How is it that some atheists are good people?

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Does that mean that "Evil" is in the intent or in the act? Both? Neither?

I think a combination of both.

And sometimes people have to do evil things for their own survival. That's life, but that doesn't make it any less evil.

Soldiers have to kill each other during times of war to stay alive, and homeless people have to steal food to keep from starving to death.

Atheism, in my case, is pragmatic:

I'm a "Reductionist" inherently, and by simplifying the complexity of life, the universe and everything, I sometimes use pragmatic methodology.

A "beautiful" example of this is when I confronted "Techy" in one of the treads in which we were having a discussion.
Having only limited time for research and having finite cerebral energy, I decided to rationally "cull" certain topics/philosophies.
Since I am a non-theist (it doesn't matter why I just am), I chose to exclude those philosophies which had a religious/spiritual foundation.
I see this as being pragmatic and sensible, given human and personal limitations.

Being an Atheist has advantages, and practicality and functionality are some of the benefits.

Now let us look at how evolution has crippled us psychologically:


What does this mean physiologically:


A mindset gravitating towards perpetual anxiety and ambivalence is hardly a lifestyle I would recommend.
Even Sheldon Lee Cooper had to admit that mental exhaustion was injurious to one's health and detrimental to one's cognitive abilities.

When I was a kid I was an olympian when it came to fence-sitting.
While I admire an "open Mind", there is sometimes the need to "close the door" to avoid polluting elements from entering and inhibiting progress.
Perhaps not so for someone as gifted as yourself. <facetiousness>

However,
I have discovered perpetual indecision (in this context of life philosophies) is not the best way, for me personally, to live my life.

Heuristics and previously constructed intellectual concepts can be useful until something better comes along.
The skill/wisdom is to identify when that time has arrived.
"Give me a better argument and I will listen".

No one has convinced me, to date, in giving up my Atheistic "religion" with compelling reasons,
(BTW, I used to be a committed Christian. I should have simply been "committed". )
And logically, why would one discard something which is working for them personally for something which may work for someone else but is less suited/practical/pragmatic for themselves?
"Different strokes for different folks", man.


Said the goose on the loose.


You assume incorrectly.
If you "Ass-u-me", you make an "Ass" out of "U" but not "Me", as the old adage goes.

Damn, magz!
I was joking.
Don't spoil the funny.


You mean:
One less god than a mono-theist.

Damn, Fnord!
Do I have to clean up after you ALL the time?



An "agnostic atheist" is an Atheist without kahoonas.

Left, right or otherwise.


Bad theist.
Bad, bad, theist.

The implied premise was insulting,
So no apologies from me.



Yeah,
We all know "butt cheeks" are always on your mind.
And we all know you are always waiting to be "popped".

What if you've picked the wrong god and every time you pray you're just making him madder and madder?

Disclaimer, I am an atheist so take that into account. There are multiple factors at play here.

1) The inherent nature of people. It is my experience an observation that most people possess the capability for both good and evil. Under normal circumstances most will not behave in an evil way, but the few who do exert an outsized influence on society ("Only a few rotten apples"). Under extreme circumstances just about everyone is capable of evil.

2) Accountability causes people to behave better. Even bad people will behave less badly if they think they'll be punished for their actions. Even good people will behave badly if left completely unchecked. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Religion and fear of a supernatural being's judgement provides accountability for some people. Others feel accountability to society and its laws.

3) All people have inherent moral values. Religion provides a codification for it for some, but others draw from a societal agreement on values. One does not have to be Christian to generally agree with the Ten Commandments. Most atheists raised in western society will carry Judeo-Christian values even without the religious component.

What if God was really evil and Satan was good all along?

These are all very good points. Everyone has the capability to do good and evil, even sociopaths. Sociopaths aren't really "evil" the way TV portrays them, they just lack the ability to feel empathy or guilt. There are many sociopaths who actually contribute to society and most people are unaware of it.

Sounds not dissimilar to some gnostic notions.

This is an interesting scene. The Protestant being burned at the stake is thought of as being an "evil" heretic by these Catholics. Yet we would look at what the Catholics are doing as cruel and inhumane by burning people at the stake. But they clearly believed they were doing the right thing at the time.

But the one dude is at least trying to show an ounce of compassion for the condemned man by begging him to admit that HE was being evil and to come back over to the Catholic side before they roast him alive so that he can at least be spared the pains of hell and be welcomed back into heaven.

The Protestant refuses because, you know, religous differences.

And the Catholic man is looking away from the painful screaming expression on the man's face while he's being burned alive as if he's wondering for a brief moment if he's truly doing the right thing by rounding up these so-called heretics and burning them alive.

Sad, really.

Nah, not really. Mikah is actually somewhat correct when he says that reason only gets you to agnosticism. Though where his version of an atheists points to a courtain no one's looked behind and says "there's definitively no God behind this courtain", most real ones are content to make a probability judgement ("the likelihood of there being a God behind this courtain is so close to zero as to effectively be zero") and live life accordingly.

Well, thank you.



You cannot make a reasonable probability judgement like that on the universe as a whole. If you had 2 or 3 universes in your garage and knew exactly how they came to be you might be able to have a go at it even from such a small data set.

You can make probability judgements on certain types of human beliefs, certain types of intervening Gods and the temporal rewards they promise. But extrapolating from that, that "there is likely nothing" is a fundamental error.

To me, despite my desire for “something,” the preponderance of the evidence points to “nothing.”

If somebody else has faith in “something,” I won’t try to convince that person otherwise.

I agree, I mean sometimes faith in a higher power is the only thing that gives some people any kind of hope when their lives are miserable. Why take that away from them?