I was discussing religion with a Christian online (as I often do) and he started to brag about how great…
Category Morality
The Senate’s report on the CIA’s torture activities has recently been released. Morally, we recognize that torture is wrong and yet so many religious believers have no problem defending their imaginary deity when their religious holy books advocate for eternal torture.
Recently, my 5-year-old son was running around the house and knocked over my glass. It broke and while no one was hurt, it was a glass I really liked. My son immediately apologized, but I told him that I could not forgive him until he went out and mercilessly slaughtered an innocent lamb. I explained to him that I love him and that I want to forgive him, but until he sacrifices the innocent blood of a lamb, I just could not forgive him. Those are the rules. I didn’t make them up; God did.
In a recent interview on CNN, Muslim apologist Reza Aslan made it clear that barbaric practices like female genital mutilation and the treatment of women in a few Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran has no place in the 21st century. However, he doesn’t think this has anything to do with Islam. The fact that so many countries ruled by Muslim theocracies also just so happen to treat women as horribly must be a coincidence.
Religious believers love to claim that God is the only possible source for morality. While I have made it clear in a previous article that God does not ground morality at all and that the true source of morality is human empathy and compassion, many religious believers still hold on to their dogmatic view. Not to worry, I have developed a test to see which one of us is correct.
Like many atheists, I often have Christians who threaten to physically assault me. I even get Christians who threaten send me to “meet God.” But they love me. They really love me. In fact, after all the threats, they are sure to let me know that they are praying for me. But what does that really mean anyway?
As an atheist, I get Christians telling me that I am immoral all the time. Many Christians even inform me that the very reason why I am an atheist is because I want to “sin” and a belief in God would keep me from sinning. After all, it works so well for Christians, right? I wish Christians would stop telling me how moral they are and actually show me how moral they are through their actions. But I guess if they did that, then they would have to take a stand against their God.
I’ve been an atheist activist for a long time now and I want to tell you why. It isn’t just because I lack a belief in deities; it is because I have realized that belief in deities has and continues to impede human progress – not just technologically, but morally.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said that, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Here is the thing about moral arcs, prayers don’t bend them – people do!
Dave Silverman was on Fox News yesterday and he made an interesting argument. He said that “bigotry against gays is not a precept of Christianity.” He continued to claim that there are a lot of bigots who use Christianity as a shield against criticism for their bigotry. I disagree with Silverman on this one.