Compassion. A perspective.

It's certainly a human attribute with or without religion.* Insofar as believers are concerned, I can say most are compassionate. When I say compassionate I mean caring and looking out for your fellow human being.

However, it oft times seems that atheists get painted with a broad brush as being heartless, dour, unfeeling and in other words incapable of compassion. Yes, stereotyped.

I can understand how it could be argued that atheists are mean-spirited and maybe sometimes we are. I wonder why?!? Yet I would argue that it is not mean-spiritedness; rather a passion for the topic at hand. Which is...atheism and invariably the topic of religion which is a touchy subject indeed because there is passion on both sides of the argument. Both sides believe so whole-heartedly in their arguments there is nothing to at best wave a white flag and worse denigrate the other. Note I said believe in, not "have faith" in, there is a difference as many of you well know.

I think it just hurts to know when you find yourself so threatened by simple critical examination and your only argument is to resort to what somebody supposedly said thousands of years ago rather than come up with something original explaining why you have faith in your belief.

I feel for these people. See, I have compassion.

*saying "without religion" leads most people to think I am saying "without a god", I will leave it up to you all to interpret as you wish. Also, I have family who believe that man has always known the Xian god taking Genesis literally (meaning a complete disregard for Darwinian evolution. Surprisingly, I had always thought them very rational just not on this I guess.