I believe that it is a bad idea to rush to judgement about another person – and that when you must judge someone, you should stop a moment and consider how you would fare if you were judged by the same criteria that you are about to judge that other person. Such a value is clearly part of Christianity, as Jesus is quoted to say in the New Testament:
Of course, this principle for me is not some commandment handed down by a person who’s very historic existence is a dubious assumption but whom some religious movement decided is God incarnate. Instead, I see this as a corollary of the Ethic of Reciprocity, also known as the Golden Rule, which is inherent to Secular Humanism. Simply put, this slowness to judge is what you get when you apply the Ethic of Reciprocity to the act of passing judgement on someone.
But the Ethic of Reciprocity. isn’t unique to Secular Humanism. It is also present in a number of religions – among those religions are Hellenism, Hinduism, Judaism, and yes, Christianity. Again, let us refer to Jesus as quoted in the New Testament:
.. and again ..
As a matter of fact, the Ethic of Reciprocity is not just one of several Christian principles, but one of the two core-most principles of Christianity:
This Christian emphasis on the Ethic of Reciprocity is a very strong one – almost as strong as the a Jewish emphasis on this very same principle recorded in the Talmud as Hillel’s response to someone asking him if he could learn all that there was to know about Judaism while standing on one foot.
That said, while there are some values that are found in Christianity that I very much hold to despite holding no belief in God’s existence, this does not apply to all Christian values. There are some Christian values that may not be inherently compatible with all forms of atheism per-se, but which are incompatible with the Rationalism that I very much espouse.
For example, I am against the idea of accepting a claim just because everyone’s saying it. Mere virality of a claim does not prove that it is true. I believe that it is important that there needs to be evidence for a claim before it can be taken seriously. Furthermore, it is iimportant to not just accept supposed evidence on face value. Evidence needs to be scrutinized, tested, and depending on the kind of claim even replicated.
This value is in stark contrast to Christianity. In account given in the New Testament, when one of the Apostles displayed behavior that even approached this virtue, Jesus didn’t praise him for it, but rebuked him instead.
Thomas wasn’t refusing to believe in Jesus’s resurrection in the face of evidence. He was merely insisting that evidence be scrutinized before the claim based on it be accepted. For that, Jesus’s response was a blessing from which Thomas was excluded from for precisely that reason.
Again, not all atheists are necessary Rationalists, so there may be atheists who are as a matter of principle willing to accept some things without proper scrutiny of evidence, or even without evidence at all – just that the existence of God isn’t among the things that they will accept so easily. However, I don’t recommend such a mentality.
So in short, there are some Christian values that, though not necessarily incompatible with atheism itself per-se, are still unhealthy mindsets which I don’t recommend. On the other hand, there are some Christian values that are very compatible with atheism, and which are very good values to live by. These values may not be unique to Christianity, but they can still be seen as “Christian values” in that they are an integral part of Christianity.
