Serious Problems with Atheism

[Whateverist]

Tazzycorn, you seem to be STRETCHING the truth somewhat (Atheism has no rock solid basis for morality so i am not surprised) ok Ill quote more from Dawkins and see if you can by some miracle extract from this fuller quotation that I was wrong and Dawkins in fact believes there is Good and Evil in the Universe

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”   Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

Personally, and like Dawkins I speak for just one atheist, I have no use for the word "evil" and prefer the word  "prosocial" to "good".  Goodness and Evil as nouns are nonsense.  Acts which get singled out as 'good' tend to be ones which are good for the wider group.  As a community we naturally appreciate such acts.  But self serving acts which serve only the individual are not 'evil', they're just not socially relevant.  On the long view, even the pursuit of solitude or solitary pleasures can be seen as having some prosocial value if by nurturing the individual that individual is then able to go on to more fully participate in and contribute to the social good.  

But some acts actually subtract from the social good and I have no problem calling them "bad": hitting or even killing others in anger, robbing them, the destruction of property, and so on.  But "evil" is still a reach.  The closest I can come to attaching meaning to that would be anyone who inflicts pain and suffering on others for the pleasure they receive in doing so, like Charles Manson.  But then, he was obviously deranged so possibly all 'evil' is really an offshoot of pathology of one kind or another.  But "evil" as a thing in itself itself exists no where but fiction (e.g., in the bible).

There's a serious problem with a large number of the theists we get here...

They can't seem to stand people disagreeing with them. It's just outrageous that anyone could consider it.

The objectionable ones like Pubes here lack all humility in regard to what are their opinions.  It is as if by calling their opinions their 'faith', the positions they endorse were elevated somehow.  Their lack of humility prevents them from sharing their uncertainty.  Indeed uncertainty isn't allowed among the faithful.