Immoral Minority?

A recent op-ed piece to the Los Angeles Chronicle argued for the advancement of atheism based on several statistics suggesting that atheists (or rather, Humanists, I would suggest) tend to be both more financially generous and less susceptible to a host of social ills. While I haven't seen any statistics and I have a hunch that much, much more research would need to be conducted before such a vague and sweeping conclusion could be made, the author raises the critical point of the morality of the un-religious masses.

Linguistically, the word "morality" has been hijacked by certain squeaky wheels in our country, suggesting that those of us without a shared religious tradition also lack morality. Any statistics aside, do the likes of the so-called "Moral Majority" think the rest of us are the un-moral, that is, immoral minority? Do they really think everyone else has no sense of "right" and "wrong"? Are we really all out there dishonoring thy mother and father and rampantly coveting our neighbors' wives?

If you're reading this site right now, its likely because you have decided to engage yourself in a deep, meaningful quest for the truth, independent of any personal tradition or upbringing. And that quest, that questioning of the nature of meaning, is, perhaps, the most "moral" goal of all. So the next time you hear someone inadvertently suggest that any particular religious group has a monopoly on morality, I encourage you to politely explain to them that while you may disagree with them on the nature of right and wrong, you certainly do have a sense of morality. After all, thou shalt not judge.