Much ado about nothing

I've been reading far too many blogs, chiefly on the topic of atheism.

I'm not a great thinker. I do know when something bugs me, when I agree and when I disagree. And I was having trouble finding arguments from atheists dealing with religion that resonated. Just saying so and so did a bad thing in the name of religion so religion is bad doesn't cut it. Neither do examples like the failure of abstinence-only sex education to prevent STDs, pregnancy or premarital sex. People can do dumb things in the name of religion, but does that make religion wrong?

I don't mean wrong in the sense of factually wrong, I mean in the sense of morally wrong. Is religion morally wrong?

This is not a silly question, so it isn't really on-topic for this blog. How can I make this silly? Well, I tried with the title.

Much ado about nothing is how I see the whole religious fussing about atheism, defining it in ways that show they don't understand it's not a belief system, it's nothing. I don't believe that giant pink fuzzy slippers will terrorize the universe. I hope nobody does. But that doesn't define anything about me any more than not believing there's an invisible entity who controls everything but does nothing does. It doesn't make me bad. It doesn't make me amoral or immoral. It just means that my sense of right and wrong don't come from a set of religious rules.

I agree with Christopher Hitchens on this. Actually, I love his writing and am inclined to agree with much, although not all, of his writings. I strongly suspect that "don't kill" wasn't a revelation after Moses announced it - it was already a cultural norm. A lot of right and wrong come from the golden rule, which in turn likely comes from our ability to empathize.

Please don't ask me if empathy is a genetic trait. I think so, and I think that its absence in people we call sociopaths is incurable, but I doubt it's as simple as finding the empathy gene. How would it help us survive? Far more knowledgeable and capable writers have already discussed group survival as compatible with evolutionary theory.

To sum up: atheism isn't anti-anything, it's just an absence of belief in deities. So fussing about atheism is much ado about nothing, literally.

And thanks to the many bloggers I've read who have really funny comments about some religious silliness, like abstinence only education. I've had far too much fun reading your blogs! For a list, go to http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula, he has the top 30 and a few are truly brilliant.