(September 1, 2015 at 9:14 am)ChadWooters Wrote: The OP gives us a good example of atheist wishful thinking. If there is no god you can do as you please to serve yourself without having to worry about trivialities like justice or truth. You live, you die, the end. How comforting it must feel not having to worry about the ultimate consequences of your life and never being held into account. I can see the appeal of atheism for people with no sense of responsibility beyond themselves.
On the contrary. If there is no afterlife, it means that we must make the most of every day because it is all we have. In order to live on, we must make a mark on the world. If we fail to make our mark, then when we die we will be long forgotten, having never done anything to affect the world at large. If Atheists only sought to please themselves, I wouldn't have become a teacher. Not at that salary. I'd have taken any number of better paying jobs to serve myself.
When we give to Charitable causes, we do it to make a difference. Not to please god, who will reward us for being charitable as many Christians do. When we see our fellow man suffering, our empathy gives us cause to help them.
Whereas Christians worry about the ultimate consequences of their lives and the lives of others, that we don't believe in an afterlife allows us to treat the people Christians see as sinners such as gays, lesbians, and transgenders with the respect they deserve as people. We don't have some religious text that inspires bigotry. There are many religious people who don't use their religious texts to inspire bigotry, but it is certainly not a message most Christians get. Ironically perhaps, the idea that we should not judge (which is a concept Christianity accepts) is an easy concept for Atheists because we have to judge on the standards of our own empathy, rather than that of a book that was written so long ago that was allegedly inspired by god.
We are ultimately held accountable. Not to god, but to the human race, and what we do to further it. We just aren't held accountable for the small things. The 'sins' that hurt no one except allegedly ourselves.
