Pages

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Atheism causes harm?

When an atheist points out the harm religion does, you almost assuredly will get a response about what harm atheists have caused. This argument does not understand the point. Lets take a look at why it is reasonable to say religion causes harm but atheism by itself simply cannot not. Firstly religion is a set of beliefs, where as atheism is the lack of belief in god. Now in order to get from one belief ( or lack there of) you need a 2nd belief or premise. Amazingly religion can provide multiple beliefs and premises, atheism cannot. Lets look at killing children by prayer as an example. Here are the beliefs that lead to this:

The bible is the truth and says what jesus taught.
In the bible jesus clearly taught that anything can be done through prayer.
If the person believes these 2 things it logically follows that prayer should save your child from dying.
The result dead children, all from religious beliefs.

Lets take a look at other examples:
Islam teaches that sex outside marriage is punishable by death.
Woman gets raped and that is sex outside marriage.
Woman gets stoned to death. This has legitimately happened to woman in islamic countries.

Want another:
The bible says that one should not suffer a witch to live.
People believe the bible is the word of god and instructions on how to live.
People in undereducated parts of the world are still killing witches over this religious teaching.


Im exactly curious how does this one premise lead to harm:

Not believing in a god.


You can't logically get there without bringing more to the table. That is the point, religious teachings lead you right to harm if followed as taught, atheism cannot get there on its own.

2 comments:

  1. I agree with everything but your definition of atheism. "atheism is the lack of belief in god" seems to me to imply that god exists but that, nonetheless, some people have no belief in him. My dictionary defines atheism this way: "the theory or belief that God does not exist."

    Another possibility might be "...the conviction that a belief in a supernatural deity is unsubstantiated."

    ReplyDelete
  2. I say lack of belief in god because an atheist does not have to have a belief that no god exists. It is the lack of a positive belief in god.

    ReplyDelete