Psalm 14 says:
1The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 2The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.3They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 4Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.5There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous. 6Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge. 7Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad
The Psalmist David asserts here that the godless individual is immoral…that without God the only possible product of our selves is corruption and greed. If this were true I would assume that the religions associated with the Old Testament would never be seen with such scandal, yet they are often the most corrupt of people…of course I hate to use straw men so I won’t use the obvious lack of proof here or the fact that religion does not always equal morality…we’ve been over that before anyway. What I will do is use this passage as a study in why the Christian mindset is so often that people ouside of their own religious circle are all a bunch of filthy evil-doers.
As subjective as morality is, I have stated before that it is none the less basically the same for most of humanity…don’t kill anyone unless you are protecting yourself, don’t steal, be nice to people (unless of course they are not nice to you)…these things are fairly universal, religious and non-religious alike…the details ebb and flow but those basics are not changing too much (although folks are getting better at adding stipulations and requirements…you know, its OK to kill someone if they MIGHT be a member of al-Qaida). So the statement that the godless are corrupt is absolutely ridiculous, Atheists hold the same or a higher standard of morality than most, give or take a few bad apples. I know it’s the same with Christianity and Islam…despite the violence advocated in both the Bible and the Qu’ran.
My point here is that Psalms 14, in making the claim that goodness depends on ones belief in god, is evidence enough for me that the Bible promotes closed minded assumption based on ones understanding of an ancient text rather than an experienced based understanding of your fellow man. Psalms 14 is God’s personal statement of disgust with the humanity he created, wherein he builds a strawman and procedes to burn him down with hate and anger.
It is also claimed that we godless men and women are foolish for our claim against God’s existence. Yet it is we that fight against the simplicity of assumption and fear- which is often the catalyst for “faith” rather than experience as well. Not that experience makes something real or concrete…God wouldn’t make belief so simple as providing proof for the skeptic—which only solidifies our ability to deny him. If fools there be, it ain’t we.