Does Religion Make You Nice? Does atheism make you mean?

[Mr. McD]

Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires.

Arguments about the merits of religions are often battled out with reference to history, by comparing the sins of theists and atheists. (I see your Crusades and raise you Stalin!) But a more promising approach is to look at empirical research that directly addresses the effects of religion on how people behave.

http://www.slate.com/id/2203614/?GT1=38001

[cosmik debris]

1. Religion makes me irritable

That's why I avoid it.

[laconicsax]

2. How can we start removing some of the hyperbolic arguments in the theist arsenal?

You know, the Hitler and Stalin cards. Hitler was Catholic, and Stalin didn't necessarily do what he did because he was an atheist. Pointing it out to everyone who brings them up seems to accomplish nothing.

Theists commit atrocities in the name of their religion and atheists commit atrocities in their own names, not in the name of atheism.

[Deep13]

3. The problem is not so much Stalin...

...but that Soviet residents were programmed to believe everything they were told, or at least to obey it. This was the legacy of hundreds of years of absolute rule by church-supported Tsars who ruled by divine right. In any case, no one is suggesting we replace a dogmatic, totalitarian religion with a dogmatic, totalitarian secular regime. The idea is to encourage free thinking independent of dogma.

P.S., it is interesting that so many religius apologists are reduced to saying they are better than Stalin, as if that proves anything.

[Random_Australian]

4. .... just being picky, but I'll bet plenty of theists do crap things in their own names,

and on their own initiative.

Sure, you can use religion to make people do as you say (which will make otherwise good people do evil things), but there are plenty of people who are gargantuan arseholes even without their religion. They just happen to be theists.