Richard Baker wrote:
Charlie said:
It seems to me that most of the atheists I know are just as ethical
as anyone else, and spend a lot of time thinking about social
responsibility and equality issues.
We have to spend a lot of time thinking about ethics because we're
unlucky enough not to know with absolute certainty from God Himself
that eating shellfish is an abomination(*) or that it's okay to keep
slaves as long as they're from other tribes or...
Atheists are ethical because they were raised in a religious culture and
have adopted the values of that culture while rejecting the religions
that were the source of those values. Put them in a nation or community
of other atheists where they can rear their children, grandchildren,
great-grandchildren and so forth with atheist values, and in not too
many generations they will all have painted faces, grass skirts, stone
tipped spears and be jumping around fires in the jungle after a meal of
human flesh.
Where do you think our primitive cultures came from? They are all
descended from higher cultures, descended from the drop outs and
"hippies" of prior civilizations. Do you suppose that the Maya are the
only illiterate natives descended from high culture? If we had the
written history to prove it, which we don't, we would find that
virtually all primitive cultures are like the Maya in that respect,
fallen from a higher culture.
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