Can atheists have compassion?

[hope rainbow]

For the atheists.
For people that do not believe in karma, nor rebirth, nor heaven, nor hell, or any life after death.
For people that believe that existence is this body. Period.
For these people:
- does it still make sense not to lie, not to steal, not to entertain divisive speech, harsh words, etc... ?
- does it still make sense to have compassion towards others?
- does it still make sense to consider one's life as less important than the lives of others?
- does it still make sense to sacrifice one's life for the sake of others?
- does "compassion" carry any meaning?
- does it still make sense to be considerate to others?

Or are these qualities only applicable to those who abide by a faith, a religion and a recognition of existence beyond the body?
What do you think?

[Zhalmed Pawo]

My own experience is that, typically, on the whole, non-religious people are more loving and kind than religious ones. This is probably because non-religious people act straight from the heart, which usually is a good one in us humans, but the religious ones all too often tend to mess things up with all kinds of theories and ballyhooisms that prevent heart-to-heart-connection. There is all too often some religious doctrine or rule that prevents us to take the suffering sentient being as such, or some rule telling us that we must avoid "those demon worshiping sinners", or something like that...

Mere humanity, especially western secular humanism, seems to be more ethical than any religion. (I am sad to say this, but it just seems so.)

Ps: Communism is by all practical means a religion - it is not a secular humanistic view.

[Dolce Vita]

In my opinion, an Antheist can be compassionate. To love and to be loved is universal, regardless of who you are, rich or poor, fat or thin, young or old, we want to be loved and of course to love. It is also taught in the school which is not a religious place that as a human we should care about others, including animals.

With a religion belief(that is pure, not contaminated), we follow a method or way to help is generating compassiom towards others. For instance, the prayers serve as a positive affirmation for us to generate compassion. Prayers in any form of religion (again a pure and uncontaminated one) always include statement such as to help, to love and to forgive.

An Atheist without any religion belief can have compassion if they grow up in an environment full of love. However, without a religion, it might take them longer to gnerate compassion.

In short, in my opinion, it is possible for anteists to have compassion.

[KhedrubGyatso]

If we look at the definition of  compassion , it is a mind which cannot bear the suffering of others. From this, we can see that this capacity to be concerned about others welfare  is coming from within us, from our hearts and conscience irregardless of one's belief systems.
As humans , bad or good , atheist or otherwise, we all have the capacity for such a beautiful mind which is lacking  for lower realm beings.
The extent and quality of such a mind depends on knowledge and wisdom and how good our heart is. A Buddhist  have access to knowledge and methods to develop and improve the quality of his compassion until it becomes perfected in its quality and extending equally  to all sentient beings. An atheist would be unlikely to have such special knowledge and even if he does , from reading etc , he is unlikely to have been able to put it into practice without proper guidance and proven training methods from realized master/gurus.

[vajraD]

As for me I belief an atheists also can be very compassionate. They can even be better then people who carry a particular faith. The tag of religion is to differentiate us. So what if we have a religion does that make us a good people. Some people know karma so much, yet they still continue to do bad.

[pgdharma]

I think atheist can be compassionate, kind, caring and honest. To be compassionate, to have kindness, to be honest, to love and care are human ethics regardless of age, race, religion or gender.  If animals can show love and care, why not humans who are atheists.

However, if we have a religion eg Buddhism and with proper guidance from our spiritual guide, we will be able to cultivate those good qualities within ourselves and perfected those good qualities so that we can eventually take upon the sufferings of others. However for atheists they may show love and care for others at a very fundamental, secular level.

[yontenjamyang]

"Compassion is a mind that cannot bear the suffering of others" (Quote KG).

Can atheists have compassion? The answer is yes. All being by nature has the Buddha Nature and that certainly encompasses compassion.

By observation we can actually see that regardless of the persons' religion or lack of religious belief (atheists) they can potentially be compassionate or not compassionate, sometimes compassionate, sometime not compassionate all with varying degrees. Beings who are compassionate all the time, we label as a Boddhisattva, regardless of the person "religion".  That of person is truly rare unfortunately!

So most people have varying degree of compassion. Even a mass murderer may show compassion.

What is important though, without some kind of religion and guidance, we will stay that way, that is relying on potentiality and it can be very unpredictable. With guidance, such as in the Buddhist practice that "provide access to knowledge and methods to develop and improve the quality of compassion until it becomes perfected in its quality and extending equally  to all sentient beings" (Quote KG), then it is perfect. That person is always compassionate in all actions of body, speech and mind.

So every being can have compassion including atheists!

[jeremyg]

Yes, i don't see why not. Just because we don't have a religion doesn't mean that we cannot help others. There are hundreds and thousands of examples of atheists who are compassionate. Many people partake in charities, or do their best to help people less fortunate than them. This for me has some element of compassion involved. Having said that it can be said that religious people understand compassion to a greater extent. Thus they understand the greater meaning behind it, but atheists can understand it just as much. There is no forcing, or for use of a better word teaching on atheists to be compassionate, thus if they do it, it is out of the goodness of their heart.

Atheists are just humans who are confused, or like to think that there is no god. That there is no higher being. Yet i'm even sure some Buddha's have emanated as atheists in order to help and teach there. If there is a way of packaging the dharma, or compassion to them, i'm sure it is being done, and we will see atheists being compassionate.

Yet i still see many atheists who cannot be compassionate, mainly because they only think for themselves, and they have no spiritual background to educate them on being compassionate. We shall see, and I hope that I see many more compassionate atheists in the future.

[hope rainbow]

If we look at the definition of  compassion , it is a mind which cannot bear the suffering of others.

Dear KG, thanks for your post.
Compassion, then, is limited to our understanding of suffering.
If we cannot recognize suffering, then , surely, we cannot develop compassion, right?
Thus how can an atheist develop compassion towards someone who is engaging in activities that we know will bring him down to the 3 lower realms? That kind of compassion could not be logically developed by an atheist, right?

[hope rainbow]

Communism is by all practical means a religion - it is not a secular humanistic view.

Deaf ZP, I am very curious to know how you qualify communism as a religion "by all practical means"... ?
HR

[shugdentruth]

I once saw a video of a dog saving another dog that was hit by a car on the highway. The rescuing dog pulled the victim dog that was hit by a car off the highway so it would not be harmed further. Is that an act of compassion?? Or was it just an instinct that the animal had for its loved one??

[hope rainbow]

If we look at the definition of  compassion , it is a mind which cannot bear the suffering of others.

Dear KG, thanks for your post.
Compassion, then, is limited to our understanding of suffering.
If we cannot recognize suffering, then , surely, we cannot develop compassion, right?
Thus how can an atheist develop compassion towards someone who is engaging in activities that we know will bring him down to the 3 lower realms - especially if these actions seem rather pleasant and beneficial in the short term? That kind of compassion could not be logically developed by an atheist, right?

So it seems we need to identify three things:

1. What is compassion.
As KG said it: a mind which cannot bear the suffering of others

2. What is suffering?

3. What is "others"?

In the understanding of item 2 and 3 above, it is clear to me that an atheist would have a different definition than a spiritual person. Then different spiritual traditions would also have "variantes" in answering questions 2 and 3 (for example, a Christian is likely to say that chicken were created by God so that we can have our protein intake by eating them - while a Buddhist would "align" the chicken and the human being as sentient beings - and mothers).

[Tammy]

I believe all sentient beings are born with pure mind, our minds are 'polluted' by our environment and our upbringings. An atheist can definitely act compassionately and be kind towards others.

The thing is, without dharma knowledge, atheists would unknowingly perform bad deeds and hence collect negative karma. And on the same token, their good deeds may be performed perfectly to the point of accumulation of positive karma..

This is almost like the topic in this forum "but I am a good person!" - just being a good guy is not enough !

[negra orquida]

I think anyone has compassion whether they believe in religion or not, because compassion is inherent in human nature.  If a serial murderer can have compassion for a drowning puppy, why not an atheist?  The extent and spontaneity of our compassion would depend on how much we have practised it.  How much we practice compassion would depend on our understanding of it, its benefits, its implications etc.

Since atheists don't believe in karma and future lives, they may not be able to practice compassion as in depth or as all encompassing as someone who really does. It is like people who are against eating sharks fin but eat other animals - they are selective in giving compassion to animals.  True compassion is unconditional.  And I am not sure if it is possible for someone who is not spiritual at all to develop unconditional compassion.  As what KG said:

The extent and quality of such a mind depends on knowledge and wisdom and how good our heart is. A Buddhist  have access to knowledge and methods to develop and improve the quality of his compassion until it becomes perfected in its quality and extending equally  to all sentient beings. An atheist would be unlikely to have such special knowledge and even if he does , from reading etc , he is unlikely to have been able to put it into practice without proper guidance and proven training methods from realized master/gurus.

- does it still make sense not to lie, not to steal, not to entertain divisive speech, harsh words, etc..?
- does it still make sense to have compassion towards others?
- does it still make sense to consider one's life as less important than the lives of others?
- does it still make sense to sacrifice one's life for the sake of others?
- does it still make sense to be considerate to others?

Most of the above are related to moral ethics, which I guess do not require one to have a religion to do.  But of course, is much less meaningful without the Dharma to support the action.

Frankly speaking, I think atheists are people in denial that there are gods/higher beings/Buddhas other than themselves

[Klein]

I once saw a video of a dog saving another dog that was hit by a car on the highway. The rescuing dog pulled the victim dog that was hit by a car off the highway so it would not be harmed further. Is that an act of compassion?? Or was it just an instinct that the animal had for its loved one??

Dear shugdentruth,

The act is that of compassion. The second question refers to it's intention of compassion or otherwise. All of us who are not Enlightened will never operate from pure compassion. Our acts of compassion are tainted with some level of selfishness.

What's important here is that we practise compassion until we attain a mind of pure compassion or bodhicitta. If a dog can perform an act of compassion, it makes sense that human beings including atheists can do the same.