Athiests, where do you get your moral values?

[dunstable]

Committing taboos is legal. Deceiving people is legal. Hating people is legal. These are things you and your buddies have embraced. Society considers these things immoral. So I guess the athiests, or at least the ones here, are immoral.

Religion is the ultimate deception. The majority of the world population have been persuaded to believe in fantasies.

 

Where do you get the idea that atheists embrace hatred? Just because we point out the irrationality of religious folk doesn't mean we wish them any harm.

[FleshNBones]

I don't think that committing wrongs is morally acceptable. Though numerous ethical dilemmas do arise when you have to decide which of two courses of action is the lesser of two evils. A religious person would often have difficulty with an ethical issue because they are under pressure to toe the line of their religious group. An atheist would be free to think the issue over and decide what is best under the circumstances.

Two wrongs don't make a right so therefore you are in the wrong.

[FleshNBones]

No, ass kicking is not endorsed by intelligent folk when their belief system is offended.

Become a real martyr, and go pull that stuff in a mosque somewhere.

 

Join the select few who cuddle in lion dens, or play with bear cubs.

[dunstable]

Two wrongs don't make a right so therefore you are in the wrong.

You didn't understand what I meant by an ethical dilemma, did you? When you are on the horns of a dilemma, it means you have two options but both involve doing wrong. Here's an example. Your wife is sailing her boat and she is sinking and going to drown if you don't rescue her. But in the other direction, there is a sinking boat with 6 strangers who are about to drown if you don't rescue them. You don't have time to rescue them all. Do you rescue your wife or the 6 strangers? Which is the lesser evil?

[FleshNBones]

You didn't understand what I meant by an ethical dilemma, did you? When you are on the horns of a dilemma, it means you have two options but both involve doing wrong. Here's an example. Your wife is sailing her boat and she is sinking and going to drown if you don't rescue her. But in the other direction, there is a sinking boat with 6 strangers who are about to drown if you don't rescue them. You don't have time to rescue them all. Do you rescue your wife or the 6 strangers? Which is the lesser evil?

What is the alternative to entering a church and committing sacrelege?

[dunstable]

What is the alternative to entering a church and committing sacrelege?

The young man to whom you are alluding reportedly took home a Eucharist wafer instead of eating it. He says people in Church attacked him for not immediately eating it. Why that prompted him to take it home I do not know. I also don't know why Church goers in this day and age would attack someone for failing to follow ritual. It seems medieval.

 

Anyway, let me try to respond to your question.

 

Let's say that on the spur of the moment he saw two options. (1) Let them push him around and take the cracker off him. (2) Walk off with the cracker to assert that he was not a person to be pushed about and humilated. Neither a good option. Option (1) humiliates him. Option (2) offends the Church goers. Which is the ethical choice for him?

 

Now how about the Church goers? Let's say on the spur of the moment they saw two choices too. (1) Allow someone to deviate from ritual. (2) Physically assault and humiliate someone. Again, neither good. Which was the ethical choice for them?

 

My own view (assuming hypothetically that the above are the facts) is that preserving the dignity of this young man is more important than the fate of a cracker. Therefore option (1) for him and option (1) for the church goers would represent the ethical decision.

 

What is your opinion?

[dunstable]

Become a real martyr, and go pull that stuff in a mosque somewhere.

You keep affirming my view that religious people are inclined to violence!

[TaraMaiden]

Amazing.

More than a thousand hits, more than 200 replies, and the dead horse is still being flogged.

 

The buzzards are circling.....*yawn*......

(still no reply to what I'm supposed to be hypocritical.

A simple "actually, I don't know, I think I made a mistake" would suffice....)

[burning 4 revenge]

I get all my moral values from television

[TaraMaiden]

yeh...Jerry Springer, Ricky Lake and Judge Judy.....

 

Not forgetting Sally Jessie Raphael.... Who's had so many facelifts, the dimple in her chin is actually her belly-button.....

[NoIDidn't]

Amazing.

More than a thousand hits, more than 200 replies, and the dead horse is still being flogged.

 

The buzzards are circling.....*yawn*......

(still no reply to what I'm supposed to be hypocritical.

A simple "actually, I don't know, I think I made a mistake" would suffice....)

 

Who called you or implied that you were a hypocrit? Can't find it.

[TaraMaiden]

Page 9.

Posts 106 & 7, 115, 117, 119 & 120.

 

 

 

Dustbunnies and tumbleweeds.....

 

[GorillaTheater]

You keep affirming my view that religious people are inclined to violence!

 

The people who are truly dangerous are those who I call "True Believers"; who 1) are "devout" in matters religious, political, or ethnic/racial, and who 2) believe that their way is the only way and 3) that their way should be implemented regardless of costs. Witness the Inquisition, jihads of various stripes, nazis, communists (no religious person can hold a candle to communists when it comes to sheer body count), the Rwandan massacre of 1994, etc., etc., etc. ...

 

Thankfully, only a small percentage of religious people meet all three criteria.

[NoIDidn't]

Page 9.

Posts 106 & 7, 115, 117, 119 & 120.

 

 

 

Dustbunnies and tumbleweeds.....

 

 

 

OKay. LOL. You're not likely going to get an answer from FnB.

[burning 4 revenge]

The people who are truly dangerous are those who I call "True Believers"; who 1) are "devout" in matters religious, political, or ethnic/racial, and who 2) believe that their way is the only way and 3) that their way should be implemented regardless of costs. Witness the Inquisition, jihads of various stripes, nazis, communists (no religious person can hold a candle to communists when it comes to sheer body count), the Rwandan massacre of 1994, etc., etc., etc. ...

 

Thankfully, only a small percentage of religious people meet all three criteria.

I agree with you totally. Good post

 

Lack of cynicism is the most dangerous thing on earth

[NoIDidn't]

The people who are truly dangerous are those who I call "True Believers"; who 1) are "devout" in matters religious, political, or ethnic/racial, and who 2) believe that their way is the only way and 3) that their way should be implemented regardless of costs. Witness the Inquisition, jihads of various stripes, nazis, communists (no religious person can hold a candle to communists when it comes to sheer body count), the Rwandan massacre of 1994, etc., etc., etc. ...

 

Thankfully, only a small percentage of religious people meet all three criteria.

 

Yes, thankfully. That's why I totally reject the idea that religiosity is what drives people into criminal behaviors.

 

My sister and I were just discussing the fact that the extremists are always loudest so it makes people think their views are the ones held by all with their affiliations.

 

I don't think that religious people are more moral than non-religious. I think the OP's religious leaders did her a disservice if they taught her that her religion is the only source of her morals.

 

Clv said it earlier in the thread, but the Bible does say that non-believers have a moral code on their "hearts". I don't know if the Quran says something similar, but it might not considering it calls all non-Muslims infidels.

 

Morality has nothing to do with religion, IMO. Religions might have their own additional morals, but they aren't the beginning and ending of morals for most (even those that follow religions will readily admit this - most of the time LOL)

[Girlygal]

I have always found it funny when people say they "Found God", like he was hiding and they stumbled across him. He really seems to hide in prison cells, AA meetings, bottles of Jack, so on ect.... But what really gets me is when my Dad found god in prison it somehow meant that he didnt need to ever apologize for the BS he did to us as kids. As though God forgave him so then everyone else should just get over it. WHAT CRAP!

[NoIDidn't]

I have always found it funny when people say they "Found God", like he was hiding and they stumbled across him. He really seems to hide in prison cells, AA meetings, bottles of Jack, so on ect.... But what really gets me is when my Dad found god in prison it somehow meant that he didnt need to ever apologize for the BS he did to us as kids. As though God forgave him so then everyone else should just get over it. WHAT CRAP!

 

See that's what many people mistake about being religious. Its not an easy way out of apologizing for real wrongs.

 

And in finding god in prison, I have to wonder what he really found. Most people that find religion in prison are often shocked when their 'prison god' is put up against the actual 'god' of their religion outside of prison. Malcolm X is one such example. What he learned in the Nation of Islam vs. his trip to the Middle East was totally different and it changed him (for the better).

[Moai]

Protecting life is important. Pushing a homosexual agenda is another. Do you even see the difference?

 

Pushing the homosexual agenda? Why is it that when homosexuals demand rights it is an "agenda"?

 

I am not necessarily referring to pro-life sermons--which are another thing that are beyond stupid--I am talking about ministers and priests making comments about political issues in general.

 

Railing against the current administration is a bg one now, but in the past it has been "the US is a Christian nation and only Christians have the tools to administer the government" etc. Any advocacy of a political position is illegal from the pulpit. If priests and pastors do that, they lose their tax-exempt status. Look it up.

 

In a previous post you mentioned "ass-kicking". If you believe that to be warranted, why don't you go around kicking Protestant asses? You know that many Lutherans consider the Pope to be the Anti-Christ, right?

 

If I make fun of the astrology column, does that mean it would be ok for someone who believes in astrology to "kick my ass"? I admit that the student walking out with a communion wafer was disrespectful, but to threaten such an action with death--or even an "ass kicking" is way over the top, and shows again that your religion isn't making you and yours any more moral--let alone peaceful.

[Moai]

The ARIS polls of 2001 and 2008 were more comprehensive that the Harris poll of 1996.

 

The ARIS polls collected answers from from 50,382 respondents in 2001 and 54,461 in 2008. These polls used random digit telephone dialling so the samples were random and it is possible to apply sampling theory to calculate sampling error. The 2008 poll showed that 0.7% of the 54,461 respondents declared themselves as atheist, from which we can calculate a 95% confidence interval to be 0.63% to 0.77%.

 

The Harris 2006 poll collected answers from 2,078 respondents in the US. It was not a random poll but a selection of people who had signed up to participate in online polls so sampling theory does not apply. However, let's pretend it was a random sample. It showed that 4% of the 2,078 respondents declared themselves as atheists. The 95% confidence interval would then be 3.2% to 4.9%. Since it wasn't a random sample, the true confidence limits would actually be wider than this but cannot be determined.

 

The non-overlap of the confidence intervals suggests that the ARIS and Harris polls are in significant disagreement. I think the disagreement may result from the differences in interview methodologies.

 

ARIS asked "What is your religion, if any?" without prompting or offering a list of suggested answers. There were then filter questions like "What denomination is that?". Harris, on the other hand asked people to select from 5 categories - (1) believe in God or supreme being, (2) agnostic, (3) atheist, (4) do not want to say, or (5) not sure.

 

ARIS included a subset of questions regarding to the existence of God. While people declaring themselves as atheist were only 0.7%, the percentage of those who said there is no such thing as God was 2.3%. Similarly, the percentage of people declaring themselves as agnostic was 0.9% but the percentage stating they were not sure of the existence of God or that there was no way to know if there was a God was 10%.

 

So according to ARIS, people with atheist or agnostic beliefs are about 12.3% but those labeling themselves as atheist or agnostic amount to only 1.6%. In other words, asking people for their religious identification gives very different results to deducing their identification from their stated beliefs. It follows that it will be difficult to compare religious beliefs between convicts in prison and the general population unless both groups are polled using the same methodology, which to date does not appear to have been done.

 

I am most familiar with the Harris poll, and I read in a Hitchens column that atheism is the fastest growing segment of the population, which is awesome. I hadn't read the ARIS poll before, I am glad you posted it.

 

This point has come up several times over the years, and the Harris poll had always served me well--it is nice t know there is a more detailed and updated version available.

[Moai]

I think FNB's posts have vividly revealed some of the shortcomings typical of religious people -- inability to reason about ethics because they have a set of rules they can't contemplating deviating from, wanting to impose their moral values and ethical rules on others because they can't conceive that others could be right, and intolerance of (and even acceptance of violence towards) anyone who thinks or acts differently, again because they can't conceive that others could be right.

 

Atheism doesn't prescribe any rules for living life. It's just a state of non-belief in the supernatural. It leaves people free to set their own moral values and to work out their own solutions to ethical questions under the conditions of the present day. Atheists can use all the resources available to them -- their experiences, their reasoning, all that they have read, and their innate sense of what's right and wrong.

 

Religion is not the origin of moral values. Non-human animals have moral values but I have no reason to suppose they have religion. Religion appears to have been a human invention and therefore it came after morality. Religion was probably invented to calm fears of mortality. To do that it had to give people hope that they could control the environment with rituals and it had to provide a reassuring story about what happens when people die. As new religions developed, they incorporated the current moral values of the tribes concerned. Because religions claim to know truth, they resist change, and they tend to perpetuate moral values beyond their useful life, imposing them when they are no longer appropriate. Religions therefore hinder the evolution of moral values to cope with changing conditions. It is therefore to be expected that moral values based on religion will not be optimum.

 

Excellent post! +1!

 

Recently in a Dawkins lecture he mentioned evidence that religious thought is an offshoot of a beneficial evolutionary change in our brains. I'l try and find the article this afternoon.

[burning 4 revenge]

Excellent post! +1!

 

Recently in a Dawkins lecture he mentioned evidence that religious thought is an offshoot of a beneficial evolutionary change in our brains. I'l try and find the article this afternoon.

I agree it was an exellent post, but your love of atheism goes beyond rational to religious zealotry

 

Atheism is not supposed to be a religion Moai

[NoIDidn't]

I agree it was an exellent post, but your love of atheism goes beyond rational to religious zealotry

 

Atheism is not supposed to be a religion Moai

 

 

Agree on all points.

[Moai]

If you think it is morally acceptable or praiseworthy for an Athiest to commit wrongs against people they don't like then you are morally corrupt.

 

It's not ok for anyone to commit "wrongs" against people they don't like. In a free society, however, you should expect to be offended from time to time. Responding with an "ass-kicking" or threatening murder is not ok, either. In fact, the second far outweighs the first in terms of being immoral.

 

Committing taboos is legal. Deceiving people is legal. Hating people is legal. These are things you and your buddies have embraced. Society considers these things immoral. So I guess the athiests, or at least the ones here, are immoral.

 

Your committing taboos statement is silly, as everyone breaks taboos every day. That is yet another reason why the idea of "taboo" is stupid.

 

I'd like some evidence where atheists are running around deceiving people. I doubt that atheists "deceive" at the same rate as believers, given criminal statistics posted earlier.

 

As far as hating goes, it is you religious people who do all the hating. You hate gay people (and their "agenda"--whatever that is), you hate those who don't believe as you do, and sadly all too often you actually do something about it.

 

It's funny but I hear, I hate the sin but love the sinner" but when the chips are down, there is little difference. I find all forms of religious beliefs abhorrent and dangerous, but I would never support legislation to make it illegal, nor would I support anyone who would prevent believers from worshipping as they see fit--within the bounds of the law, of course. I'd stop human sacrifice, for example.

 

Freedom of thought is paramount, and trumps all others. I will certainly battle it out in the realm of ideas, but it stops there.

[Moai]

..............................

 

Never mind.

 

Moai, your patience and dedication is admirable.

 

Thank you. Reading Job often gives me the strength I need to continue...:laugh: