Free Republic

Why does the President of the United States have enough time to write a book?

I think everyone has an innate sense of morality. Religion, it seems, kind of owns the word "moral". I'm not surprised that most Atheists would choose to avoid the word, just as I'm not surprised that most believers would think us incapable of possessing it.

The problem with atheism is that it is a religion of opposites or antis.

Ohio, your assumption is completely off-base. Atheism isn't about anti-faith, it's the complete lack of it. I'm not against your faith, I don't argue about faith, it's something that I pretty much pay absolutely no attention to. It's pretty shallow to assume that we've got to have some sort of materialistic view of the world. Honestly, that's a religious perspective. You've chosen to avoid materialism in favor of the ephemeral, but that doesn't make us utilitarian.

I apologize, I’m fairly new to FreeRepublic’s reply system. I should have replied to the original poster, but must’ve clicked the wrong link. I also wrote my last post late at night on my iphone...

I’d like to extend my thoughts on the subject a bit.

When we discuss the Conservative platform regarding “moral” issues, Conservative Atheists such as myself often maintain the same values but for different reasons.

Abortion:
I’m Pro-Life, not because I believe that everyone is born with a soul, but because I believe that it demeans society. When we allow abortion, we’re telling people that adult actions don’t have consequences. That responsibility can be ignored in favor of fulfilling your personal goals. It promotes selfishness and imprudence.

Further, I don’t believe that, in many cases, it’s really the woman’s decision. I believe that plenty of abortions occur because the would-be father convinces the mother into it either by persuasion or abandonment. I refuse to let men off the hook for their actions.

Finally, I don’t believe it’s necessary. Yes, I understand that there are medical reasons, cases of rape or what have-you that may make it necessary. But to me, the frequency of those cases are so rare that it doesn’t constitute full legalization.

The Death Penalty:
I believe killing is wrong, in any sense. Just as I refuse to support abortion, I can’t in good conscious support the death penalty.

When we speak of the right and wrong of killing, what we’re really talking about is justification. If someone breaks into my house and I shoot them, while my actions are justifiable, they are still wrong. Justification does not change the morality of an action. As a human being, I have to be willing to admit that I’m capable of committing evil just as much as good.

Christians will point to the Bible and say, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” meaning that the punishment shall not exceed the crime, therefore killing a killer is fair game. But it doesn’t make it right, it only defines a justifiable response.

Gay Marriage: Ok, so I’m to the left (apparently) on this one. I have no problem with gay marriage. If two consenting adults want to spend their lives together, it’s none of my business. I’ve never actually heard a solid argument against Gay Marriage that didn’t use religion as its core.

Ok, maybe I rambled a bit too much there, but I hope I was able to illustrate that an Atheist’s moral compass doesn’t differ too far from those of you with religious beliefs.

And for the record, I despise Carl Sagan and his ilk about as much as I do Pat Robertson.

I’m an athiest, and have been for about as long as I can remember. I can state unequivocably that it’s very possible to be a conservative without being religious.

I think it’s very difficult for a person of faith to identify with nonbelievers. More difficult, I think, than identifying with people of other religions. A person of any religion has a spiritual presence that defines life’s guidelines. So a Christian can look at a Hindu and at least say, “yeah, we’re on different teams.” whereas an Athiest isn’t even playing the game.

The assumption that an athiest can have no moral guidance is flat wrong. When you really think about it, there are as many varieties of Christianity as there are Christians. Every one has their own set of beliefs that, while mostly the same, vary slightly. Every religious person, in essence, decides the rules they want to follow according to their personal tastes.

And it’s so with athiests as well. We all have a different set of values that defines right and wrong. I don’t kill because it’s wrong to take a life. I don’t steal because it’s wrong to take from others. I don’t believe in heaven or he’ll, but I’m driven every day to make this world a better place for my children and theirs. I get no reward for my efforts in life other than knowing that my work will improve their lives. Frankly, that’s enough.

While the bible does a great job at outlining the rules for creating a successful society, these rules aren’t created by god, so much as enumerated by him.

In much the same way, the Declaration of Independance enumerates a few rights by stating that ‘all men are endowed by their creator...’ the point of that statement wasn’t so much to specify God as the grantee of our rights but to imply that our rights are transcendental, beyond the grasp of Government, and that no government has the right to infringe upon them.

Conservatism is not a faith nor does it require faith. It is a political ideology based on approaching issues with reason and temperance without getting trapped by emotion and guilt... Which come to think about it, kind of defines Athiesm as well.

This looks more like a hydrogen atom which has a single electron, and is pretty much representative of all nuclear technology (hence, H-Bomb) than a Muslim Crescent to me. But no, you’re right, they only want me to think that, it has got to be a signal to Obama’s Muslim buddies that he’s secretly disarming us so they can attack.

Did anyone run any code patterns against his speech the other day to see if he’s feeding Osama secret directions to the storehouse that will contain all of the uranium from the nukes we’re disarming? Like when he said, “As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system...” maybe he was actually saying, “Osama, go to the U-Store-It on Second Street, Boise, Idaho, locker 666, the combination is 1-2-3-4-5.”