Morality Without Religion?

[AnAtheist]

Gilbert Keith:

Do you think a world without God would be radically better, or radically worse, or about the same as a world with God?

As God does not exist in the first place, that is a meaningless question. It should be put this way: Do you think a world where noone believed in God would be radically better, or radically worse, or about the same as a world where most people believe in God?

From all that history teaches us, I’d say*** exactly the same***.

But I’d rather live in a state, where people don’t care about the belief of others. I don’t care whether you are Catholic or not, as long as you don’t try to force me into it. Same goes for Muslims, Shintoists, and all others. But Muslim and Christian ideology includes the missionary zeal and the thought that they have a monopoly on morality. That contradicts my sense of freedom, and that makes those religions morally inferior in my eyes.

“Your opinion is disgusting, but I’d die for your right to say it.” (Voltaire)

 

[AnAtheist]

Gilbert Keith:

How does it wash us of our sins? And how can it keep us clean?

I have yet to find an atheist who can tell me. Still waiting.

You will wait forever. “Sin” without a god is a meaningless concept, for atheists there is no connection between sin and the question of right and wrong.

Writing that, I think that is a major misunderstanding between us here. To you sin and wrong is basically the same, to me sin means nothing, thus I approach the morality issue from a totally different angle.

 

[bogeyjlg]

AnAtheist:

You will wait forever. “Sin” without a god is a meaningless concept, for atheists there is no connection between sin and the question of right and wrong.

Writing that, I think that is a major misunderstanding between us here. To you sin and wrong is basically the same, to me sin means nothing, thus I approach the morality issue from a totally different angle.

So who says what is right and what is wrong?

 

[fix]

AnAtheist:

In my ideal secular state nobody would bother, but if a certain type of Christianity became common morale you had a serious problem.

The atheistic state only exchanges one set of dogmas for another. The issue is how are the dogmas defined and what is the basis for defining them?

If the basis is relativistic, that always leads to harm.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

AnAtheist

*As God does not exist in the first place, that is a meaningless question. It should be put this way: Do you think a world where noone believed in God would be radically better, or radically worse, or about the same as a world where most people believe in God?

From all that history teaches us, I’d say** exactly the same**.
*
History teaches us no such thing. Look to the history of Soviet Russia where atheism was the official ideology of the state and where you could not be a card-carrying member of the Communist party and a Christian at the same time.

Would you have preferred to live in such a state, where persecutions of the state’s enemies amounted to 20 million under Stalin alone, rather than in the United States, where enemies of the state were never hunted down and killed by the millions?

By the way, this thread is not about whether or not God exists. This thread is about how atheists create a moral glue that holds society together. That atheists have no concept of sin is not surprising, is it? And so they have no God to help them cast off their tendancy to commit wrongs, and no one to help them get it right. So how do they cast off their wrongs? And how *do *they get it right?

As the chief spokesman for atheism in this thread, haven’t you been evading this question long enough?

Please don’t give us more of Kant!

"The Bible is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced." Immanuel Kant

 

[barsapp]

AnAtheist:

Do you think a world where noone believed in God would be radically better, or radically worse, or about the same as a world where most people believe in God?
From all that history teaches us, I’d say*** exactly the same***.

Ok. Well… It is really difficult to go on here… I would respect the kind of Buddha’s atheism. He realized the vanity of life. He fought against the passions of the flesh. He understood the chains mankind suffers and tried honestly to reach the enlightenment… But yours…

You must understand that denying obvious historical facts is useless and pointless. You must understand that your picture of the National Socialism regime as a religious or mystical one is not only deeply false but it sounds also like a bad taste joke.

On this quote “Do you think a world where none believed in God would be radically better, or radically worse, or about the same as a world where most people believe in God? From all that history teaches us, I’d say*** exactly the same***.” I’d ask you a simple question:

Do you consider that the legal massacre of one and a half billion unborn human beings would have taken place with Catholic Regimes ruling? (Massacre that continues every day thanks to the atheist moral relativist law).
Please: Yes or No.

 

[barsapp]

AnAtheist:

for atheists there is no connection between sin and the question of right and wrong.

“you shall not kill”, fifth commandement, NO connection between sin and the question of right and wrong??? Give me a break, man

 

[barsapp]

AnAtheist:

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And that is exactly why I say, religion must not dictate society.

as far as i know the only absolute power modern times have known was that held by atheists Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc, etc, thank God defeated.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

AnAtheist

Yes, absolute power does tend to corrupt absolutely, unless that power is the absolute power of God.

We see in the Supreme Court a kind of absolute power of a small number of men who about 40 years ago voted to make possible the deaths by abortion of 40 million human beings over the next 40 years. Was that power corrupted? I believe so. Was it absolute? I believe so, in that no one stood up to it.

But the good thing about our Constitution is the number of checks and balances. The same Supreme Court actually has the power to undo the monstrosity called abortion, just as it had the power long ago to undo the monstrosity it had once defended … slavery and discrimination against the blacks.

But the movement to stop slavery and discrimination came from the power of organized religion. And the movement to undo abortion on demand may well come from the same source … the conscience of Christian voters … when the Supreme Court is reconstituted to protect the God given right of every American to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Every atheist should agree that life is a right. But how forceful has organized atheism been in defending that right?

Which brings us back to the question of this thread. If human rights are protected by organized religion … how well would they be protected in a society where religion is absent?

 

[AnAtheist]

Gilbert Keith:

Yes, absolute power does tend to corrupt absolutely, unless that power is the absolute power of God

Even if that was true, God doesn’t show up in courts or parliaments to rule things, it is men who rule and only claim to have the absolute power given by that god or another. Once their power is accepted to be absolute (deo gratiam) they are laible to corruption, and it happened often enough,
Gilbert Keith:

Which brings us back to the question of this thread. ***If ***human rights are protected by organized religion … how well would they be protected in a society where religion is absent?

That is the key word, if. Are human rights really protected by religious organisations? Are they the one ones protecting them? Religions tend towards granting human rights only to those, who belong to the religion in question. Any deviation or nonconformity is not tolerated. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion (now that’s interesting), the freedom to live your own life like you want it (thinking of gays eg) are all in jeopardy, when certain religions have too much power.

barsapp:

Do you consider that the legal massacre of one and a half billion unborn human beings would have taken place with Catholic Regimes ruling?

No, instead other legal massacres would occur, have occured through the last 2k years.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

AnAtheist

Show us the track record for how atheism, organized or otherwise, promotes any kind of moral glue that holds societies together.

We have proven that it doesn’t based on the record of the twentieth century alone.

To the extent that men obey God and the Commandments … that is a moral glue and you know it. That is what keeps men out of prison unless they are being persecuted for their faith. To the extent that men disobey God and the Commandments, that is what gets them into prison. To be without God (a + theism) is to be in jeopardy of losing one’s moral glue.

It’s fine for you to cite all those Christians who are in prison, or who have been great sinners, if you like. What got them into prison was that they decided at a critical moment to be without God (a + theist)

For the last time, where is the atheist moral glue?

You obviously will have to find someone better than Immanuel Kant to state your case.

Good luck.

 

[AnAtheist]

Gilbert Keith:

To the extent that men obey God and the Commandments … that is a moral glue and you know it. That is what keeps men out of prison unless they are being persecuted for their faith. To the extent that men disobey God and the Commandments, that is what gets them into prison.

So, if I don’t believe in Jahwe or worship some molten image or work on a Sunday, I should go to jail?

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

So, if I don’t believe in Jahwe or worship some molten image or work on a Sunday, I should go to jail?

WHERE IS YOUR ATHEIST MORAL GLUE?

And why won’t you answer the question?

How do you get people generally to agree on moral principles when there is no moral Lawgiver? How do you get them to agree at least sufficiently that a well ordered state can come into existence after all religion has been abolished or abandoned?

Is it just your attitude that we don’t have to figure out the answer to that question until the time comes when all religion is abandoned or abolished?

Couldn’t that be devastatingly short-sighted and chaotic? Wouldn’t it be somewhat like exchanging the God you do know for the gods you don’t know (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.)?

History is on the side of religion, not atheism. And the rather weak part of any case for atheism is that while the whole world has always practiced religion of one sort or another, the whole world has never practiced atheism. So what scientific evidence could you bring forward to argue that a world without religion would be as good as a world with religion, if not better?

I understand that you are keen on demanding scientific evidence for any truth you believe in. Based on the careers of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao in the 20th century, what scientific evidence did they offer you that the world would be as good with atheism as it would be with religion?

Again:

WHERE IS YOUR ATHEIST MORAL GLUE?

 

[AnAtheist]

Gilbert Keith:

WHERE IS YOUR ATHEIST MORAL GLUE?

And why won’t you answer the question?

I did answer, but as you are not willing to accept anything I could say, why should I bother to repeat it?

 

[bogeyjlg]

AnAtheist:

I did answer, but as you are not willing to accept anything I could say, why should I bother to repeat it?

Could you please restate it in a clear manner? I seemed to have missed it.

 

[AnAtheist]

bogeyjlg:

Could you please restate it in a clear manner? I seemed to have missed it.

I mentioned Kant’s Categorical Imperative and the simple egoistic approach, that others should be treated like you want to be treated yourself, that naturally leads to no killing, no stealing, etc, in short don’t harm others.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

I mentioned Kant’s Categorical Imperative and the simple egoistic approach, that others should be treated like you want to be treated yourself, that naturally leads to no killing, no stealing, etc, in short don’t harm others.

and i’ll say it again, too: the natural law, written on the hearts of men by god, and available by the light of natural reason.

anatheist and i have said the same thing numerous different times on this thread, but to no avail.

 

[john_doran]

Gilbert Keith:

How do you get people generally to agree on moral principles when there is no moral Lawgiver? How do you get them to agree at least sufficiently that a well ordered state can come into existence after all religion has been abolished or abandoned?

this just pushes the political poblem back a step: how do you get people generally to agree (A) that there is a moral lawgiver, and (B) just what laws he/she/it has given?

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

and i’ll say it again, too: the natural law, written on the hearts of men by god, and available by the light of natural reason.

anatheist and i have said the same thing numerous different times on this thread, but to no avail.

Yes, we just disagree on how that natural law came into being. But that is of no consequence for a state we could build upon it.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

An Atheist

I mentioned Kant’s Categorical Imperative and the simple egoistic approach, that others should be treated like you want to be treated yourself, that naturally leads to no killing, no stealing, etc, in short don’t harm others.

__________________

You want them to learn Christ’s teachings through Kant?

My, my, that one giant leap for mankind!

"The Bible is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced." Immanuel Kant