[ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 198, Issue 4

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 4:53 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:


>    Then you are refusing to see it. The difference is blindingly obvlous.
> Religions have rules of behaviour, whole tomes explaining what kind of
> behaviour, dress, food, sexual practices, rituals, etc., are required or
> allowed (and which ones are 'sinful' and to be discouraged, in oneself and
> in others), and often horrifically graphic descriptions of what punishments
> await those who break the rules.
>
> Atheism has none of that. Religions give people *reasons* for being
> horrible to others.
>

### Turn the other cheek? Love thy neighbor as you love yourself? Thou
shalt not kill?

-------------------------


> Atheism doesn't.
> Nobody is violent, coercive, etc., *because* they are atheists, because
> there is a complete absence of those rules of behaviour, no prescriptions,
> no concept of 'sin' etc.
>

### Well, yes, if you don't believe you will be punished in an afterlife
for murdering your neighbor, you may be more inclined to do so, don't you
think?

-----------------------

>
> How can you possibly regard them as symmetric cases? They're as asymmetric
> as you can get!
>

### Oh, sure atheism and religion are not symmetric, since atheism is true
and religion is not. And religion commits many sins, like the jihad and the
auto-da-fe.

But still, atheism not leavened by humanism commits a sin of omission, it
lacks crucial ingredients needed for a society to work well.

Rafal
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