Recently, threats of vandalism of temples have been made in TN , India. Assault on few individuals,petrolbomb attack of bjp work place in Tamil Nadu by followers of Indian atheist periyar,works of atheists are popular in our world now, of them supposedly being better than religious folk, and periyar is praised in parts of India, not realizing that he has a complex history and the violent motives of his followers are part of that legacy. His quotes are being passed around as a meme.
so let me quote the same here and modify it a bit to make another argument.
There is no God, There is no God, There is no God at all,The inventor of ‘God’ is a fool,The propagator of God is a scoundrel,the worshiper of God is a Barbarian.
we can also say,
There is no morality, There is no Morality, There is no Morality at all, The inventor of ‘Morality’ was a manipulator, The propagator of Morality was liar, The believers of Morality are selfish cowards.
If one is to discard religion for lack of evidence, then one might discard belief in morality as false too. I find the logic of atheists false . one cannot demolish the idea of belief in religion through scientific scrutiny and deny applying the same scrutiny as well to idea of ‘morality’. We are apes, designed by Darwinian evolution whose purpose isnt morality. It is mere survival. Designed by natural laws totally blind to all abstract things that humans cherish.
The recognition of this would mean the joke is infact on atheism & atheists who believe they can wash off their hands of crimes of all religions , infact, by declaring their criticism of religion on empirical facts, Atheists would at once be forced to acknowledge that their criticism of religion is in error for that same scientific scrutiny should make them accept man to be a beast. All the violence of man everywhere would have to be embraced as theirs as well including religious violence because it is part of our collective human endowment. The natural conclusion of such materialistic worldview based on such trivial empirical data of there “being no god” for lack of evidence would mean that all violence is justified for there are no abstract entities like ‘justice’. Abstract Truths have no independent existence in this world.
A lot of problems in today’s world would be cleared up if one made this clear that ‘morality’ is not true , the excessive left rhetoric can be demolished pointing to basic facts that we are not equal in our physical attributes or mental capacities. But this is only possible by demolishing idea of ‘morality’ itself. All there is, is naked ambition for power, egotism, Machiavellian worldview, lies,deceit, the ultimate summit of man then in this world is absolute power and sensual pleasures.
This will leave us with the only real options we have, which is the physical world and the abstract rules by which we wish to live by, any attempts of designing any kind of moral rules must accept that they are ultimately abstract , just as religions are.
How we live therefore depends on assumptions we buy into.There are many abstract set of rules by which human beings can live by.The difference between truth and belief is that, truth emerges irrespective of belief, but a particular set of abstract rules which one might decide to live by on the other hand requires active belief of many individuals . so, both the discovery of such abstract rules and participation firstly requires one to first value knowledge and the assumptions on which such knowledge is constructed, but it is not obvious that everyone values knowledge and even if they do, not necessary that they would give up on their cherished codes of living. Or that in future some of them might very well return to some form of it or something different.
This will at once clarify to us about nature of regimes like china and religion of Islam. They dont buy into same assumptions as those of other societies. With this basis it would be straight forwardly prudent that groups of different worldview should try to pacify others by reciprocal actions. That this becomes the primary way to consider issues rather than to live in whiggish worldview, where one sits quietly living day to day life while other groups with clear motive to harm you keep arming themselves, or keep attacking you repeatedly through acts of terrorism.
This would mean that we can either sit quietly assuming all things will turn out right by themselves and be willing to risk one’s downfall or be proactive in bringing series of reciprocal tactics of various kinds to pacify aggressive group ideologies and individuals of those groups. This is a better way than to simply believe that somehow all religions are destined to “reform”. There is no guarantee for this. Others shouldn’t have to bear the risks for this blind belief.