The threat of godless ideologies

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: sao123

Commmunism/Fascism/Christianity/Judaism are all faces of the same evil: COLLECTIVISM. The destroyer among men is NOT the Individual Rights, Pro-liberty ideology of the Secular world, it is the Pro FAITH, ANTI-REASON extremism of Collectivist ideology in all its many faces.

What destroys men is the ABANDONMENT of REASON in favor of FAITH.

What destroys men is the willingness to BELIEVE rather than to DISCOVER and LEARN.

What destroys men is the idea of SAFETY held in higher regard than the idea of FREEDOM.

In Communism your FAITH is placed in the "Community" and regulated by the state. You hold that a man belongs to his brothers.

In Fascism your FAITH is placed in the state for the sake of the Society. You hold that a man belongs to the state.

In Judeo Christian Mythology your FAITH is placed in an invisible "God" for his own purposes. You hold that a man belongs to GOD.

In SECULAR ideology you reject absolute Faith in favor of REASON.

In SECULAR ideology you hold that man has RIGHTS which are inherent in his natural condition.

In SECULAR ideology you trust that YOU have the capacity to run your own life for your own happiness.

In SECULAR ideology you hold that a man belongs TO HIMSELF, that he is AN END IN HIMSELF, that his rights exist INDEPENDENT of other men, that by the fact of his nature as a RATIONAL creature man has a NATURAL RIGHT to be free to make his own choices and to benefit or suffer from the consequences of those choices.

You can place your faith in whatever you want, I'll choose LIBERTY.



What I find interesting is how you Judeo Christian moral slackards can read in the old testament how TIME AND AGAIN your GOD slaughters people INCLUDING innocents and yet you are unwilling to condemn him as the EVIL GOD he is. You can read all about how he treated Job as a mere PLAYTHING to be tortured, cursed, robbed, his family murdered and yet he stood by and WATCHED, yet you have not the moral fortitude to declare that GOD behaved in an IMMORAL, EVIL way. He acted WITHOUT regard to the rights of Job, and yet you think this is OK?

And as for Job himself, that MORAL COWARD who cowed down and accepted God's will upon him, accepted his own guilt when he had done NOTHING WRONG, where are your cries of contempt for he who refused to even stand up for his RIGHTS when he was being horribly WRONGED.

It's simple to answer, really: Because you act and believe on a moral DOUBLE STANDARD by which ANYTHING that your God does, no matter how horrific, no matter how EVIL, is ALWAYS justified, but man has to "answer" for his "sins".

You are EXACTLY the kind of person who makes tyranny possible, EXACTLY the kind of person who would stand by and let your king/president/God slaughter innocents by the MILLIONS, you'd even HELP him, because you believe that whatever he does is RIGHT.

"What you need now is not to RETURN to morality, you who have never known any; what you need now is to DISCOVER morality."

Who cares if you think the Christian GOD, the GOD of the bible is fair or moral or discriminating or evil. He doesnt answer to you.

This is the same God who in the old testament took a small tribe of people and made them into a nation. Told them to invade lands and kill all the people in them and take all their possessions, and then inhabit the land. Called them to destroy anything that opposed their beliefs. So what?

When you die and you stand before the all powerful, all knowing, and pissed off GOD...and he says "You did not follow my commands, Go to Hell" What are you going to say to him? "I'm an aethiest and you dont exist!" Are you a god yourself that you can stop him? He wont be interested in your pathetic little excuses, you're either for him or against him. Thats all that matters. you have a choice to make...either you do what he says or not.

The point is when the chips fall down... when armageddon happens and the world is destroyed.... fair or unfair... be a true follower with the most powerful GOD in the universe, or end up with all the rest of those who oppose him in hell where he puts you. Who is going to stop him? YOU?

No, the point is that you are either SERIOUS about being a moral being, about doing what is right to the best of your knowledge and ability at ALL TIMES, or you're NOT. If GOD is evil and you are a person who is SINCERE about his desire to be MORAL, then you MUST stand against GOD no matter the consequence.

THe scenario you describe *completely* rejects morality and aims only to kiss the ass of God. I'd be more than willing to be a part of his "plan" if he turns out to be good and right and manages to convince me on a rational basis that this is so. So far, he hasn't, and I will NOT sacrifice morality just in order to fall into the "good graces" of an evil power, deity or not.

By your logic man shouldn't even TRY to be moral but simply should pragmatically kiss the ass of whoever looks like they're the biggest and the baddest. Who's pathetic? YOU.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: sao123

What man needs is MORALITY, *NOT* explicitly religion

Without Religion (The first record of such morality being the 10 commandments were given to Moses), morality would not have existed.

No, I'm afraid not. The ten commandments are NOT a moral code. Surely they are a code of *behaviour*, and for the most part there is nothing wrong with their guidelines except that they are COMMANDMENTS.

"If I were to speak your kind of language I would say that man's only Moral Commandment is: Though Shalt THINK!

But a Moral Commandment is a contradiction in terms; the Moral is the CHOSEN, not the FORCED. It is the UNDERSTOOD, not the OBEYED. The Moral is the RATIONAL, and Reason accepts no Commandments."

--John Galt, Atlas Shrugged

The fundamental error in understanding you make is that all one needs in order to be moral is a list of orders to follow. Even Jesus of Nazareth didn't believe that. If all it takes is a list of orders to follow, any COMPUTER PROGRAM, any ROBOT, any NAZI who simply follows his list of orders is, in fact, a MORAL being.

I think that logic is supremely flawed and indicative of a primitive, savage understanding of morality. While it may have been required for the uneducated, un-intellectual man of its time, it has no place in the 21st century and beyond. Rather what we must do, each and every one of us, is OBSERVE the world around us, STUDY carefully to understand as well as we are able what is right, what is wrong and how to JUDGE for ourselves the difference, and then CHOOSE, consciously and with full understanding of what we are doing, to do what is right *BECAUSE* it is right.

What was Jesus most valuable teaching? Did he say "here's this list of ten specific behaviors, follow them!" ? No. Instead he told us, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". VERY alike to the pre-Christian Wiccan code of "Do as you will, but harm no other." But the real point is to look at the difference between these methodologies and the method of following a list. With the way Jesus and the Wiccans teach, you instead have a PRINCIPAL that you can use to evaluate any of life's infinitely variable scenarios. You're *guided* by that notion instead of left to wonder which, if any, of the ten rules applies to your scenario of the day.

To put it succinctly, the Ten Commandments are the WRONG way to be moral. Instead, we must derive PRINCIPLES to guide our actions, based on what we know of our own nature and the nature of the world around us. We must not dogmatically adhere to our initial interpretation of those principles, but we should test those principles all the time as we learn and grow and become more wise, more learned, more intelligent. Only in this way can we also become more MORAL.

I believe that morality is the fundamental issue that's lacking in the world, and it's not because people aren't religious enough: it's because they haven't figured out what it even MEANS to be moral, yet.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: kotss

Originally posted by: Genx87

So according to you "Secularists will eventually lack moral character", how do you contrive this viewpoint.

Have you watched the the secularists in this country? If it was upto them everything would go and nobody would have the right to question the behaviors.

No, you're mistaken yet again. Certainly there ARE people for whom this is true, and they are at the opposite end of YOUR spectrum. That is to say, where you want to regulate and enforce EVERYONE's every behavior, they want to think that there is no such thing as right and wrong, therefore no one should be judged for anything.

The more "libertarian" among us, which is an admitted minority (we seem to be surrounded by extremist morons on all sides...sigh...) see things rather differently. Plainly enough we look at it in approximately this way:

SOME things are absolutely evil and should be outlawed and punished. Things generally fall into this category if they violate the rights of INDIVIDUALS (eg, murder, rape, that sort of thing.)

SOME things are absolutely good and should be encouraged. These are things like, oh, say, working to support yourself nad those you love, respecting the rights of others to their opinions and beliefs even if you disagree and so on.

OTHER things are neither good nor evil explicitly and have no place to be legislated. These are things like whom you choose to sleep with (gay or straight) whether you choose to do drugs in the privacy of your own home and so on. These are areas of personal choice, possibly between consenting adults, that "society" or the government has no legitimate place to legislate. Be offended all you want, you STILL don't have a right to force your opinion on others.

OBVIOUSLY things like doing drugs and driving (which presents risk to the public at large) or coercing people to do things against their will are areas that do fall into the category for legitimate legislation, but if someone's behavior or belief which otherwise does not harm you happens to offend your particular sensitibilities, well that's just too damn bad.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "What difference does it make for my neighbor to believe there are no gods or twenty gods? It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Are morals the sole onwership of only those who believe in a GOD/GOD's. I do have morals, they are
behavorial patterns that indicate wether someone is acting within the bounds of what society has
determined good or bad.

Yes most morals are contrived through societies viewpoints. The viewpoints of this country for the past 200 years has been very christian. Now watch what has been happening the past 20 years with the friction between the tradionalists and the secularists in this country.

Secuarlisim stands for not doing much of anything and letting everything go. This is fine but eventually somebody is going to say I have the freedom to do this and there isnt anything you can do about it. Even if it is illegal by the old moral standard.

Do you think if you werent influenced by christian morals the morals you hold today would be the same?

Again, you erroneously lump "Secularists" into this category of people who, in your view, "stand for nothing". You also falsely assume that Morality should or is necessarily defined by "society's viewpoint." What you fail to account for is that Society HAS NO viewpoint. Society is a non-entity, it is a collection of INDIVIDUALS. Just because you have a large group of people who think that red is prettier than green does not make it so, does not indicate morality. Morality is NOT dependent upon the number of people who AGREE with it, anymore than the answer to a mathematical equation is. The only way you can hold such a belief is if you are one of the (enormous number of) people who see morality as the province of "Religion" or "society" and therefore mislead into patterns where *everything* falls into your moral scope or *nothing* does. Both extremes are in error.

But as society changes either morals change or you risk the chance of having
your moral base changed. I do not agree with all changes to accepted moral behavior. I merely make
the point that over time, accepted moral behaviors can and will change. Moral character is more derived
from the parenting rather than from faith.

Very true however we have had the our morals grinded into us by our parents. The majority of whom have christian backgrounds.

One has to ask how did man act before the creation of organized religion? How do you think we will act when organized religion falls?

I am not for forcing my beliefs on people. However I do believe secularist states in the past have act much more brutally than religious states. Both are terrible and I think a happy medium needs to be made.

[/quote]

It's not that "as Society changes, morals change", it's that as we LEARN more about ourselves and the universe we live in, we must adapt and improve our morals to fit with our understanding.

Without getting too much into how man acted prior to the formation of religion, I think it's safe to say that he must have done alright based on the fact that, hey, we're all here, and check it out!

Well just the fact the human race is still here even before organized religion leads me to believe that there
must have been some sort of civilized behavior going on. Were there not laws before religion?
Where there not punishments for laws broken prior to religion?

You make big assumptions in that my forebearers were of christian nature. Typically arrogant.
You might be right, but you could be wrong. (I will appease your curiosity, they were probably best
described as non practicing christians.) If I were to follow in my fathers footsteps I would be a drunk who
would slap his wife around. I am married and love my wife and do not hit or threaten my wife, have we
argued, sure. Now where did my morals come from in this case. I saw something that was wrong and CHOSE to correct it in my life. This did not come from God. It came from Logic and Reason. You do
not get people to love you, by beating or killing them. That does not require a degree in advanced
theology to understand, unless you are mentally unstable. Morals come from Logic and Reason and
seeing the result of unwanted behavior not from religious superiority.

I can tell you that, as a person who comes from a Native American background, my ancestors were definitely NOT Christian. However, they were abused and murdered by Christians, in many cases because they *weren't* Christian. That's not to say that the native Americans were all peaceful and funloving until the nasty Christian white guys arrived, like the modern history books will tell you. My ancestors were Blackfeet Indians, and they were warlike, savage and brutal, no question about it. They *literally* started the barbarous practice of cutting out women's vaginas and using them for goodness knows what.

In any case, this discussion is no different than most others here or in a thousand other places in that it immediately falls into debate between two erroneous extremes.

Read above, think about what it means to be moral just a little more, then get back to me.


Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

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?

I've read that before, and it remains, nonetheless, COMPLETELY invalid and incorrect. Morality is not contingent upon whether life continues after death. The only way to reach such a conclusion is if you sincerely believe that life can have no meaning or purpose without God. That, of course, is a ridiculous notion.

Jason

 

[sao123]

Rather what we must do, each and every one of us, is OBSERVE the world around us, STUDY carefully to understand as well as we are able what is right, what is wrong and how to JUDGE for ourselves the difference, and then CHOOSE, consciously and with full understanding of what we are doing, to do what is right *BECAUSE* it is right.

Rely on your observations and perceptions of the world around you? This is too reliant on uncontrollable factors to be effective. The 10 commandments are concrete and give no way of faltering.


A certain individual grows up in the inner city. all his life he has only known the workings of the gang he was born into. He observes that it is acceptable for members of this gang to kill members of an opposing gang who have entered into their territory. This behavior was observed, studied, jugded and percieved to be acceptable and then chosen. It does not make it morally correct.

Morality cannot be based on the limited amount of the world you have been exposed to and studied, the judgements and choices you make may be acceptable in your little world, but not society as a whole.
the 10 commandments are concrete and do not rely on your perceptions or observations to determine if something is right or not. They are absolute & do not lead to judgemental error, no matter what observations you were exposed to, and do not lead to unacceptable behavior if you should leave that region to experience a new portion of society, who have had different observations and conclusions.
Morality cannot be local to any one group, it must be universal to the whole of the population.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: sao123
And your most prominent use of the bible would be??? A cup coaster? A paperweight? A fairytale storybook?

I have seen nothing that would disprove anything written in the bible as being untrue, on the contrary many of the things i have studied have reflect the information therein to be valid. therefore I have every right and expectation to believe that which is written therein as absolute truth for a historical reference.

Then let me provide you with something:

And the sun stood still, and the moon halted, till the people had vengeance on their enemies." (Joshua 10:12-13).

Now, this is CLEARLY indicating the belief in a Geocentric universe, where the earth stands still at the center and the sun moves 'round. We KNOW this to be FALSE. However, just to be on the safe side, let's say that God didn't stop the *sun*, but stopped the *earth*, which would make far more sense. What would happen?

Earth is rotating at a speed of about 1100 miles per hour. If our planet suddenly stopped rotating, the atmosphere would still be in motion at that speed. The atmosphere would be moving so fast it would literally sweep the land masses clear of anything not anchored to bedrock, this would mean rocks, soil, trees, buildings, people and animals. All would be swept up into the atmosphere.

Of course you'll say, but God could stop the WHOLE earth, atmosphere included, INSTANTLY. Well OK! What would happen then?

But what if the Earth stopped rotating completely? In that case, one half the Earth would be in daylight for half the year while the other side would be in darkness. The second half of the year it would be reversed. Temperature variations would be far more extreme then they are now. The temperature gradient would affect the wind circulation also. Air would move from the equator to the poles rather then in wind systems parallel to the equator as they are now.

There would be other effects of the Earth's rotation slowing also. The magnetic field of the Earth is generated by a dynamo effect that involves its rotation. If the Earth stopped rotating, the magnetic field would no longer be regenerated and it would decay away to some low, residual value due to the very small component which is 'fossilized' in its iron-rich rocks. There would be no more 'northern lights' and the Van Allen radiation belts would probably vanish, as would our protection from cosmic rays and other high-energy particles.

So I think it's safe to say that this little nugget of the Bible...total pile of crap.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

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. 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.

Ah, and here is the true source of YOUR error: You believe that the nature of man's soul is evil.

For you, there can be no such thing as a reason for Morality. What a sad soul you truly are.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: TuxDave
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.

I think it's probably more accurate to say that, in America at least, most Christians are Christians because they inherited it from their parents. They DON'T understand the Bible, they go to church out of HABIT alone. They certainly do not behave like Christians, they don't disdain materialism except verbally.

The American version of being a "Christian", in whatever domination, is *incredibly* watered-down. The number of you Fundamentalists is a *TINY* fraction of the "Christian" population.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

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!

I can't speak for anyone else, but I will tell you that I help others out of entirely SELFISH reasons. I help them because I ENJOY seeing others light up with surprise and happiness. I help their causes because I BELIEVE in their causes and I CARE about the fate of those causes.

I help people and causes because of what *I* get out of it. It's a sense of self-pride and self-respect that drives me to help the people and causes in which I believe.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

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.

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

Jason

 

[sao123]

And the sun stood still, and the moon halted, till the people had vengeance on their enemies." (Joshua 10:12-13).

There are many non-christian accociated literatures of the same time period from the regions of the Peruvians, Mayas, Mexicans, Chinese all have recorded similar events which depict either time periods where the sun did not set or rise for a prolonged period of days.

In fact Velikovsky theorized that this would be approximately the time period when the solar system caught venus which was once a comet, and these events occurred as a result of earth-venus interaction. There are many theories out there for the exact cause of these events, but despite the heavy debate of why...no-one denies that these events have actually happened.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: Riprorin
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.

All of your answers as to why NOT to help others are a cop-out. They refuse to face the honest truth of the matter, and that truth is this: When I help someone or work to help in some cause, it's about ME. It's about how *I* feel about myself and about the cause or person I am trying to help. Do *I* value the cause enough, do *I* value the person enough to devote my time, my energy, my resources to that cause.

It's NOT about whether they reciprocate or express great gratitude. It's not really about *them* at all, it's about MY evaluation of them and of myself.

Jason

 

[sao123]

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

I do not claim to be in the state as you put it. I have been educated to be Christian or Moral as you put it.

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

I will repeat it again for you.

Given: A uneducated child will exhibit this exact form of behavior and will continue in this path until it is taught to exhibit moral behavior.
Given: This applies to every child including the first child ever born.
Conclusion: No human could ever be the first to exhibit morallity. It had to come from some external source.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: aidanjm
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.

Man is born "Tabula Rasa" (that's Blank Slate for those of you who didn't pay attention in Latin). He can be "programmed" to be good or to be evil or any variation in between. Unfortunately most parents, most PEOPLE, don't consider the importance of that programming, even when they become educated enough to program *themselves*. As a result they end up a hodge-podge of platitudes and beliefs that may or may not have any real relationship with the world we live in.

Sad, really. Man is born with SO much potential, and it is so rarely explored to its fullest.

Jason

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: sao123

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

I do not claim to be in the state as you put it. I have been educated to be Christian or Moral as you put it.

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

I will repeat it again for you.

Given: A uneducated child will exhibit this exact form of behavior and will continue in this path until it is taught to exhibit moral behavior.
Given: This applies to every child including the first child ever born.
Conclusion: No human could ever be the first to exhibit morallity. It had to come from some external source.

your signature strikes me as odd... given the content of your posts

has it ever occurred to you that humans might behave differently than from when they are first born?

differently put:

No human could have ever invented this concept of cooperation if he had not previously experienced it in some form.

proof?

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: sao123

Rather what we must do, each and every one of us, is OBSERVE the world around us, STUDY carefully to understand as well as we are able what is right, what is wrong and how to JUDGE for ourselves the difference, and then CHOOSE, consciously and with full understanding of what we are doing, to do what is right *BECAUSE* it is right.

Rely on your observations and perceptions of the world around you? This is too reliant on uncontrollable factors to be effective. The 10 commandments are concrete and give no way of faltering.


A certain individual grows up in the inner city. all his life he has only known the workings of the gang he was born into. He observes that it is acceptable for members of this gang to kill members of an opposing gang who have entered into their territory. This behavior was observed, studied, jugded and percieved to be acceptable and then chosen. It does not make it morally correct.

Morality cannot be based on the limited amount of the world you have been exposed to and studied, the judgements and choices you make may be acceptable in your little world, but not society as a whole.
the 10 commandments are concrete and do not rely on your perceptions or observations to determine if something is right or not. They are absolute & do not lead to judgemental error, no matter what observations you were exposed to, and do not lead to unacceptable behavior if you should leave that region to experience a new portion of society, who have had different observations and conclusions.
Morality cannot be local to any one group, it must be universal to the whole of the population.

Certainly there is a LOT of room for error in the field of morality. The sheer expansiveness of the world we live in, the immeasurable possibilities of life, the variables to which there is no absolute answer make it a *tough* job to be moral.

The ten commandments, however, do NOT give you a guide to being a moral person. If all you do is follow the rules, there is nothing moral about your actions, you're just a robot.

Additionally the ten commandments cover such a NARROW spectrum of life's scenarios as to be worth very little in terms of morality. There's plenty of opportunity for you to LEARN morality, but you have to work for it, it doesn't just come automatically.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: sao123

And the sun stood still, and the moon halted, till the people had vengeance on their enemies." (Joshua 10:12-13).

There are many non-christian accociated literatures of the same time period from the regions of the Peruvians, Mayas, Mexicans, Chinese all have recorded similar events which depict either time periods where the sun did not set or rise for a prolonged period of days.

In fact Velikovsky theorized that this would be approximately the time period when the solar system caught venus which was once a comet, and these events occurred as a result of earth-venus interaction. There are many theories out there for the exact cause of these events, but despite the heavy debate of why...no-one denies that these events have actually happened.

On the contrary, far MORE people, and in particular SCIENTISTS, deny it quite vehemently. There is simply too much damage that would occur to this planet if it STOPPED.

Jason

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

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.

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

Jason

Mankind is base and morally berefit. As you pointed out, you help others out of selfish motives.

What's good about being selfish?

 

[judasmachine]

This whole premise is stupid. More xenophobia by the religious right. If you are not a Christian out there picketing Planned Parenthood then you are a threat and must be converted or destroyed. You people never stop, you're like a virus, and you won't stop until the whole planet has be remade in your image. Do you not know that this planet would rather die first. Your victory will be a Pyrrhic one. Scorched earth is what you'll inherit.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: sao123

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

I do not claim to be in the state as you put it. I have been educated to be Christian or Moral as you put it.

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

I will repeat it again for you.

Given: A uneducated child will exhibit this exact form of behavior and will continue in this path until it is taught to exhibit moral behavior.
Given: This applies to every child including the first child ever born.
Conclusion: No human could ever be the first to exhibit morallity. It had to come from some external source.

By your logic there could be no such thing as ANY original thought. Are you saying that NO human has ever CREATED ANYTHING, EVER?

Your premises are flawed, and your conclusion fails as a result.

Jason

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: judasmachine
This whole premise is stupid. More xenophobia by the religious right. If you are not a Christian out there picketing Planned Parenthood then you are a threat and must be converted or destroyed. You people never stop, you're like a virus, and you won't stop until the whole planet has be remade in your image. Do you not know that this planet would rather die first. Your victory will be a Pyrrhic one. Scorched earth is what you'll inherit.

Who's trying to destroy you?

As long as there are those that are lost, there will be others trying to show them the light.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

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.

Ah, so because YOU cannot conceive of any notion of charity or good will or cooperation without being told to do so, you assume that all of the rest of mankind is as base and morally bereft as yourself?

Jason

Mankind is base and morally berefit. As you pointed out, you help others out of selfish motives.

What's good about being selfish?

To answer that you have to *UNDERSTAND* what it means to be selfish. Selfishness is simply a matter of being concerned with one's own interests. What constitutes one's interests? Well, the things that matter *to you*. This can mean your livelihood, causes you care about, your family, your friends. That I want my fiancee to be happy is a *selfish* desire; it makes ME happy to see her happy, I derive joy and pleasure from the fact that she enjoys my company and the things I do for her. I do things for her because it pleases me to do so.

In like fashion I donate money and time to causes I care about. I participate in the Walk for Capitalism every year because I believe the cause is worthwhile and it elevates my sense of purpose and action to help promote a cause I believe is good and right. I give free technical help and advice to friends (and at times, their churches or other organizations) because it's a particular area of expertise for me and I am pleased to be able to help them through difficulties. I don't enjoy seeing people suffer, particularly those who are a part of my life and make a difference to me personally. It's a spiritual issue.

You stand offended by the term "selfishness" because you have been trained to do so. No one ever taught you that it means something, just that it was a word you should scoff at. Is it in my self interest to murder my neighbor, knowing that I will be caught and go to jail, but worse, that I will know in my own heart that I am a murdere? No. I RESPECT the rights of individuals and I am SERIOUS about that respect. It is a selfish act that I choose to uphold the values I care about.

Many of the greatest achievements in the world have come from selfish motivations. Do you expect that the wright brothers figured out how to fly because they wanted to give 747's to their fellow man? Or did they care about their endeavor on a PERSONAL level and want to achieve it for the sake of their own joy?

The danger you fear --and rightly so--isn't Selfishness as such, but those men who are unscrupulous and would go to any lengths to achieve whatever end. You fear--and rightly so--the men who are willing to intentionally harm others through force or fraud. These are not "selfish" men, these are men who are blinded by desire for power, for authority, for control over others. These are men who derive their own self worth from the exercise of power over others. This is not the hallmark of a self-interested man, it's the hallmark of a would-be tyrant.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: judasmachine
This whole premise is stupid. More xenophobia by the religious right. If you are not a Christian out there picketing Planned Parenthood then you are a threat and must be converted or destroyed. You people never stop, you're like a virus, and you won't stop until the whole planet has be remade in your image. Do you not know that this planet would rather die first. Your victory will be a Pyrrhic one. Scorched earth is what you'll inherit.

Yikes I do, however, like the phrase of the XPrize foundation:

"The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us are going to the stars!"

Jason

 

[Riprorin]

DMA, if I understand correctly you do "good" because you benefit from it and you don't do "evil" because of the threat of punishment.

And what about people who derive satisfaction from hurting others and live in a lawless society where there's no retribution for evil?

They're just the mirror image of you.

The reason that you're "good" and they're "bad" is that we have an external set of standards handed down by our Creator.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: judasmachine
This whole premise is stupid. More xenophobia by the religious right. If you are not a Christian out there picketing Planned Parenthood then you are a threat and must be converted or destroyed. You people never stop, you're like a virus, and you won't stop until the whole planet has be remade in your image. Do you not know that this planet would rather die first. Your victory will be a Pyrrhic one. Scorched earth is what you'll inherit.

Who's trying to destroy you?

As long as there are those that are lost, there will be others trying to show them the light.

And there will be those of us who enjoy the humorous irony that those most in the dark would so desperately try to show others the light!

Jason