Atheists have moral reflections too »
Posted By idyll 6 months ago in ReligionI've always enjoyed Thought for the Day (TFTD), that two-minute spot in the middle of Radio 4 's Today programme , which seems to be a brief respite from the hard news, and a chance for someone to give moral or ethical reflections on current events. The trouble is that only religious speakers are invited. Rabbis, priests, imams, chaplains, and monks are there, but never humanists, agnostics, or atheists.
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idyll
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oneironaut4206 months ago
The article is pretty good, but what I found most interesting were the comments below the article. Almost immediately I could tell I wasn't reading comments posted by Americans, as there was a serious lack of Locky-like smugness. By that, I mean nobody was wielding their belief like a weapon and posting antagonistic platitudes like, "God believes in you whether you believe in him or not" or "I'll pray that God turns you away from atheism". It was refreshing to see relatively rational, calm discourse over such a "hot" topic as religion...something the religious fundamentalists here make impossible. 8(
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cloud156 months ago
There are plenty of smug religious people but there are also plenty of smug atheists. I have no problem with someone expressing their belief or non-belief in a higher power. But when people start telling other people that their beliefs are childish and nothing but fairy tales I find that insulting, and most of the time it happens with a smug tone behind it.
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Dionys6 months ago
"The trouble is that only religious speakers are invited. Rabbis, priests, imams, chaplains, and monks are there, but never humanists, agnostics, or atheists."
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Maybe because there's no solid model or common frame of ethics or morality among atheists.
If atheists want in on religious commentary, then they have to once and for all admit that they're a religion based on the pure faith that they alone know the ultimate truth of the universe and that everyone else is wrong, has been wrong for millennia and will continue to be wrong.-
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Tangent0016 months ago
Moral and ethical reflections are not necessarily 'religious commentary'. That's the point of the article.
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ForrestPhelps6 months ago
To Dionys:
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If I may paraphrase your last paragraph:
"If [insert your religion here] want in on [this] commentary, then they have to once and for all admit that they're a religion based on the pure faith that they alone know the ultimate truth of the universe and that everyone else is wrong, has been wrong for millennia and will continue to be wrong."
So, if we use your own standards, the end result will be that no one talks, since once any religion falls back on the "you must believe" logic, that ends the discussion.
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FrauBlucherComment removed: User banned.10 Replies
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Tangent0016 months ago
From Creature Comforts (paraphrased):
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"I think everyone who looks in the mirror puts on their 'mirror face' before they look." -
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memestryker6 months ago
Moral reflections are not religious in nature. They are cultural (and religion is a cultural phenomenon), and may or may not have a "religious" connotation, depending on the cultural folklore.
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Charlson6 months ago
I've argued for years that atheists are just as moral or evil as anyone who follows a religion. And the religious who excludes and condemns atheists aren't avery moral at all. Morals are defined as: "of or concerned with judgement principles of right and wrong in relation to human action and character." And no where in the entire definition was there a reference to religion being a prerequisite to morality.
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moxxxxxxxxxx6 months ago
The non believers tend to intellectualize by using man-made theories to contradict religion and faith beliefs. Memestryker shows us a perfect example of sociological theory describing religion as a cultural phenomenon. I don't know any intellectuals, who claim to be un-religious, who were not influenced (mostly negatively) by some form of religion. The problem is that the majority of people do not mature to a high level of moral development. A level of high moral development indicates a thorough understanding of the relationship between science and the unknown- and a respect for the role religion has played in creating the good in all societies. Simply arguing against it because it cannot be founded on scientific principles is more about a personal inability to tolerate ambiquity and the unknown.
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