I used to believe very strongly that the elimination of religion and embrace of atheism would make the world a much kinder, gentler and happier place free from backward superstitions, delusions and irrationality, but given just how poorly some of my fellow atheists, especially members of the Chinese Communist Party and its supporters in China and abroad, have been behaving lately, I've been having second thoughts. The Chinese Communist Party is just as dangerous and immoral as radical Islamist ideology, both during the Mao era when China practiced true communism, and today when the prevailing ideology is one of money and power. These atheists, albeit belonging to the world's largest gang, have managed to screw the whole world over in so many ways, and they are giving the rest of us, together with overseas Chinese such as myself, a very bad name. China today is just as dysfunctional as the Muslim world. To make matters worse for people like me who belong to both groups, up to half of all atheists alone may be Chinese.
Abandoning religion hasn't made us inherently any more enlightened or morally superior than the religious adherents we frequently mock and rail against, and it would be the height of arrogance to think otherwise, although the more irreligious societies outside of China tend to fare much better in international rankings than those which are more devoutly religious.
Where once the online atheist community was rightly united in its opposition to religion in all its backwardness, intractable divisions have since emerged, ranging from Atheism+ to Elevatorgate, from Gamergate to the whole debate over whether it's "racist" to criticize Islam. We also have the legacy of communism and the chaos and destruction it has wrought upon the world, although atheism is regarded as a mere aspect of communism in the same sense that the Trinity is a key aspect of Christianity, or Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. We continue to suffer from many of the same kinds of problems that afflict the broader human population at large, and our collective footprint in the 20th century has been no less bloodstained than the sectarian, religious barbarism of millennia past and present. We are, perhaps, no less immune to lapses of morality, judgment and self-discipline than our more devout, religious peers.
Atheism, far from being the panacea that will save us from ourselves, is merely a Band-Aid masking deeper issues that stem from human nature itself and date back through millions of years of human evolution. Religion is only half the problem. It is not the root of literally all evil.
Rather than become more rational and thoughtful, all we have done is replace one form of delusional, ideological bullshit with another, at least for those of us who continue to adhere to some pretense of right and wrong to begin with. As for those of us who lack any kind of moral compass and operate purely out of naked self-interest, the only difference between a selfish theist and a selfish atheist is that the atheist's greed and selfishness are on full, naked display, whereas the theist has a religion they can hide behind to justify or minimize their misdeeds and mask their absence of morality and poor self-discipline.
That's why I find the vile, selfish, entitled, shallow, in-your-face behavior of Chinese Communist Party officials absolutely stomach-churning. The way they just held anti-CCP dissident Liu Xiaobo until his cancer was extremely advanced, before "generously" and "magnanimously" inviting foreign doctors to "save" his life only for him to pass on anyway, just to remind the whole world that we (the international community) are powerless to hold them accountable, is an act of spite so vile and vindictive that no words can justify how I feel about it.
"I'm better than you. I can have you all shot dead in broad daylight for challenging my authority. I can fuck you, your family, your friends and everything you love and care about, and there's absolutely NOTHING you can do about it because we have the big guns and you have NOTHING but your own filth and misery to wallow in. I can send you pictures of the buffet I just had while you and your family STARVE TO DEATH in an overcrowded "quarantine" facility in Wuhan where everyone has the coronavirus. I don't need to explain or justify myself to you because I'm richer and more powerful than you, have a high social credit score and have friends and relatives in high places willing to bail me out of any sticky situation. You, on the other hand, are worth NOTHING to me. You can't touch me. Sucks to be you." *Smirks in CCP and spits on the ground in front of poor, destitute, Chinese citizens*
No god is required to justify such an entitled, snobbish attitude toward one another, and not everyone attempts to do so. It should be noted, however, that the vast majority of the victims of these corrupt, atheistic Chinese officials are themselves good, conscientious atheists like myself who possess a real and developed sense of right and wrong, and we are the ones bearing the brunt of their bullshit in Hong Kong, China and elsewhere.
It's going to take much more than simply renouncing religion and the irrational belief in an imaginary deity to improve the state of our world. It's been said that morality and virtue can exist without a god or holy book, but unfortunately, the same seems to hold true of immorality and vice.
What do you think, NSG? Has atheism made the world better in any substantive way? Or do we need to do more, and if so, what must be done, to put an end to human greed, selfishness, bigotry and ideological extremism in the (more than welcome) absence of religion?
Beyond peacefully encouraging people to renounce their faith and become atheists or agnostics and forcefully combating religiously inspired violence, bigotry and discrimination, the overthrow of the Chinese Communist regime would be a good start.
