Christian Priest to Atheist to Buddhist

[BlackSwordsman]

My mom is something like this, or atleast has books about Buddhism, and the way she descibes it as is mainy like a self improvement. I see nothing wrong with it, and seems healthy. From how she uses it I wouldn't even consider it a relgion and far from harmful. I really know little about how it is in the rest of the world though...not something I've researched.

You are very right.

[Confused Ape]

Being buddhist doesn't negate human qualities. Humans are still human, whether you are Buddhist, Catholic, Atheist.

I think this can be illustrated by the Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is a maxim,[1] ethical code or morality[2] that essentially states either of the following:

One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. (Positive form)[1]
One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated (Negative form, also known as the Silver Rule).[1]
This concept describes a "reciprocal", or "two-way", relationship between one's self and others that involves both sides equally, and in a mutual fashion.[3][4]

As a concept, the Golden Rule has a history that long predates the term "Golden Rule", or "Golden law", as it was called from the 1670s.[1][6] As a concept of "the ethic of reciprocity," it has its roots in a wide range of world cultures, and is a standard way that different cultures use to resolve conflicts.[1][5] It has a long history, and a great number of prominent religious figures and philosophers have restated its reciprocal, "two-way" nature in various ways (not limited to the above forms).[1]

Rushworth Kidder notes that the Golden Rule can be found in the early contributions of Confucianism (551–479 BC). Kidder notes that this concept's framework appears prominently in many religions, including "Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and the rest of the world's major religions".[7] According to Greg M. Epstein, " 'do unto others' ... is a concept that essentially no religion misses entirely."[8] Simon Blackburn also states that the Golden Rule can be "found in some form in almost every ethical tradition".[9] All versions and forms of the proverbial Golden Rule have one aspect in common: they all demand that people treat others in a manner in which they themselves would like to be treated.

A belief in deities isn't required for this so it applies to atheists as well. Studies of prison populations in different countries indicate that there are fewer atheists in prison. The fact that there are some atheists in prison, however, shows that not all atheists follow the Golden Rule. There are other ways of breaking the Golden Rule which don't result in prison sentences so there's no way of knowing the percentage of atheists who don't treat others as they'd like to be treated themselves.

Humans know that the Golden Rule is what we should be doing where others are concerned but history shows that our species is very bad at doing it.