Morality question for atheists and agnostics?

Question

Is it moral to try and free religious people from the prison of their mind? I'm not sure its a moral obligation.

If we were alive 3000 years ago would we be trying to free people who believe that the sun is God? Would we be in ancient Greece trying to convince people that Zeus isn't real?

If we were in Zion, would we have a moral obligation to go to free people from the Matrix? What if they are happy and content in the Matrix?

What if Christians are happy believing that God made Adam and eve, and if we convince them that human evolved from common ancestor it turns them into miserable persons and resentful to those who brainwashed them.

Should we just let them be and take comfort in our own freedom of thought?

Answer 1

Though it is a bit like pissing into the wind, I think when someone attempts to liberate them from their mental prison you are doing the world a favor in two ways:
1) you are helping them even if they don't appreciate it.
2) you are taking one more soldier away from a truly despicable mindset.

I've just about given up on trying to get people to change. Younger people are easier to get to, but even some of them are stubborn and afraid to think for themselves.
Instead I'm going for the attack, harass and intimidate method. Even if it's not effective at least I feel like I'm doing something. As pointless as it might be.

Answer 2

No. Although it is true that religion sometimes does more harm than good, we cannot ignore the psychological necessity of belief in religion for some people. If these people are compelled to do go and avoid evil purely because of a belief in an eventual day of judgment, then we should let them be. After all, if you took away their belief system, who knows whether respect for human life alone would be enough to keep them reigned in.

I think some minds just need that supernatural explanation to make sense of their own lives. Without it, they fall into hope and despair. The only reason I bother to argue with these people at all is that some of them become so attached to the worldview supplied by their faith that they actually become oppressive or belligerent towards those who disagree.

Of course, I don't think we have to be afraid of "breaking" these people and turning them into miserable, resentful people if we argue with them about the origin of species or the inconsistency of the Bible, etc... In most cases, they are psychologically incapable of admitting the existence of any flaws in their faith. To do so would bring their whole world crashing down. Their defense mechanism in and of itself will "protect" them from intellectually admitting anything that would put their faith at risk.

All the same, it doesn't pay to not argue at all. Tolerance of intolerance isn't always tolerance. Take the Puritans, for example. They took advantage of the religious tolerance in this country only to turn around and become supremely intolerant, burning "witches" at the stake and performing other acts of barbarism in the name of "personal choice". There are certain "personal choices," namely those that harm others, that should not be permitted, even if they are based upon dearly held religious beliefs.

In the end, it would be nice if everyone would adopt a less tribalistic view of "god" and a broader acceptance of all humans, regardless of their faith, ethnicity, gender, national origin, or sexual orientation, so I won't stop arguing against those who try to discriminate against others for any of those reasons, but I'm not holding my breath.

Answer 3

I think it may be immoral to take people out of the Matrix. I don't believe in a higher power, and I actually believe morals are made up, but that also means there is no other reason to free people than that it is fun or makes me happy. No, this is all free range, man, we just do what we want. We should quit posturing as moral authorities (unless that is just one of our tools). We are not doing the right thing trying to wake people up. There is no right thing.

Answer 4

Let them believe and be happy if that's what they truly believe. But if the only reason they believe is because of blind faith or fear of eternal damnation, then they deserve to be presented with a choice.

How can people choose to stay in the Matrix if they are not aware that they are in the Matrix in the first place? They deserve the fairness of weighing both options and making the choice for themselves.

WWND
what would neo do

Answer 5

You're absolutely right. It should make no difference to us whether or not someone wants to embrace a fantasy and live a life of fear, desiring nothing more than to please an invisible man.

However, many of these people think that their fantasies give them license to perpetuate suffering, wage war, and strip others of basic human rights.

The fact is that the President of the US "speaks to god" and makes decisions that affect billions of people around the world based on his interpretations of what this deity wants.

Imagine for a moment that instead of "god," he admitted that he were speaking to a genie that he keeps in a bottle under the bathroom sink. All of a sudden he becomes a madman unfit to be Superintendent of Schools in Bumblefark, West Virginia.

Well, I've got news for you. It's the exact same thing. The most powerful man in the world allows the whims of an imaginary being to affect the lives of the rest of us. Unfortunately for all of us, these whims seem to focus on bloodshed, intolerance, and fear.

The problem is not their prison of the mind, it's that their prison expands and threatens to contain us all.

Answer 6

Personally, let them live in their own little, misguided world. They're also free to believe that the Earth is flat and that the Sun revolves around the Earth. That's fine. So long as they don't bring their hateful BS to me, I'll let them be.

If they want to thoughtfully discuss our respective beliefs, I'm game for that too, so long as I don't have to hear any thumping and that the discussion is intelligent, thoughtful, and mutually respectful.

Great movie - The Matrix... However, it doesn't quite fit your question because those people freed themselves from their imprisonment. You don't always see a Christian doing that... suddenly waking up to realize that the world they've been living in is a false one. Amazing concept, but extremely RARE.

Just some food for thought.

Answer 7

It's not that I feel a moral obligation - I just have a problem with ignorance. This is complicated, especially when dealing with a fundamentalist of any religion, in that their blind faith prevents them from any kind of critical thought. While there are people of faith who actually contemplate their beliefs and have doubts, fundamentalists are not burdened with such complexities. Whether it is Christian fundamentalists in the US, Jewish fundamentalists in Israel, or the Islamic fundamentalists peppered throughout the Islamic world, they are convinced of their righteousness and the ultimate truth of their beliefs. They will not - can not - accept anything that contradicts their belief system. They, like former US President Ronald Reagan, do not want to be burdened with facts.

Answer 8

well, in the past if we tried to convince people that god, or whatever deity or deities of their choosing didn't exist, we would probably be killed. no i don't think we have a moral obligation to convince them of what we see as the truth, that is the way Christians think. supposedly atheists are supposed to be more open minded, so if we want people to leave us alone in our beliefs, we should do the same. though i would probably reconsider this view if someone close to me was being hurt or inhibited strongly by their beliefs.

and this is of course assuming their beliefs are not hurting or inhibiting anyone else.

Answer 9

Hello "Socrates", since you mentioned Greeks, I write the following, in order to show that Greeks were not beleiving in gods, they were creating their gods in order to explain certain ideas, it is like giving names to the ideas, or at the beggining to phenomena!
Of course, you are correct, none should try to influence a free person!
Primitive people not able to understand physical phenomena called them gods.
In ancient Greece, they started naming gods the ideas behind the physical phenomena.
Initially people understood matter, thus the created Gaea (something like Earth, or mass - matter) and Uranus (something like Universe, Sky, Energy).
Then they replaced them, since they understood the importance of time, by Rhea (Goddess meaning who moves and changes) and Cronus (God of time - within time everything starts and finishes).
When they became wiser, the Greeks created ZEUS (the one who unites and brakes everything, since life and Universe is a continuous change and transformation of items and particles. For example some are born from the union of two, like most animals, water is the combination of Hydrogen and Oxygen, etc. And by braking, like persons from family, multiplication of amoebae, from ore we get single metal and other products.
Since not all the people were ready to accept ONE principle, they were present Zeus in different phases, so we have the different gods, like:
Hera, Athena, Artemis, Hestia, Hephaestus, Ares, Apollo, Hermes, etc.
Going back to time, before some authors wrote and distinguished the gods and their "properties", all of them were Zeus!

Answer 10

I could care less if you pray to the Sun, a God, or Joe Pesci. I just don't want the religious right throwing their beliefs in my face and trying to turn it into law.