Atheism is not a religion, but a denial of all religions. Since atheism is not an institution or dogma, hence, there is no question of any moral or immoral values taught by atheism. Atheism simply means disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.When you deny the existence of God, you stop believing on any moral code of conduct simply because it is prescribed in your religion.
It is important to understand the though, all religions have Gods and logically speaking, there can’t be different Gods based on your beliefs, yet different Gods provides different moral codes, which cause conflict within human beings, in the name of God.
If you are an atheist, you choose your moral codes rationally based on the law of your country and follow universal human values like love, compassion, kindness, and honesty. Accordingly, an atheist should not lie, steal, rape, murder, drug-trafficking, etc. not because a particular religion prohibits it, but because the laws prohibit it and consider it an offence. Similarly, an atheist man would not support gender discrimination which allows a man to have four wives but doesn’t provide similar rights to women.
An atheist is more likely to follow the moral codes because he knows that there is no God to forgive him, and he has to pay back for his evil deeds. On the other hand, religious people can take liberty with their moral values because they believe that God will forgive them if they take a bath in the Holy Ganges or perform some rituals prescribed in the religions.
Religion has the tremendous ability to make even educated people dumb, and good people brutal. They may follow some moral values with their coreligious people following their religious books, but they also hate and even kill innocent people of other religions in the name of God without applying their mind.
Atheism teaches us to be rational and not believe anything without reason, logic and evidence. The philosophy of atheism can be well summarised by a single quote attributed to the Buddha.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
It is unfortunate that clever and unscrupulous people declared Buddha himself as God and made Buddhism a religion, which focuses more on rituals than on rational thinking. However, as the human race evolves, they will understand the fallacy of all religions and then atheism will become a norm rather than an exception.
Today, the top 5 countries with the highest possible ranges of agnostics and atheists are Sweden (46-85%), Vietnam (81%), Denmark (43-80%), Norway (31-72%), and Japan (64-65%). Most of them are also the most developed and happiest countries in the world or developing at the fastest rate. Even in China, only 16% people call themselves religious, while roughly half (49%) say they are not a religious person. [1] [2] It is not a wonder that China is poised to become the greatest economy of the world very soon, thanks to their inculcating the value of rationality and critical thinking in their population.
Hence, the trend shows that atheists create a more moral society. As the tribe of rational people grows fast in the future, the fallacy of religion will be wiped out from the world, and humanity will become more humane, compassionate, and loving.
