Elf Sternberg

I'm always very nervous around anyone that's getting their guide to wrong and right from an external source.

If your sense of good and bad is so badly messed up that you can even say the things that Charlie or Linda are saying, that you can't internally work out that, biblical terms or not, it's an abhorrent idea, and have to rely on some outside force (pastor, holy book, talk-back radio) to tell you what is the right thing to do, then how can I trust you?

I'm assuming it's upbringing in most cases, they have been brought up to use these external sources as their guide to life, so they have lost the ability to know when they are being guided the wrong way.

It's funny really. They say that atheists can't be trusted, while I think that people that let a book guide them to right and wrong are far more dangerous, because it's so very easy for somebody to make them do evil acts by convincing them that 'the book says you should do this'.

I'll note that not all theists have this problem, and not all atheists seem to have a useful internal sense of right and wrong, but some religions do strongly encourage this behaviour. And any time those groups have power, I'm nervous.