Don't trust the atheist
Andrew Cotney
Issue date: 1/29/08 Section: Opinions
Dave Matthews once said, "I'm glad some people have that faith. I don't have that faith. If there is a God, a caring God, then we have to figure he's done an extraordinary job of making a very cruel world."
Though it seems like a cheap shot at God, I believe there is more substance to his quote. He seems very open to people with or without faith. A lot of people have faith but do not necessarily have a religion.
Many Americans come to the conclusion people who do not have a religion or who do not believe in God are inherently malicious. They believe agnostics and atheists have poor ethics.
Ethics are nothing more than socially accepted norms. Basically, they grow out of every culture through a democratic process. An ethical decision is what the majority of people agree is right. However, there is no way you can define right or wrong without a given set of guidelines.
Every person will have a slightly different point of view than that of the person sitting next to them. There needs to be something you can measure your perspective against. You cannot just state that some things are always wrong.
There may be a time to kill. There probably isn't a time to rape, but God seems to think so. Therefore, people usually agree religion comes into play to set some boundaries for our social dilemmas.
Now, we have some guidelines, but here comes the rain for our parade. There seem to be these numerous gray areas in our complex society making it harder to define right and wrong.
The Bible does not state that cloning humans is wrong. It doesn't say we shouldn't erase bad memories. It doesn't address other popular topics in bioethics today. The Bible is out of date with our society's problems.
Good and bad outcomes may be intertwined with these predicaments, so it is hard to tell which outweighs the other. The majority's response to the problem usually avails to be hailed as the correct ethical verdict. These choices usually have a backbone of morals to support them.
Though it seems like a cheap shot at God, I believe there is more substance to his quote. He seems very open to people with or without faith. A lot of people have faith but do not necessarily have a religion.
Many Americans come to the conclusion people who do not have a religion or who do not believe in God are inherently malicious. They believe agnostics and atheists have poor ethics.
Ethics are nothing more than socially accepted norms. Basically, they grow out of every culture through a democratic process. An ethical decision is what the majority of people agree is right. However, there is no way you can define right or wrong without a given set of guidelines.
Every person will have a slightly different point of view than that of the person sitting next to them. There needs to be something you can measure your perspective against. You cannot just state that some things are always wrong.
There may be a time to kill. There probably isn't a time to rape, but God seems to think so. Therefore, people usually agree religion comes into play to set some boundaries for our social dilemmas.
Now, we have some guidelines, but here comes the rain for our parade. There seem to be these numerous gray areas in our complex society making it harder to define right and wrong.
The Bible does not state that cloning humans is wrong. It doesn't say we shouldn't erase bad memories. It doesn't address other popular topics in bioethics today. The Bible is out of date with our society's problems.
Good and bad outcomes may be intertwined with these predicaments, so it is hard to tell which outweighs the other. The majority's response to the problem usually avails to be hailed as the correct ethical verdict. These choices usually have a backbone of morals to support them.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 7 of 16
MP
posted 1/28/08 @ 11:50 PM CST
"I believe there would still be two tall towers standing in New York if it was not for religion."
I'm an atheist, but I think that's a cheap shot. Sure the attacks were theopolitical, but there is terrorism for reasons other than religion. (Continued…)
Pierre JC
posted 1/29/08 @ 1:43 AM CST
This is a very even-handed article. The person who gave it the title "Don't Trust the Atheist" was apparently not the author, but rather another person who happens to be an idiot. (Continued…)
Dustin Farahnak
posted 1/29/08 @ 8:06 AM CST
To be sure, Militant Atheists kills hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century in China and Russia. Atheism killed more people in the 20th century than all religions combined. (Continued…)
Mark Williamson
posted 1/29/08 @ 10:54 AM CST
Most of the article is correct. It is nonsense to believe that atheists and agnostics must have no moral principles. All their belief does to their morals is dictate that they come from another source. (Continued…)
Mark Williamson
posted 1/29/08 @ 11:08 AM CST
I also forgot to mention that Christianity, being more about a relationship with God than about the Bible in and of itself, isn't something that can become out-dated. (Continued…)
Common Sense
posted 1/29/08 @ 11:24 AM CST
lols, clearly lots misconstruing of history going on but Hitler may have been catholic but he is just full of hypocrisies and contradictions i.e. he wasn't Aryan but professed Aryan supremacy. (Continued…)
Pixie
posted 1/30/08 @ 11:44 PM CST
It seems to me that many of the people posting here missed where the author said "The point is, there always will be a few bad apples in every group. I do not think we should jump to conclusions about the whole group, though. (Continued…)
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