07-11-2017, 09:17 AM
(07-10-2017, 07:44 PM)Dill Wrote: This reminds me of two stories I sometimes tell folks.
1. About 10 years ago, I dined with friends at harbor restaurant in Doha, Qatar. Our waiter was Bedouin, a poor desert Arab come to the city where he landed a great job. Later that evening, when we arrived home, I realized my wallet was missing. I presumed I left it at the restaurant, perhaps at our table. When I told my friends I would go back tomorrow to check with the waiter, they laughed and told me I was crazy If I had left it there it was gone for good. I told them the waiter was Bedoo so I was pretty certain he wouldn't steal it, at which they laughed even harder. This was not an Islamophobic thing either, as all three of my friends were "secular" Muslims from Albania.
Next day I went to the restaurant. Not only did the waiter have my wallet, but he would not accept a finders tip. What he had done was "good in the sight of Allah" and not to be tainted by profit.
2. Several years later I was at the Dead Sea with my family, at a day resort on the Jordanian side. My son came to me in the evening distraught--he had lost his wallet, left it on a table. There were a number of young serving boys working at this resort. He assumed one had snatched it, and our table was rather isolated from traffic. I told him the boys were Bedoo, very unlikely any would steal it. Rather, more likely they would turn it in to the management. Like my friends previously he was skeptical. Also the resort was closed, since it was late evening. Who to ask? I went to the back door and knocked. The door opened to a dressing room for male workers. I asked if anyone had found a wallet and immediately a kid of about 13 ran to a drawer, pulled out my son's wallet, and returned it to him. Again, no tip.
I could multiply stories here--both of Muslims and Christians who have helped out a poor atheist in need when his car broke down or some other misfortune struck. Beaker is right to point out there are non religious people who do good works too. I just want to mention that, in the total scheme of things, religions have also enabled people to interact ethically with strangers, sometimes on a vast scale. Not defending religion here so much as just stumping for descriptive accuracy.
I agree that non-religious people do good works, however the argument isn't ever about how "non-religion" is the cause of wars. Religion is specifically targeted as the cause for so much turmoil whenever someone wants to talk about all the conflict that has happened in the world. But I can't say that I'm surprised, because it's easy to pick on something that's immediately identifiable such as Christianity or Islam. You can't really identify "non-religion" as a cause. That's why I felt the need to make the point about how no one can really account for all the bad vs good that religion has really created, and if people could really see that they would understand how grand of an assertion is to blame religion for "most" tragedies.
