Letters to the Editor
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Misunderstanding Atheism
Atheism isn't a moral belief system in competition with Christianity. Atheism isn't an ethical code. Atheism is simply the refusal to "believe" in some rather outlandish stories of supernatural occurences which form the basis of most of the world's religions. Atheism is a very specific example of what's sometimes more commonly described as "common sense", "reason", or "sanity".
If I told you I had superpowers, if, for example I said "I can fly like superman", you [hopefully] would not believe me, provided you are a grownup. You'd recognize that my claim is at odds with everthing human beings have so far learned about how the universe seems to work. If I couldn't prove my superpowers in any way, you'd be right to not believe in them. This, is what atheism is. It's refusing to turn off your BS detector when confronting the "sacred".
Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, et al may or may not have been atheists but to blame atheism for their moral failings is nonsense. It's entirely possible for one to recognize Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Santaria, and plain old superstition are all unified by their dependence on hokum and nonsense, and still be a total asshole. Let's go back to my superpowers example. Let's say I tell a serial killer that I can fly, and he doesn't believe me. Then he kills 25 people in the worst way imaginable. Does this mean I can fly? Does this mean that disbelief in my powers of flight is in any way responsible for murder?
Bad things are done when people don't follow the golden rule, or some equivalent of it. I for one don't want to be treated badly by others because it's miserable. If I treat others well, I'll more likely be treated well in return. When I see others treated poorly, I tend to empathise with their situation and I "feel" bad. When I help someone out, I "feel" good because I can empathise with their happiness. I find that when people are open and generous with each other, life it better, and when people are cruel and vicious, it tends to suck. This is a morality based on the real world. It's quite simple. I find such morality far more reassuring than those based on the often self-contradictory, ignorant, sexist, homophobic, hateful, and largely apocryphal ravings of the ancient lunatics and liars that founded the worlds religions.
I disagree with Karen Armstrong in that I don't think the major religions of the world add anything of great value to discussions of morality, and it's possible to live a full and wonderous life without paying the slightest heed to any of them. This isn't intollerance. I don't think Gilgamesh or Star Wars are crucial to one's life either.
I also believe she is mistaken when she defends Christianity et al claiming that they aren't meant to be taken literally. She may want to read them as symbolic, and she may discover things of great worth in doing so, but she should be honest about how in so doing she is picking and chosing and ignoring things that by their own definitions, are supposed to be absolute. She may want to honestly examine why she's so desperate to cling to these "holy" texts, and yet so quick to interpret them against their own exhortations when they say things that she finds repugnant. Karen, you're so close to common sense...just let them go.
Finally, I am not suprised at all by the statistical correlation between those who describe themselves as religious and those who believed attacking Iraq was a good idea. Belief in religion is indicative of irrational thought. Straight up.