This is your friendly ex-Muslim. So a Muslim woman by the name Ginrabah1996 has been making some TikToks about atheism and atheists. I don’t know anything about her but I do want to discuss some of the things she said here. I think there is a profound misunderstanding on her part about atheism and morality.
“In atheism, morality doesn’t exist…”
Yes. It doesn’t. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god.
“What atheists have done is they’ve actually reduced the human being to the material world and confined us to the material world.”
In a sense, Sure. But that doesn’t mean we don’t care about our fellow human beings or think that simply because we’re material beings we don’t deserve to be treated well.
“Most atheists will agree with the theory of evolution and natural selection…”
It makes more sense than a clay man coming to life with a golem spell.
“By the way, Muslims don’t have an issue with microevolution. We have issues with macroevolution. But I am not gonna get into that topic in this TikTok…”
As fellow atheist TikToker @captaindadpool86 said to you, this is like saying I believe in stairs, but not staircases. Lots of micro evolutions combine into big macroevolution. Put lots of pixels together and you get a picture.
“So when an atheist says that natural selection exists what you’re basically saying is that the reason why species have progressed is because of basically survival of the fittest. So you as an atheist should technically be pro-rape because of the survival of the fittest, right?”
WOA. WOA WOA WOA WOA! That is a non-sequitur if I ever heard one. STOP STOP STOP right there. You contradicted yourself badly. First, you said “In atheism, morality doesn’t exist”, now you are stating a moral position for atheists: pro-rape. If you were consistent, you would have said atheists should be rape-neutral. Why did you take a strong position on atheists being pro-rape?
But I think I know what you mean. Atheists do have morality, and our morality is dictated by the survival of the fittest. That’s basically what you are saying even though you didn’t say that. This is a huge mistake. You just went and made an is into an ought. You just took a “Because it is this way” meaning THIS IS HOW EVOLUTION HAPPENED you changed this into a “THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE”. I am sorry, but you just straw manned atheists really badly.
“And atheists should also be pro-murder because that’s survival of the fittest, right? And atheists should also be pro-domestic violence because you know he’s dominant over her, right?”
So now you’re just going double down? It wasn’t enough that we were pro-rape, now we are pro domestic violence? I’m just going to throw it out there that there’s no atheist book that contains a verse 4:34 that says it’s okay to physically hit your wife if you fear nushooz meaning rebellion, disobedience, cheating, whatever. No such verse. So if you were honest, you may have said, “Atheists are neutral against hitting their wives.”
Atheists are not blank slates though. Some of us do have a religion. Wait, you said we have a religion? Yes, I said that. My religion is humanism. In my religion, we base what is right and wrong on human thriving, and beating your wife is not good in any way for any woman. So it wouldn’t be allowed. In fact, it’s illegal in most countries. As another example, we don’t find the word consent anywhere in the Quran because consent wasn’t an issue for seventh-century men
“So you see the problem with atheism, or is it just me? Atheism is super contradictory”
No. This is not the problem with atheism. This is just you. How can you say it’s super contradictory when you were just saying it’s perfectly normal and consistent with natural selection to be pro-murder etc. You’re the only one contradicting yourself here. You made a non-sequitur meaning a conclusion that doesn’t follow by changing evolution from an is into an ought.
You assumed that simply because we believe and accept evolution is true, we assume that this is how the world should be. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We, atheist humanists, believe in enlightenment values. We want the world to be the best possible place for everyone, no matter what your identity, no matter what race, religion, gender, or sexuality you have.
“Just another note on atheism is that atheists don’t believe or accept an eternal reward or eternal punishment.”
No, we atheists don’t believe in heaven and hell. We don’t. But that just means we take this world way more seriously. We want to care for it because it’s not gonna be destroyed by God on judgment day and God is not gonna intervene by sending Imam Mahdi to fix it up. It’s ours to take care of. Us alone. Animals weren’t sent here to save us or to be eaten by us or anything like that. Animals are our cousins and we are here together on this planet for a short time and we need to make sure that whatever we do we don’t cause unnecessary suffering and we leave it better for the next generation.
“Right, so they have no motivation to do good things…”
What? You’re the queen of non-sequiturs. We have no motivation to do good things? Are you absolutely out of your mind? At the very least you could have said we are motivated to do things that feel good. But you said, ” We’re not motivated by anything”?
Like what about motivations to make the world a better place for others? That gives me a good feeling in my heart. How about making the world better for my kids? I’ve evolved to care for them, you know? And what about empathy? Would you stop caring for other humans if you lost in God? I’m sure you wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t because you would be a Vulcan (StarTrek reference) not a human then.
We evolve altruism. You see the reason for that’s because it leads to a positive-some gain. I don’t let my neighbor’s son drown and he shares his excess food with me instead of letting it go bad and then we all benefit. We see examples of this in other animals too. A sense of justice or self-sacrificing for the common good of the hood. Check out my “Atheism and morality” essay for more on this.
“Like atheists are the least likely to give charity, volunteer, go overseas to help the poor, help refugees doing any of those things.”
I would like to see evidence for this, please because that’s not what I see. Although I can understand that if you’re brainwashed into thinking you’ll get more money or you’ll get some special magical reward in the next life, you might give more money to the mosque than if you didn’t. But this is a problem we need to hack. We need to solve this problem and find ways to make humans more generous without lying to them about the hereafter where they’ll get virgins and treasures in return for what you do. That’s just infantile.
“The biggest charity organizations in the world are run by religious people typically Christians and Muslims.”
Do you mean the religious organizations that give food on one hand and the Bible or Quran on the other? Do you mean charities that spend millions of dollars on propagating their religion? Because to me, that doesn’t count as a charity for humanity that’s self-serving.
What I consider charity is organizations like Greenpeace or WWF, which are environmentally based. Doctor without borders which helps people all over the world, Humane society which cares about animals, The Gates and Melinda Foundation which has spent millions on eliminating polio, inventing clean water, safe toilets, Give Well which supports the most efficient return on your money for charity, The Against Malaria Foundation which saves thousands of lives with mosquito nets. None of these charities has a religious agenda. It’s plain and simple helping other humans.
Bill Gates is an agnostic yet his organization is one of the biggest in the world. Spare me your conspiracy theories about Gates. If you wanna know more about his motivation check the first season of Inside Bill’s brain: decoding Bill Gates on Netflix. He is such an amazing man and none of what makes him tick is religion.
There’s also a microloan organization I support called Kiva and on the Kiva team’s website, the top team is Kiva Christians, you got to give them credit for that, followed by atheists, agnostics, and skeptics, and the mindful bunch. If you combine those two non-religious groups’ donations together it actually outdoes the Christian team, but anyways.
“Like an atheist would actually have no reason to give charity because the way atheist you know decide things they just weigh pros and cons”
This is completely absurd. We all weigh pros and cons. Your pros include an imaginary hereafter which to some people actually causes them to do bad. Look at all the Jihadis and suicide bombers in the world. They all think that according to their religion they’re doing a good thing. You see with religion you can have good people doing bad things. Without religion, you just have bad people doing bad things. Think about that.
If you can’t see this with your religion being bad because extremists are not proper Muslims, think about another religion or cult and all the harm it causes while people in it think they’re doing a good thing.
“So from an atheistic view, you have no reason to give charity because you’re losing money. Like why would an atheist ever donate money? That wouldn’t even make sense. It doesn’t align with their world view for them to donate anything. But atheists do charity work. Yep, that exists but if you’re an atheist who does charity you’re actually contradicting your worldview.”
Losing money? Do you think all we care about is money, money, money? Girl I care about the world I live in. Why do you think I do this? Because I want to make a change. I know that atheists have many reasons to donate to charity. Many of which I have already mentioned.
In conclusion, Ginirarabah1996 you made some terrible non-sequiturs here. Just because we don’t believe in God doesn’t mean we’re pro-rape or murder or domestic violence. Many of us have something similar to religion which is humanism.
We believe in the human thriving and we base our values on that. In regards to atheists doing good, you have already admitted it’s possible but you think it’s contradictory. It’s not.
We’re humans all of us and we are all motivated by our personal feelings or societal values and our evolved nature. And on top of that for you, you would say religious values. I am not about to go and rob and murder some old grandma just because I won’t get caught. I want her to be happy and enjoy her life. I care for all people and for the world to be a better place.
I think religion is bad, that it twists our values and priorities. And while it might encourage some charity, it also leads to much suffering and negative consequences for our world. Islam in particular.