Picture this scene: a woman at a church sponsored soup kitchen is ladeling food onto plates for a long line of hungry homeless people. Now, what if we change the scene and take away the church sponsorship. Does that change how you feel? What if we tell you that the woman is an atheist who doesn't believe in God, but does believe in helping her fellow citizens? Does that change how you feel? Does it make her actions less kind? Less helpful? Does it even fricking matter when we are addressing the kindness of caring about the less fortunate?
To some people it does. Look at the Republican Presidental candidates every 4 years. It's like a race to see who can be the most religious. The closest to God so they can say that their policy is the best because God told them so! Or that God is cool with them not caring about poor people because God is a fan of slash and burn policies that decimate programs for the less fortunate! Or that God himself came to them in a dream and told them that he was super cool with even more tax breaks for the wealthy!
Consider this quote from CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein: He has said that the firm is “doing God’s work". Okay, I'll wait for you to stop laughing.
There never seems to be a place in politics or in discussions of normal life for the idea of atheists. I myself was raised in no religion because my mother has been an atheist her whole life. She is not out there about it because to her it's something that just is. My mother is also very well read, hugely intelligent, kind, sweet, thoughtful, warm and very caring. She does not have God guiding her through life and she seems okay with that. To learn about things, she does not go to church and pray. She reads books.
I am a Catholic because I wanted to become one. And then once I became one and the novelty wore off, I realized that religion is really just supposed to be something in your heart. I really dig Jesus, but God leaves me cold. I don't have the warm feelings for God because, at least in the bible, God is often doing a bunch of horrible things to people and I can't get with that. But Jesus seems to really care about the poor, the sick, the hungry, the afflicted, the marginalized, the needy. That is something that I can internalize because I think that is our job as human beings. That we should care intensely for the less fortunate.
That and it's our human duty to go through this world making it BETTER. Not spouting off all the time about sending people to hell and punishing poor people for being poor or making women suffer due to assholes making ridiculous laws that prevent them from getting health care. And caring more about a zygote than a live human person. And MEN making health care decisions for WOMEN. And being prejudiced assholes about black people and brown people and anyone else that isn't white and male.
Making life BETTER. Kinder, fairer, more productive, more human, more accessible, more meaningful, richer in good deeds and kind thoughts. More colorful and happy and delicious.