Eyes wide shut: A response to Atheism no smarter than Christianity

THIS paper refutes claims made in the article Atheism no smarter than Christianity by Learnmore Zuze (hereinafter referred to as the author). Using logical arguments, research findings and facts; it shows that the article is demonstrably fallacious and highlights the dearth of knowledge concerning secularism and objective morality. For those who have not read the article by Learnmore Zuze, it is available here: http://www.newzimbabwe.com/columns-21370-Atheism+no+smarter+than+Christianity/columns.aspx

1) WITHOUT a Supreme Being (God) to account to, and in the absence of an ultimate authority in the universe, it logically follows that human beings are their own masters and a law unto themselves. In fact, more graphically, it translates to this: the wicked massacres of defence-less citizens by the wicked regimes of this world; the wanton rape; the abuse of the innocent; the senseless genocides and the numerous injustices witnessed over the centuries will be perfectly in place as there is no answerability and, consequently, no judgment.

This is a claim against objective morality, apropos, without a deity we would all be murderers and/rapists. However, religion is not a moral system or even a system based on justice. It is a system of authority. Whatever the god-figure decrees is correct, the moral repercussions notwithstanding. In no other sphere would an edict to stone a person to death or sacrifice ones own child in a sanguinary ritual be tolerated.

Religion justifies macabre acts using arguments from authority. We do not get our morality from religion; religion gets its morality from us. Nobody needs the Ten Commandments to know that killing is wrong. We have an innate sense of what is wrong and what is right which predates any born again experience. We know better than to stone people for working on the Sabbath or committing adultery even though religious texts demand it.

The absence of a divine supervisor does not preclude human compassion and empathy. In fact, the entire human understanding of law, justice and accountability is grounded in secular thinking. Objective morality is based on human desire for the highest attainable states of good. We make our own laws, draw up our own constitutions and enforce our own edicts; the era of the superstitious being the regulator of human conduct is far behind us.

However, as the author himself alludes to, the Old Testament of the Christian Bible is an orgy of macabre acts done because of and not in spite of religion. Religion does not prevent the morally repugnant. In fact, it often requires and justifies it; prompting talk-show host Bill Mahers dicta that the period in which religious thinking formulated public morality is still rightly referred to as the Dark Ages.

2) Atheism, by rejecting the existence of God, is nothing but a secreted way of propping up lawlessness, anarchy and transgression in the universe.

The author acknowledges that atheism is the rejection of the notion that a god exists then goes on to counter that claim by stating that it is a way of propping up lawlessness and anarchy. Atheism is just the rejection of one notion: theism. It says nothing about whether one is a pacifist, anarchist, environmentalist or any other such taxonomy.

However, as a response to that mistaken yet commonly held view, reference must be made to those countries where secularism has taken root and atheists are the vast majority of the population. The Scandinavian countries, Japan and Iceland are notable examples of countries in which secularism has taken root and religious people are in the minority. These countries are not synonymous with lawlessness and transgression as the author would seem to imply. In fact, they consistently rank amongst the top performers on scores of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality.

On the other hand, the bottom 50 countries on the Unites Nations Human Development Index are consistently and unwaveringly religious. This does not mean secularism leads to greater prosperity or even more sustainable development and this may well be correlation without causation. However, it does refute the outrageous claim that atheism is an appeal to lawlessness and transgression; a claim further compounded by data recently revealed by Google showing that the majority of countries in the top ten of porn-searching countries are religious states.

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Eyes wide shut: A response to Atheism no smarter than Christianity