[thechat] Religious dependance

[Joe Crawford]

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Tara Cleveland wrote:
> Joe Crawford wrote:
>
> > And hold on there pardner, I can do that trick to. Let me bring up a
> > famous athiest, Stalin --- so much for atheism as a creed by which people
> > can live more ethically than the religious.
> >
> > The hipocrisy game is too easy. We can quote people who don't
> > practice what they preach all day long, and it neither proves nor
> > disproves religion or atheism as a means to live by.
>
> The difference is that atheists don't generally claim that ethical,
> tolerant, civil behaviour is part of their belief system - in fact they
> don't have a belief "system",  they have *a* belief - one single belief -
> God does not exist. Everything else is up for grabs.

Uh, I got the impression that was *precisely* the kind of claims Madhu
made, and that I read in athiest writings -- e.g.: my lack of religion
makes me better capable to see the world as it really is, and avoid the
strife and unhappiness religion brings.

> People who claim they are religious, and whose religion requires them to
> behave ethically, morally and tolerantly, and then don't behave that way
> are hypocrites. People who claim they don't believe in God, but behave
> immorally aren't hypocrites (well at least not in that regard) because
> they never said they would behave morally.

Religions make few *requirements* as I have seen them, most of them that I
have experience with express *guidelines*.

And more, I have a real problem with this label of "hipocrite" - it
carries with it a kind of moral judgement of the whole of a person's
charater that I dislike. I think it's more apt to talk of individual acts
of hipocrisy. In the end, I have not met anyone who is not in some sense
a hipocrite: we say we want to cut down on sweets, but we eat cake; we
decry the influence of oil in the world yet drive cars; any adult person
is a hipocrite. In this sense, I find the accusation of hipocrisy a weak
kind of attack.

> I'm not saying that atheists can't be evil people, I'm just saying that
> being an atheist doesn't automatically make you an evil person, and that
> being religious doesn't automatically make you a good person.

And I agree 100%. I believe I said as much in previous posts to this
thread.

> Now if you were comparing communism (Stalin) and Christianity (Bush) as
> belief systems, you might have an argument... ;-)

Ah. So the movement is the practicer? Nice move.

I'm so glad I'm on nobody's team.

Ever agnostic,
	Joe
--
Joe "ArtLung" Crawford
San Diego California USA: http://artlung.com/