The threat of godless ideologies

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: Tommunist

Originally posted by: Riprorin
I don't know who wrote this, but I find it interesting:

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint. Since one's destiny is ultimately unrelated to one's behavior, you may as well just live as you please. And if God doesn't exist, that also means there are no objective standards of right and wrong. Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning. In a world without God, who is to say that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint?

If you lack the character it takes to be a good person and feel required to turn to religion that's okay. This isn't a jab at all religious people - just those that feel it's necesary for someone to be truely moral.

And where does the standard of what's good or bad come from?

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Riprorin
I don't know who wrote this, but I find it interesting:

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint. Since one's destiny is ultimately unrelated to one's behavior, you may as well just live as you please. And if God doesn't exist, that also means there are no objective standards of right and wrong. Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning. In a world without God, who is to say that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint?

Then it must be completely mind-boggling to you how I am still willing to help others without the consideration of entering any heavenly afterlife.

 

[sao123]

This isn't a jab at all religious people - just those that feel it's necesary for someone to be truely moral.

Hypothetically...
what good are morals without religion? Why invent such a thing? What good is it for you to live a good life and be a good person here on earth? If you deny the existance of God, and You deny the afterlife in heaven or hell.... who needs morals. why even have them? Kill someone, rape someone, steal their possessions, maybe even lie about it in court and walk free. whats the worst that can happen? They can execute you, you die, and just become non-existant "poof"...theres no punishment of hell. It no longer matters.



without any form of religion...there can be no afterlife... and without afterlife there can be no eternal reward or punishment... without eternal reward or eternal punishment...what good are morals? They mean exactly zip zero no notta nothing. Civilization cannot exist in any state without punishment for wrong doing and reward for doing good. The absence of such is called chaos, lawlessness, anarchy. Civilization cannot arise out of anarchy because the nature of mans soul is evil. (If it werent, there would be no need for morals at all) Therefore anarchy can only turn into civilization in the presence of a higher deity.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin
I don't know who wrote this, but I find it interesting:

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint. Since one's destiny is ultimately unrelated to one's behavior, you may as well just live as you please. And if God doesn't exist, that also means there are no objective standards of right and wrong. Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning. In a world without God, who is to say that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint?

Then it must be completely mind-boggling to you how I am still willing to help others without the consideration of entering any heavenly afterlife.

Not really since I don't think that helping others has anything to do with "entering any heavenly afterlife".

Why do you help others anyway?

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin
I don't know who wrote this, but I find it interesting:

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint. Since one's destiny is ultimately unrelated to one's behavior, you may as well just live as you please. And if God doesn't exist, that also means there are no objective standards of right and wrong. Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning. In a world without God, who is to say that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint?

Then it must be completely mind-boggling to you how I am still willing to help others without the consideration of entering any heavenly afterlife.

Not really since I don't think that helping others has anything to do with "entering any heavenly afterlife".

Why do you help others anyway?

Why not?

Interestingly enough, most Christians that I know are Christians because they want God to save them. I thought a more accurate phrasing would be they are Christians because they owe it to God. But then... eh... what do I know.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: sao123

This isn't a jab at all religious people - just those that feel it's necesary for someone to be truely moral.

Hypothetically...
what good are morals without religion? Why invent such a thing? What good is it for you to live a good life and be a good person here on earth? If you deny the existance of God, and You deny the afterlife in heaven or hell.... who needs morals. why even have them? Kill someone, rape someone, steal their possessions, maybe even lie about it in court and walk free. whats the worst that can happen? They can execute you, you die, and just become non-existant "poof"...theres no punishment of hell. It no longer matters.



without any form of religion...there can be no afterlife... and without afterlife there can be no eternal reward or punishment... without eternal reward or eternal punishment...what good are morals? They mean exactly zip zero no notta nothing.

So you are saying that without the chance of an afterlife you would be an immoral individual prone to rape, murder and thievery?

I'm an Atheist myself and I consider myself as Moral as your average Christian..even without the fantasy of having an afterlife. BTW if there is a Heaven and it is filled with the likes of you and your ilk I think I would prefer to just not exist after my demise as eternity with you guys would be worse than hell.

 

[sao123]

Civilization cannot exist in any state without punishment for wrong doing and reward for doing good. The absence of such is called chaos, lawlessness, anarchy. Civilization cannot arise out of anarchy because the nature of mans soul is evil. (If it werent, there would be no need for morals at all) Therefore anarchy can only turn into civilization in the presence of a higher deity.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: sao123

This isn't a jab at all religious people - just those that feel it's necesary for someone to be truely moral.

Hypothetically...
what good are morals without religion? Why invent such a thing?

Ok... if we want to play the hypothetical game.... if I was the leader of a group of cavemen, I would say the reasoning is that first there needs to be unity and we need to work together. We need to rely on each other for survival and if you don't we'll all die. Hence, comes the first rule and probably a good start in the direction of morality. "Don't do to others which you don't want done to yourself."

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin
I don't know who wrote this, but I find it interesting:

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint. Since one's destiny is ultimately unrelated to one's behavior, you may as well just live as you please. And if God doesn't exist, that also means there are no objective standards of right and wrong. Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning. In a world without God, who is to say that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint?

Then it must be completely mind-boggling to you how I am still willing to help others without the consideration of entering any heavenly afterlife.

Not really since I don't think that helping others has anything to do with "entering any heavenly afterlife".

Why do you help others anyway?

Why not?

Interestingly enough, most Christians that I know are Christians because they want God to save them. I thought a more accurate phrasing would be they are Christians because they owe it to God. But then... eh... what do I know.

TD, so you don't know why you help others?

You must have some clue.

Come on, take a stab at it!

 

[Steeplerot]

People had morals long before xtrians wrote their fairy book of guilt.
Huge cultures teaming civilisations that did things like build pyramids each with their own social morays and codes of ethics.
What are the xtrians going to come up with next that they invented? The lightbulb will be moses too by the time jeb is president
Thanks for saving us from being the unrighteous heathens we were huh? bwahahaha!
Get a clue your religion will be another footnote in history give it a few hundred years enjoy it while it's here.
Sooner or later your god will be another strange painting on a wall of a archaeological dig just like all the gods before that you conviently leave out of your revisionist worldview.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

TD, so you don't know why you help others?

You must have some clue.

Come on, take a stab at it!

How does 'why not?' translate to 'i don't know why I do things' when it's supposed to mean 'give me a reason why it's doesn't make sense to help others'

 

[sao123]

Ok... if we want to play the hypothetical game.... if I was the leader of a group of cavemen, I would say the reasoning is that first there needs to be unity and we need to work together. We need to rely on each other for survival and if you don't we'll all die. Hence, comes the first rule and probably a good start in the direction of morality. "Don't do to others which you don't want done to yourself."

This comes from you...an educated man. If you were an uneducated cave man... I believe things would be more like survival of the fittest. This is my cave, my food, my fire, and my woman.

A child does not need to be taught how to be greedy, it comes natural. A child needs to be taught how to share. No human could have ever invented this concept of cooperation if he had not previously experienced it in some form. It had to come from some non-human origin, henceforth again some sort of necessary deity to create civilization out of anarchy.

 

[Steeplerot]

Originally posted by: sao123

Ok... if we want to play the hypothetical game.... if I was the leader of a group of cavemen, I would say the reasoning is that first there needs to be unity and we need to work together. We need to rely on each other for survival and if you don't we'll all die. Hence, comes the first rule and probably a good start in the direction of morality. "Don't do to others which you don't want done to yourself."

This comes from you...an educated man. If you were an uneducated cave man... I believe things would be more like survival of the fittest. This is my cave, my food, my fire, and my woman.

A child does not need to be taught how to be greedy, it comes natural. A child needs to be taught how to share. No human could have ever invented this concept of cooperation if he had not previously experienced it in some form. It had to come from some non-human origin, henceforth again some sort of necessary deity to create civilization out of anarchy.

And the need to write books of law upheld by self-guilt, makes it easier to control the masses then holding a club over his head forever. Don't forget those.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: sao123

Ok... if we want to play the hypothetical game.... if I was the leader of a group of cavemen, I would say the reasoning is that first there needs to be unity and we need to work together. We need to rely on each other for survival and if you don't we'll all die. Hence, comes the first rule and probably a good start in the direction of morality. "Don't do to others which you don't want done to yourself."

This comes from you...an educated man. If you were an uneducated cave man... I believe things would be more like survival of the fittest. This is my cave, my food, my fire, and my woman.

A child does not need to be taught how to be greedy, it comes natural. A child needs to be taught how to share. No human could have ever invented this concept of cooperation if he had not previously experienced it in some form. It had to come from some non-human origin, henceforth again some sort of necessary deity to create civilization out of anarchy.

Why is cooperation something that humans can't even figure out? Even animals use it.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: Tommunist

Originally posted by: Riprorin
I don't know who wrote this, but I find it interesting:

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint. Since one's destiny is ultimately unrelated to one's behavior, you may as well just live as you please. And if God doesn't exist, that also means there are no objective standards of right and wrong. Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning. In a world without God, who is to say that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint?

If you lack the character it takes to be a good person and feel required to turn to religion that's okay. This isn't a jab at all religious people - just those that feel it's necesary for someone to be truely moral.

And where does the standard of what's good or bad come from?

Human morality originates from the social world. We are not isolated individuals, living alone, we are social animals, we live in tribes, we live & co-operate with others, we have to take the wellbeing of others into account. In a nutshell, morality is what allows that to happen.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

TD, so you don't know why you help others?

You must have some clue.

Come on, take a stab at it!

How does 'why not?' translate to 'i don't know why I do things' when it's supposed to mean 'give me a reason why it's doesn't make sense to help others'

Come on, TD, it's a simple question, why do you help others?

It can't be that hard to answer.

Here are some reasons why it doesn't make sense to help others:

1. They may not reciprocate.
2. They may be ungrateful.
3. It sucks up valuable time you could be using for yourself.
4. They might be jerks who don't deserve your time/generosity.
5. They may be taking advantage of you.
6. You may be an enabler who's preventing them from taking responsibilty for themselves.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

TD, so you don't know why you help others?

You must have some clue.

Come on, take a stab at it!

How does 'why not?' translate to 'i don't know why I do things' when it's supposed to mean 'give me a reason why it's doesn't make sense to help others'

Come on, TD, it's a simple question, why do you help others?

It can't be that hard to answer.

Here are some reasons why it doesn't make sense to help others:

1. They may not reciprocate.
2. They may be ungrateful.
3. It sucks up valuable time you could be using for yourself.
4. They might be jerks who don't deserve your time/generosity.
5. They may be taking advantage of you.
6. You may be an enabler who's preventing them from taking responsibilty for themselves.

1. I don't expect reciprocation to come directly
2. Same as 1 unless they help absolutely no one for the rest of their life, then it's my mistake to help
3. It's beneficial in the long term.
4. Same as 2
5. Same as 2
6. My mistake then.

That was easy... got any more? It looks like you're having trouble with my simple question of why not.

In addition, I think it's impossible to exist a man who helps others without regards to himself. Why contribute to the world? Why be productive? It's all about that societal concept of cooperation. Help him, help yourself.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: Riprorin
Harvey, a lot of the venom I see from the left here is directed at those who espouse Christian belief, regardless of the fact that those who have killed in Christ's name are clearly acting contrary to His life and teachings.

I find it interesting that the slaughter of 6 million Jews occured in the most educated nation of the time in a land that gave birth to the Enlightment. It just shows what man is capable of when he elevates himself and his domineering will and attempts to live without God.

That's my observation anyway.

It has NOTHING to do with "living without God". It has to do with the ABANDONMENT of REASON. Germany could HARDLY be called "the most educated nation of the time" then any more than they can now. Nor can you overlook the fact that Germany was in a bad state of affairs when Hitler came to power, and he offered them the BELIEF that if they would just FOLLOW him he would LEAD them to GREATNESS and GLORY.

If they had been so educated in Philosophy they would have recognized immediately and en masse that there could be no good to come from such an evil plan, even when it's performed in the name of God.

Your religious nuts are all the same. You claim that man is destructive and evil without God, yet when its pointed out that they've caused ENORMOUS death and suffering IN THE NAME OF GOD, you always cop out with the generic answer, "Oh, but they were acting against God's will."

Yeah, right. Read the Old Testament. See how peaceful and Loving your god is?

Jason

And you just choose to ignore the 110,000,000 million or so people murdered by atheistic communists in the 20th century?

How many people were killed IN THE NAME OF GOD in the 20th century?


How many

How many graceful, beautiful defenceless deer have you shot, in the name of "sport"? Why do you wear that silly bright orange jumpsuit? Are you worried another "hunter" (loser) will mistake you for a deer?

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

TD, so you don't know why you help others?

You must have some clue.

Come on, take a stab at it!

How does 'why not?' translate to 'i don't know why I do things' when it's supposed to mean 'give me a reason why it's doesn't make sense to help others'

Come on, TD, it's a simple question, why do you help others?

It can't be that hard to answer.

Here are some reasons why it doesn't make sense to help others:

1. They may not reciprocate.
2. They may be ungrateful.
3. It sucks up valuable time you could be using for yourself.
4. They might be jerks who don't deserve your time/generosity.
5. They may be taking advantage of you.
6. You may be an enabler who's preventing them from taking responsibilty for themselves.

1. I don't expect reciprocation to come directly
2. Same as 1 unless they help absolutely no one for the rest of their life, then it's my mistake to help
3. It's beneficial in the long term.
4. Same as 2
5. Same as 2
6. Same as 2

That was easy... got any more? It looks like you're having trouble with my simple question of why not.

In addition, I think it's impossible to exist a man who helps others without regards to himself. It's quite simple to paint an example why but I'll leave that to your imagination.

So your answer appears to be that you help others because "it's beneficial in the long term".

How is it beneficial?

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: sao123

Civilization cannot exist in any state without punishment for wrong doing and reward for doing good. The absence of such is called chaos, lawlessness, anarchy. Civilization cannot arise out of anarchy because the nature of mans soul is evil. (If it werent, there would be no need for morals at all) Therefore anarchy can only turn into civilization in the presence of a higher deity.

Man's soul isn't evil, it just is what it is. The nature of man is that we are cooperative, for the most part, particularly with those we see as being part of our own little group (or tribe, city, nation, race). It has obviously been advantageous for us to cooperate with each-other throughout 'our' (humans') evolutionary history. It is also a part of man's nature to be suspicious of people who we perceive as different to ourselves; and this suspicion easily turns to hatred if we are not careful, leading to fighting, war. (As long as we maintain our notion of some people being the same as us, and some people being different to us, we can be cooperative and war-like simultaneously.) I'd guess a certain amount of suspicion of other 'tribes' would also have been advantageous during our evolutionary history.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

TD, so you don't know why you help others?

You must have some clue.

Come on, take a stab at it!

How does 'why not?' translate to 'i don't know why I do things' when it's supposed to mean 'give me a reason why it's doesn't make sense to help others'

Come on, TD, it's a simple question, why do you help others?

It can't be that hard to answer.

Here are some reasons why it doesn't make sense to help others:

1. They may not reciprocate.
2. They may be ungrateful.
3. It sucks up valuable time you could be using for yourself.
4. They might be jerks who don't deserve your time/generosity.
5. They may be taking advantage of you.
6. You may be an enabler who's preventing them from taking responsibilty for themselves.

1. I don't expect reciprocation to come directly
2. Same as 1 unless they help absolutely no one for the rest of their life, then it's my mistake to help
3. It's beneficial in the long term.
4. Same as 2
5. Same as 2
6. Same as 2

That was easy... got any more? It looks like you're having trouble with my simple question of why not.

In addition, I think it's impossible to exist a man who helps others without regards to himself. It's quite simple to paint an example why but I'll leave that to your imagination.

So your answer appears to be that you help others because "it's beneficial in the long term".

How is it beneficial?

I guess the concept of cooperation is foreign to you.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Riprorin

TD, so you don't know why you help others?

You must have some clue.

Come on, take a stab at it!

How does 'why not?' translate to 'i don't know why I do things' when it's supposed to mean 'give me a reason why it's doesn't make sense to help others'

Come on, TD, it's a simple question, why do you help others?

It can't be that hard to answer.

Here are some reasons why it doesn't make sense to help others:

1. They may not reciprocate.
2. They may be ungrateful.
3. It sucks up valuable time you could be using for yourself.
4. They might be jerks who don't deserve your time/generosity.
5. They may be taking advantage of you.
6. You may be an enabler who's preventing them from taking responsibilty for themselves.

1. I don't expect reciprocation to come directly
2. Same as 1 unless they help absolutely no one for the rest of their life, then it's my mistake to help
3. It's beneficial in the long term.
4. Same as 2
5. Same as 2
6. Same as 2

That was easy... got any more? It looks like you're having trouble with my simple question of why not.

In addition, I think it's impossible to exist a man who helps others without regards to himself. It's quite simple to paint an example why but I'll leave that to your imagination.

So your answer appears to be that you help others because "it's beneficial in the long term".

How is it beneficial?

There are all sorts of theories within psychology and evolutionary biolology which attempt to explain/ account for cooperation in humans. There's quite a bit of controversy in this area of research. I don't think this is a question that is going to be settled on ATOT. Nevertheless, people do cooperate, and what's more people do behave in seemingly altruistic ways. People give up their lives, to save their children or loved ones. People devote their lives to helping others. I'd guess people would do these things with or without a Buybull.

Cooperation is not that unusual in the animal kingdom, all sorts of animals coperate, from ants to bees to monkeys.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: sao123

Ok... if we want to play the hypothetical game.... if I was the leader of a group of cavemen, I would say the reasoning is that first there needs to be unity and we need to work together. We need to rely on each other for survival and if you don't we'll all die. Hence, comes the first rule and probably a good start in the direction of morality. "Don't do to others which you don't want done to yourself."

This comes from you...an educated man. If you were an uneducated cave man... I believe things would be more like survival of the fittest. This is my cave, my food, my fire, and my woman.

A child does not need to be taught how to be greedy, it comes natural. A child needs to be taught how to share. No human could have ever invented this concept of cooperation if he had not previously experienced it in some form. It had to come from some non-human origin, henceforth again some sort of necessary deity to create civilization out of anarchy.

Why is cooperation something that humans can't even figure out? Even animals use it.

So true. Do ants require a Buybull or gods to teach them how to work together? Even monkeys cooperate (for example, a monkey grooms another monkey, and will be groomed by yet another monkey).

 

[gopunk]

sorry didn't have time to read the whole thread, but the gist of the article seemed to be that everybody has a "god", in that everybody has some value structure in their beliefs. that may be true, but that is not the definition of "god" that most people think of. if it was, and this was the intention on our currency and in our pledge, it would say "in a god each of us trusts", not "in god we trust", which implies we all trust in a god, and there is no other god.

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: Riprorin
Harvey, a lot of the venom I see from the left here is directed at those who espouse Christian belief, regardless of the fact that those who have killed in Christ's name are clearly acting contrary to His life and teachings.

I find it interesting that the slaughter of 6 million Jews occured in the most educated nation of the time in a land that gave birth to the Enlightment. It just shows what man is capable of when he elevates himself and his domineering will and attempts to live without God.

That's my observation anyway.

I have a sneaking suspicion that you just see a lot of venom because you make posts like these, which border on blatant self-denial of facts. It is true that the holocaust occurred due to a lack of religion... but you could also say that it occurred due to a lack of reason. Had there been reason and logic, and no religion, the holocaust wouldn't have happened... as their anti-semitic beliefs were clearly illogical.

The tragedies of the Twentieth Century were constructed upon atheism.

It should be more like "The tragedies of the Twentieth Century were constructed upon rabid nationalism, for which religion necessarily needed to be removed".