Theists often claim that their religion is necessary for morality.
Obviously this is not the case as most people are good, decent people
whether they believe in gods or not. Actually, nontheists get their
morals from the same place as theists: human compassion and empathy.
Christians, for example, do not get decent morals from the Bible.
How do I know this? Because the god of the Bible is one of the most
evil creatures in all of mythology. He ordered the wholesale slaughter
of many innocent people, often singling out women and children to
be murdered (see just about anywhere in the Old Testament); he punished
people who worshipped the wrong god by ordering "their little ones"
to be "dashed to the ground" and their pregnant women to be "ripped
open"; he ordered his warriors to commit genocide, and they murdered
every Midianite man, women, and child except for the 32,000 female
virgins that the warriors were told to "save for yourselves"; and
he created a place called hell which he uses to torture people who
he dislikes for all eternity. (For more information on the Bible
god, see Bible Atrocities, Murder Most High, and Is the Bible God
Good?.) Most Christians, at least in this era, do not do these types
of things. Instead, they have applied their own moral standards
to weed out and ignore those parts of the Bible that don't fit in
with their values. The claim that the Bible can serve as the ultimate
moral guide is patently absurd.
Does organized religion help society? Well, organized religion does some good. For
example, it can help foster a sense of community among its believers. Unfortunately, it can
also create conflict between different groups of believers. Organized religion can sometimes
inspire people to be kinder, to be more charitable, and to help others. But not always; consider
the following:
Protestants and Catholics are murdering each other in Northern Ireland.
Adolf Hitler was a professed Christian
whose actions were consistent with the evil Old Testament god
(see Hitler's Christianity).
More recently, Christians have carried out a genocidal campaign against Muslims in Kosovo.
Islamic terrorists have murdered many innocent people in order to further their goals.
Christian terrorists have attacked abortion clinics in the name of their god
(these hypocrites call themselves pro-life; they
may be pro-fetus-life, but their actions prove that they are very anti-human-life).
In addition to starting wars and inspiring fanatics to commit murder, religion can
damage its believers sense of personal responsibility by allowing them to
shift their responsibility onto God or Satan, and this can have adverse
effects on the believers' morality.
Religionists often point out that some atheists, particularly communists, have also committed evil
acts. This is true enough. There is, however, an important distinction to be made: Theists have
been inspired by their religion to commit
atrocities, while communists have been inspired to commit atrocities, not by their lack of belief in gods, but
by their political beliefs and desires.
Many theists would argue that even if some people have done evil things in the name of religion, most
religious people are good, moral people, and that religion on the average provides a positive moral benefit.
It is true that
most religious people are good, moral people, but so are most nontheists. The theists' claim
that religion is morally beneficial on the average is completely without merit.
Not only is there no evidence indicating a positive correlation between religion and morality, there is
evidence of a negative correlation:
"The United States is the most religious of all the industrialized
nations. Forty-four percent of Americans attend church once a week,
compared with 27 percent in Britain, 21 percent in France, 16 percent
in Australia, and 4 percent in Sweden. Yet violent crime is not
less common in the United States--it's more common. The murder rate
here is six times higher than the rate in Britain, seven times higher
than in France, five times higher than in Australia, and five times
higher than in Sweden. Japan, where Christianity has almost no adherents,
has less violent crime than almost any country....Within the 50
states, there is no evidence that a God-fearing populace equals
a law-abiding populace. The Bible Belt has more than its share of
both praying and killing. Louisiana has the highest churchgoing
rate in the country, but its murder rate is more than twice the
national average. The same pattern generally holds in the rest of
the South..." - Steve Chapman in Praise the Lord, Pass the Ammo.
