Are there any good or noble actions that are not tainted by religion?
Religions are based on rewards and punishments. At the root of religious morality is the belief that good deeds buy you the points you need to get into Cloud Fairy Land, while bad deeds doom you to eternal agony in Satan's BBQ Pit. That means that every good deed motivated by religion is a selfish hyprocritical act, and that religious people are using others for their own benefit. As an atheist, I can expect no eternal benefit from any good deeds that I do. My only motive to do good is my conscience.
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Morality is like a foreign land that crusaders and pilgrims traveled to. When the ship landed the religious set foot on the land and claimed it in the name of god.
I have read the Bible and the Koran. I don't't recall Satan ever directing people to slaughter babies, eviscerate pregnant women, or slice the heads off of people.
As an atheist I guess that makes me more moral than christians because I do the right thing knowing that there is no god watching me and keeping score. I have a Catholic friend who knows I don't believe and he says he is mystified because I am the most moral person he knows. I explained that when I do good I feel good about myself and if I do wrong I am disappointed in myself. He says that makes me wrong, self centered and sinful. Apparently feeling good about oneself isn't allowed to the catholics. He says I should do good for the glory of and in fear of the lord. That's where we part company. If I'm doing something out of fear then I haven't learned anything except to present a false face. I am as moral as I can be because I want to be, not because I'm cowering in fear of some celestial boogieman.
If I do something evil, I know first that Jesus won't forgive me (because he's too busy being dead), and second that I'll never forgive myself. That's enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.
“The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay
I love my children and grandson . What kind of society do I want to leave behind for them? One in which rape, murder, theft are permissable? Or, one in which people cooperate and strive for human well being? Simple human reasoning is all that is required to ask and answer such questions.
.
Theism practices integrity, but for a goal. It's not genuine because the good deeds are expected to have a payoff. That isn't exactly selfless.
Non Believers (or at least I do) naturally practice integrity because we practice the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do to you.
The concept does not require religion as it has a secular definition on it's own:
Integrity - the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
The golden rule didn`t start with Jesus, it was laotze Confucius in China, He parody this saying, As for morals, They keep on evolving I was once a professing Christian, But I have changed over to Agnostic. And I feel that you don`t need a God or God`s to be moral.The late Christopher hitchens debated apologist William lane Craig and mentioned this.I try to be good and kind because I feel that`s the best way to survive in this life.I don`t need religion of any sorts to instill that in me.O r a promise of some kind of rewards.The whole thing in Judea-Christian motivational teaching is to bring guilt to the individual.Example the 10 commandments and all of there 613 laws found in the Torah.And then with Jesus teaching on the sermon on the Mount.As for getting even I`m to old to start now at 61, I am not a fighter I like to use reason, But as all of you know sometimes that`s just not enough.So my advice is to try to dialogue with the person or persons.TRY to keep a low tone in arguments.And most of all have respect.