Quote:
Originally Posted by Brother of Yeshua
He's wrong about it not being self-serving.
It's still self-serving: it makes him feel better and/or smarter than a theist. Intellectual elitism.
Plenty of theistic people do the "right thing" because it is the right thing to do and they hold themselves to that level of accountability. They may think they are going to heaven or something of the like, but that's not their motivation.
I'm not saying he's wrong, he makes lots of good points, but atheism is no better in this regard.
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I think it's both self serving and for the benifit of mankind. I guess you could say the same for both, being a theist or an atheist, but he does make a good point, the rewards and punishment system of belief that's present in religion is probably at the back of every religious persons mind in one way or another. How can you ever truly do something for someone other than yourself when you think of yourself in every decision you ever make? Atheists never face this question, they do good things because they realize doing those good things have a high probability of causing a good result. I'm not saying that religious people never do good things for the good of the person, I'm just asking the question if you take away the promise of heaven, would those same people do those same things?
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