Atheism and hope

[Angrboda]

I think instead of hope, maybe they should give them food, shelter, humane conditions and rights.


People have been deriving hope both within religion and outside of religion for longer than any current religion can lay claim to. My Taoism is a godless religion, yet it teaches hope and care. There's nothing special about the hope that religion delivers. Hope is simply a human trait. (As is optimism; psychological studies demonstrate that the healthy person is overly cheerful or optimistic, given the reality.)

If hope were all that these religions were providing, that might be okay. But they are delivering hope with a silver lining of despair delivered in the form of admonitions as to what will become of them if they don't accept the church's hope, or are in some ways not perfectly accepting. It's said the Catholic church has a patent on guilt; is it any kind of a gift to give such a double edged sword? ("You don't celebrate your faith. You mourn it." -Dogma) And that's ignoring how self-serving the gift is: these religious people spread their faith, not because of a lack in the receivers, but because of a lack in the giver. An innocent Amazonian indian doesn't need your hypocritical faith, but you feel a great need to give it to them. So who is actually getting served? Not the Amazonian.