Christina here…

This video has been floating around Twitter all day, and I feel it is my duty to respond to it.

The video is: The Evil of Atheism: The Video Atheists DO NOT want you to see! (Buddhism and Christianity) and is produced by a guy called “Daniel, Man of Reason”.

I want you to see it. Here you go:

Here we go with some analysis!

Daniel: an atheist might object to the idea that atheism is evil. After all, atheism does not proscribe a moral code. Yet that is exactly the problem.

Right. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods, just like theism is a belief in gods. Neither atheism nor theism proscribe a moral code: we get our moral codes from somewhere other than the mere proposition that god(s) exist or do not exist.

I could say the same thing about theism. Theism does not proscribe a moral code. Carry on, Daniel…

Daniel: Since atheism has no moral code, those who embrace it can be as evil as they wish without any contradiction to their worldview.

Yeah, and since theism has no moral code either, those who embrace theism can be as evil as they wish too.

Daniel: a moral code describes what should, or ought to be. Saying a person ought to behave in a certain way implies that someone designed us in the world with a certain purpose in mind.

Shenanigans, Daniel. Maybe someone ought to behave in a certain way so they can be a productive and useful member of society. That doesn’t imply that someone designed people with a purpose in mind, it only implies that our society values things like the ability to be productive. Maybe someone ought to behave in a certain way so they can avoid going to prison or breaking the laws of the land. That doesn’t imply someone designed people with a purpose in mind, either. Only if, “A person ought to behave in accordance with the purpose that person was designed for” implied that someone designed us in the world with a certain purpose in mind. In other words, you’ve got some unstated premises that lead to this implication.

Daniel: God is the only source for objective morality. If there is no god, then there is no morality. Nothing is really good or evil in that case.

Citation needed re: god being the only source of objective morality.

God can’t be the source of objective morality. Objective morality is morality that exists freely outside of a conscious entity. Objective morality is “mind-independent”. A morality you get from a god can’t be objective – if morality were objective, your god would have to get his morality from someplace outside his mind. If god is the only source of your morality, you’ve pretty much defined your morality as non-objective. If morality can’t exist without your god, then you’re digging yourself into an even deeper subjective hole. Good job.

Daniel: Therefore, since the atheist rejects the very source of goodness, he rejects goodness itself.

Wouldn’t that also apply to any theist who rejects your god? Also, you said god was the source of morality. Now he;s the source of goodness, too? Citation needed. I predict some more presuppositionalist b.s. to follow…

Daniel: In Mark 10:17-18, “A man came to Jesus calling him ‘good master’ and Jesus’ reply was, ‘why do you call me good? Only god is good.'” An action cannot be good on its own, nor can a person be good, in and of himself. It is god who is good, and when our actions are done in accordance with his will, only then are those actions good.

So… you can pretty much do whatever you want and call it good, so long as you believe god told you to do it. If god’s will is for you to kill your family by burning their faces with acid, then your actions are good. Gotcha. This is better than atheism how?

Daniel: Therefore, an atheist cannot perform any actions which can be called “good”. He has no morally “good” intentions because to him, there is no good

I see. Murdering your family by burying them alive = good, if god told you to do it. Volunteering at a soup kitchen = can’t possibly good, because you’re an atheist.

Daniel: There is simply no such thing as an atheist who is a good person.

In your worldview, there is also no such thing as a theist who believes in a different god than you who is a good person. Also, everything you do is good, because you said so. I understand now.

Daniel: So, now you can clearly see tat atheism is not only the rejection of a god, but it is the rejection of goodness itself.

Nope. I don’t clearly see. I do clearly see that your arguments are based on the presupposition that your god is good and his (subjective) morality is all good.

Daniel: If there is no god, then where does the goodness of an atheist come from? It comes from the society he lives in.

Like you’re in any better boat.

Daniel: It is nothing more than the majority opinion and in this case, morality loses all meaning because it is then pure subjective preference.

Actually most atheists I know (at least in the USA) do not simply blindly follow the majority opinion. We have complex, well thought out moral systems. I’m sorry morality is complicated and can’t be explained in a few trite sentences, but that’s just how it is.

Daniel: Once a person decides that morality is subjective, they have set up the perfect conditions for evil actions.

Once a person decides that god gives them their morality and that they can only do good when following their god, then any action can be rationalized as good. Which sets up the perfect conditions for evil actions, as all actions are seen as good. See, your morality isn’t based on actions at all – only on what god says.

If my husband beat the shit out of me every day and my friends told me what an evil asshat he is, what if my response was, “Oh no. My husband is a good man. He is good. He beat me because I deserve it. All the good in my life comes from him and he is the source of good” would you think I was being rational? No. You wouldn’t. Not because he is human but because the evidence of his actions is contrary to the idea that he is all good. Yet god sends a hurricane down to wipe out a small town and he’s the good guy. If god is good no matter what, it doesn’t matter what horrible atrocities he commits. You’ll always find a way to rationalize those atrocities as good. Usually we decide if a person is good based on evidence, especially evidence of his actions and character. But it doesn’t matter what your god does, how much of a horrible bastard he is: he’s still the source of good.

That’s fundamentally sick.

Daniel: Think of a serial killer. what is the perfect worldview for him. If he feels an intense desire to kill and simultaneously feels that he can invent his own morality, what is to stop him? The answer is: nothing.

Funny how I don’t know of many atheist serial killers. A serial killer who feels the intense desire to kill could also rationalize that god told him to kill. Maybe he will rationalize that if god is all good and god does not want him to kill, that god will stop him from killing. What’s to stop him? He could also rationalize that god will forgive him one day because he believes really hard.

Daniel: For an atheist, there is no afterlife and therefore, no ultimate justice.

Which is why we work for justice here and now. We can’t depend on some god to do it for us.

Daniel: The Buddha said in Dhammapada 176 that a person who does not believe in the afterlife is capable of all manner of evil.

Christina said on the WWJDT blog: a person who believes his god is all good is capable of all manner of evil.

Daniel: If an atheist decides to reject the majority opinion and he knows that he can escape the authorities, then there is absolutely nothing holding him back from evil acts

Sure, he he hasn’t passed the pre-conventional stage of moral development.

Daniel: Why should he go along with society’s opinion? It’s arbitrary.

Wait, I thought you said it as subjective?

Daniel: Atheism guarantees evil.

Xenophobic much?

Daniel: Atheists only comply with society’s moral code as a pretense. It is just their selfish desire to fit in with the majority. They don’t actually believe good and evil exists.

We’re so selfish. Which is why we disagree with the moral majority so much of the time, especially in the US.

Daniel: If the majority began to adopt evil as a social norm, the atheist would be singing the beauty of those morals. They only support Judaeo-christian morals to appease the Christian majority.

Fuck you, Daniel. I’ve spent most of my adulthood fighting evil, fighting oppression, fighting wrongness. If the majority, for example, decided to re-adopt slavery, you better believe 99.9% of the atheists out there would fight tooth and claw to end it. Also, what do you have to say about countries in which Christianity isn’t the majority? What about Sweden, Denmark, Japan, France, and all of those other countries in which atheists are the majority? I don’t see any rampant evil. Where’s your proof?

You don’t have any, because your arguments aren’t based on evidence: they are based on faith and atheophobia.

Daniel: Western society has been shaped over the course of centuries by the teachings of Christ.

Who oddly enough, got the basic question of morality wrong: is it okay to enslave other people. Western civilization is also shaped by secularism, and all of the progress I have seen in the past centries toward positive morality haven’t been started by theists. They hopped on the bandwagon after we dragged them kicking and screaming.

Daniel: and the world would fall into great darkness if ever atheism took hold of it.

What would you count as atheism “taking hold” of the world? Like.. Sweden? DEAR ME LOOK AT THE EVIL THERE. Everybody is killing everybody else in these predominantly atheist nations ZOMG. Also, this argument applies to anyone who worships any god other than yours, I noticed.

This kind of thinking can and does lead to evil. If atheists are so ultra-evil, pure evil beings, isn’t it your duty to stomp us out of existence? It should at least be your duty to be totally intolerant of us.

Daniel: in fact, this is what they are working towards right now.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! …oh, did I laugh evil like that out loud?

Daniel: If they can succeed in eliminating religion then society will inevitably drift away from Christian love, and into the darkness which is atheism.

….

Well, that was informative.

Learn more about Christina and follow her @ziztur.