Phil Robertson is at it again.

In a speech he gave at an annual prayer breakfast in Florida he spoke of a fantasy he has.  Instead of summarizing what he said I will just let you see it for yourself:

“Two guys break into an atheist’s home,” Robertson began. “He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters.  Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him.  And then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot’em and they take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him.  And they can look at him and say, ‘Isn’t it great that I don’t have to worry about being judged?  Isn’t it great that there’s nothing wrong with this?  There’s no right or wrong, now is it dude?

“Then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if this was something wrong with this?  But you’re the one who says there is no God,  There’s no right, There’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun.  We’re sick in the head, have a nice day.’ “

I know this was a bit graphic but I thought it was necessary to show just how far this guy has gone.  The point he was trying to make is that Atheists can’t have morals because they do not believe in a God.  A Christian God to be more specific.  Robertson feels Atheists are free to go and do whatever they want because they have no fear of God and are not worried about the ramifications of their actions stopping them from getting into the after-life in which they don’t believe in.  I’m concerned that Robertson doesn’t realize that there are laws against doing the things he is fantasizing about doing to this atheist family.

To follow his line of thinking you would conclude that murders and other violent crimes are only committed by Atheists because they have no morals.  While people who believe in a god have morals and could never commit such awful acts.

This got me thinking.  Are Atheists more prone to murder then those who have a religion and according to Phil Robertson have a moral code?  Coming up with such numbers was not an easy thing.  I don’t think that one of the questions they ask a murderer is “what is your religious affiliation?”  So we must take a more anecdotal approach.

You may recall back in February that an “Atheist” Craig Stephen Hicks killed three Muslim college students in North Carolina.  It was only hours after he turned himself in that the media had taken a look into his Facebook page and determined that he was an Atheist.  Needless to say this made breaking news.  An Atheist killer.  Big, big news.  Now, of all the high profile killings and mass murders how many have been followed with the breaking news that the killer was an Atheist?  Not too many.  In fact I can’t think of any others.  Remember we live in a time when the media can get all kinds of info on you in just a matter of hours.  That being said I can tell you that if a murderer in this country is found to be an Atheist or of a Muslim faith it will always be breaking news.  Remember the Boston Marathon bombings?  These weren’t just two crazy people, they were two crazy people following Islam.  On the other hand Timothy McVeigh was just a crazy guy with no mention of his religious beliefs.  My point is that out of all the school shootings, bombings, serial killers, copilots flying planes into mountains none of them are Atheists.  So for a group that Robertson claims has no morals Atheists somehow seem to avoid killing others.  Even though they make up 22% of the Population in the U.S.  Very few murders are attributed to them.  Why is that?

Could it be that Atheists, since they don’t believe in an after-life, cherish the life they are currently living and don’t want to end up in prison or on death row?  Could it be that they value life so much that they couldn’t imagine taking someone else’s?

Or, could it be that morals are something you get from your parents, family, friends, and society regardless of your religious belief and that people who decide to take another person’s life are just sick individuals who either didn’t have the right mentors growing up or just someone gullible enough to listen to Phil Robertson and act on his fantasy?

No matter what morals are let’s just be thankful that Phil found his because it sounds like he would be a very scary dude without them.

 

Those pesky facts.