Atheism

- God who is the creator of the universe, who is interested in human affairs, and who should be worshiped. Existence of such a God would have effects in the physical universe and - like any other hypothesis - can be tested and falsified.
- we do not need religion to be good.would you commit
murder, rape or robbery if you knew that no God existed?
- Morality does not originate from the Bible,Bhagwat Geeta,Quran-e-shreef or Granth sahib.
- Religion is influencing society in other negative ways.
- Atheistic worldview is life-affirming in a way that religion, with its unsatisfying "answers" to life's mysteries, could never be.
-a definition of "universe" is "everything that exists anywhere" and the creator of the universe would have to already exist outside the universe he created . . . but there is nothing outside of everything that exists anywhere.
-Many theists think that the existence of god is a priori, hence the reason they often ask atheists to "disprove" his existence, not realising that there is no need to disprove something that has not actually been proven
-Reasonableness should be consider to be the primary intellectual virtue possible to man. And this leads to an interesting conclusion regarding atheism. The reasonable person, when examining religious claims, will be concerned only with the truth-value of those claims
-The important question is whether religion is ever the best force for good at our disposal. And I think the answer to this question is clearly “no”—because religion gives people bad reasons for being good where good reasons are available. Ask yourself which is better: going to Africa to feed the hungry because (1) you believe an invisible carpenter (who just happens to be the son of the creator of the universe) wants you to do it, or (2) because you feel moved to alleviate the suffering of your fellow human beings? (Sam Harris; to the Economist)

Golden Rule

The so-called Golden Rule can be summed up in : "Treat others as you want to be treated". It is generally acknowledged as a great statement by people who don't know any better, and never intend to follow it anyway. To those with the smallest understanding of morality, it is an absurd statement.

All moral principles must answer one simple question : "how should I judge an action ?". This is what we use the words "good" and "evil" for, regardless of our system or belief. The Golden Rule tells us that we should judge an action by equating our values to that of other people. But this is obvious nonsense ! A five year old understands that there are other people out there and that those people have different values than his own. Children who don't are autistic or suffer from mental retardation.

And the recognition that other people have different values is the basis of living peacefully in society. To deny it is dangerous insanity, even if it's for what seems a good cause. It's nice to think that we can apply our own standards on everyone else and live in a very simplistic world, and all live in complete and total harmony, but we don't and that's not how life works.

Is the Golden Rule practical ? No. It is widely acknowledged in game theory that tit-for-tat is the most optimal strategy, and the motor of cooperation in the animal kingdom, not the Golden Rule. An agent using the tit-for-tat strategy cooperates with others until provoked. When provoked, the agent must retaliate and then be quick to forgive. Likewise, we generally acknowledge that criminals (and other people who break the Trader Principle in society) must be punished in some way, in order to keep other agents from being harmed. We do not follow the Golden Rule.

A pervasive example of the Golden Rule these days is enforced self-help. It is assumed that one person's emotional life reflects that of everyone else, and that everyone naturally needs self-help in cases of disaster. But for some people, this attention runs counter to their own way of coping with disaster, and only makes their pain worse. The refusal to acknowledge individuality leads to even worse attitudes, such as "interpreting" a person's truthfulness based on their outpouring of emotions, creating prejudice and persecution.

This is psychologically problematic, for sure, but are there practical examples where the Golden Rule is obviously and uncontrovertibly evil ? Yes, in cases where we are confronted with radical differences in value systems. Cultural relativism would have us believe that, when confronted with absurd moral beliefs such as human sacrifice or female circumcision, we should be silent and accept them. The Golden Rule not only forces us to accept these beliefs, but that a morally retarded person is perfectly justified to impose those beliefs on us.