Archy writes:
I'm just stating that there is nothing in atheism that would make it wrong for a person to do harm.
The familiar creationist claim that atheism is a religion just like any other religion is oft-refuted, and that atheism has no system of morals is yet another reason why atheism is not a religion. Atheism is a lack of belief, so of course there's "nothing in atheism that would make it wrong for a person to do harm." That's because it's not a religion, neither is it a system of morals. It's a rejection of the possibility of the existence of God.
The belief that we should not do other people harm isn't within atheism but within atheists, as it is within most people. This belief is there whether you're religious or not.
Christianity has rules about not harming other people, but all the evidence tells us that Christians are quite free to obey or disobey these rules. They both obey and disobey them all the time. Being a Christian apparently doesn't make a person any more or less likely to refrain from harming other people. Given that atheists as a group tend to be more educated than the general population, and given that education level is negatively correlated with criminality, atheists as a group probably commit fewer crimes than Christians, measured on a percentage basis, of course. What does that tell us about the value of Christian morals?
Most people do not need a list of rules to tell them what is right and wrong. If Christian morality is all that is keeping you from raping and pillaging then I say thank God for Christianity, but most people's morals come from within, including Christians. For instance, most American Catholics have little problem disobeying the Pope on birth control. That birth control is not morally wrong is something they feel from within themselves. And that harming anothers
*is* morally wrong is something they also feel within themselves, and if the Bible said it was okay to harm others (which arguably it does) then they would likely reject that, too.
--Percy