No I'm mostly just appealing to what I see, most of the Atheists I've met in person are just kids who were raised in the wrong church who wanted to rebel against their parent's ultra-strict interpretation of how to apply the Bible. The more outspoken ones were more bitter. If you don't have a value or a purpose, beyond whatever you can imagine, then you will always have a weaker basis for morality and happiness. Anyone can be taken from you, and as anyone who has ever won the lottery can tell you, that age old mantra that, "money can't buy happiness," reigns true.
Inevitably your best choices are to dedicate your life to the service of others, or hedonism where you just try to get as much pleasure as you can out of the world.
A lot of people want to describe themselves as "religious" but it is their actions that determine weather or not they are actually living out the commandments.
There are countless lazy Christians who are almost never challenged to apply the Bible to their lives, and there are plenty of people who don't even attend church or read their Bible, or pray who would describe themselves as "religious" or "Christian".
The book was written for a small sliver of humanity, Jesus only had 12 friends despite all of the adoring crowds that would follow him around. So when you say that more "religious" people are in prison than atheists I wonder how many of them attended church on a weekly basis before they committed their crime. Or how many of them actually took any time out of their week to practice their faith or meet with fellow believers.
Inevitably your best choices are to dedicate your life to the service of others, or hedonism where you just try to get as much pleasure as you can out of the world.
A lot of people want to describe themselves as "religious" but it is their actions that determine weather or not they are actually living out the commandments.
There are countless lazy Christians who are almost never challenged to apply the Bible to their lives, and there are plenty of people who don't even attend church or read their Bible, or pray who would describe themselves as "religious" or "Christian".
The book was written for a small sliver of humanity, Jesus only had 12 friends despite all of the adoring crowds that would follow him around. So when you say that more "religious" people are in prison than atheists I wonder how many of them attended church on a weekly basis before they committed their crime. Or how many of them actually took any time out of their week to practice their faith or meet with fellow believers.
