Tip #27 You Minus Faith Does Not Equal Me
Jul. 26th, 2015 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeast"If there is no God, if we are the result of blind forces and composed only of the material, then there is no reason not to kill people. After all, there is nothing inherently better about them than rocks."
You may have heard words to that effect. You may have said words to that effect. And, you may have hastened to add that you're not saying atheists cannot have moral values or care about people... just that they have to borrow from you in order to do so.
To be clear, I can see how, for a person of faith, the idea that all persons are children of God can be, in the ideal, a useful reminder. Ideally, it would lead one to treat all persons with a high level of respect and concern... Ideally.
The problem comes in when you assume that this is the only way in which anybody can have any regard for anybody... ever.
This isn't just a problem for the fact that it is so often an after-the-fact justification for bigotry ("atheists can't be moral-") or egotism ("-without borrowing from my worldview").
There's also the purely factual error of assuming that everybody starts off as you and can only deviate from you in the same ways you expect you would do were you to deviate.
I don't believe those believers that they tell me that, without their faith, they would rape or murder or steal. I've known too many who have made the transition from faith to atheism (or to other faiths with less strict rules) who did not wind up hurting others or losing any of their regard for others.
But, for those who still claim that would be the result, let's say, for the sake of discussion, that you're right.
You're still not default human beings. Other people are not you. Therefore, what you might expect you might do is not what others would do. Let other people be different from yourself.
You may have heard words to that effect. You may have said words to that effect. And, you may have hastened to add that you're not saying atheists cannot have moral values or care about people... just that they have to borrow from you in order to do so.
To be clear, I can see how, for a person of faith, the idea that all persons are children of God can be, in the ideal, a useful reminder. Ideally, it would lead one to treat all persons with a high level of respect and concern... Ideally.
The problem comes in when you assume that this is the only way in which anybody can have any regard for anybody... ever.
This isn't just a problem for the fact that it is so often an after-the-fact justification for bigotry ("atheists can't be moral-") or egotism ("-without borrowing from my worldview").
There's also the purely factual error of assuming that everybody starts off as you and can only deviate from you in the same ways you expect you would do were you to deviate.
I don't believe those believers that they tell me that, without their faith, they would rape or murder or steal. I've known too many who have made the transition from faith to atheism (or to other faiths with less strict rules) who did not wind up hurting others or losing any of their regard for others.
But, for those who still claim that would be the result, let's say, for the sake of discussion, that you're right.
You're still not default human beings. Other people are not you. Therefore, what you might expect you might do is not what others would do. Let other people be different from yourself.
