Does religion corrupt morality?

[Catholic_Lady]

I'd be interested to know what you mean when you say that you became a better person when you became an atheist.  That statement implies that there is something inherently 'better' about being an atheist.  If two people hold the precisely same moral views, but just disagree on whether a god exists, does that make the atheist 'better' than the believer?

It is not that being an atheist makes one good; it is that being religious makes one bad.  In my case, I was against homosexuality when I was religious (I was a Christian), but that evaporated when I became an atheist and starting thinking about it without concern for "god's word" on the subject.  There are other improvements, too, but that is enough to make my point.  Religion is poison.

Just to clarify, does this mean you think religious people are bad people?

[FatAndFaithless]

It is not that being an atheist makes one good; it is that being religious makes one bad.  In my case, I was against homosexuality when I was religious (I was a Christian), but that evaporated when I became an atheist and starting thinking about it without concern for "god's word" on the subject.  There are other improvements, too, but that is enough to make my point.  Religion is poison.

Just to clarify, does this mean you think religious people are bad people?

My question exactly.

[Pyrrho]

All religion is evil because it all goes against being reasonable.  If one is reasonable, one is not religious.  Not being reasonable means one will do something bad, though not necessarily in a predictable way.  Some religions are worse than others, but they all have a corrupting influence in that they entail being unreasonable.

I think I'll have to disagree with you there.  Nobody is 100% reasonable about everything all the time

That is completely irrelevant.  Religion makes people MORE FUCKING IRRATIONAL.  People are fucking irrational enough without any extra bullshit prompting.  But when they fucking get that bullshit prompting from religion, then they are fucking much worse.

, and you can have a fantastically moral, pleasant, intelligent, and progressive person who simply believes in a god.

They are always irrational and always worse than they could be without religious nonsense. For the lengthy explanation, see the essay by William Kingdon Clifford at:

http://ajburger.homestead.com/files/book.htm

 I don't find anything inherently 'bad' about someone holding a theistic belief at all, it all depends on the attendant beliefs/actions/statements.  I mean shit, to bring up kind of the negative-Godwin example, was MLK Jr. an 'unreasonable' person, because he was religious?  I'm not a fan of any sort of absolutist terms, and saying that 'you can't be a reasonable person if you're religious' seems a bit too far reaching for me.

So you believe that belief in god is reasonable? Please explain that to everyone. Please start a new thread on that so everyone will see it.

If you don't do that, everyone seeing this thread will know you are totally full of shit and you fucking know that religious belief is unreasonable and are just writing nonsense now. Put up, or shut the fuck up.

[FatAndFaithless]

I think I'll have to disagree with you there.  Nobody is 100% reasonable about everything all the time

That is completely irrelevant.  Religion makes people MORE FUCKING IRRATIONAL.  People are fucking irrational enough without any extra bullshit prompting.  But when they fucking get that bullshit prompting from religion, then they are fucking much worse.

, and you can have a fantastically moral, pleasant, intelligent, and progressive person who simply believes in a god.

They are always irrational and always worse than they could be without religious nonsense.  For the lengthy explanation, see the essay by William Kingdon Clifford at:

http://ajburger.homestead.com/files/book.htm

 I don't find anything inherently 'bad' about someone holding a theistic belief at all, it all depends on the attendant beliefs/actions/statements.  I mean shit, to bring up kind of the negative-Godwin example, was MLK Jr. an 'unreasonable' person, because he was religious?  I'm not a fan of any sort of absolutist terms, and saying that 'you can't be a reasonable person if you're religious' seems a bit too far reaching for me.

So you believe that belief in god is reasonable?  Please explain that to everyone.  Please start a new thread on that so everyone will see it.

If you don't do that, everyone seeing this thread will know you are totally full of shit and you fucking know that religious belief is unreasonable and are just writing nonsense now.  Put up, or shut the fuck up.

Wow, was not expecting something that vitriolic or mean.  No, I never stated that I think a belief in god is reasonable. And I see enough strawmanning from theists, I'd rather not see it from someone who happens to hold the same position on the god claim as I do.

[Pyrrho]

Wow, was not expecting something that vitriolic or mean.  No, I never stated that I think a belief in god is reasonable.  And I see enough strawmanning from theists, I'd rather not see it from someone who happens to hold the same position on the god claim as I do.

If you are going to accuse me of committing a fallacy, why is it that you do not have the decency to explain how it is that you imagine it applies to what I have stated?  I have said, being religious means that one is necessarily unreasonable.  This is due to the fact that religious belief is unreasonable.

Now, is being unreasonable a quality that you believe promotes morality?  If so, please explain.

If, on the other hand, you believe that being unreasonable corrupts morality, you should be saying that you think that religion is a corrupting influence, since it promotes irrationality.

[FatAndFaithless]

Alrighty, I'm gonna pass on this kind of nutty absolutist strawmanny vitriol. No idea what happened here, but I don't think I said anything so outrageous.

[Pyrrho]

Alrighty, I'm gonna pass on this kind of nutty absolutist strawmanny vitriol.  No idea what happened here, but I don't think I said anything so outrageous.

And again you accuse me of committing a fallacy but fail to explain your accusation.  What does that say of your morality?

[FatAndFaithless]

No idea man, you tell me.

[Pyrrho]

Former member Jonb emailed me the link to this talk which I found pretty moving.  I'm inclined too say that religion certainly can lead to some pretty bad morality but I'm inclined to think that is just because they run on the same human platform we all do.  We all have the potential to misunderstand and to paint others as enemies.  We are all homo fairly sapient, not completely wise.  From what he says here, I think religion has and continues to be a device which can focus and magnify some of our worse tendencies and bring them to bear in troubling ways.  Of course many religious groups also do charity work.

I don't think I'm inclined to accept the conclusion that religion is, all things considered, more a force for evil and backwardness, not for good and progress.  At best, I think it is correct to point out that religion is potentially dangerous since it deals in unsupportable claims.  Just look at our poor friend the professor who is constantly disturbed by apocryphal portents.  I'm not ready to concede it cannot be a positive experience for some however.  

Should we embrace anti-theism?  I'm not there yet, how about you?

https://youtu.be/hAuwB6zcdVo

The video is great.  We should all be anti-theists.  And thanks for posting the video.

So, I suggest you watch more videos of a like nature.

Here it is again; people should watch this:





He seems to understand the situation quite well.

[Pyrrho]

On a related note:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-35862.html