I Just Got Saved!

[popeyespappy]

I say great for him, where is love for ones fellow man in your atheistic beliefs.

Right back at you GC.

It is often assumed that someone who doesn’t believe in God doesn’t believe in anything, or that a person who has no religion must have no values. These assumptions are simply untrue. People can reject religion and still maintain strong beliefs. Being godless does not mean being without values. Numerous studies reveal that atheists and secular people most certainly maintain strong values, beliefs, and opinions. But more significantly, when we actually compare the values and beliefs of atheists and secular people to those of religious people, the former are markedly less nationalistic, less prejudiced, less anti-Semitic, less racist, less dogmatic, less ethnocentric, less close-minded, and less authoritarian (Greeley and Hout 2006; Sider 2005; Altemeyer 2003, 2009; Jackson and Hunsberger 1999; Wulff 1991; Altemeyer and Hunsberger 1992, 1997; Beit-Hallahmi 2007; Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle 1997; Batson et al. 1993; Argyle 2000).

…

The above information reveals that atheists and secular people have very clear and pronounced values and beliefs concerning moral, political, and social issues. As Lynn Nelson (1988, 134) has concluded, religiously unaffiliated people ‘‘have as well-defined a sense of social justice as weekly churchgoers.’’ But I would go farther. I would argue that a strong case could be made that atheists and secular people actually posses a stronger or more ethical sense of social justice than their religious peers. After all, when it comes to such issues as the governmental use of torture or the death penalty, we see that atheists and secular people are far more merciful and humane. When it comes to protecting the environment, women’s rights, and gay rights, the non-religious again distinguish themselves as being
the most supportive. And as stated earlier, atheists and secular people are also the least likely to harbor ethnocentric, racist, or nationalistic attitudes. Strange then, that so many people assume that atheists and non-religious people lack strong values or ethical beliefs – a truly groundless and unsupportable assumption.

http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/...theism.pdf