Subliminally, Christianity itself encourages kindness as a "reward." If a person is good, Judeo-Christian thinking holds that he will receive all that he has done good in life after he dies. The same goes for bad deeds, which will receive punishment after the performer of these evil deeds dies. But what if the person doesn't believe any of this, then does he have any motivation to be good?
If faith in God were sufficient for human benevolence, then the same should be true for preventing individual believers (in the sense of “one who believes”) from doing evil.
And history is full of people who adhere to different religions and who were terrible examples in life. Based on this logic, then it is perfectly understandable that an atheist can be a good person, in fact, the chance is the same for a religious individual. Religion is the inspiration, while the practice of its teachings is something else entirely. The atheist also has his inspirations, only from a different source than the religious.
Great names such as the writer José Saramago, the artist Leonardo Da Vinci, the scientist Albert Einstein and the former US president Abraham Lincoln did not have a religious connection, but they were of great relevance in their fields of activity. Already names like Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and several members of the court of the Inquisition of the Catholic Church believed in God, and, unfortunately, were responsible for the death of millions of innocent people.
Of course, religion has notorious representatives, such as Gandhi or Mother Teresa of Calcutta, but it is a mistake to relate them to the good just because they believed in God. Like atheists, grandiose actions for a better world can be motivated by morality, that is, without necessarily a belief behind it.
- Text written by Diego Rennan from the Eu Sem Fronteiras Team.
