How I Feel About Atheist Memes

Some of the memes that make the rounds are really dumb, but others are serving a purpose.  They are well thought out, succinct, true, and the best ones really hit a nerve with people who need to examine their dogma.  I think of them as single-serving conscience checks.  I don't have to sit and argue, just plant a seed and let nature take its course in a person's mind.

I have seen people get hatefully, violently angry in response to a ten-word meme.  Their misspellings and faulty logic can be amusing, but what is not amusing is the vitriol that is spewed in defending their "loving" god and their faith that they say is responsible for all of the good in the world.  

For some reason, religious people in this country think that any good that is done in the world is a direct result of belief in god or god working through people.  They tend to forget that there were humans on Earth for millions of years before the invention of the Abrahamic god.  They don't see that in order for humankind to survive there had to be an innate ability for people to be good and do good without belief in a supreme being.  They conveniently ignore the fact that millions (billions?) of people on Earth right now are Good Without God.

The other, most important, thing that they willfully ignore, is the vast number of people who do awful things in the name of religion.  They rationalize Boston Marathon bombing, September 11, and couple who killed a SECOND child by not getting him medical treatment and relying on faith healing - while serving probation for the killing of a toddler in the same way back in 2009, by saying these people are aberrations or "not true Christians."  

That fallacy doesn't hold water with me.  None of those things would have happened if not for the perpetrators' dearly held belief in religion.  Aberration or not, the catalyst was their belief in a myth and their conviction that they were doing what "god" wanted them to do.  

There is nothing that apologists can say that will excuse the wrong done in the name of religion.  People are inherently good and will do good regardless of belief in a deity because our very survival as a species depends upon getting along with one another and encouraging the forward motion of our society by protecting every member of the group.  That all changes when  the mindset is changed with brainwashing that introduces the us vs. them mentality that is the basis of religion.

If I can piss of one person and make him reconsider what his "belief" is doing to other people, then I have done a good thing for humanity.  Bring on the memes!