Some may ask what seems to be a tough question. What is love without God being a part of it? Well, the question that really needs to be asked is if anyone asking that question either knows what they are asking, or if they actually understand what they are implying.
The question really only implies two things:
- Personal incredulity of the person asking.
- Love, empathy, or compassion can't stand on their own merits.
Some people may not realize that they might even make themselves look bad to people who do not lean on faith. Perhaps even scarier are those who ask how someone could have any morals without God. Again, we are left with the following two implications based on that line of thinking:
- Personal incredulity of perhaps a higher level.
- Morality cannot stand on its own merits.
Take note of people who appear to make the latter assumption, as morality may as well not mean anything on its own to some people. In few cases, people like this have turned out to be dangerous and lacked necessary amounts of empathy. Someone being religious or even believing in an allegedly "good" deity does not make them any better or more moral than an inmate of an old asylum who claims to learn from his imaginary friend. A claim is nothing but a baseless claim unless there is something to prove it otherwise, and the "proof" of God himself as of yet seems to be the single closest thing to the definition of nonexistent as one could possibly define it. Claiming to gain morals from this idea of an entity can often times be compared to insanity.
But if only a decent deity was being worshipped we could at least give some credence to the Abrahamic followers so we might have somewhat of a common ground for agreement. Except… therein lies another problem. In contrast to “reality,” the ideal god would be friendly, caring of his creation, and at least relatively understanding when it comes to basic logic. However, the Abrahamic deity known as God, if judged by the book he is featured in, expresses no such characteristics. In fact, God would much prefer to rid the world of critical thinkers and personal morality as it seems.
“But my question hasn’t been answered. Are atheists any better?”
Well, atheists know better than to attribute morals and common love to any deity (they are atheists after all). However, atheism itself merely represents the lack of belief in a deity or set of deities, period. No single title or characteristic defines any particular atheist. There have been both good and bad atheists. So is it easy to answer whether or not atheists are immoral? Well, it is indeed impossible to answer with a yes or no. Atheists are just like others in regards to the fact that they are human like everyone else.
This means that they are to be held to the same levels of scrutiny as the theists. Just because someone happens to believe in a deity that sacrifices children doesn’t make someone immoral. Immorality comes when such ideas begin to be excused/justified for applications in reality. As such, it really doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you can separate fact from fiction. Keep in mind that believing something doesn’t mean you support it any more than not believing something means you don’t support the idea behind it. However, immorality exists outside of belief or lack thereof. Some people develop mental impairments that makes them lack empathy towards many things that they should naturally develop empathy for.
So, this begs a question in response. Is asking whether or not atheists are immoral a pointless question? Well, yes! This can certainly be answered with one word. Just like religious people, atheists are humans too. As such, we should expect religious people to point out our flaws just as much as we may point out theirs. Everyone is unique. Not believing in a particular deity doesn’t make someone immune to doing things that are wrong. Simply put, many atheists do bad things all the time, just as many religious people do. Now, as for the statistics on the scale of a ratio for comparison… that’s a story for another day.
