You are hereAtheists push disabled man / Reply to comment

Reply to comment


Atheists push disabled man

By defaithed - Posted on 21 July 2009

Yes, they did. A man with physical difficulties attended The Amazing Meeting for his first time, and wouldn't you know it, the atheists and skeptics in attendance pushed him... 

...through doorways, to and from meetings, wherever he and his wheelchair needed to go. Here's an excerpt of the fellow's uplifting report:

Here were people I had never met, people I had only known as anonymous nicknames on the JREF forum, and yet they took me under their wing. They arranged for me to get there, got me a place to stay, met me when I arrived, invited me to join them for dinner, pushed my wheelchair around, opened doors for me, picked up all the crap I kept dropping, took the time to sit and talk with me, waited exceedingly patiently while I struggled to scribble a sentence or two, said "It is such a pleasure to meet you", and meant it. These people, every single one who made eye contact with me and smiled, they are the reason this was an Amazing Meeting. I overslept and missed Adam Savage's talk because I was up so late the night before shooting the breeze with fellow JREFers (and it was totally worth it---sorry, Adam!). If not one single speaker showed up, it still would have been well worth it.

It occurs to me that there are those of a religious bent who have said that skeptics, particularly atheistic ones, do not have a moral code to live by. And yet I spent four days in the company of skeptics who have proven that they live by the most basic moral code of all, the one most others are based on and without which would be useless: do good things on a daily basis, be kind to other people, and enjoy the time you have to spend with them. Sure, you could add another 635 rules and regulations on top, but what it really boils down to is what I witnessed. Do good. Be kind. Enjoy life. 

That sounds like most of the people I've had around me all my life, too, believers and non-believers alike. Good, kind, honest people. Oddly, there are those among them who insist that such kindness only comes via religion. It's an utterly bizarre claim – not just because real life (as in the above report) contradicts it, but because it's so sneeringly contemptuous of religious people!

"If it weren't for the moral compass provided by our faith, we believers would be soulless thugs and criminals and worse." That's the line some "faithful" unwittingly insist upon. I for one don't believe it for a second; take away the religious upbringing from those people, and they'll still be just as kind and good as the atheists and skeptics above.

People are generally good. Deal with it, believers. 

Average: 5 (1 vote)
Tags

Reply

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • You may quote other posts using [quote] tags.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

Spread the Gospel

Share/Save

Spake the people

  • Thanks for the tip. I've nixed some false quotations in the past, and am happy to remove any...

  • Ben Franklin never said that...another of the many fake quotes circulating on the internet....

  • Thank you for the comments. Yes, the passivity and respect you mention are part of the special...

  • Indeed. It cracks me up when an Abrahamic fundamentalist calls atheists amoral, nihilistic, and...

  • This Christians' rhetorical questions translate into those lame accusations we hear from...