Why be good?

[robvalue]

Holy fucking shit on a cracker.

It amazes me that some people will actually deny reality. They will say, "No, that wouldn't happen" while it is happening.

Anyone who thinks morality comes only from God should visit England. Religion is dying a miserable death here. Yet you can safely walk around in the street almost everywhere. There are no atheists in a battle frenzy hacking apart anything they find with rusty axes.

It makes me sad to think some people see the world as a giant grand melee, with just the threat of a magical dictator keeping everyone from smashing each other to pieces. That is how little they think of their own species. It's kind of insulting, really, to people like us who can behave in a civil manner without fairy tales. Well, there's no such threat here. And we're doing just fine.

Anyone who really thinks that the wrath of an imaginary creature is all that is keeping them from becoming a barbarian is either a leashed dangerous psychopath, or else most likely entirely mistaken. If you want to see what following religion does to morality, look at ISIS. They pay way more attention to their "religious morality" than any Christian who makes endless excuses about why they don't follow their own morality.

Which would I prefer? The latter, of course. Keep making those excuses, it's far better than actually acting on the Bronze Age narration that passes for religious morality. I want theists as liberal as they can possibly be, because they tend to have much better actual morality.