Examples of especially moral atheists

[DavidEC]

PS add these emboldened words to my first sentence: A significant problem finding examples is that Christianity and religion in general is much more conducive to filling out a person's identity by themselves than atheism is.

[wolveraptor]

For crying out loud, she got the Nobel Peace Prize for humanitarian work!

An undeserved one, no doubt.

The order she founded has 4,500 members and more than a million co-workers around the world working in AIDS clinics, shelters, soup kitchens and refuges around the world.

So what? The actions of those who follow her do not reflect on her own fundamentalist, missionary-driven ideology. She was far more concerned with immaterial things such as the health of peoples' souls than she was with actually treating those she accepted into her refuges.

[FSTargetDrone]

For crying out loud, she got the Nobel Peace Prize for humanitarian work!

An undeserved one, no doubt.

The order she founded has 4,500 members and more than a million co-workers around the world working in AIDS clinics, shelters, soup kitchens and refuges around the world.

So what? The actions of those who follow her do not reflect on her own fundamentalist, missionary-driven ideology. She was far more concerned with immaterial things such as the health of peoples' souls than she was with actually treating those she accepted into her refuges.

Quite so. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was no saint, when it came to "caring" for and administering to the poor, by any reasonable and fair judging of her works and deeds. Her hospitals in India were squalid hellholes, filthy and utterly unsuitable for taking care of the dying.

For anyone who's curious, just do some research on where all that money donated to her organizations went. It wasn't to the hospitals.

[mr friendly guy]

Quite so. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was no saint, when it came to "caring" for and administering to the poor, by any reasonable and fair judging of her works and deeds. Her hospitals in India were squalid hellholes, filthy and utterly unsuitable for taking care of the dying.

For anyone who's curious, just do some research on where all that money donated to her organizations went. It wasn't to the hospitals.

I provide better medical care than she did. Of course apologist would just chuck (and they do) the red herring that as a medical professional I am paid for doing the work, while she did it out of the "goodness of her heart" or some such rubbish so I don't count.

[TheKwas]

Dr. Norman Bethune.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bethune

[wolveraptor]

Dr. Norman Bethune.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bethune

Where does it say he's an atheist?

[Darth Wong]

I don't know how one could collect much data on this. There are very, very few celebrity atheists out there to begin with, and charitable givers generally don't list their religion when they donate. The only source of information is surveys, which are in turn polluted by the fact that so many people are reluctant to declare themselves atheists despite not believing in a theistic God (particularly in America, where "atheist" = "evil", even in the dictionary).

But there's an interesting angle which most people ignore: the most religious regions of America all lag seriously behind the most secular regions of America in one particular area of charity: voting for increases in social program spending for the poor. Why is this, if secularists are so reluctant to be altruistic? Why is it that the people who are most selfish at the voting booth are also the most religious?

I only give to a handful of charities myself, but I support social program spending (which will inevitably come out of my pocket), whereas most of the right-wingers I know make a big show out of donating money to important (and morally righteous) charities while telling the poor to go fuck themselves in every other way.

For that matter, why is the United States, the most religious nation among western industrialized first-world countries, also the only country which refuses to adopt a universal health-care system? How many poor people go without health-care as a result? How many lower-class babies die unnecessarily young as a result? It seems to me that Christian "charity" is seriously overrated, especially the American form of Christianity. They're only interested in forms of charitable giving which make them feel good about themselves, and only when they feel that the recipients are sufficiently righteous to deserve it.

[Zixinus]

Where does it say he's an atheist?

He was a member of the Communist party, for advocating healtcare (alone). I don't think there are many religious people there.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Where does it say he's an atheist?

He was a member of the Communist party, for advocating healtcare (alone). I don't think there are many religious people there.

You do realize that there exists such a thing as Christian Communism, right?

[The Guid]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zackie_Achmat

If you're really keen on taking someone as an example then the above is best I feel. However I tend to agree that you're just arguing how they want you to argue, and should point out the flaws in the very argument you are having and get onto territory that argues your case better.

[Darth Wong]

I'd still like to know why it doesn't count as real "charity" to willingly vote in favour of social program spending to help the poor. Americhristians are notoriously bad for that: the national party of the Christian Right is vehemently against any such programs.

[Flagg]

I'd still like to know why it doesn't count as real "charity" to willingly vote in favour of social program spending to help the poor. Americhristians are notoriously bad for that: the national party of the Christian Right is vehemently against any such programs.

Because charity is about one giving of you free will when they could otherwise be selfish, while social programs are about the evil government stealing your hard earned money in order to redistribute it amongst the poor. Clearly one is altruistic and the other is downright abhorrent.

[Flagg]

I'd still like to know why it doesn't count as real "charity" to willingly vote in favour of social program spending to help the poor. Americhristians are notoriously bad for that: the national party of the Christian Right is vehemently against any such programs.

Because charity is about giving of your free will when you could otherwise be selfish, while social programs are about the evil government stealing your hard earned money in order to redistribute it amongst the poor. Clearly one is altruistic and the other is downright abhorrent.

Jesus, I butchered that...

[Darth Servo]

I'd still like to know why it doesn't count as real "charity" to willingly vote in favour of social program spending to help the poor. Americhristians are notoriously bad for that: the national party of the Christian Right is vehemently against any such programs.

Because charity is about one giving of you free will when they could otherwise be selfish, while social programs are about the evil government stealing your hard earned money in order to redistribute it amongst the poor. Clearly one is altruistic and the other is downright abhorrent.

Besides, when you give to the non-government charity, you get tax deductions. You also can't advertise what a wonderful, caring, giving person you are when everyone is doing it.

[Patrick Degan]

I'd still like to know why it doesn't count as real "charity" to willingly vote in favour of social program spending to help the poor. Americhristians are notoriously bad for that: the national party of the Christian Right is vehemently against any such programs.

Isn't it obvious? Without a constant state of suffering, religion cannot thrive. A welfare state takes away this condition: churches cannot set conditions on the receipt of aid (i.e. you have to swallow the religious message), they cannot wield social or political influence since democracy has taken care of that as well. Lack of suffering and destitution undercuts conversion. Also, especially within the Calvinsit strain of American christianity, reliably amelorating the suffering of the Un-Elect violates the Plan of the Invisible Cloud-Being, as well as eliminating the distinction between the Elect and the unsaved.

[K. A. Pital]

churches cannot set conditions on the receipt of aid

Yeah, I guess that's the reason.

I mean, do you really want to give rights to aid redistribution to Satanocrats? Better give it to holy Mother Teresa!

[TheKwas]

Where does it say he's an atheist?

He was a member of the Communist party, for advocating healtcare (alone). I don't think there are many religious people there.

You do realize that there exists such a thing as Christian Communism, right?

It's essentially taken for granted that he was an atheist, as he stated no adherance to any organized religion and served in the Spanish Civil War along anarchists and communists that were slaughtering clergymen.

Anyways, after some google search I found a few places that even mention religion and Norman Bethune in the same place.

The historical Norman Bethune—legendary in both his native Canada and China—was a visionary whose dedication touched millions, and as the narrator of this novel he springs to vivid life even as he approaches its end. Rebelling in childhood against his father’s religion, he finds a calling himself, saving lives on the battlefield, only after nearly losing his own in the trenches in France

Link

Bock’s Bethune flees more than one sorrow, plunges into more than one war. Like his fire-and-brimstone Presbyterian father, forced to move from one small Ontario town to another as residents grow weary of his “overbearing righteousness,” the doctor seems condemned to wander. He’d always had purpose, he notes wistfully. “What I never had was peace.”

Purpose, in fact, is the problem. While Bethune rejects his father’s faith, he inherits the same overriding (and overbearing) sense of mission. “People don’t interest me as much as the cause they fight for,” he tells an acquaintance. And so he takes up several. He studies medicine after being forced to abandon a dying comrade on the fields of France in World War I. He turns to Communism — somewhat unconvincingly — after leaving his medical practice in a posh Detroit suburb and delivering a baby in a boxcar on the wrong side of town.

Link

[Lagmonster]

Lack of suffering and destitution undercuts conversion.

This is an especially oft-repeated statement I find among fundies; I've heard people at certain webboards and elsewhere state that if the state does too much for its citizens, the citizens will worship the state instead of turning to God to provide food, wealth, and happiness.

Although, in the case of religion vs. voting for social welfare, I'd wonder if the difference in America is a fear that social welfare = communism, more than the voters taking dictation from their faith to not help the poor through public programs.

[Medic]

Although, in the case of religion vs. voting for social welfare, I'd wonder if the difference in America is a fear that social welfare = communism, more than the voters taking dictation from their faith to not help the poor through public programs.

That's precisely what it is: Rush Limbaugh has for years trumpeted this "truth" to his listeners.

[Metatwaddle]

I'd still like to know why it doesn't count as real "charity" to willingly vote in favour of social program spending to help the poor. Americhristians are notoriously bad for that: the national party of the Christian Right is vehemently against any such programs.

Isn't it obvious? Without a constant state of suffering, religion cannot thrive. A welfare state takes away this condition: churches cannot set conditions on the receipt of aid (i.e. you have to swallow the religious message), they cannot wield social or political influence since democracy has taken care of that as well. Lack of suffering and destitution undercuts conversion. Also, especially within the Calvinsit strain of American christianity, reliably amelorating the suffering of the Un-Elect violates the Plan of the Invisible Cloud-Being, as well as eliminating the distinction between the Elect and the unsaved.

That was certainly the position of Mother Teresa. The more I find out about that woman, the less I like her.

However, I am not sure that most Christians are so cynical; it's just that their social positions outweigh their economic ones. The current two-party system in America means that they can either vote for the government to help poor people, or they can vote to maybe outlaw abortion. If you know that poor people are getting shafted economically, but you also believe that millions of innocent babies are getting killed every year, you're going to vote to save the kids.

That doesn't mean it's not retarded to believe life begins when sperm meets egg, but I think it's a more useful explanation for the voting habits of many American Christians than the idea that they'll get more people to convert if they don't vote for social welfare.

[Turin]

However, I am not sure that most Christians are so cynical; it's just that their social positions outweigh their economic ones. <snip>
That doesn't mean it's not retarded to believe life begins when sperm meets egg, but I think it's a more useful explanation for the voting habits of many American Christians than the idea that they'll get more people to convert if they don't vote for social welfare.

I'm not so sure. Keep in mind the deep roots that Calvinism (and with it, the concept of Predestination) has in America. There's an idea tied into American Protestantism that if people are poor, it's their own fault for not having enough faith. Which is a rather obviously anti-social-welfare sentiment. Look at the way the poor are demonized by the Right (particularly the Black poor), even as they somehow manage to scare those same poor into voting against their interests.

[FSTargetDrone]

If you know that poor people are getting shafted economically, but you also believe that millions of innocent babies are getting killed every year, you're going to vote to save the kids.

It's sad that there doesn't seem to be just as fervent a follow-up, after these children are born and are in need of services.