Atheism

Herman Cohen said that Judaism discovered the idea of humanity in the stranger. It seems obvious in retrospect, but even the best ideas (seatbelts?) have to be invented. So maybe God was just a palatable delivery mechanism for this idea.

So long as our shared humanity isn't reason enough to inspire kindness, we can't consider ourselves mature as a species.

We can't only ever do the right thing because we're told to. At some point we need to adopt these moral principles as our own, and stand by them for their own sake.

This doesn't hard. If we want to live in a kind world, then we should be kind.

The beauty of love your neighbor as yourself is that it's self-justifying. We don't need a godhead to take this moral imperative seriously.

It's true that people's visions of paradise will differ, but that's true whether anybody believes in God or not.

If someone asks why they should be kind, what's the more convincing answer? Because God said so or because that's how you'd like to be treated?

We are citizens of the world, and therefore responsible for making it. You can't escape this responsibility, even if you choose to shirk. Your actions have consequences whether you believe that or not. You don't get to just decide you don't matter, because your actions affect other people, and therefore they always matter. I don't matter is an excuse to be ethically lazy.