# Religion has Never Bettered the World
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 5, 2009, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393 "2009-08-05T05:25:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 9
### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/161 "2009-08-13T02:30:34Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> So if atheists make no moral judgements are you saying that all atheists are amoral?
He said atheism didn’t, not that atheists didn’t.
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### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/162 "2009-08-13T02:43:19Z")
> [@mswas](#):
>
> Well uniting people against a common enemy is a familiar theme in all of history.
Sure, but why they’re an enemy in the first place, and what makes them common to the people you seek to unite (and uncommon to those you seek to unite against) changes quite a bit.
> [@](#):
>
> If you are willing to look at individuals, sects, and churches then you are going a lot farther toward granularity than most people who criticize Christianity. I think it’s fair to say that a particular sect acts a certain way when they behave in a certain way. The problem with Catholicism in medieval Europe is that it’s not just a religion it’s a whole civilization and runs across a lot of the same sorts of problems that other Empires have throughout history. It makes a whole lot more sense to compare Catholic Europe in the twelfth century to other historical Empires than it is to compare them to say, Modern Pentacostals who have never held political authority. They had more in common with the Mughal or Sassanid Empires than they do with modern Evangelical Protestant sects.
I disagree. There’s obviously the difference that we have to guess how those groups who haven’t had power at different times would act. And, certainly, when it comes to an empire or the like, chances are that even the most theocratic example could be found to do some things because of secular reasons. But I don’t think it’s necessarily unreasonable to draw parallels of thought, should there be any, even between groups which in historical terms had quite different roles. If we’re comparing in terms of some things, sure, it doesn’t really follow through to say they’re similar, but in terms of idealogy, I don’t think the differing practical use put to that idealogy in one situation and the use put to another idealogy in a different situation necessarily means _they_ are what is different. They may well be, but I don’t think that alone is reason enough to say comparions make little sense.
> [@](#):
>
> Would you find it silly if I said that the Constitution was evil because it made us nuked Hiroshima and Nagasake?
Yes, I would.
> [@](#):
>
> And I agree with you, altering parts of the whole often change the whole category. For instance Prosperity Theology, ‘Jesus wants you to be successful.’ (read as rich most of the time) when there is a scriptural basis for saying that Christ actually wanted you specifically not to be rich. It’s hard to say though because a lot of what he said was going out to the apostles who were supposed to be ascetic monks spreading the gospel. Does that mean that Jesus wanted EVERYONE to be ascetics or just them?
Or he wanted everyone to be successful so that they are in a position to give. Plenty of interpretations on that one! 😉
> [@](#):
>
> Yes, but when you pick and choose what people say the results can run the gamut from comedic to tragic. ‘I come not to bring peace but the sword.’, is that a metaphorical sword meaning that he will divide people along strict ethical lines that will divide them irrevocably from their kin? Or does that literally mean go forth and kill?
This is, essentially, my point. If some Christians, following the latter interpretation of the Bible, perform some horrible act, it would be unreasonable for me to say “Aha, their act was motivated by their Christianity” - it was motivated by their particular form of Christianity, and more to the point, by one specific viewpoint as a part of that form. Because of that, it wouldn’t be fair for me to generalise that act to all theists, all Christians, even all Christians at those people’s church; the only group to which I can generalise the act is those who hold the same viewpoints up to and including the motivating point. Their basic Christianity, shared with however many millions of people, is certainly essential to their overall beliefs; but I would be incorrect if I said that those overall beliefs are to blame, are the cause, of the act; it’s the specific interpretation that is. By the same logic, it doesn’t seem reasonable to me to lay at the feet of all atheists the crimes of the communistic atheist powers of the 20th century, and declare that these were actions were caused by atheism, that atheism is to blame, that it is the motivating factor, however necessary that atheism may be to the overall viewpoint of those people.
> [@](#):
>
> Usually what is being fought over is something economic. In the case of the Crusades it was trade routes and and the resources of the land. It is my understanding that during the Crusades the land of that area was far more fertile and less desertified than it is today, though I could be wrong.
Well, on the level of monarchs, perhaps. But I doubt the common soldiery going off to war gave much of a fig for trade routes, at least.
> [@](#):
>
> I’m not saying that at all. I am saying that the fighting would be over different things for different reasons and by different means but there would still be fighting.
And i’m agreeing. But to me it’s like saying that if you came across a battle, and removed half the fighters, there would still be fighting. Of course there would. But there would be less of it.
> [@](#):
>
> The reason Christianity is so interesting in terms of this debate is specifically because it addresses the idea of ‘things of this world’ as being the source of evil. It claims that mankind has a violent and animal nature that can only be tempered and made holy by God’s grace through the practice of a true faith. It could be argued that Christians are violent despite being Christians, precisely for this reason, as the entire point of Christianity is to gain a spiritual perfect love.
I mean no offense, but this really isn’t a point on which Christianity is unique or of particular interest. A lot of religions or philosophies claim something along these lines.
As to the rest of your post… I think we may be getting a bit out of this debate and into another one. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/163 "2009-08-13T02:47:25Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> The problem is that people insist on lumping all of the theist views, or worse still all religious views into one whole, often combining all of the most objectionable parts, even when logically they couldn’t all be held at once. Thus you can count any and every negative action of any person of that group as proof of the destructiveness of the belief. At the same time it is held that each atheist is an individual unique snowflake and that the actions of other atheists have no bearing on the value of atheism.
That’s a fair point. But it’s no excuse to do the same the other way around, and lump the many flavours of atheism together (and I don’t think i’d consider Communism an inherently atheistic viewpoint). It’s actually my mistake; you held up people claiming atheism in general shouldn’t be blamed for the actions of a particular strain of atheism, and I assumed your complaint was that they were wrong, and that atheism could be blamed for them - when instead what you were pointing out as wrong was the inconsistency, the holding of atheism to one standard and theism to another. Which is a perfectly reasonable complaint.
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/164 "2009-08-13T02:56:26Z")
> [@dinoboy](#):
>
> I agree pretty much up to the last statement. Many things motivate people to act. A god in itself is not necessarily a motivator _but_ following a god’s purported rules is. Religion is just one motivator among many (ideologies are motivators); atheism is not an ideology so it isn’t a motivator in itself. As an ideology, religions purport a set of rules/beliefs its followers should/must adhere to and, by implication, is an active, extrinsic motivator. (Now that some people will use better judgment and realize that some of these rules are unacceptable is yet another motivator at work)
>
> I just don’t see how NOT believing in something is a strong extrinsic motivator, it just isn’t an ideology… Communists didn’t kill opponents because of a _lack_ of a belief in a god, they had another such motivator (i.e. conflicting ideologies)
>
> I’m waiting to see someone convicted of a murder because they _didn’t_ believe in unicorns…
Comparing atheism to religion is a bogus comparison. The fair comparison is atheism {a lack of belief in God} to theism {belief in God} Neither is a motivator or ideology in and of itself. People require more, some sort of belief system of which theism or atheism can be one component. There’s no way of knowing from only atheism or theism what that belief system may be and what moral choices that individual will make.
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/165 "2009-08-13T03:04:14Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#):
>
> Well, on the level of monarchs, perhaps. But I doubt the common soldiery going off to war gave much of a fig for trade routes, at least.
I snipped the rest because we are in agreement as far as I can tell, but this gives me something to disagree with.
Why wouldn’t the common soldiery give much of a fig for trade routes? You don’t think they cared about material prosperity and the glory it brought to them and their people? Do you think that the glory of bringing wealth back to their lands in Europe was irrelevant to them? Maybe they didn’t think of it as trade routes, but in more base and vulgar terms as the material goods that are brought by right of the conquest of wealthy trade routes.
> [@](#):
>
> And i’m agreeing. But to me it’s like saying that if you came across a battle, and removed half the fighters, there would still be fighting. Of course there would. But there would be less of it.
Or there would be the same amount of fighting only it would be pointed in different directions. Gauls vs Picts instead of Christians vs Muslims. We’d be arguing about some other overarching ideology that united whatever Empire, and maybe we would’ve colonized different parts of the world, or whatever.
> [@](#):
>
> I mean no offense, but this really isn’t a point on which Christianity is unique or of particular interest. A lot of religions or philosophies claim something along these lines.
What is unique about Christianity is how uniquely its detractors ignore this factor. Buddhism may say something similar but no one is blaming Buddhism for being the greatest scourage mankind has ever known.
> [@](#):
>
> As to the rest of your post… I think we may be getting a bit out of this debate and into another one. 🙂
Yea. I think we agree on the main point.
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/166 "2009-08-13T03:05:30Z")
I’d take the atheist argument a bit farther and say you can’t even hold every Communist responsible for the atrocities committed in the name of Communism.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/167 "2009-08-13T03:11:27Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> So if atheists make no moral judgements are you saying that all atheists are amoral? In other words do you think that Dostoyevsky was right when he wrote “If there is no God then all things are permissable”.
>
> And anyway, if atheists make no moral judgements, that means they can’t judge religions and religious people immoral. So all your ranting about the evils of religion is what exactly?
As **FinnAgain** points out, I said that atheism, not atheists is amoral. And that does make it morally superior to religion in my eyes, since I regard religion as evil not amoral. Saying nothing on the subject of morality is better than excusing and speaking for evil as religion does.
As for the claim that “If there is no God then all things are permissable”; I think the exact opposite. In order to create a morality not based on sand, one must first throw out God. Otherwise your moral code goes out the window the moment someone decides God wants him to do something.
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> False. Depends what replaced their atheism. Not everyone wants to kill their rivals. Communism doesn’t necessarily lead you to kill your enemies as a matter of first principles. One of the reasons that they acted the way they did was that in communism the good of the collective outweighs the good of in the individual. Therefore maintaining the collective state outwieghs the life of the individual. If communists adopted a theistic belief with a high value on the individual it may have lead them to kill fewer people. That is just speculation, but it is clearly false that everyone wants to kill their opponents.
But belief systems like Communism and Christianity that are based on the idea that “we and we alone have the One True Way and everyone who disagrees is part of the conspiracy against the One True Way” DO tend to kill their opponents. A “theistic belief with a high value on the individual” wouldn’t help because such a belief would value individuals in terms of souls or the afterlife or karma as religion always does; thereby rendering the actual human being in question expendable.
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> [QUOTE=Der Trihs]
> And if atheism is the cause like the believers like to insist, why are they stuck either bringing up the Communists, or lying and claiming that people like the Nazis were atheists? If it’s atheism and not Communism that’s the problem, why aren’t non-communist atheists running around killing and oppressing people like the believers do?
Why do atheists keep bringing up the crusades or the inquision? I mean if we are talking shelf life here, then it is not the religious people who have to worry.
[/QUOTE]
Because they are famous? You are making a false comparison. Would you prefer I speak of the religious push against gays, or against condoms, or religious oppression of women? The campaign against evolution, against stem cells?
Unlike the religious I don’t need to pick a single target like Communism as my example of the evil of my opponent’s beliefs; the evil of religion is everywhere. Eliminate all mention of the Crusades and Inquisition and you barely make a dent in the list of the evils and stupidity committed in the name of religion. Eliminate mention of the Communists and your examples of the evils of atheism grow sparse indeed.
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### Author:  [@Calculon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calculon)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/168 "2009-08-13T03:13:54Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> He said atheism didn’t, not that atheists didn’t.
But then if atheism makes no claims of morality, on what basis can the self described atheist make moral judgements?
Calculon.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/169 "2009-08-13T03:25:29Z")
What if they can’t? What difference would it make?
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/170 "2009-08-13T03:27:33Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> But then if atheism makes no claims of morality, on what basis can the self described atheist make moral judgements?
The general welfare of humanity? It’s not like religion is the only source of morality, or even a good one.
Gravity is also amoral; does believing in gravity mean I can’t have a moral opinion?
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### Author:  [@dinoboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dinoboy)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/171 "2009-08-13T03:34:09Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> But then if atheism makes no claims of morality, on what basis can the self described atheist make moral judgements?
Probable beneficial outcomes based on a rational review of empirical evidence?
Maybe that’s just me though 🙂
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### Author:  [@Calculon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calculon)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/172 "2009-08-13T03:34:37Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> As **FinnAgain** points out, I said that atheism, not atheists is amoral. And that does make it morally superior to religion in my eyes, since I regard religion as evil not amoral. Saying nothing on the subject of morality is better than excusing and speaking for evil as religion does.
>
> As for the claim that “If there is no God then all things are permissable”; I think the exact opposite. In order to create a morality not based on sand, one must first throw out God. Otherwise your moral code goes out the window the moment someone decides God wants him to do something.
I think the whole theists believe that “morality is just the whim of God” argument is false. Christian theology emphasises that it is God’s unchangable nature moreso than his will that defines goodness.
But anyway how does one construct a morality that is not “based on sand” as you put it. That is the meaning of the quote, that without God there is no way to define an objective moral system. And certainly many philosphers, like Sartre and Camus agree with him. Even Nietzsche, who hated Xianity, thought that good and evil were meaningless in the absense of God. So what is your great moral insight that allows you to define objective morality without reference to God, and also give you a basis for declaring religion evil?
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> But belief systems like Communism and Christianity that are based on the idea that “we and we alone have the One True Way and everyone who disagrees is part of the conspiracy against the One True Way” DO tend to kill their opponents. A “theistic belief with a high value on the individual” wouldn’t help because such a belief would value individuals in terms of souls or the afterlife or karma as religion always does; thereby rendering the actual human being in question expendable.
False. Not all beliefs are based on an “you are either with us or against us” mentality. I think if anything it is more the attitude of the neo-atheists (not all atheists, just the Dawkins style ones) that you are reading into different religious groups. Not everyone believes that the correct response to those that oppose you is to kill them or otherwise persecute them. If the communists adopted one of these types of beliefs against their more collectivist centered beliefs they may have acted differently.
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Because they are famous? You are making a false comparison. Would you prefer I speak of the religious push against gays, or against condoms, or religious oppression of women? The campaign against evolution, against stem cells?
>
> Unlike the religious I don’t need to pick a single target like Communism as my example of the evil of my opponent’s beliefs; the evil of religion is everywhere. Eliminate all mention of the Crusades and Inquisition and you barely make a dent in the list of the evils and stupidity committed in the name of religion. Eliminate mention of the Communists and your examples of the evils of atheism grow sparse indeed.
Communism keeps coming up because atheism is such a marginal belief in the history of human thought that there are very few examples of where it has dominated as a worldview. Noting that there are few examples of the bad effects of atheism is not much of an argument when atheism has had such a small impact on human history generally.
Calculon.
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/173 "2009-08-13T03:37:11Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> But then if atheism makes no claims of morality, on what basis can the self described atheist make moral judgements?
>
> Calculon.
Conscience? Upbringing? Role Models? any one of several things that affect us and help form our belief system.
Just as a theist can believe love your enemy or slay the infidel.
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### Author:  [@dinoboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dinoboy)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/174 "2009-08-13T04:40:00Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> Communism keeps coming up because atheism is such a marginal belief in the history of human thought that there are very few examples of where it has dominated as a worldview.
Why would anyone purport that atheism is comparable to Communism; that it is somehow an ideology? Even within communism atheism doesn’t dominate anything, the state’s will dominates.
However, communism and religion _are_ both ideologies with dogmatic assertions, that might be a better comparison…
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> There’s no way of knowing from only atheism or theism what that belief system may be and what moral choices that individual will make.
Though I agree (and stated so earlier) that theism _in itself_ is not necessarily a motivator, how many believers are merely “theists”? Most at least attempt to follow a set of rules/claims/punishments/rewards that they believe _were created by a specific god(s)_ and this is a very powerful motivator. Further, these rules are commonly public knowledge, either by being written down or otherwise communicated, so outsiders _can_ have an idea of what to expect.
Atheists have nothing to compare to this:
No rules, no claims, no standardization whatsoever. It’s one reason we have a hard time creating groups; no one starts a group for those who “Don’t collect stamps”.
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/175 "2009-08-13T04:42:09Z")
> [@dinoboy](#):
>
> Why would anyone purport that atheism is comparable to Communism; that it is somehow an ideology? Even within communism atheism doesn’t dominate anything, the state’s will dominates.
Because fighting against bourgeois false consciousness was integral, and part of that was resisting religion as an irrational superstition that held up the elite power structure.
> [@](#):
>
> However, communism and religion _are_ both ideologies with dogmatic assertions, that might be a better comparison…
People make that comparison all the time.
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### Author:  [@Calculon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calculon)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/176 "2009-08-13T05:07:06Z")
> [@dinoboy](#):
>
> Why would anyone purport that atheism is comparable to Communism; that it is somehow an ideology? Even within communism atheism doesn’t dominate anything, the state’s will dominates.
>
> However, communism and religion _are_ both ideologies with dogmatic assertions, that might be a better comparison…
>
> Though I agree (and stated so earlier) that theism _in itself_ is not necessarily a motivator, how many believers are merely “theists”? Most at least attempt to follow a set of rules/claims/punishments/rewards that they believe _were created by a specific god(s)_ and this is a very powerful motivator. Further, these rules are commonly public knowledge, either by being written down or otherwise communicated, so outsiders _can_ have an idea of what to expect.
>
> Atheists have nothing to compare to this:
> No rules, no claims, no standardization whatsoever. It’s one reason we have a hard time creating groups; no one starts a group for those who “Don’t collect stamps”.
In the same way as theism is not a belief in of itself, I think that atheism is not a belief in of itself. The label “atheism” covers a wide range of various philosophies. In most cases those that claim to be “atheists” are probably better described as naturalistic materialists. Thus Communism, because it has as one of its foundational statements that there is no God, it qualifies as a form of atheism. Obviously communism is much more than that, as other contradictory forms of atheism are as well. But I am not comparing atheism and communism. What I am saying is that communism is a form of atheism, in the same way that Islam is a form of theism.
Calculon.
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### Author:  [@Calculon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calculon)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/177 "2009-08-13T05:09:49Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> The general welfare of humanity? It’s not like religion is the only source of morality, or even a good one.
>
> Gravity is also amoral; does believing in gravity mean I can’t have a moral opinion?
> [@dinoboy](#):
>
> Probable beneficial outcomes based on a rational review of empirical evidence?
>
> Maybe that’s just me though 🙂
The problem with both of these definitions of morality is that it requires that you know what “good” is to begin with. It is as though you are saying that morality is merely doing good. That is obvious. What you need to define is what good is in the first place. From that then morality then is doing that.
Calculon.
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### Author:  [@Calculon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calculon)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/178 "2009-08-13T05:20:34Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> Conscience? Upbringing? Role Models? any one of several things that affect us and help form our belief system.
> Just as a theist can believe love your enemy or slay the infidel.
I think I need to make my question a little clearer. What I am asking is a question of moral epistimology, or how we know what morals are. What you have answered is the question of moral history, or how we have tended to define our morals in the past.
Just to be clear I don’t think that atheists have no moral code that they try and live by. I think everyone has that. Nor am I saying that atheists codes of morality are necessarily wrong. That is not the issue. The issue is how can we know that our moral sense is objectively true. In other words how do we know that we think to be good is actually good, and what we believe to be evil is evil.
It is important because if we are going to make moral judgments (that is to say that one is more or less moral than another) then for that judgment to have any objective meaning we have to be sure our basis of morality is in fact objective. Otherwise all we have is differing opinions, none of which is any more valid than the other.
So in the context of the thread, if we want to claim that a worldview is evil, we need an objective basis for morality to make that statement. Without that basis then any moral judgment between beliefs is ultimately meaningless.
Calculon.
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/179 "2009-08-13T09:45:03Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> It is important because if we are going to make moral judgments (that is to say that one is more or less moral than another) then for that judgment to have any objective meaning we have to be sure our basis of morality is in fact objective .
Leaving aside the actual difficulties of formulating an objective morality (it’s doable but the devil is in the details), there’s absolutely no reason to think that religious edicts make a system of morality any more “objective” than any other. An atheist might decide what is good, what’s best for society, what the optimal balance between self and other is, etc, etc, etc… A religious person might make up their own mind too, or they might listen to someone else’s opinions on the subject.
In none of those cases is the process itself any more ‘objective’.
In fact, if we look at the history of self-contradictory dogmatic claims (not to mention the true horrors) that have been advocated by some but not all organized religions, it’s quite clear that “my religion says so” is not, in any way shape or form, a shorthand for “this is not only moral, but objectively so.”
I’m not sure if you are making the claim… but if so, the claim that religious beliefs = objective morality because someone claims a deity said it, is just silly.
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### Author:  [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2009, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-has-never-bettered-the-world/505393/180 "2009-08-13T11:21:31Z")
> [@Calculon](#):
>
> This is somewhat beside the point that I was trying to make. From the OP it seemed that Sage Rat was trying to set up a dichotomy between “science” and “religion”, and how science was obviously the superior. I just wanted to point out that “science” in of itself gives us nothing, that people applying science (as you recognise) is how things happen. Therefore the dichotomy is a false one, and the question is non-sensical from the start.
>
> As to whether atheists are better or worse than religious people, I think the whole question is unanswerable. The reasons I think so are:
>
> - Fundamentally you need an understanding of what “good” is to make the judgement. Such understandings are shaped by your worldview, and therefore all judgements are biased towards your own worldview. This is true whether you are an atheist or religious. For the question to have objective meaning there must be an objective basis for it, and unless we all agree on objectively what good is, then we don’t have that.
> - Even if we could rank the relative goodnoss of individual acts, there is no objective way to determine who belongs to what group.
> Arguably the greatest monsters of the 20th century, in terms of their disregard for human life and the suffering they caused were the communists like Stalin, Pol Pot and others. If we were going to count them in our tally, then since communism is expressly a form of atheism (that is, belief in communism directly contradicts belief in God) then the crimes of communism are much more atheist crimes then religious crimes. However in these discussions you will always get people who claim that Stalinism and the like is actually a religion, and therefore not the result of atheism. Or someone will claim that while the communists were atheists, they didn’t slaughter millions because of their atheist beliefs, so they don’t count. Of course at the same time these people are eager to add to the religious tally anything even incidentally involving religion.
> Generally it is impossible to tell exactly what motivates someone to do something, and how their actions would change if they believed something different. Without that knowledge you can’t even construct lists of the effects of different beliefs.
>
> All that being said though, in my opinion the effects of religion are mixed. I think certainly some religions have had serious negative impacts on the societies that harbour them. However I think the influence of Christianity in Western history has largely been a positive force for good. And while it is just my opinion I think that the bombastic sort of statements that religion has never resulted in anything good is pretty clearly over the top and indefensible.
>
> Calculon.
The first Christians were communists and they were not atheists so to link Atheists with communisim is not factual.
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