"If you're good only because you're afraid of what will happen if you aren't, you're not really good, you're just afraid." -- American Zen teacher Cheri Huber

So we're dragging out the old "atheism = no moral sense" canard again? Sheesh.
The Moral Foundations of Atheism and Christianity
Do Atheists Have No Reason to be Moral? Are There Atheistic Morals?
Reply to the claim "Christianity teaches morals, atheism does not"...

"If you're good only because you're afraid of what will happen if you aren't, you're not really good, you're just afraid." -- American Zen teacher Cheri Huber

So we're dragging out the old "atheism = no moral sense" canard again? Sheesh.
The Moral Foundations of Atheism and Christianity
Do Atheists Have No Reason to be Moral? Are There Atheistic Morals?
Reply to the claim "Christianity teaches morals, atheism does not"
Morality requires God... or does it?
10 myths about secular humanism
More research concerning Atheist Morality
No morality without the Bible?

It is so pathetic, no more at comical that the ones who have had religion pounded into their brains believe morals and religious piety go hand and hand. In other words human beings are basically evil and religion makes them good and able to live with one another. I am not going to go on a "crusade" to prove them ever so wrong. (what a waste of time that would be) but I am going to comment by submitting text from this site: http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/moralswithoutreligion.pdf What a "holy experience" this read is. thinkingblue


MORALS WITHOUT RELIGION - MARGARET KNIGHT - NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY

THE WORD "religion" is used in a greater variety of senses, perhaps, th...

It is so pathetic, no more at comical that the ones who have had religion pounded into their brains believe morals and religious piety go hand and hand. In other words human beings are basically evil and religion makes them good and able to live with one another. I am not going to go on a "crusade" to prove them ever so wrong. (what a waste of time that would be) but I am going to comment by submitting text from this site: http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/moralswithoutreligion.pdf What a "holy experience" this read is. thinkingblue


MORALS WITHOUT RELIGION - MARGARET KNIGHT - NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY

THE WORD "religion" is used in a greater variety of senses, perhaps, than any other word in the English
language. For example: "Religion is a sense of the mysteriousness of the Universe" (W. A. Sinclair),
"Religion is the total response of man to all his environment" (C. A. Coulson). "Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness" (A. N. Whitehead), "Religion is an active enthusiasm for a fine quality of
life” (Delisle Burns). Clearly, there can be no question of morals without religion if religion is defined in
any of the ways just quoted. But these definitions have no real authority. Those who coin them are behaving
like Humpty-Dumpty who said, it will be remembered, "When I use a word it means just what I choose it to
mean, neither more nor less". To find the "real" (i.e. the generally accepted) sense of the word "religion" we must turn to the dictionary; and the dictionary definitions, though their wording varies, all make it clear that the essence of
"religion" in its primary sense, is the belief in a SUPERNATURAL power or powers. Thus Chambers' Dictionary
gives ‘The recognition of supernatural powers, and of the duty lying upon man to yield obedience to these." It is in this primary sense that the word "religion" will here be used; by "morals without religion" is meant morals without supernatural sanctions". MO

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Moral Training and Religious Instruction The belief in the necessity for such sanctions is, of course, widespread. Eminent persons repeatedly tell us that morals depend on religion, and that any decline in Christian belief must lead to a moral landslide. This claim, indeed, is now one of Christianity's main lines of defense; for today the case for Christianity —
at any rate Protestant Christianity — is frequently argued on the grounds of utility rather than truth. It is not suggested that the Christian dogmas are credible, but rather that any reference to their incredibility is in poor taste; that it is the duty of right-thinking people to endure a certain amount of intellec...

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Moral Training and Religious Instruction The belief in the necessity for such sanctions is, of course, widespread. Eminent persons repeatedly tell us that morals depend on religion, and that any decline in Christian belief must lead to a moral landslide. This claim, indeed, is now one of Christianity's main lines of defense; for today the case for Christianity —
at any rate Protestant Christianity — is frequently argued on the grounds of utility rather than truth. It is not suggested that the Christian dogmas are credible, but rather that any reference to their incredibility is in poor taste; that it is the duty of right-thinking people to endure a certain amount of intellectual discomfort for the sake of their morals – or perhaps more often for the sake of other people's morals and, especially, for the
sake of the children. Because of this widespread feeling, many people who are themselves only nominally Christian still
want their children to be brought up in Christian belief, and to be given religious instruction in school. They argue that the Christian stories appeal to the child and are suited to his stage of development, and that though he will probably cease to believe in the stories when he grows older, the moral training that has been based on them will be likely to stick.

But there seems little evidence for this optimistic view. If moral training is tied up with religious instruction — to be more specific, if the child is given the impression that the obligation to be honest and truthful and kind is somehow bound up with believing what he is taught in “RI” — there is an obvious danger that if he later casts off his religious beliefs he may throw out the moral baby with the mythological bathwater.

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'Though it does not conclusively prove anything (since many factors contribute to causing delinquency)
it is surely a striking fact that in this country those who receive the most intensive religious training, and for
whom moral training is most closely tied tip with religion — i.e. the Roman Catholics — have a delinquency rate two to three times that of the population in general. When this unwelcome fact is forced on their notice, Catholics usually argue that most of the delinquents are not "true" Catholics, but men and women
who have lapsed from their faith. This may be so; but it has to be explained why lapsed Catholics are more
prone to delinquency than lapsed members of other re...

'Though it does not conclusively prove anything (since many factors contribute to causing delinquency)
it is surely a striking fact that in this country those who receive the most intensive religious training, and for
whom moral training is most closely tied tip with religion — i.e. the Roman Catholics — have a delinquency rate two to three times that of the population in general. When this unwelcome fact is forced on their notice, Catholics usually argue that most of the delinquents are not "true" Catholics, but men and women
who have lapsed from their faith. This may be so; but it has to be explained why lapsed Catholics are more
prone to delinquency than lapsed members of other religious groups.

As will now be clear, Humanists do not deny that the current increases in delinquency may be connected with the decline in Christian belief. But they wholly reject the implied conclusion that the best way to reduce delinquency is to step up religious indoctrination. What is needed is to base moral training on a less precarious foundation than myth – in other words to replace a religious by a Humanist ethic. There is considerable evidence that convinced Humanists – as distinct from those who merely "couldn't care less" are the most law-abiding group in the population. As Havelock Ellis long ago remarked "it seems extremely rare to find intelligently irreligious men in prison" (The Criminal, 1895). Christian and Humanist Ethics - The essential difference between Christian and Humanist ethics is that while on the Christian view morality is concerned with the relation between man and God, on the Humanist view it is concerned with the relation between man and man.

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