"Just add Creative Writing, Visual Arts, Real History(not just reading paragraphs), Social skills, and any of the performed arts to the SAT and ACT tests."
Are you judging your sister as having "ended up" a bad person, just because she got drunk while underage? And you blame that on atheism? If only becoming drunkards was the worst thing that could happen to us... Just give her a second chance before throwing any rocks.
As a matter of fact, the influence of any religion in a person's morals - and a society's, for that matter- is based upon prize/punishment mechanics.
Do good -> go to heaven Do evil -> go to hell
Therefore, it's by convenience and fear how believers are taught morals. It doesn't strike me as the most solid foundation for a set of principles. If the believer loses his faith somehow, there would be no strictly moral reason to stop him from doing evil. Just as it happens whenever the social structures collapse, and fear of the law becomes less relevant, people whose behaviour was based on that fear will easily turn to immoral behaviour (Katrina, anyone?).
A moral system not based upon fear of anything, but based upon a true, reasonable concept of what's "good" and why it's convenient to behave like that, on the other hand, is less likely to fail, since it's not something you have to impose to an infant so that his young mind won't resist, but something that it takes a grown mind to understand.
Or, to put it another way, does anyone believe it was God that brought us morals, not the other way around?
Boy, you must really hate Yoko Ono.
Just give her a second chance before throwing any rocks.
Do good -> go to heaven
Do evil -> go to hell
Therefore, it's by convenience and fear how believers are taught morals. It doesn't strike me as the most solid foundation for a set of principles. If the believer loses his faith somehow, there would be no strictly moral reason to stop him from doing evil. Just as it happens whenever the social structures collapse, and fear of the law becomes less relevant, people whose behaviour was based on that fear will easily turn to immoral behaviour (Katrina, anyone?).
A moral system not based upon fear of anything, but based upon a true, reasonable concept of what's "good" and why it's convenient to behave like that, on the other hand, is less likely to fail, since it's not something you have to impose to an infant so that his young mind won't resist, but something that it takes a grown mind to understand.
Or, to put it another way, does anyone believe it was God that brought us morals, not the other way around?