(September 28, 2018 at 5:34 pm)Bahana Wrote: Do you think this is a good statement to make? It seems to me like they are trying to prove themselves to religious people. Is it a response to religious people who think atheists are less moral? I would rather not dignify that. If you wanna address that argument then bring it to them but to use that as your motivation is low rent.
I find the phrase to be a perfectly legitimate shorthand response to a pair of idiotic claims that religionists make about atheists.
The first is that, without God in my life, I am somehow intrinsically unhappy, or even miserable. 'I'm good without God' simply seems to be a way of telling theists, 'I'm quite happy, thank you. But God didn't do it. I have work that challenges and fulfills me, a significant other who loves me, a gaggles of dear friends, and enough hobbies to keep me gleefully distracted. Thank you so much for your interest in my welfare. Now, be a good lad and run along to church, I've got an art exhibit to get to.'
The other sense is that atheists cannot (as you intimated) be 'good' in a moral manner without God. The phrase in this case can be taken to mean, 'I feel that I'm kind, generous, moral, compassionate, and honest in my business dealings. I try to hurt other people no more than can be helped, and I aid and console my friends who are in distress. But God didn't make me this way: I feel that it is an innate sense of all the elements that constitute "goodness" that make me what I am. But - again - I thank you for your concern. Please carry on with your petition drive to get these homeless bums off of our fair streets. I've go to head over to the Oxfam sign-up event.'
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
