Do Atheists care about other people's good, or just their own?

Question

Look people, this is a simple question. I'm not trying to put anyone down, I'm just trying to figure out whether they are really being put down by Christians and why if they are, or if the whole 'discrimination' thing is just propaganda to turn attention away from important things. OK?

Answer 1

My wife is an atheist, and she makes coffee about 50% of the time, so I suppose there's some shred of caring left in her.

Answer 2

This has been asked a hundred times! Grrr! Here's the answer I gave before:
I'm not an Atheist, but I am Pagan I do have a thought about this.
Your reasoning only works if you assume that every person lives with the idea that the only reason to do the right thing is fear of retribution. A person who does not believe in a reward/punishment afterlife is perfectly capable of doing good things and living a responsible life because they WANT to do good things! An Atheist / Pagan, etc. *does* believe that there is suffering in the world and we know that it's our responsibility to do what we can to make things better. How can we see horrible things and not want to help? Who cares if there's someone keeping score?

The simple answer: Atheists and Pagans who do good things have a higher morality than "I better do good or else."

Answer 3

the ethics of humanity are evolved by rubbing up against the realities of the universe,and so if you are alive you are going to have to work out for yourself how to get along with people... persons who cant do this cant survive. most religions take to themselves the ideas that let humanity work.... they sell the concept that only those persons endowed by the creator with superhuman knowledge and grace, can ever be able to work out how other human beings should be treated... this is no where in evidence. you can do the right thing for other people without ever knowing a religion... and today many religions,not just in the middle east but also in topeka kansas , cant work with outsiders,or persons of another faith. if you work first on developing a solid sense of reality you can very shortly develop an ethos that functions as well as any provided by outsiders. first you work on yourself... the idea that some outsider can tell you how to behave is intellectually lazy , totally flawed and completely dishonest.. religion in short is a wonderful thing...churches on the other hand have their own agenda which is frequently at odds with real caring about anything but building a monument to themselves, and licensing good and evil..whenever anyone tells you they alone have the answers to all the problems of the universe...dont drink their koolaid, keep your hand on your wallet,and leave as quickly as you can.

Answer 4

I'm an atheist. I believe that jesus christ lived over 2000 years ago, i just don't believe him to be the son of god.

I do believe that if you follow the golden rule and live by the ten commandments you should have a good life.

just because i do not believe in a god does not mean i live like a jerk, there are still repercussions for your actions. you just pay for the things you do while you're alive, not in some afterlife of eternal damnation.

i have kids and they are free to believe whatever makes sense for them, i'm not raising little atheists. i do raise my children to be good respectful people and expect this from them at all times.

Being an atheist does not mean that life is a free-for-all. i still have morals.

Answer 5

Every person's actions has a selfish motive. An atheist cares about other people's happiness insofar as it will, through some degree of seperation, contribute to their own happiness. Christian's, Muslims, Jews... the same applies to them. Good that is done for others in God's name is for the sake of getting into God's kingdom.

Answer 6

I care about the good of all, not just other people either... animals, plants, the earth in general. I am an Agnostic, I dont believe in god/s of any kind but I dont discount the possibility. What I do believe in is love of all upon this earth, and love for the earth itself, I believe in being good for the sake of being good not because my beliefs tell me I will be punished or rewarded for doing so. How real can love be if you are told there is a reward for being that way and a punishment for not being that way? Better by far to be good because you believe in good not because you believe in the culture of fear created by religion and fed by guilty conscience.

Answer 7

How can you claim to be "not putting anyone down" when you ask something as insensitive and dumb as this? Honestly, it you actually think about it, isn't it basically saying atheists are sub-human?

And as for the whole discrimination thing, how can that possibly have anything to do with who or what atheists care about - more about "non-atheists" really isn't it?

And please stop using a capital A for atheists.

Answer 8

It absolutely is Christian propaganda. They love to think (and tell others) that we're losers, self-haters, have no morals, are hedonists, are doomed to burn, know nothing about the bible, or that we have read it and just don't "understand it", that we hate all Christians, that we hate Christmas, hate God, hate everything, that we're Satanists, that we practice witchcraft, that we must hate church bells, (That's from an earlier question), and on and on and on. It's tiring, it's ignorant, and it's hateful. I care very much about others. Christians don't have the corner on that market, even though some like to act as though they do.

Answer 9

This may be an alien idea, But there are people who do good deeds for other people with out expecting to be rewarded for it at some future date and location. Many of those people are called atheists.

Answer 10

All people I know, theists and atheists and everything in between, care about their parents, siblings and loved ones first, then friends, peers and colleagues, then the rest of humanity in varying degrees.

The only difference is atheists do not think they are stopped from going on murderous rampages because god told them not to.