The word ”militant” has become synonymous with atheist. Militant is simply a word used to describe someone showing opposition in a way the people being opposed don’t like.
And yes, atheists have killed, tortured, lied and stolen – never in the name of atheism, but because they’re bad.
Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists are generally moral people. But that’s not because they’re Jews, Muslims, Christians or atheist. It’s because they’re people.
I do hate. I hate religion taking credit for most people’s innate goodness.
It must be convenient to separate people’s morality from the overall worldviews they hold to. It’s also probably erroneous. While I would agree that there is both innate goodness and innate evil in people, the way we see the world will serve to restrain one and encourage the other.
Atheism, if we accept her oversimplification, is a lack of belief, and so will restrain nothing and encourage nothing in and of itself. The question then is, are humans left to their own devices good or bad?
Unfortunately, I believe the last 2 centuries have given us the answer.
[i]”God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace…..[/i]
Sorry, that was Romans 11:2-5
She seems to assume that most people are innately good. Where does she get this assumption? Upon what set of facts or pre-suppositions is it based? In other words as Jon is suggesting: What is her worldview? And what are its underlying assumptions?
Robespierre: atheist
Marx: atheist
Lenin: atheist
Hitler: atheist
Stalin: atheist
Pol Pot: atheist
(Hitler and Stalin, at least, beginning as Christians and abandoning their faith)
We could go on and on. They committed their genocides [i]for the purpose[/i] of establishing a social order that would be utterly free from all real religious influence and substituting a kind of “Religion of man” in its place.
The fact remains that religion, just from a social/cultural point of view, has always been a major influence for curbing humanity’s most inhumane impulses, and where this influence has been removed, chaos has ensued.
The atheists cannot make a real case for being somehow innately “good” people to a higher degree than religious people.
Again I mention “The Faith Instinct,” by Nicholas Wade. He posits that with or without divine guidance, humans have evolved the tendency to be believers, by virtue of social cohesion. I notice a flip side: In times of social dis-cohesion, faith would either be not advantageous, or possibly disadvantageous. Make of that what you will.
Actually atheists don’t exist; only anti-theists.
I remember a rough quote from Gettysburg,
“Beggin’ your pardon colonel darling, just where do you see this divine spark in action?”
So madame I ask, “Beggin’ your pardon where is the innate goodness? and how did it get there?”
Where have all the intelligent atheists gone?