Being good means doing good. Not when it’s convenient, but sometimes when it’s inconvenient. One of the biggest fallacies that theists wrongly attribute to us non-theists is that we cannot possibly be good without swearing allegiance to a god. As it is consistently shown, we (atheists) are not the ones hijacking airplanes, bombing subways and setting children on fire. Not only can you be good without a god, I maintain you have a much better chance of being a good person without a god. However, the majority of people in the United States would tend to disagree with me. They, of course, are wrong. I don’t have the luxury of a fictitious all-powerful deity to forgive me when I do something wrong. I must live with the consequences of my own actions. That is why it is so important to lead by example. We’re all human. We all get upset and harbor unpleasant thoughts from time to time. It is how we act upon those thoughts that define our morality. It’s hard to be good all of the time. We all get frustrated, but sometimes all we need is a little symbol to remind us of who we are.
The other day I was driving to work on the freeway. I have a long commute that can sometimes last over an hour. As I sit there I watch bad drivers cutting people off and doing everything they can irritate as many people as possible – not to mention endangering their own and other people’s lives. On this particular morning there was a person tailgating me in the right lane. I was already exceeding the posted speed limit, but I deduced it wasn’t fast enough for him by the fact that he continually charged and gestured at me. As I approached an entrance ramp, with the tailgater practically on my bumper, there was a vehicle to my immediate right trying to merge onto the freeway. I was tempted to ignore the situation and just go at my current speed and let the merging driver try and fend for himself even though the entrance ramp was coming to an end. However, I looked up in my rear view mirror – and saw, not the jerk that was tailgating me, but the American Atheists’ decal on my rear window. My actions were clear. I had to slow down and allow the driver to merge into traffic. That’s exactly what I did. Yes, I know I ran the risk of getting rammed, but I felt compelled to do it. I did it not to irritate the person behind me, but to aid the person trying to get onto the freeway. The merging driver raised his hand in a gesture to say “thank you” and I reciprocated in kind, making sure my gesture was overt enough that my tailgater behind me saw it. I wasn’t just a member of American Atheists. I was a representative of, not only the organization, but of atheists in general. As an atheist, it was my duty to do good.
I will never know if the person behind me identified the American Atheist logo or if he thought I was doing a good deed or not. It does not matter. What does matter is that whenever I get into my American Atheists logoed car, I am representing atheists. I have a responsibility to act appropriately and exercise good judgment in accordance with the aims and principals of American Atheists, as well as, my own Humanist worldviews. I will not be the cause of someone saying they witnessed a godless atheist being a jerk. I will instead be the cause of someone saying, “Hey, did you see that? That atheist let that guy in. What a cool thing to do. Maybe atheists aren’t so bad after all.” I know it’s a little thing. But, if we all do good little things on a consistent basis, we might not have so many big problems and maybe more people would identify us as the good people that we truly are.