. It is an appeal to an entity which no one has reason to believe exists at all. Without first proving Cupid’s reality, appeals to him are hollow. If no one has reason to believe in the existence of this entity, why believe that it interferes in human affairs?
But there is something more subtle. If the assumption of God is dropped, we have to conclude that humanity has generated its moral codes in the absence of God. That is, if we drop the undemonstrable proposition that God is responsible for morality, it becomes apparent that humans have always done precisely what certain apologists claim is not possible– live by moral systems not derived from God, though frequently attributed to a God or gods. This brings up the question: Is it perhaps not the reality of God that matters, but only the belief, true or not, in a higher power? I think not, for reasons to come.
… to be continued. Please come back for Part II.
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