all religious people are in a sense, selfish. why?
When an atheist does a good deed, it is purely for altruistic
reasons.
But when a religious person does a good deed, regardless of his
justification, it will still eventually boils down to his desire to
progress to a better life after death. e.g. going to heaven instead
of hell.
Their primary aim is to attain entry to heaven, and helping
people comes secondary.
I personally believe that free thinker come to this world, to
form part of the interactions which make up our known world.
Without free thinkers, the world would be a less colourful place.
Think LKY, MaoZedong etc
Also, one does not need to be religious to live a fulfilling
life. Maybe from the religious point of view, from the big picture,
free thinkers do not lead a purposeful life, since they don't exist
beyond death.
But consider this, in the course of life, we can have a
meaningful, purposeful life too.
While the values and the morals are taught/imposed on the
religious, e.g. the Commandments of the Christians. You must not do
this and that etc...
free thinkers derive their morals through logical thoughts,
where the guiding principle is the Golden Rule: "Do not do upon
other people what you do not wish to happen to you."
For the religious, you do not steal because you are wary of the
punishment you will receive in your afterlife. for the free
thinker, you do not steal simply because you do not like it if
people stole from you either.
Thus, from the result of all that pondering and reflection, the
free thinker will arrive at his own conclusion of what morals he
should abide by. And with this moral, he can then choose to pursue
whatever agendas which may arise.
Not all religious people are "selfish". Your statement of "all
religious people are selfish" is a generalization without taking
into account of the understanding of religious practice. Buddhist
practises selflessness (i.e. there is no 'self', which is the
opposite of selfishness), an essential teaching of the Buddha.
Christian's primary goal is to serve god, following god's will,
which is to practise altruism and spread the gospel (god's
message). Taoist aims to maintain self-harmony with "Dao" (or the
way of life i.e. the nature of the universe) and practises a
balance of Yin (negative evil forces) and Yang (positive good
forces) for the benefits of mankind.
Your moral principle of "Do not do upon other people what you do
not wish to happen to you." is basically based on Confucian ethics
(己所不欲，勿施于人）, which is a great philosophy on humanism. Although
Confucius does not mention much about religious thoughts, he did
mention that one should also respect the deities/ghosts and if
possible, stay away from them (敬鬼神而远之）.
IMO, there is nothing wrong with being a free-thinker, but one
must have a moral practice in your life. With moral practice, your
life will not go on the "wrong path", but instead will progress
towards the "right path".
Mao Zedong should not be taken as an example of freethinker. In
fact, he's bad example of one who blindly believes in Marxism, a
form of materialism which rejects any form of idealism and
spiritualism, or in fact any other philosophical thoughts such as
Confucianism. He blindly crushed Confucianism. He has strong faith
in Marxism and communism, and his ignorance has caused him to
commit crime against humanity such as launching Great Leap Forward
(causing hundreds of millions of Chinese to die of hunger),
Cultural revolution (which causes the destruction of Chinese
culture). He branded all religious practice as 'feudal' and
'superstitious' without realizing that most religions can act as
ethical practice for people and preventing people from committing
evil. Most Chinese who practised a combination of Chinese religious
practice at least uphold the Taoist beliefs of "举头三尺有神明， 人在做，天在看"
(just raise up your head by 3 feets and there will be deities. A
person is doing it, the heaven is watching). This "heaven
scrutinising human behaviour" at the very least prevents people
from committing evils for fear of retribution in the present life.
When a person is stealing, he thinks he's right and nothing
wrong with it, because he has no sense of right or wrong (moral
beliefs), has no fear and does not believe in retribution. He
thinks he will not be caught and can get away with it. Unless a
country has a strong legal system, he will most likely get away
with it and will not be caught. But in most religion, there is
retribution. Buddhism talks about karma. Stealing leads to poverty
or bad karma. In strict Islamic law, stealing resulted in your hand
being cut off. Taoism believes in retribution because the heaven is
watching your action.
When a person is committing adultery (having sex with another
person other than your own marriage partner) or visiting
prostitute, he/she also thinks he/she's right and nothing wrong
with it. He has no fear and does not believe in retribution and
thus will continue to commit evil. He thinks he will not be caught
and can get away with it. But in most religions, adultery is evil.
Buddhism talks about karma. Adultery or sexual misconduct usually
end up in broken marriage (divorce) or even sickness such as AIDS,
sexual diseases or others. Look at how many people who watch porn
escalated into porn or sex addictions and had to seek medical help.
They lead to social problems that is bad for the society.
Retribution will not occur just in this life, but also in the
next life after that. If one is a free thinker and does not believe
in any form of religion, at the very least, he should always
believe in doing good and avoid all forms of evil. This is the
basis for humanism.
