Religion and Persecuting Atheists
"Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love prevents the
Christians of today from burning us", Friedrich Nietzsche.
Religion is feared by many in the world for it has a history of persecuting
those who disagree with it. Religious people notoriously persecuted converts to
another religion or unwed mums.
Even religions strongly supportive of religious liberty, have argued that
atheist activists and public atheists should be forcibly silenced or imprisoned
or destroyed if necessary.
Many have argued that the Atheist should be executed like murderers or punished
like thieves for his doctrines tend to make murderers and thieves of people
(page 128, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome). This assumes that no society and
therefore no law is possible unless God is believed in.
The argument that Atheists should be punished implies that it is not what is
true that is important but what is believed in. How? Because even if there were
bad consequences from disbelief in God that does not mean there is a God. So if
it is true that we need belief in God then it follows that hiding the evidence
against God and silencing Atheists and believers who ask awkward questions is
critical. That would hardly be conducive to intellectual honesty!
Christianity tries to make morality and Christian faith inseparable. The
Christians say that morality is a person so to really understand morality you
must believe in God. And not just any God. It must be the Christian version.
This is a God who is three persons in one living force who is the reason why
there is something rather than nothing. Islam has a different God and thinks
that you cannot understand morality properly if at all without believing what
Islam believes.
The doctrine that morality has no basis except in God is sectarian doctrine in
that it accuses atheists and people of many other religions of having no real
justification for being moral. The believers in the doctrine may say that they
do not accuse them of having no morals and of necessarily being dangerous. They
do accuse them of being capable of acting morally without having any
justification. That is not acting moral. If you help a baby while intending to
act and not to help for you are not sure if helping the baby is right that is
not morality. I think the reason we are told that atheists can be moral but have
no justification for morality is that believers are afraid of breaching hate
speech laws. What they are saying is not logical and it is hypocritical. It is
about lulling atheists into a false sense of security.
You can believe that 2 and 2 are 10 and still act as if 2 and 2 are 4. What you
are doing is accommodation yourself to the mainstream. You look as if you are
being mathematical in the real sense of the word but you are not. Thus you
cannot be moral unless you believe that you are being moral and that morality is
authentic and makes sense.
Surely a person who does good but who has no justification for doing so is worse
than the person who does have justification but who does bad? Which one will do
the most harm in the long run? At least the bad person knows what good is and
that is where real good must start. Good that is done without a basis could turn
evil just in the blink of an eye. It is no good and no recipe for happiness or
security in society.
If people really believe that morality and God go together, that could be
dangerous if they lose their faith and have the power to wage war.
The annihilation of Atheist nations by Christian countries would be necessary
for their influence would spread. No correspondence between Christians and
people living there would be permitted. It would be a crime to move to an
Atheist nation. It is obvious that when people promote belief in God and pay
money to the Church and pass the “faith” on to their children they are saying
that unbelief in God is bad for you emotionally and therefore morally. It must
be bad in the extreme when it manages to be bad even for a happy go lucky child!
Atheism must be seriously bad and damaging for if it were slight it would not be
worth worrying about for we all encourage one another to be imperfect though
good enough. This is as poisonous as homophobia. This time it is us, Atheists,
who are being picked on.