Christopher Hitchens, freelance journalist and writer for magazines like Slate and Vanity Fair and author of the book, 'God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' - made the point that: 'children do not have to be taught the Golden Rule' (treat others as you want to be treated). Now, children may need a friendly reminder, now and again, but for the most part, the Golden Rule is innate in us.
Hitchens went on to say, 'why do many of us voluntarily give blood, religious or not, not only that, we positively enjoy knowing we are helping out a fellow human being.
Most atheists tend to hold that a baby is born innocent and if treated with love and respect will naturally grow up, to love and respect others. Religion and most positively the three major monotheism's start from the opposite premise, we are born innately wicked and thus, a set of religious dogmas has to be followed, to hold that 'innate' evil in check. It is not surprising that many children who grew up in strict Catholic households, have had their minds poisoned with this vile nonsense and it had a devastating effect on their entire lives, to the point where many of them, were so inculcated with the belief in sin on a deep subconscious level, that they grew up, with the incapacity to hold on to a loving relationship. Much the same can be said, for many Muslims today.
But what is important to understand, is that morality has nothing to do with religion or atheism, morality is not a synonym for either atheism or religion. Our morality comes out of our humanity as first cause. This is why the majority of moderate theists, are good and by the same token, so are atheists. Note, I didn't say 'moderate' atheists, the reason for that, is that I see no evidence for atheist extremism and thus the term moderate atheist would be 'null and void' ...The same cannot be said for religion of course. there is plenty of ordinary and extra ordinary violence, created in the name of religion. That is why I used the qualifier, moderate religion, as apposed to extreme.
It seems to be the case, that as long as one is bought up in a loving household, or at the very least, a relatively loving one, as compared to the majority, then that in itself, is enough for one to grow up, with an innate sense of responsibility, in being a reasonable and moral human being... That is all it takes.
Now atheists can of course do criminal things. But what one cannot do of course, is find a causal link between atheism and the criminal act perpetrated. How often have you heard stories in the media of people being convicted of crimes, which they perpetrated, directly because of their atheism, I cannot personally think of even one of the top of my head. Now, there may well be the occasional exception of someone committing a crime, directly because of their atheism, but the point is that such incidence, if they do occur, must be very rare and I challenge anyone to point to any modern or past crime that was directly caused by atheism...
I'm sure many theists will now be shouting at the computer screen, and saying 'Stalin' and 'Hitler' ...This of course is a 'straw man'. No historian is seriously blaming atheism for Hitler or Stalin. Indeed, at the Nuremberg trial, after the Second World War, nobody in the court room, mentioned atheism as a cause for the Nazis behavior... The same cannot be said for religion of course. You can find stories of crimes in the media, that are only caused because of religion and without religion as a direct link, such crimes would never have happened.
It should also be noted, that there are statistically, far more religious people in prison than there are atheists, this is a statistical fact. But even here, a point is being missed. One could of course say that most of the religious people in prison, did not commit their crimes, because of the religion, but of course the same applies to the atheist inmates too. But one can say one thing for certain, the meta analysis, between the statistical numbers, suggests that the only reason that there are statistically more theist prisoners than atheist is exactly because of religion.
I said earlier, that morality really has nothing to do with religion or atheism. Well I now want to add a qualifier so this makes a little more sense. Now, although atheism does not directly make someone a more moral person than 'some' theists, there does seem to be an indirect reason why 'most' atheists are more moral than 'some' theists. The reason quite simply seems to be, that an atheist naturally, has not got the excess 'baggage' of mysticism beclouding their mind, which could possibly lead them into committing acts, which most individuals would consider to be less than human. In many such cases, such acts of violence are committed only because of a literal interpretation of scripture or they were, indirectly advised to commit such acts by priests of the Church.
So, the final point is that, humanity is naturally moral and when someone is behaving immorally, our human nature leads us to look for reasons. The simple fact is and I am absolutely convinced of this, if religion was taken out of the World, it would be a safer and more moral place to live in. It is only the excuse of religious dictates, that leads to crimes against humanity, that otherwise would not occur. Religion is often the catalyst, that allows for the most heinous crimes, including, suicide bombing, beheading, the severing of limbs and all kinds of torture. Now, most of these atrocities today, are of course done in the name of Islam and not Christianity or Judaism.... But, as long as religion remains a force in the world, then it always has the potential to lead to the worst in us and cut us of from our innate humanity.
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