The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #150410 Message #3506294
Posted By: Stilly River Sage
20-Apr-13 - 04:54 PM
Thread Name: BS: Non-belief in a god is not a religion
Subject: RE: BS: Non-belief in a god is not a religion
Some posts up, these remarks appeared:
I bet the guy that runs North Korea is a card carrying Christian Strings since that is your only focus. Stalin must have been a Christian also cause certainly no atheist is capable of doing evil deeds right ...
and leave us not forget the Christian Mao Zedong in his great leap forward barring religious practices ... murdered tens of millions. Had to be a christian because no atheist would do that
Dan, that's just silly. No one is making such a claim. These are straw men in an argument that has gone on far longer than one would expect it to.
"Morality" is not a christian concept, it is a philosophical concept appropriated by religious sects. Individuals can have a robust moral compass without reference to the undue influence of "spiritual leaders." Religion has played a role in cultural development, in human behavior in order to survive in any given place. Some religions leapt the banks of the rivers where they originally flowed and place strict instructions on people who no longer live in the way or the place where the religions arose. Christianity is one of those religions that has extended its reach too far, but others are equally controlling, if individuals will let them.
Humans who recognize that they have free-will and autonomy are perfectly capable of living peacefully in communities without reference to individuals who would control others through religion. But there will always be adherents who can't understand how some can live outside the constraints of religion. That is their problem, but they refuse to understand and continue to try to influence others to join the fold.
I know of many famous atheists but I don't read a great deal of their writing. I don't need them to justify my lack of belief in someone's creation story and mores and folkways that have no ties to a reasonable civil existence.
It's time to go outside and play, and leave this silly argument behind. No one is going to convince anyone to change their minds.
SRS