Sunday 13 May 2012

Better Than Christ


A few days ago I donated four quid to charity to give a mosquito net to a child in Africa, I'm not saying this as a way of bragging about my generosity. After I donated the money via a nifty little text message I then gave the poster a closer examination and it transpires I'd given four pounds to Christian Aid... and that's fine. Seriously it's fine I helped out an African child I may be an atheist but I don't mind chucking a few quid towards a christian who's trying to stop malaria if he's trying by some method better than prayer. This whole thing did however get me thinking about the moral superiority of athiests over the religious. You see atheism is an inherently more moral philosophical stand point than any of the major faiths could ever hope to be. The reason behind this is what I like to call the naughty child argument.

Yes, Lizzie Borden is my go to for 'naughty' child.

If you have child and you leave them alone in a room with a a jar of cookies with a label saying keep out on it a good child will leave the cookies and a naughty child will eat them. Now if you leave a child in a room with the same jar but this time you warn the child that they are not to eat from the jar or you will pick them up by the legs and smash there head against a concrete block until the gooey thought juice inside flows all over the ground. This time neither a naughty child or a good child will eat the cookie. As such it's impossible to say whether a threatened child is a good or bad, they are merely scared and as such obedient. The same is true with religion. You see every second of every day that an atheist chooses to not beat a passer by to death with a pool cue they are doing it because they area good person. It's impossible to say with any degree of certainty whether or not a religious chap is actually a murderous dong-juggler.

I'm using too many murderers today

To quote Jackson Browne “Character is what we do when we think no-one is watching.” The point being that it's only when judgement, retribution and consequence are removed that we are able to identify the core of a person. If you believe that every single thing you ever say, do or even think is being monitored on pain of spending a literal eternity being anally raped by an eight foot sand-paper coated demonic phallus, then it is impossible for you to be a good person. You can be an obedient person or a fearful person but not a good one. That is why atheists are inherently morally superior to the religious.

... and another one, Son of Sam thought that god wanted him to kill those people

Yep, I went there. You see it's entirely possible to judge the character of an atheist in a way you can't with a believer. I've never killed anyone, from that you can judge that I'm not a naturally murderous type of chap. I've also never raped anyone, which again allows you to conclude that I am not a naturally rapey person. I've never engaged in a high end diamond heist from which you can easily deduce that I have never been given the necessary training to engage in such a caper. The point being that my behaviour is entirely regulated by social factors and my own morality. If act like a good person it's because I'm a good person, if I act like an asshat then an asshat I must be. On the other hand I can't even say with any level of certainty that Captain America is a good person, he believes in god and therefore might merely be behaving in the way he believes his god wants him to behave.

First non-murderer. Captain America wins a prize.

I'm actually willing to bet good money that I can call the religious beliefs of all of the Avengers. Cap is obviously a christian, Black Widow as a russian is clearly an atheist, Thor is an atheist as it wouldn't make sense for him to worship any god, Hawkeye is a black ops assassin, very few of them believe that they are being judged by a higher power and Banner and Stark are top level scientist and as such are statistically likely to be atheist. So yeah I'll willingly admit that all the the Avengers are naturally good people, except for Captain America who we can never no about for certain. I've wandered somewhat off topic there... except of course that Earth's Mightiest Heroes being mainly atheistic in their outlook does add weight to my atheist moral superiority argument.

As I've stated many times before, if I had to worship a deity...

Anyway I'm not saying that religious people are inherently bad just that it is completely impossible to judge someone's moral fibre once they've told you the believe that their every action, word and thought is being judged by a supergalactic being with a list of rules and a punishment fetish.

eddie <sorry if this is more rambling than usual, I was ill>

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