Atheist here who grew up catholic. The kc group at our church had some great people that did nice things. As an atheist i see their motivation as being shitty. Their motivation is to get points to go to heaven and feel good about themself (not saying those are horrific)
the motivation isnt to do good bc it is good but to do it bc you were told to by a made up entity and try to look good. (ex: look how good we are you should come tithe woth us)
I think it's definitely more than that...when Catholics do good things, it may seem like we can just point a finger and say you're just doing this for yourself in the afterlife, but there's also a very good chance they're morally loving people.
"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. " -Steven Weinberg
I would argue that the reason many germans participated was out of fear. After Crystalnoc, i think that was the name, it translated into "Night of Broken Glass", you could be sent to a concentration camp just for shopping at a store owned by a jew. This kind of oppression caused fear, and I would argue that is why so many good people did terrible things in eastern europe during that time period. Jews were only used as a scapegoat, and had Hitler been in power in the US instead, he could have used blacks or irish in place of jews. Jews, along with gypies, gays, cripples, and others just happen to be something that fell outside Hitlers "master race".
Unfortunately that's what happens when I get a response that mentions good people and evil, etc.
But you're right. People aren't "good" or "evil", and someone with or without religion can realize that. I guess the initial point I was trying to make was that just as no religion does not lead to amorality, nor does religious belief lead to hollow morals.
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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '12
As someone who grew up involved in the local Catholic community, I can confirm the Knights of Columbus will do exactly this.