Atheist the moral minority, really? How can it be?!

Alright, just wanted to see what some other people think in here about this. Supposedly according to some ‘statistics’ atheist make of very little of the prison population compared to other groups (said to be the smallest). There are a couple other ‘facts’, but what do you people think?

I know some say atheist can’t be moral, but that is a huge misconception. I’m one of the most moral people I know, almost all my friends are believers, however sad that may be. I do what is right because it is the good thing to do not because I need to impress my god or want something out of it.

Oh yeah, I just heard those statistics, I’m not passing them off as 100%. Not like I believe in statistics anyways, most seem to be far off. If anybody can shed a little more light on the subject that would be great, I will do some research later.

As far as I’m concerned, I think we are. Doing what you know is right, because you know it is, and doing something out of fear for being prosecuted later on are very different.

Ever hear the saying “There are no atheists in foxholes?”

lots of people “find god” in prison

Nope, never heard that before. I did figure that which is why I said what I did. Most statistics don’t seem to be very accurate, more of a very rough estimate. People use religion to get back on track when in prison, or so I’m told. I’m guessing that would have significance in this particular statistic.

Atheists are typically well educated white men with decent incomes too. They’re probably also a minority in the prisson population.

More statistics.

Others may choose to not admit being atheists for fear of reprisals. Others, and unknown percentage of the prison population, are liars. Without the proper incentive there is no way to know if the results of any survey are based on truthful responses.

So what was your point about less atheists (presumably) in prisons? Aren’t there less atheists outside of prisons too?

yes
i consider myself to be a good moral person despite not believing in creationism i don’t believe morality is part of religion for me its quite separate i am a good person by choice not fear of hell

religion trys to enforce morality through fear.

I always say that if there aren’t any atheists in foxholes it’s because all of the wars are sectarian.
:smiley:

Yeah, I did recognize that. That was not supposed to be the focal point of the post/ thread.

Yes, I imagie so.

That does seem to be the case a lot of the time.

Yeah, im sick and tired of getting mean looks when i tell people i’m atheist. From my personal experience, atheists are usually nicer (not trying to offend anyone). I consider myself to have much better moral values than most people too (not trying to sound stuck up there). The moral values in religions that i see as good ones seem to be commonly overlooked while the ones that don’t make much sense seem to be more common and more strictly preached.

There does seem to be some prejudice thoughts toward us by a lot of the public. Like last night at the orthodontist, the lady made a remark about my gauged ears. The conversation went on and eventually came to her saying, some think you can’t go to heaven with them or things like that which is why they do not like them. I just said well I guess that might be true, but I don’t believe there is one, this was met with a rather strange look almost as if I said something crazy. Not that I really mind though. I think many believe if your an atheist you hate god and do anything you want just for the hell of it.

im not an atheist but i do agree, if christians would focus on their behavior instead of trying to convert people there would be more christians:p

the same goes for every belief or non belief you can imagine.
the real problem is that people go after the packaging not the content (so even being labeled “atheist” is no guarantee whatsoever).
that reminds me something that happened to me some months ago.

I was in a crowded bus and in front of me there was a young (thirty something) pious young man …
how did I knew: he was reading avidly his sacred book. His lips were moving as he was trying to let every sacred word go into him.
there were old people standing in the aisle … so a voice boomed :
“please could some people let the aged people get a seat!”
some people stood up but not the pious young man: he was so absorbed in his sacred book …
and he remained seated until the end … all in his dreams of goodness and paradise … ready to spread the good word!

Perhaps he was disabled in some way not readily apparent to you, oh one so ready to judge. :wink:

Well, I’m an atheist. I’m lucky, because I live in the UK, where atheists are generally regarded as amiable eccentrics. In may countries in the world I would be subject to the death penalty for simply expressing my opinion.

But atheists aren’t inherently better people than religionists. Some atheists are complete pains in the posterior (US = ass;) ).

Most religious believers are good decent people who happen to embrace a religion that is widely accepted in their own community.

It is no coincidence that the children of Christians are more likely to believe that Christ is the son of God than the children of Hindus. Similarly, it is no coincidence that the children of Hindus are unlikely to grow up believing that Allah is the merciful God and that Mohammed is his prophet.

If religion were based on rational analysis of the facts, you would expect roughly similar proportions of people around the world to come to the same conclusion, whatever their upbringing.

But within their religious communities, religionists may be good, bad or indifferent. We atheists enjoy pointing the finger at religious hypocrites, but we ought to be fair enough to admire people who use their faith as a basis for a life in which they do considerable good.

The only thing that might give atheists a slight “edge” in the moral stakes is that it takes a special effort of thought and careful consideration to reach the atheist point of view. In the UK, most people are “by default” Christians, even if they don’t really believe it all that much. Deciding to “come out” as an atheist does take a certain amount of moral courage, or possibly just bravado.

I believe that people who believe in religion are mistaken, but that does not make them bad people. Those who use it as a basis for absurd, violent, and irrational behaviour are deluded, and sometimes evil. There have been evil atheists too.

If politics were based on rational analysis of the facts, you would expect roughly similar proportions of people around the world to come to the same conclusion, whatever their upbringing (???)

I guess we have the same proportion of Atheists as apolitical people.

But other than that, politics is not based on a rational analysis.

If science were based on a rational analysis of the facts, we’d have similar proportion of creationists as we do evolutionists

The religious are more likely to do evil IMHO

I can’t abuse children, or kill people for money, because I would feel like crap, and believe I had done a shameful thing, that never could be put right.

But all sins are forgivable in religion. There is no special distinction between child rape, and having been born a sinner of a child. The unsaved virtuous will burn, while the serial murder rapist rot head, who asks forgiveness shall go to heaven.

It’s hard to believe that, and yet we must explain why child molesters were sheltered by Bishops (if they were repentant priests ), and sent through a series of churches, raping children in every one, with the full knowledge of the Pope that this was policy. Jesus forgave their sin each time, making it OK to send them secretly to the next church. A tradition many centuries old. :astonished:

Born of war, these religions were. A way to make it intellectually exceptable to destroy the innocents in other lands.

In my country (USA), the Christians are at the vanguard of those who elected George the war monger. They are the first to cry "nuke the Iranians " !

I’m not an atheist. I don’t know there is no god. Just that all the people that really believe the christian, jewish, hindu, muslim, mormon, “the all mighty wrote our book”, crap, are stupid IMHO. Just plain can’t think away from the guiding crowd, plain stupid.

I’m not worried about offending anyone, the objects of my mental scorn won’t read this far into a thread that might hurt their head trying to understand.:wink:

It is a fact that the lower you go on the scale of mental power, low education, low income, smoking, wife beating, time spent in prison, and low IQ, the greater the percentage that believe in a holy book.

Non belief peaks with noble prize prize winners, followed by academy of science members, and the percent of “holy bookers” increases as education level declines. The "bible belt " states have lower income, higher teen pregnancy, fewer graduates, and vote for Bush because he doesn’t confuse them with big words. Karl Rove (key Bush adviser) figures out how to get the monkey elected. Rove is an atheist. Religious hacks get all the unimportant jobs, like FEMA head.

The only state that breaks the trend is Utah. Perhaps everything in the book of mormon is divine truth. Utah (a mormon majority state), bucks the trend by doing rather well by objective standards.

My theory is that the smart men married a dozen of the best woman each, and the dumb guys got lost and died walking across the desert to Utah. Or perhaps drinking really does wreck families and destroy brain cells. :thinking:

Despite the odd state, or creative christian, the general trend is clear. Even the religious agree with me on this one. Ask any holy book christian why a muslim believes in the Koran, they will tell you (on the side), it’s because those people are stupid. And of course, the hindu and muslim has an identical opinion that their favorite sacred book makes perfect sense, and that christians are blighted retards. So the vast majority of holy bookers actually agree with me.

All holy book people have the same philosophy. That only one book can be trusted, and you need someone to explain it to you every week. It is a very stupid idea, that at it’s core states that there is nothing to be gained by reading two books and comparing them yourself. That is why the stupid almost always believe that they were raised with the right book. It is to hard for them to think about it, so they don’t. Or can’t.

To bad I say. This old world has plenty of troubles that we won’t solve arguing theologies answers about how to move on to the next one.

Well, I’m athiest.
and I kill people, so Mr. Bob your logic is off.

Chase

That reminds me of the verse in the bible where it says if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night, she has to be stoned to death.