[devonin]

Originally Posted by Senip

the most annoying thing about these debates is you always get people who lord their X over you, regardless of whatever it is.

you get the super christians going "Well i'm going to HEAVEN so fu!"
and then you get the athiests bashing the unholy shit out of people because "they buy into the idea of eternal damnation."

I'm almost certain that Mother Theresa and many, many other people were not intimidated by the idea of burning in hell, but rather that they felt so purely about whatever they supported that they did the amazing things they did. just because you got threatened by it, doesn't mean it's the same thing for everyone.

And if you think Mother Teresa wouldn't have been a good person, if it weren't for the Catholic Church teaching her how to act, I'm not sure what to say to you.

The only people who would behave poorly if it weren't for religion teaching them to act well are the ones who buy into the threat of punishment in the afterlife if they don't.

If you don't believe in an afterlife, or that you will be rewarded/punished in that afterlife, religion as a moral force doesn't do anything that can't be done secularly as well.