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zootjeff
Guest
Carl said:
I saw him on the ad on the main page of this website. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Burt Rennolds.
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I saw him on the ad on the main page of this website. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Burt Rennolds.
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Lisa_N
Guest
OK you have expressed your opinion. Any evidence to back up your claim?
Lisa N
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Carl
Guest
We were talking about final moral authority for developing a conscience.
Where does the atheist find his ultimate moral authority? Or does he not believe in such a thing?
No atheist on this thread has suggested there is one. Does this mean right is what anyone says it is, and wrong is what anyone says it is?
A nice recipe for immoral anarchy.
Where does the atheist find his ultimate moral authority? Or does he not believe in such a thing?
No atheist on this thread has suggested there is one. Does this mean right is what anyone says it is, and wrong is what anyone says it is?
A nice recipe for immoral anarchy.
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Carl
Guest
This thread has about run its course, I do believe.
See you later
Carl
See you later
Carl
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jameson2
Guest
I believe I stated that H founded his laws because he felt he was given the task by his god Marduk. I didn’t know H personally so I couldn’t tell you if he conversed with Marduk on a regular basis to create such laws.
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jameson2
Guest
I would also like to say that it’s quite the leap to think that your god was the one that gave Hammurabi his laws just because the ten commandments are so similiar to them. Could it be that Moses or whoever set the TC down on tablets simply plagerized or perhaps borrowed from Hammurabi? As Hammurabi’s laws were around long before the TC.
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jameson2
Guest
zootjeff is right on. But why place the burden of proof on him? You are the one that believes in god prove he exists.
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Benadam
Guest
it is obvious that to you surviving longer is a good, and a better way of life is a good. I have asked this question a couple of times on this thread and this seems a good opportunity to ask again.
a codified law provides longer survival. To what end?
a codified law provides a better way of life for everyone. To what end?
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Benadam
Guest
any position in relation to God is a matter of faith. The evidence is limited for atheists in that they can only appeal to reason. Christians on the other hand appeal to reason as well as evidence offered by human testimony and physical evidence of miraculous events.
So far the God believing side has a better hand.
I believe it’s the unbelieving who have the burden of proving God doesn’t exist. It’s just that there IS no evidence to support the claim.
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Lisa_N
Guest
You need to quote the post you are responding to.
I am assuming though this relates to the discussion re Hammurabi. Well you have just contradicted the atheist position by stating the Hammurabi was given the task of creating a just society by his god marduk. Ergo, the idea that laws, morals and ethics arise out of thin air or are developed over millenia as societies die off, is debunked.
Lisa N
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Idisto
Guest
It’s amazing to see how ignorant some people are about atheists and atheism. 
It’s too late in this thread to contribute anything more than that.
It’s too late in this thread to contribute anything more than that.
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AnAtheist
Guest
Now I know you don’t want to hear this, but this life’s the only one we’ve got, so it is good that it lasts as long as possible and that in the best way possible. Otherwise we couldn’t enjoy life and then life really sucks…
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wolpertinger
Guest
Or to paraphrase:
To what end? To a happy end.
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Carl
Guest
WOLPERTINGER
To what end? To a happy end.
Too subjective!!!
Hitler, Stalin and Mao would have told you they were happy to kill millions.
One man’s happiness has been misery for millions!
Try again:
To what end?
To what end? To a happy end.
Too subjective!!!
Hitler, Stalin and Mao would have told you they were happy to kill millions.
One man’s happiness has been misery for millions!
Try again:
To what end?
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Carl
Guest
Idisto
*It’s amazing to see how ignorant some people are about atheists and atheism.
It’s too late in this thread to contribute anything more than that.*
Then start your own thread and educate us. You might be surprised to learn that many of the people who join you there are former atheists, know all about it, and seen through all the fallacies.
*It’s amazing to see how ignorant some people are about atheists and atheism.
It’s too late in this thread to contribute anything more than that.*
Then start your own thread and educate us. You might be surprised to learn that many of the people who join you there are former atheists, know all about it, and seen through all the fallacies.
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Lisa_N
Guest
Precisely. Apparently he/she hasn’t bothered to read the entire thread as there are several former atheists who have posted, including me. I think it would be a bit arrogant to consider us ignorant. I think he/she is very young and will give him/her benefit of the doubt.
Lisa N
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SamCA
Guest
I have a question for the Christians in this thread. If it were somehow proven tomorrow – and I’m talking ironclad, absolutely indisputable proof – that God wasn’t real, how would it affect your conscience?
(I realize that such a proof is pretty much impossible, but just go with me for the sake of argument.)
If it was proven beyond any ability to doubt that God didn’t exist, that there was no greater authority on which to base your moral truths, would your conscience evaporate? Or would you keep right on doing what you believed was right, even in the absence of a God backing that moral belief up?
I have a feeling that most of you would keep right on following your conscience, even in the proven absence of a deity. Of course, maybe I’m wrong.
(I realize that such a proof is pretty much impossible, but just go with me for the sake of argument.)
If it was proven beyond any ability to doubt that God didn’t exist, that there was no greater authority on which to base your moral truths, would your conscience evaporate? Or would you keep right on doing what you believed was right, even in the absence of a God backing that moral belief up?
I have a feeling that most of you would keep right on following your conscience, even in the proven absence of a deity. Of course, maybe I’m wrong.
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Carl
Guest
Sam CA
If you have read through the earlier parts of this thread, you would know that we have already covered this ground. The residual effect of Christ’s teachings on love may well pass down through several generations before it is spent. Then again, it may be spent right away, as in the case of the Marquis de Sade, who argued that atheism allows us to engage with impunity in all kinds of atrocities. Likewise seems to have been the attitude of Stalin, Hitler and Mao.
If you have read through the earlier parts of this thread, you would know that we have already covered this ground. The residual effect of Christ’s teachings on love may well pass down through several generations before it is spent. Then again, it may be spent right away, as in the case of the Marquis de Sade, who argued that atheism allows us to engage with impunity in all kinds of atrocities. Likewise seems to have been the attitude of Stalin, Hitler and Mao.
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SamCA
Guest
Oops.
So you’re honestly of the opinion that it is impossible for a person to behave in a moral manner without the specific teachings of “Christ’s love”? What of the loads of people who presumably led moral lives before Christ’s birth?
Oh, and since this is at least tangentially related to the earlier question of Buddhist teaching – as I understand it, the idea that we much display compassion to all other beings is one of the central tenets of Buddhism, to such a great extent that many Buddhists won’t so much as swat a fly, because doing so would be incompassionate to the insect.
True enough. In the absence of an objective moral authority, one can certainly make the argument that anything is permitted. However, I think you might be surprised how many people would keep right on being decent to each other, even in the face of a stark, arbitrary, and totally uncaring universe.
I’m not sure that attitude necessarily arises from atheism, though, any more than the shocking hatred and bigotry of some Christians necessarily arises from Christianity. (Also, it’s always difficult to say for sure what Hitler believed. He claimed to be a Christian, although many, myself included, find that difficult to believe. Still, he certainly wasn’t a vocal atheist the way, say, Stalin was.)
Again, I find the example of Buddhism to be instructive to the question of how conscience could form in a godless society. Buddhism is a fundamentally atheist, or at the very least agnostic, system of thought. In Buddhist thinking there is either no God, or no way to know whether there is a God, depending on who you ask. There is no ‘left over’ Christian teaching – these are parts of the world that were never Christian to begin with, who never even heard of Christ until Westerners started showing up there in relatively recent history.
And yet Buddhist societies, entirely without recourse to any divine moral authority, have produced some of the most principled and compassionate moral philosophy in human history. In fact, the moral framework on which Buddhist thought is constructed is in many ways so similar to the teachings of Christ that some have wondered, despite the seeming utter historical impossibility of it, whether Christian teachings might have been in some way influenced by Buddhist thought (or vice versa).
The primary difference between the two systems of morality being, of course, that Christianity ultimately attributes its moral truths to an objective, absolute divine fiat, while Buddhism attributes its moral truths simply to human reason.
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Benadam
Guest
I don’t mind hearing it, I’ve heard it indirectly through the entire thread .What I also hear and very directly from your comments in this post is that the life we do have isn’t really life because there is no reason for it, no purpose. That isn’t life, that’s existing. There is no need for conscience if I merely exist without purpose. What I would need are instincts that insure the survival of species. That wouldn’t be an element of morality. Many confuse some animal behaviours manifesting survival of species instincts with morals but then those instincts cause a mother cat to eat her offspring too. Conscience is a faculty that can only exist if a moral life exists. A moral life exists when a purpose for life can be neglected or rejected.
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