Atheists are more righteous they say

[ahmad]

They say religious folk are motivated to do good solely to attain paradise and to be saved from Hell. Compare this to an atheist who does good motivated by arguably an pure innate drive for morality. And you have a comparison where one who believes in no divine entity is more righteous than those who do . But is it really the case ?

On the surface it might seem so. But if we dig a little deeper. Everything changes.
In my humble opinion, it all comes down to the process of belief itself. Those who believe after tremendous internal battles and reach certainty with pure conviction. Are not equal to those who were handed their beliefs by their forefathers without critical enquiry or any internal struggle. One journey is full of humbleness and self purification while the other is one of false pride and blind following.

You see when a true believer does good to attain paradise or to be saved from hell. He is not doing it based on dogmatic terms like many do. He is doing so with real genuine conviction. A conviction that can only be reached by sheer amount of moral effort.

But our friend the atheist, compared to a true believer is not actually acting on high moral grounds. Instead, he is acting on human biology to do good. We are actually rewarded chemically in the brain when we do selfless acts. Who is more righteous then, he who acts on chemicals, or he who is motivated by a back-breaking moral deposit ?

[Shahmatt]

Though I do not say for certain, I would also submit that the enlightenment of what is right and wrong, i.e. morality, is intertwined with the realization that God exists.

That is because one who has access to God's morality (from the soul) also accesses other innate natures of the soul, and therefore must be in awareness of the primordial contract taken by the soul with God (7:172 - 173).

On this basis it would seem to me that those who deny God's existence yet proclaim morality likely do not have access to true moral guidance. They may have a vague pseudo understanding of right and wrong, but it would be prone to intense and devastating immorality.

[relearning]

It is all down to human individually.It goes like this: Some muslims are good some are bad, some atheists are good some are bad, some people are good some are bad. That's exactly what it is. No way one group of humanity perfect whereas the rest suck!