Argument with an atheist

[CosmicJoghurt]

Honestly, you can't blame religion for making people evil -
if no Gods exist, then what's going on here? We're just blaming other humans for doing what humans are good at, and even then it's not the case in a majority of ways amongst people who actually hold that belief.

When I was a child I wasn't told to go out and stone homosexuals because that's a bad thing and things were different back then.
Did it take me until I was older to realize the problem with this logic? Yeah.
But even a kid can understand the difference between bad and good... Especially when it's explained that it's bad and that things don't work like that anymore.

Call it that sliver of hope I have for humanity in general.

It's not that religion makes people evil - it's that it gives them a deluded reason to think of something which is usually seen as wrong, being right. It gives nuts ground to work with. What it doesn't do is automatically turn rational, intelligent and compassionate human beings into evil beasts of horror! *dramatic music*

 

[Frenger]

Well this is a great topic, I like it.

Just to add (I'm kind of new here...hello) a study suggested that when people think of what god would say/think/do in a given situation (whatever that person interprets as god) they use the same part of the brain as they do when they think of their own perspectives. It was also shown that when that person tried to think of what they perceived a "common american"s" viewpoint it used a different part of the brain.

It was concluded that when thinking about gods attitude towards something either it becomes an echo centre which merely credits their own personal beliefs, or that that part of the brain could be the location of "morality"...whatever that might be. (disclaimer: there will be far more things involved in what could be called morality, however this was just one simplistic interpretation of the results)

I suppose the point is that with or without religion people will do terrible things. It may give people the encouragement to do it but this study suggests that we all have that capacity and we will give our self conviction in our actions. It seems very difficult to blame religions for anything, it's a man made construct (whether you believe in a god or not, the truth is we interpret many different texts in many different ways which we can only do as humans), it's people that do terrible things, luckily it is a minority but sometimes that minority gets in to a position of power.

Anyway, very interesting article http://www.pnas.org/content/106/51/21533.full