Religion: Basis For All Morality?

Religion has been a part of our culture for generations, particularly Christianity for the UK and the "West". It has been our guidance, sanctuary and comfort in our times of need, but now, things are very different. In a survey displayed on wikipedia, here, there is clearly a large number of "non-believers" in Europe particularly in France and the UK among other countries. I don't need to go into which part of the population has the highest "non-religious" presence because it is plainly obvious to everyone: young people aged around 12 to 25. This is common knowledge. I do not believe there to be a specific reason for the rise in atheist/non-religious/agnostic in recent years but speaking as one of the atheists in the 12 to 25 band my opinion is that we don't need it anymore. I was brought up Christian however my parents were never so religious as to say grace or pray at all even or at least they never have around me. My grandparents on the other hand were very religious and took me to Sunday school every week which in all honesty I found to be boring and frankly ridiculous. I realised very early on that the Bible wasn't something to be taken seriously and that it was just like any other story book: it had a point and a message to put across but it was too far-fetched to be taken literally, even for me when I was about 7 years old!

With the abandonment of the Church at around about that age I did not become a rebellious demon-child with no morals, ethics or sense of right and wrong. I did not start worshipping the devil, vandalising churches or resent anyone who was religious in any way. The reason I say this is that some religious people in this country, and in others I am sure, seem to think that religion is the only thing that can give us the necessary guidance to be good citizens. Now, having rejected my religious background from both sides of my family and, I believe, being the first in the family to openly state that I am an atheist, I have turned out fine and have not lost common decency, manners or lawfulness. I am still the same person and always have been. Many of my friends are atheists in fact I struggle to think of the few who are not! All of them are also good citizens and have a good sense of morality. My point is that religion is not a necessity for society. People are intelligent enough these days to choose their own path and break away from thousands of years of tradition in order to pursue their own paths and should be able to do so without having some people turning up at their door trying to cram their beliefs down our throats.

And that is the second biggest thing I hate about religion: the need to convert others. If someone wants to seek help then they will now stop bugging me! As an atheist I have never felt as though a higher power has done anything for me that has been good. I have seen nothing in the world today to suggest that there is any god or at least none with good intentions. If there is a God then they are toying with me and all of us in fact. In my case they have put me on the other side of the f@£$%!* Atlantic Ocean to the person I want to be with more than anything in the world. And this isn't the first time they've done something like that either.

However, all of these things become trivial and microscopic in comparison to my number one hate reason for religion: violence. Most religions claim to want peace on Earth and want everyone to just get along, or words to that effect. Ha! Yeah right. Christianity has been in civil war for centuries despite the fact that they worship the same god! Islam, well I don't know enough about it to claim anything other than the religion does promote peace but there are still Islamic extremists trying to kill everyone who isn't Muslim (or so they say). Even in football matches (which I hate because of football hooliganism) there has been religiously inspired street fights between fans of teams like Celtic and Rangers.

So, religious people claim that non-religious people don't have morality, that they become criminals and that they cause today's problems. But no. Religious or not, if a person is violent then they are violent, if a person has no sense of morality then they weren't brought up with a sense of morality and if a person is a person then they are who they are and religion has nothing to do with it.