Changes

:: You're correct that atheism doesn't provide a moral code, but I still fail to see why that would give justification or place blame. I don't see why it's even worth mentioning atheism in this article at all.

:: You're correct that atheism doesn't provide a moral code, but I still fail to see why that would give justification or place blame. I don't see why it's even worth mentioning atheism in this article at all.

:: It's a function of society to provide morality. That society can be religion, government, clubs (for example, Rotary International provides strong philanthropical morals) or even a local community. These morals are passed on to children via family, friends and various leaders. Atheism does not provide morals because it's not a society. Unlike a religion, there is no organization. There are no laws or a belief structure. But just because one doesn't have religion doesn't mean they don't have morals. There are millions of atheists in the world who we would consider to be moral people. The other layers of society, family and friends provides just as it does to people with religion. Their lack of theism hasn't prevented them from living moral lives because they live in societies which provided them with morals similar to yours and similar to mine.

:: It's a function of society to provide morality. That society can be religion, government, clubs (for example, Rotary International provides strong philanthropic morals) or even a local community. These morals are passed on to children via family, friends and various leaders. Atheism does not provide morals because it's not a society. Unlike a religion, there is no organization. There are no laws or a belief structure. But just because one doesn't have religion doesn't mean they don't have morals. There are millions of atheists in the world who we would consider to be moral people. The other layers of society, family and friends provides just as it does to people with religion. Their lack of theism hasn't prevented them from living moral lives because they live in societies which provided them with morals similar to yours and similar to mine.

:: In regard to morality, being an atheist is like being someone plays baseball. It's not a problem that baseball doesn't provide morals because baseball players get their morality from other sources. In all of the examples given, the men who committed the heinous acts lived in a society in which those actions were considered immoral. It wasn't a lack of belief that they would be punished after death that allowed them to perform the horrors they inflicted, it was a '''personal''' failure of morality. The same could be said of theistic men and women who either ignored their morals or even used them as a justification (such as Adolph Hitler, Osama bin Laden, or Kind Ferdinand II, Queen Isabella and Pope Sixtus IV). It's no more logical to blame atheism for what Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong did than it is to blame the fact that they weren't Boy Scouts.

:: In regard to morality, being an atheist is like being someone plays baseball. It's not a problem that baseball doesn't provide morals because baseball players get their morality from other sources. In all of the examples given, the men who committed the heinous acts lived in a society in which those actions were considered immoral. It wasn't a lack of belief that they would be punished after death that allowed them to perform the horrors they inflicted, it was a '''personal''' failure of morality. The same could be said of theistic men and women who either ignored their morals or even used them as a justification (such as Adolph Hitler, Osama bin Laden, or Kind Ferdinand II, Queen Isabella and Pope Sixtus IV). It's no more logical to blame atheism for what Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong did than it is to blame the fact that they weren't Boy Scouts.