D-Do atheists unironically believe that we would be living in a utopia if everyone thought morality was subjective...?
Do they unironically believe that the bulk of people would choose to help each other and be "normal", law-abiding citizens without their being a perceived concept of the greater good?
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there is a good concept of the "greater good" without a god or religion
go to saudi and tell me how the religion has actually helped them
>there is a good concept of the "greater good" without a god or religion
Not really. Who would decide what the greater good is without a God?
Idk someone who possesses empathy??
Why would empathy matter if morality was subjective?
>go to saudi and tell me how the religion has actually helped them
>Nooo don't mention the entire 1400 years I meant the last 50!
kek don't you realize you just disapproveed yourself?
>People really think the Bible itself is the limiting factor that keeps people from murdering each other in the streets and having sex with animals, rather than a collection of ideas that humans had developed up to that point about how to live with one another.
Why didn't animals or any other species "develop" these morals?
>Why didn't animals or any other species "develop" these morals?
Some species do exhibit moral/ethical behavior:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/morality_animals
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26108616/
There is an evolutionary advantage for social animals to behave altruistically.
But if you choose to kill and eat your children instead, that's fine too right?
Animals that eat their own young typically only do so in times of environmental stress, i.e extreme lack of food/protein
Who are you talking about? Strawmen, irrelevant.
I was talking about people.
>topic about morality and ethics
>low IQ atheist barges in with "WE WUZ MORAL N SHIEET"
>Gets proven wrong
>S-STRAWMAN! IRRELEVANT!!
Did I also mention that evogays consider the disabled and the elderly to be a nuisance and should be killed? If we want to go by
then atheists will be the ones ignoring the man in the hole while people with faith will rush in to help, because thats what God commands them.
What about the time your moneky priest Richard Dawkins said that if society lived on the atheistic morality that will result in a total chaos snd ruin for that society? That also a strawman?
you hate israelites yet pray to a israelite and believe a israelite created the universe
>pray to a israelite
I pray to Allah, creator of the heavens and earth, the one and only God who guided us to whats right and wrong, you can cope here all day but you'll never find something that elevate the humans and their dignity like Islam, you worship the idea of being a monkey in the past and nothing matters, we're just animals chemical reactions blah blah, all mental illness to degrade humans and the blessings givien to them. While I woeship the one who created us for the sole purpose of worshipping him and to compete in good deeds and being a decent human.
Also Jesus was a Muslim.
>mention the e-word
>christoids immediately start screaming and flinging poop
>There is an evolutionary advantage for social animals to behave altruistically.
According to your evolutionist buddies woman are subhumans and lesser than men, and there's no objective immorality in rape because its just a male flexing his physical dominance over them. You know nothing about morality nor ethics, yet you take the law of God thats been known to us thousands of years ago and pretend you came up with it through "collective ideas" whatever
>Why didn't animals or any other species "develop" these morals?
They did. Pack and herd animals did.
This is disproved by the concept of the man in the ditch. The premise is that an old man has fallen down in a ditch on a snowy day beside a busy highway. He can’t get up. Everyone driving by can see him. But no one stops because everyone thinks that someone else will stop and help him. He ends up dying of hypothermia despite hundreds of people driving by and seeing him helpless. No one helps because everyone thinks that someone else will help him.
I drove my car into a ditch during a bad winter storm one year and got stuck, and like 5 different people pulled over to help me, not including the police.
You're right, it's harder to teach people to think for themselves than to coerce them into *pretending* to be good or suffer for eternity. Let's just write this book based on impossible tales and hope they never get smart enough to dismiss it as a fabrication.
Papist nonsense. Salvation is a gift given through faith. Not by how good a person ism
>Salvation is a gift given through faith
Salvation is a gift given through faith in God. Those who have faith in God obviously try hard to please him. And what pleases God is that you do good.
>he thinks the tales of the Bible are meant to be taken exclusively literally
>his religious texts does such a poor job at conveying its ideas that the majority of people misinterpret them
It’s really not difficult if you actually read them and think about what you’re reading.
Didn’t mean to link to that other post
Then the people who have read them and those that have conveyed those ideas to the rest of society did a poor job.
Not really. The message has gotten across pretty well for most people. It’s your lack of effort and critical thinking that has led you to confusion.
Do you think it's normal for Christians to believe in miracles and that non-Christians believe that Christians believe in miracles, or do the overwhelming majority of these groups have the interpretation that the supernatural elements of the Bible aren't meant to be taken literally?
This. The fall of man and the resurrection of Jesus are allegories.
>D-Do atheists unironically believe that we would be living in a utopia if everyone thought morality was subjective...?
No
>Do they unironically believe that the bulk of people would choose to help each other and be "normal", law-abiding citizens without their being a perceived concept of the greater good?
If you live in a high trust society, why not?
Do you really value yourself so little you waste your time posting moronicnonsense on here?
An atheist's utopia is an ungodly wasteland where abominations rule. They are truly twisted creatures.
Atheism is the disbelief in the existence of God/gods, it's not a set of moral values.
If that is how we define atheism then atheists do not exist. But what atheism really is is the denial of God's existence, which requires a depraved soul thrashing in rebellion against its creator.
>If that is how we define atheism then atheists do not exist
Sure they do, they exist all over the place.
>But what atheism really is is the denial of God's existence, which requires a depraved soul thrashing in rebellion against its creator
It just requires some skepticism about the existence of supernatural entities
No. There is not one man who truly and sincerely does not believe in God because God has made Himself known to them. A man could no more be without the knowledge of God than he could be without an intellect, for the knowledge of God is in the structure of man's soul as "God created man in His own image", and the wicked give constant evidence of this knowledge hidden within them. But immoral persons who suppress the truth in order to give themselves an excuse for their evil deeds, they do exist everywhere.
If literally every person in existence is born with innate knowledge of God why did it take so long for Christianity to even emerge, and how could entire societies (the majority of humankind even) form with different forms of religion? Did every single person in that society unanimously decide to suppress what they knew was true in order to worship false gods because...?
This kinda plays into the hypothesis that christians lack a theory of mind.
That's kinda not an argument.
>why did it take so long for Christianity to even emerge
This is erroneous for multiple reasons. Firstly, what do you mean by Christianity? If you mean the religion of the New Testament then obviously it could not "emerge" until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, since He is the object of the religion. But true religion has always existed since God redeemed Adam and Eve by covering them in animal skins. It has always been, as it is now, founded not on the wisdom of men but the word of God.
>how could entire societies (the majority of humankind even) form with different forms of religion
Because fallen men, led by their ignorance, corrupt the knowledge of God with their own imaginations, and create an idol after their own image.
>Did every single person in that society unanimously decide to suppress what they knew was true in order to worship false gods because...?
Yes, because Adam ate the fruit.
>Because fallen men, led by their ignorance, corrupt the knowledge of God with their own imaginations, and create an idol after their own image.
How can they be ignorant if they're born with the knowledge of God? I might have misunderstood you but earlier it sounded like you said that every human is born with the knowledge of God - I personally wasn't, I had to be taught about God by others, but you can just assume that I'm lying about this I suppose.
>Yes, because Adam ate the fruit.
That's just one guy.
the israelite fairy canonically gave adam the no-no fruit about 6,000 years ago. we know of cultures and religions from before then.
i'll take the fedora if it means reminding a /misc/tard that they worship a israelite. you worship a israelite by the way.
Sure, but objective morality is impossible without a God to base them off of, interpret and/or control.
Basically it's like having a constitution without a government or a computer without an interface.
>Sure, but objective morality is impossible without a God to base them off of, interpret and/or control.
So? You don't need objective morality. Society can function just fine with morals that are based on a mix of culture and evo-psych moral intuitions.
Why would I care how well society functions? If there's nothing objectively wrong with murder, why would I care how well you reduce the rate of murder? That presupposes it is actually wrong.
>Why would I care how well society functions?
Because you live in it? Presumably you don't want to be murdered, so you don't want to live in a society where murder is rampant. Presumably you don't want your belongings stolen, so you don't want to live in a society where theft is rampant etc. You can get pretty far by assuming that humans have innate biological and social needs that need to be met, and these needs give us some pretty good intuitions of what is good and bad - we try to avoid pain and fulfill our various urges but since we live together with many other people who also need to come to some sort of agreement on what behavior is (un)acceptable towards others.
>Because you live in it? Presumably you don't want to be murdered, so you don't want to live in a society where murder is rampant. Presumably you don't want your belongings stolen, so you don't want to live in a society where theft is rampant etc.
Sure, but why would that stop someone from stealing/scamming morons and senile grandmas just to get ahead? It's really not my problem
Most people don't scam other because they would feel bad about doing it. Some people don't feel bad about doing it so they don't mind doing it to get ahead. As long as the first group (significantly) outnumbers the second society can function pretty well.
>It's really not my problem
It becomes your problem indirectly. If government is filled with people skimming off the top then you end up paying more taxes for inferior services/infrastructure, other people being complete morons might result in support for legislature that infringes on your rights, privacy etc. You don't want to live in a society full of people engaging in antisocial behavior.
Ok, but that still doesn't mean they need objective morality.
People need rules. If there's no universal rules, there's only anarchy. How is this confusing?
>Presumably
Right, there is no reason. You are denying the very principle that there's anything wrong with it in the first place, which is why you cannot give me a basis for that principle. You want to make your absurdity more palatable to the other side, so you extol the virtues of how moral your immoral society is able to be, without realizing that morality has no merit if morality does not exist. If murder is common or rare, what do I care if it's not wrong?
This leads into another relevant point. You're trying to appeal to my self-interest (although there's no reason my neighbor's couldn't murder each other without murdering me), because that's all you have. So when someone looks at this proposition and says "nah, I'd rather kill and steal" you have no condemnation, they aren't doing anything wrong, they've just got a different preference.
>You can get pretty far
Where are we going? You are still presupposing there's actually some objective merit to this.
>intuitions of what is good and bad
There is explicitly no such thing as good and bad?
>need to come to some sort of agreement on what behavior is (un)acceptable towards others.
Why do I need to care about your agreement? Why can't I just reject that agreement and do as I please anyways?
>How can they be ignorant if they're born with the knowledge of God?
By the darkness imposed on their minds by sin. I do not mean that they lack awareness of God's existence, but they lack wisdom.
>I personally wasn't, I had to be taught about God by others, but you can just assume that I'm lying about this I suppose.
You're lying to yourself.
>That's just one guy.
The federal head of mankind and progenitor of the human race.
>Right, there is no reason. You are denying the very principle that there's anything wrong with it in the first place, which is why you cannot give me a basis for that principle
I only said presumably because I assume you work like most humans and other living creatures with an instinct for self-preservation. I don't want to have to preface things into eternity in case someone decides to be a debate bro and say "ACKTSHUALLY I WANT TO DIE SO I WOULDNT MIND GETTING MURDERED, CHECKMATE", I'm talking about humans in general here.
>You want to make your absurdity more palatable to the other side, so you extol the virtues of how moral your immoral society is able to be, without realizing that morality has no merit if morality does not exist. If murder is common or rare, what do I care if it's not wrong?
There's nothing absurd about arriving at something resembling the Golden Rule (and the idea that humans in general are prosocial and want to adhere to it) without tying it to religion, and morality can still exist with objective morality, hence the term "subjective morality." If you don't consider murder to be wrong then you wouldn't particularly care if it was rare or commonplace, but most people do think murder is wrong.
>Where are we going? You are still presupposing there's actually some objective merit to this.
To some form of commonly agreed up code of ethics that allow large numbers of people to live together.
>There is explicitly no such thing as good and bad?
There is, I just don't think it exists in objective terms because I'm not a religious person.
>Why do I need to care about your agreement? Why can't I just reject that agreement and do as I please anyways?
You could, but if you live in a group of people and break their rules they can decide to punish you for it, so it remains in your self interest to cooperate.
>There's nothing absurd about arriving at something resembling the Golden Rule
The point is that you have completely failed to arrive anywhere.
>the idea that humans in general are prosocial and want to adhere to it
Psychology is not ethics.
>morality can still exist with objective morality, hence the term "subjective morality."
I think it's good to kill people in the street for fun. Am I wrong?
>most people do think murder is wrong.
Irrelevant
>There is, I just don't think it exists in objective terms because I'm not a religious person.
I think it's very telling that your irreligion not only leads you to such overt self-contradiction, but abject blindness that you're even contradicting yourself.
>You could, but if you live in a group of people and break their rules they can decide to punish you for it
So what?
>The point is that you have completely failed to arrive anywhere.
I think I gave a perfectly fine answer to why people could be opposed to murder even if there's no objective morality.
>Psychology is not ethics.
What's your point?
>I think it's good to kill people in the street for fun. Am I wrong?
The vast majority of people, myself included, would condemn that behavior as strongly immoral, and according to us (and our subjective opinion) you would be wrong, yes.
>I think it's very telling that your irreligion not only leads you to such overt self-contradiction, but abject blindness that you're even contradicting yourself.
Feel free to point it out instead of just being smug about it.
>So what?
Once again I assume that you are a somewhat normal person that does not want to be punished by his fellow humans. If you're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult I'll just remind you that I'm talking about humans in general here, even if I'm directly addressing you. Also going to the gym so my next reply will be a while.
>The vast majority of people, myself included, would condemn that behavior as strongly immoral, and according to us (and our subjective opinion) you would be wrong, yes.
I wonder if atheists are actually daft enough that this kind of incoherence succeeds in consoling their spirits at all
What's incoherent about it?
It isn't confusing, it just isn't true. Rules don't need to come from some objectively true universal source, they can be decided upon by people and still be useful (like leading to a desired outcome) to those people.
>and they exist in every age and every place, they also have numbers over you and nothing to lose
If this is the case then why don't we and why haven't we had total anarchy everywhere?
Plenty of people avoid doing bad things out of principle. Not everybody is a psychopath you know.
>*Obviously* people who think that they can get away with it, are going to try it (like 95% of them)
>what do you think fills the prisons? angels? dwarves? no, it's just people who thought that their chance at "getting away with it" was high enough to make the risk worth it
Comparatively few people are in prison. I think in the US it's around 1% of the country and that number is considered egregiously high compared to the rest of the world - so either very few people actually commit acts that warrant prison time, enough people are deterred by the fear of punishment or most of society commits serious crime all the time, just really sneakily. The first option seems the most reasonable to me.
>and all of that isn't even addressing the cases where something "socially desirable" would be disputed - think nazis and commies
That's perfectly in line with the idea that morality is subjective, what they think is good you think is fricked up.
>If this is the case then why don't we and why haven't we had total anarchy everywhere?
because we have been conditioning them for thousands of years?
and it still doesn't work 100% of the time, neither small or large scale
you do understand that some poor fricks were robbed, killed, raped - during the time you were writing this "reply"?
religion either is or is not the opium of the masses
you can't both argue that it is ticking people into obedience and keep them content AND that world will be equally as ordered or even better ordered if religion were to be eliminated
well.. you can..
you can just keep writing one line responses, fill them with basic dichotomies in form of question and feel satisfied with your intellectual rigour, which you yourself, with not other outside God to press you, decided is good enough
which is kinda funny given the topic
but you wouldn't get it
>because we have been conditioning them for thousands of years?
>and it still doesn't work 100% of the time, neither small or large scale
>you do understand that some poor fricks were robbed, killed, raped - during the time you were writing this "reply"?
>religion either is or is not the opium of the masses
>you can't both argue that it is ticking people into obedience and keep them content AND that world will be equally as ordered or even better ordered if religion were to be eliminated
I'm not sure if you know what I'm arguing for. I don't believe in objective morality, but I believe that morality can exist without objective morality. Morality and the laws and social norms it generates it required for society to function, and I think we should collectively agree upon a set of rules that achieve (or at least move us towards) some agreed upon goal for an agreed upon number of people in society who reciprocate these values.
>you can just keep writing one line responses, fill them with basic dichotomies in form of question and feel satisfied with your intellectual rigour, which you yourself, with not other outside God to press you, decided is good enough
It's just going point by point instead of rambling incoherently. If you want to go more in-depth then I can write full paragraphs, but the thread is mostly just going back and forth on brief points.
>and I think we should collectively agree upon a set of rules that achieve (or at least move us towards) some agreed upon goal
can you point to real life examples where this actually worked longterm? because I can point to thousands of occasion when people promised each other some type of consensus rule, eternal peace or other string of words which all sounded good on paper at start, and then irreconcilable differences revealed them to be empty promises
additionally, if you were thinking about parliamentary republic and the compromise model - I'm curious - would you be willing to shorten your definition of morality to -> a set of compromises about social goodness and it's opposite?
>can you point to real life examples where this actually worked longterm?
Pointing to a constitution was a bad example because there are so much more obvious ones: every civilization and notable culture that I know how have come to similar sets of laws: they explicitly forbid things like murder and theft. While the enforcement of these laws and the deterrent from fear of punishment hasn't been perfect (with or without religion there to back it up) it seems it works fine in the long term, because these things only seem to happen at a manageable level with society at large and most of the people living in it being able to go about their lives without being murdered. While the norm varies in some countries on if (and how) you are allowed to kill other people in cases of self defense as far as I know it has been an agreed upon standard in every civilization for thousands of years that you absolutely do not kill other people unless you have a very very good reason for doing so.
>Once again I assume that you are a somewhat normal person that does not want to be punished by his fellow humans. If you're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult I'll just remind you that I'm talking about humans in general here, even if I'm directly addressing you
NTA, but I really don't get why are you presuppose that this can be applied to anything other than on-paper-magical-world
*Obviously* people who think that they can get away with it, are going to try it (like 95% of them)
what do you think fills the prisons? angels? dwarves? no, it's just people who thought that their chance at "getting away with it" was high enough to make the risk worth it
and this is AFTER thousands of years of continuous conditioning and "keeping the morons fearful with the use of magic book"
neither of us can even begin to imagine how worse would it be if this free for all started from the day 1
and all of that isn't even addressing the cases where something "socially desirable" would be disputed - think nazis and commies
or neighbours both wanting to "punish" the other one and both thinking that majority "is with them"
what a burning circus you got there and why you seemingly do not see any problems with it is beyond me
>Presumably you don't want to be murdered
>Presumably you don't want your belongings stolen
Presumably your thought process never even came close to the real life experience of the poor, the desperate and unreasonable
what they want is your stuff, and they can't loose what they don't have
and they exist in every age and every place, they also have numbers over you and nothing to lose
what do you do? do you go to them with a book about some NAP theory and explain to them that "we all win, if you remain where you are"
>Why would I care how well society functions?
>Because you live in it?
this would be a stupid argument before the age of revolutions, somewhere back in the 17th century
for the world right now, this is just comically unfit to be considered seriously
Yes but you think you are wise enough to simply criminalize these evil acts but refuse the advice from the Most High that prevents people from ever reaching these acts in the first place. You think casual sex is OK and sticking dicks in people's sewer systems is OK and having random kids with strangers is fine if its not hurting anybody, but you do not see the hurt that happens in the long run. You do not want to enforce rules where men must pledge in marriage to take care of our daughters before we allow them to sleep with them. Then decades later the land is full of criminals and wicked people who grew up without the love of a mother and the guidance of a father and wonder where they came from.
You do not want to follow God's advice of eating only what is clean and engage only in clean sex and not sleep around and then are wondering why are there so many diseases and epidemics and stds among the people. And blame God for them.
All this happens because you think you alone are enough to decide what is right and what is wrong so you bypass the rules that prevent crime and problems in society because you dont like them, and then try to enforce rules against the end result which is the crimes themselves, and tackle problems only after they arrive, instead of dealing with the root of the problem, which is what the laws of God are trying to do. Prevent the shitty conditions in the society in which you currently live in.
You're not following Kashrut, don't be a fricking larper.
so what sin do infants commit to result in them dying of cancer
What does sin have to do with anything? If people are all sick, dirty and their flesh is corrupted by all the garbage that they eat and all the STDs and viruses and bacterias and parasites and funguses, and toxins in them, you expect their children to be born clean and healthy?
what about children with cancer born to observant christian parents
Christians are the least obedient to God's laws. They literally believe that believing in Jesus grants them the right to not obey the law of God.
that's why I specified "observant"
as in they observe god's law
The laws of Christianity are not the laws of God. But if someone does not eat pork or other dirty animals, or eat meat with blood, or eat meat that is older than 2 days, fasts regularly, and does not sleep with their women during their period, or sleeps with women who sleeps with other men, and does not engage in sodomy and oral sex, and cleanse themselves after touching dirty things like corpses and feces, and does proper sacrifices and attornments for the evils of their souls, they are very likely to live a healthy life and have healthy descendants, yet there is still the pollution of the land, air and water from the people around them who do not do these things and from the corporations who corrupt the world. A society as a whole has to observe the laws of God and purge the corruption from it in order to be clean and holy.
Now you're just doing the typical thing of arguing against an atheist strawman.
>based on a mix of culture and evo-psych moral intuitions.
Not really because the culture would just grow more and more self interested once they realize there is nothing stopping them from doing more crazy things to get ahead.
>Not really because the culture would just grow more and more self interested once they realize there is nothing stopping them from doing more crazy things to get ahead.
So in other words it works fine for the people in the in-group and not so well for the outsiders they kill/enslave?
Yes....Which is why nationalism/family values/racism/pro-community mindsets are inherently anti-Christian
Atheism is godlessness. Those who do not fear God do evil when they think they can get away with it and nobody is looking.
People who believe in God just do evil and then rationalize it by telling themselves that God approves.
People who claim to believe in God and people who fear God are two separate groups.
Yet indistinguishable in their behavior
Or worse, that there was nothing they could do to prevent it because of "muh apple" and they are forgiven anyway because they prayed so its fine
That's nice nice anon. They are sinners just like us. I just hope they see past their arrogance and confess Christ as the true Lord of Lords before it's too late.
>atheists believe billions of people aren't murdering and raping everything in sight because they believe in some flying spaghetti monster
Idk but shouldn't you guys be keeping everyone believing that?
The only thing I believe is that 99% of Christians on this site are unable to argue against anything that isn't a strawman
as opposed to the atheists who come here and steelman their own points? I would argue against somebody who had a point but all we get is redditors saying
>I don't have a point, I'm an atheist the burden of proof is on you lol
>as opposed to the atheists who come here and steelman their own points?
Why wouldn't you steelman your own points?
>I would argue against somebody who had a point but all we get is redditors saying
You haven't said anything of substance either. Neither you or the OP frogpost makes a valid point, you're just asking "WOW DO ATHEISTS REALLY BELIEVE THIS CRAZY THING?" instead of asking something more salient like where atheists get their source of morality from if they don't believe in objective morality.
I have a question
why do you think morality exists in the first place? is it not just a personal preference or some societal best practices (like a handshake was originally goodwill sign of not using your most-likely predominant hand to handle a weapon when greeting each other) type of a thing?
because theists believe it is a reflection of the supernatural will, and it's desires for the humanfolk
so what is morality? condensed and oversimplified social experience and tradition of a certain geographical region?
who interprets it if so? who decides?
and if there are two interpretation of this "local code" and they go to war - strong prevails - one set wins, and it's just political doctrine strongarmed into effect then, no?
so what is it? set of best practices? historical flavour for a region? political tenet? all of them?
None of them?
>why do you think morality exists in the first place? is it not just a personal preference or some societal best practices (like a handshake was originally goodwill sign of not using your most-likely predominant hand to handle a weapon when greeting each other) type of a thing?
I think that is more or less it, it's just a byproduct of evolution that helps us since we're very social animals with complex social behaviors.
>who interprets it if so? who decides?
It varies, if I had to guess it's probably been a mix of the group collectively creating the cultural norms combined with special castes that have more influence, like leaders, popular people, elders and religious figures.
>and if there are two interpretation of this "local code" and they go to war - strong prevails - one set wins, and it's just political doctrine strongarmed into effect then, no?
Pretty much. The liberal and democratic allies defeated the Axis and the US in particular made sure to do some nation building afterwards to help guide both Germany and Japan into being democratic nations, but they were defeated by force of arms first.
>so what is it? set of best practices? historical flavour for a region? political tenet? all of them?
The technical definition for morality is something like the distinction between good and bad behavior, what's defined as good and bad behavior is some complex mix of norms that arise and evolve over time, with some spreading faster than others for various reasons, like a certain set of societal norms making a culture more competitive or influential than others.
>The technical definition for morality is something like the distinction between good and bad behavior, what's defined as good and bad behavior is some complex mix of norms that arise and evolve over time, with some spreading faster than others for various reasons, like a certain set of societal norms making a culture more competitive or influential than others.
having all that said, do you still believe that you can create that without some outside divine influence?
maybe I'm phrasing this incorrectly
in either case it is predominantly *received* by you by some larger-than-a-man outside apparatus, be it society/tradition/God
I get the atheist response of "I can be moral without faith" (I can follow those outside orders on my own)
but when atheists claim that they "can create/decide their own morality" - that is just deluded
either way, morality is something that you receive, not produce
and it is not a product of one man's mind - not any man
>having all that said, do you still believe that you can create that without some outside divine influence?
Yes - that is essentially what a lot of philosophy is about. You sit down and think real hard about ideas and try to create a framework of ideas, WHAT you ought to do and WHY you ought to do it.
>maybe I'm phrasing this incorrectly
>in either case it is predominantly *received* by you by some larger-than-a-man outside apparatus, be it society/tradition/God
In a deterministic sense yes, but as an atheist I would just say that the morals I receive are a result of my exposure to the society and culture I was raised in, not given to me by God. Now you can argue that the society that gave me my morals were in turn influenced by God and that is true, I'm not going to deny that western culture is heavily influenced by Christianity - but I can follow similar rules not because I have a fear of divine punishment but for entirely other reasons, like I think it will lead to more positive outcomes for myself and the people I care about if more people in society agree not to murder, steal, rape, embezzle etc.
>can you point to real life examples where this actually worked longterm?
Would a constitution be a good example? It's been amended and some of the amendments are hotly debated by its citizens, but something like the 5th amendment has been around and largely done what it's supposed to do for over two centuries now.
>would you be willing to shorten your definition of morality to -> a set of compromises about social goodness and it's opposite?
Yes, I would define morality as defining good and bad behaviors and due to group dynamics that often involves compromises between people, e.g "freedom is good" but people also don't get the "freedom" to get wasted and drive 100 MPH in a residential area.
>Would a constitution be a good example? It's been amended and some of the amendments are hotly debated by its citizens, but something like the 5th amendment has been around and largely done what it's supposed to do for over two centuries now.
it's first century ended with bloody civil war
it's last century is really hard to argue pro or con
american dominance (both safety from without and conditioning toward within) via newly invented mass culture and it's unique geopolitical position has probably more to do with it
plus that whole last war and becoming world hegemon
it's unique at best, and irreplaceable at in any real sense
I strongly disagree
there is nothing both "Presentism" historically speaking, that would support the claim that laws, or even civilisations would arise on their own without some religious instruction
we have nothing to compare here, no secular examples to point and only egos of both sides thinking themselves betters - it's a dead field
additionally considering things like Gobekli Tepe and it's timetable, it could be even argued that religion predates sedentary lifestyle altogether, and is to some degree responsible for "civilising" the first man
imagine this
you are Hammurabi
you write a law code
do you think that:
a) you can safely decree things which are against the already commonly adhered to religious instruction and live through the series of 200 uprising against you
or
b)you can decree things which are regurgitating to some degree the already commonly adhered to religious dogma
which Hammurabi has better chance to survive the next 50 years, and be discussed by autists on an internet forum 2000+ years later?
It's getting late and I need to go to bed but I'll write you a reply tomorrow morning
that's fine
good talking to ya
>there is nothing both "Presentism" historically speaking, that would support the claim that laws, or even civilisations would arise on their own without some religious instruction
we have nothing to compare here, no secular examples to point and only egos of both sides thinking themselves betters - it's a dead field
additionally considering things like Gobekli Tepe and it's timetable, it could be even argued that religion predates sedentary lifestyle altogether, and is to some degree responsible for "civilising" the first man
I don't disagree with the idea that religion played a prominent, perhaps even deciding role in creating and lending stability to emerging civilizations. Claiming divine right to rule is a great way to establish legitimacy so it's not much of a surprise that the concept was so popular. However, that doesn't mean that the concept should stick around forever. We should have developed to the point where we can create laws that have a rational basis instead of having an unchanging set of beliefs that stem from one guy who claims he had an exclusive connection to a supernatural entity, an entity that most people don't even believe in. Out of curiosity, since you mentioned Hammurabi, what do you think of the guy? I assume you're Christian or at the very least don't believe in the Babylonian gods, so do you believe that Hammurabi is a con artist who lied about his divine right to rule? Was he less of a revolutionary lawmaker and more of a conqueror with psychosis, receiving delusional visions from non-existent beings on what society should look like? A pragmatic ruler who was religious like most people at the time and used religion to his advantage in order to strengthen his rule?
>Why wouldn't you steelman your own points?
The point is that they don't exist
I don't know, how did East Asia exist all this time?
The absolute state of abrahamites.
A just society doesn’t automatically flow from morals dictated by a deity. It exists when people decide to build a just society in the present, one that doesn’t inherently require people to be exploited for it to function.
People really think the Bible itself is the limiting factor that keeps people from murdering each other in the streets and having sex with animals, rather than a collection of ideas that humans had developed up to that point about how to live with one another.
Ethics and morality are two different things. A secular society strives to input good habbits and an ethical code of conduct, meaning the average citizen needs to have an informed judgement about issues. Morality on the other hand is something either inherited from the past or enforced from the top down.
No we just believe that SOME people (morons) need a made up god to behave. I don't know like others but I'm perfectly aware that there is a large group of people that need spiritual experience in their life, that it keeps them in line and makes them better with improved mental health. I just personally find it utterly moronic and I would choose a thousand depressions any time rather than surrender to such obvious bullshit. Religion is a drug that allows you to never face the horror of life on your own. You just spend life hiding behind all the glorified bullshit and it's beyond pathetic. But I guess most of the theists don't know any better so at least they are not running around killing everyone.
>muh desert moral
>how can people have moral without elohim
you don't need to be cognizant of concepts like "morality" or "ethics " because, paradoxically, being a good person is expedient. even animals are aware of this.
What is "a good person"?
irrelevant
Behavior is genetic, beliefs don't actually matter.
there is no morality without muh circumcision scrolls
the middle east foreverwar lovers are crying about morality again. can't wait for rabbi yeshua to show back up and throw those billions into the lake of fire.
that's a no and no. stop making up shit, go talk to your invisible friend.
? So you're conceding that Atheism is dangerous for society?
Ok mr social engineer
>Do they unironically believe that the bulk of people would choose to help each other and be "normal", law-abiding citizens without their being a perceived concept of the greater good?
People don't even do this when they do believe in "objective" morality
Look little shit. I have a Christian larper in the thread I consult about left hand path. He talks shit like you, but when he has his buttons pushed, your god is less powerful than a mere politician.
So how in hell does your storm Fairy gonna do shit.
I have never seen anyone say that. have a nice day frogtard
Also you're faking it. We have all seen a billion videos where Chris -chan larpers fake being posessed, taken down by an evangelical "force push" and shit like that.
We know you larp.
So don't pester us.
Theres no such thing as a smart or honest athiest, if they were smart or honest theyd be agnostic and admit they do not know shit and simply slid out of a uturus.
>Do they unironically believe that the bulk of people would choose to help each other and be "normal", law-abiding citizens without their being a perceived concept of the greater good?
yes, because there is pragmatic reasons to help each other: it strengthens the tribe, they could repay the favor in the future
The question that should be asked is if humanity is inherently evil at a genetic level or good.
Unless you believe in some kind of natural law, logos or God wouldn't that "evil" just be good or just normal?