this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Atheism
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This is such a deeply disturbing viewpoint.
When someone says that a lack of religion leads to a lack of morality, what they're necessarily really saying is that they're so deeply sociopathic that they not only can't reason morally, but can't even envision the possibility of doing so. They're effectively stating outright that they can't even imagine arriving at sound moral judgments through the application of reason, empathy and concern for others, and that the only way they can even conceive of morality is as a set of rules laid down and enforced by some enormous daddy figure who's going to punish them if they break them.
It's astonishing really. And sobering.
I hear this over and over but I don't think it's universally true.
For me, when I was still a believer, I thought and said (at one point) that religion was needed for morality only because I didn't think too hard (as is true for many religious folk) and also because if people could be decent and moral without religion it called into question some fundamental tenets of Christianity.
At some point not long after I said this to someone, who called me out on it, I realized this idea was stupid and was easily disproven by the many good, non-religious people I knew. That was one of many realizations on my path to deconversion.
Another was encountering religious people who seemed not to have any empathy (or who had been brainwashed into having none). So probably some make that claim who are sociopaths. Anyway I was horrified by some of the statements and attitudes and that prompted further thinking.
You said "this isn't true" but then went on to agree with the other comment. Just sayin'.
No, they said that someone could believe that morality without religion is impossible not because they are a sociopath, but rather because they haven't thought "too hard about it.".