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But, but, but - it’s immoral.

Who gives a fuck.

Seriously, what the fuck people. In so many arguments I see around the internet, on television, in newspapers, on the radio, all over the fucking place, people seem to think “it’s immoral” or “it’s wrong” is some kind of valid fucking argument.

Look, you want to talk about things that are wrong? Limiting people’s rights are wrong, discriminating is wrong, making shit up is wrong.

Why?

It affects other people. Killing someone affects other people, taking advantage of children hurts other people, anything you do that infringes on another person’s liberties is wrong.

Now, you can sit here and say that right and wrong is subjective and that this is simply my opinion, but think about it for a moment. If someone is doing something you think is immoral, is it your right, your say, as to what they are allowed to do if it’s not hurting anyone else? And by hurting others I don’t mean offending people. You have no right not to be offended.

If you are offended by something and it’s not hurting anyone else, who the FUCK are you to say they have no right to do it.

Chimpanzees are spontaneously generous after all

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center have shown chimpanzees have a significant bias for prosocial behavior. This, the study authors report, is in contrast to previous studies that positioned chimpanzees as reluctant altruists and led to the widely held belief that human altruism evolved in the last six million years only after humans split from apes. The current study findings are available in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

These results, however, confirm chimpanzee altruism in a well-controlled experiment, suggesting human altruism is less of an anomaly than previously thought.

[FULL STORY]

So what does this prove?

That altruism is an evolved trait, it’s beneficial to a group as a whole and likely came about through selection pressure towards more altruistic individuals, telling us what many already know: Morals evolved within a “social” setting because they were beneficial trait.

No religion needed.

I learned more about morals from Superman and Optimus Prime than I did from going to church…

I am a child of the 80’s. I grew up in a time when Saturday morning and the two or three hours after school were for cartoons. 

When I was young, five or so, I loved the Superfriends, Spiderman, and The Incredible Hulk. As I got a little older I loved He-Man, then The Transformers, and then I got into comic books. My favorite titles were the same as the cartoons I watched when I was younger - Superman, Spiderman, The Hulk, The Transformers.

I remember wondering when I was a kid how come Superman didn’t just grab Lex Luthor by his shirt collar and throw his ass into outer space, or how come when bad guys kidnapped Lois Lane, Superman didn’t just punch them in the face and make their skulls explode.

I mean, here you had a guy who was basically invulnerable, could fly, and was stronger than any human on the face of the earth. He could do whatever the fuck he wanted and no one could stop him.

But he didn’t, why didn’t he do these things?

Superman respected the sanctity of life. He respected his fellow sentient beings. In the Superman stories, he never acted like anyone was less deserving to live than he was.

Here was a guy who for all intents and purposes was a god, yet he was a total boyscout. He used these powers to try to stop corruption and crime. I remember actually coming to this realization when I was 8 or 9 and was very impressed at this character trait.

My young imagination would go nuts, Superman could kill Lex Luthor any time he wanted, easy as swatting a fly, but he didn’t, because he had morals, he had respect for life, I respected that and decided that it made him a “good” person, and in turn made me realize as a young child that just because you could do something, it didn’t necessarily mean you should do it.

Then, when I was about ten years old, the Transformers cartoon premiered.

The one character that really stood out to me (and I’m sure countless others) was Optimus Prime. He was like the alien robot version of a  John Wayne character.

Optimus Prime would kick ass when he needed to, but he was always kind and supportive with his fellow Autobots and humans (at least in the cartoon), he showed a great respect for life (if it wasn’t the Decepticons).

He was a bad ass 50ft tall warrior made of metal, who also had a kind gentle side, but was firm when he needed to be, almost like a patriarchal type figure to the other Autobots.

Often times Optimus Prime would use his smarts and the resources of his fellow team members to defeat the bad guys, and not just his gun.

I was very impressed by these characteristics as well, and as strange as it sounds, as a child I wanted to have these characteristics in myself. These cartoon characters were my heroes and I wanted to be like them.

They taught me that you could be “tough” when you needed to be, and gentle otherwise, they taught me to respect the sanctity of life and that no matter how much power you had, that you should be respectful of other living, sentient beings (or in my case, other people).

I learned more about morals from Superman and Optimus Prime than I ever did from going to church.

USA Today: As atheists know, you can be good without God

By Jerry A. Coyne, USA Today

We see the instinctive nature of moral acts and judgments in many ways: in the automatic repugnance we feel when someone such as Bernie Madoff bilks the gullible and trusting, in our disapproval of the person who steals food from the office refrigerator, in our admiration for someone who risks his life to save a drowning child. And although some morality comes from reason and persuasion — we must learn, for example, to share our toys — much of it seems intuitive and inborn.

[FULL STORY]

Great article, well worth the read, and the fact that it’s from USA today, a mainstream news source makes it even better.

Although, some of the comments on the story piss me off…

What a moral atheist does.

So, there are surveys about how atheists are still one of the most hated/distrusted groups in the US.

You hear about people being kicked out of their family, being ostracized from their community, losing their jobs, even receiving death threats for not believing in god.

I could type all day as to why this is, I suppose a good deal of it has to do with being told that atheists are all sinners and are going to burn in hell, the concept that you can’t be moral without god.

So, what happens when a fundamentalist comes across an atheist who seems to be a good person?

I’m guessing that if it were a true fundamentalist, nothing is going to sway them, they will continue to believe this is an “evil” person who has no morals, but then what about someone who isn’t quite as strong in their religion, but has always held their belief simply because it’s what they were told.

A moral atheist goes against everything they have been taught their whole life, if an atheist is a good person, then where did their morality come from without god?

The idea of a person who is “godless” also being a good person undermines their belief system, it makes a large part of their religion useless.

Perhaps this, more than anything else, is what makes us so “dangerous” to religion, and why we will continue to be slandered.  

Just because…

…something is in the bible doesn’t make it right or moral, go back and read it. There is PLENTY or immoral shit in the bible, some of it down right appalling.

I can’t understand how people pick and choose, it’s almost like the bible is a lot of people’s justification for their hate, bigotry and bias, so why not just own up to the fact that you’re hateful and bigoted, don’t try to use your religion to justify it.

Furthermore, I don’t see anything moral about limiting another groups rights just because you might not agree with their way of life, if something doesn’t have a direct effect on you or your lifestyle other than you “not liking it” what the fuck gives you the right to say what they can and can not do.