Monday, June 16, 2014

Faith Leads to Immorality

The theist is far more susceptible to immoral behavior than the atheist. A person who believes in a god who forgives can act any way they please knowing that they need only ask for forgiveness, and that they will be rewarded for a lifetime of immorality.
The common notion that 'if there is no God, then why should we be kind to one another?' begins with a false premise and assumes that humans are inherently evil. This is demonstrably untrue. IF there is a god, and all you have to do is believe in him, only then does someone behave as though they can either - A) Be a bad person but ask for forgiveness at the end, or - B) Be a good person who sometimes behaves immorally because they believe they are acting in a way which is pleasing to god.
The atheist, on the other hand, has to live with his/her conscience, with no thought or hope of being forgiven or rewarded in the hereafter by declaring belief in the divine. The atheist understands that he/she alone is responsible for his/her actions; there is no vicarious redemption, nor is there a fake ID stamped 'believer' which guarantees safe passage into heaven. There is nothing to fall back on, there is no safety net.
If we don't behave in a manner which reflects our innate moral compass, if we don't have compassion and human solidarity, then we have wasted the only life we have by adding to our own misery as well as to the misery of others. This is not to say that some atheists are not assholes or psychopaths or immoral, merely that lacking belief in god is not what leads them to immorality, while the reverse is often the case among theists, as explained in the first paragraph.
In sum, theists have a free pass to behave however they wish, atheists do not. Theists believe that, by virtue of their faith in god, they are axiomatically behaving morally even when they are not. Theists believe that god arbitrarily intervenes in human affairs, and often ignore societal problems which are easily corrected by saying, 'god must have wanted that to happen.' Any worldview which allows you to shirk your obligation to your fellow man is not a moral doctrine. By saying "it's in gods hands" you are complicit in the preventable, unnecessary suffering of others.
The evidence for the truth of what I have just explained is all around us, and we cannot go on letting people claim the moral high ground simply because we have erroneously allowed the suspension of reason (faith) to be considered a virtue, when it is patently obvious that faith leads to immorality.

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