All too often some theist infers that because I do not follow the rules of their holy book, I lack a moral compass.
But I fail to understand how blindly following a set of rules laid down many centuries in the past by barbaric tribesmen can be considered morality in any way.
p.s. I am making this a short post in an attempt to restart fresh debate.
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I don’t think theists should try to defend their morality.
As a teenager, when I first read the bible, starting with Genesis, I had no idea that the first things I would notice were …how to sin and what it is. I couldn’t believe my eyes on what was going on back then.
I don’t think people need religion to have morals. I would prefer if religion was just kept at home. No one roams the streets preaching what they just learned in a science or history course. Come to think of it, maybe that would be much more useful and educational….. free lectures.
Theists don’t hold the title for morals or even exemplary morals.
Theists that believe that morality is derived from religion, must be the most stupid things living...full stop. Morons.
"I fail to understand how blindly following a set of rules laid down many centuries in the past by barbaric tribesmen can be considered morality in any way."
I concur,and it doesn't stop there. Those rules contain endorsements of slavery, rapine, and genocide lets not forget, stories of a deity encouraging humans to commit act of ethnic cleansing, and the sex trafficking women and girls as the spoils of those atrocities.
But sadly, we have seen this posture all too often, when a theist claims that because they follow the rules of their holy book, they are the moral ones while us atheists have no guidelines, thus no morals.
The Nuremberg War Crime Trials established post WW2 dealt with this issue head-on, and it was established that "just following orders" was not a viable defense in committing atrocities. And IMO, this logic translates directly to those who blindly attempt to rationalize or justify anything "just because" it is in their holy book.
Almost every atheist I know of has established a starting point for their moral compass, be it "do no harm to others", or "treat others as if it was me", or "well being". From that firmly established starting point, one's moral decisions can be examined and acted on.
As you grow up in a homo sapiens family/community, your innate morality as a primate is refined through interactions with parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, etc.
Then you go to Sunday school and church, where that healthy human morality is partially erased and overwritten by a strange pseudo-morality based on holy books. You learn, for example, that it's wrong to rape anyone except an underage virgin, that you should only kill people from other tribes, that children and wives are the property of fathers and husbands, that the only cure for sin is a human sacrifice, that god loves you unconditionally and will torture you eternally if you don't love him back.
Then you spend the rest of your life trying to reconcile these horrors with your innate sense of decency.
That's why they call it apologetics. There's a lot to apologize for.
@Algebe
"Then you go to Sunday school and church, where that healthy human morality is partially erased and overwritten by a strange pseudo-morality based on holy books. You learn, for example, that it's wrong to rape anyone except an underage virgin, that you should only kill people from other tribes, that children and wives are the property of fathers and husbands, that the only cure for sin is a human sacrifice, that god loves you unconditionally and will torture you eternally if you don't love him back"
Funny, I've been attending/teaching Sunday School my whole life, and I was never taught this. I think your teacher was a sadistic cretin if that's what you learned...
@ Ain'tHumble
You are probably too young to know this. You were probably brought up in a time when the church finally realized they fucked up for over 2000 years. Only in the last 30 years has the Apologists come at people with shit-eating, self-ingratiating smiles to fool gullible people with their lies.
You seriously need to sit down and read that plagiarized book while trying to think critically about what you are reading.
Until then, like all Religious Absolutists, you are so full of your own bullshit you cannot even smell the brain diarrhea you spew forth.
You also need to watch this video David Killens found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_5yUXjXizQ
rmfr
@arkarish
Right on. You’re brilliant
Question: why do you feel the need to denigrate my username to fulfill your self diluted prophesies?
I am not denigrating anything. Only depicting the absolute true truth.
But, you ain't one capable of thinking critically to discern such.
And I give no prophecies. Ain't never had. Ain't never going to.
Now your delusions in believing and worshiping a book of plagiarized myths, legends, and lies …
Well, it takes a psychiatrist to treat RSTD.
rmfr
"Question: why do you feel the need to denigrate my username to fulfill your self diluted prophesies?"
Why do theists feel the need to shout their faux piety and humility at atheists by reinforcing the sickening self congratulatory tone they set in most of their posts with ironically arrogant usernames that contain words like humble, humility, truth, or love?
Do you not see the innate idiotic contradiction in calling YOURSELF humble?
@Sheldon
Please...show me where I have sinned. Why can I not be so humble too? PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU! I JUST WANT TO BE SAVED.
I seriously doubt that. You don't want to be saved. You just want to be a Religious Absolutist Apologist Troll.
rmfr
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
That gibberish has no relevance to my post at all, and you didn't answer my question.
Quelle surprise.
I hate to burst your bubble here, but this place gets a steady stream of theists like yourself arrogantly preaching at us.
What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?
@HumbleThinker: Funny, I've been attending/teaching Sunday School my whole life, and I was never taught this.
So which book did you use? It obviously wasn't the Bible. As far as I can recall, the Bible provides only two cures for sin: megadeath by flood, and human sacrifice by crucifixion.
Mrs. Rose, my first religious teacher at primary school in London in 1956, taught a class of five-year-olds about the death of the Egyptian first-born sons, the slaughter of the innocents by Herod, the drowning of men, women, and children in the flood, the mechanics of crucifixion....
@a
And she sounds like a nice lady, but you were obviously too dense to pick up the message...
Neutron Star. Neutron Star.
rmfr
@Humble Thinker:
you were obviously too dense to pick up the message
No. I got the message loud and clear from her and you. Christians are arrogant, ignorant, self-important, sadistic, purblind, god-addled fuckwits. After 10 years of daily indoctrination, I finally realized everything they taught me was pure bullshit.
@Algebe
I love how any time a theist simply proclaims what his/her beliefs are, all of a sudden they are deemed "arrogant, ignorant, self-important, sadistic, purblind, god-addled fuckwits" I'd say those words have proven to be more true about atheists by just about every single one of you in this forum. Sure, I have made some personal attacks, some serious, some light-hearted. I literally just can't wrap my brain around why I am being called arrogant and self-important, when I have NEVER made a comment that would suggest this to be true. The irony is staggering.
And you really and truly cannot utilize critical thinking. If you hadn't gotten your buddies to DDoS attack this WWW site, I'd tell you to go back and read your posts from just before the attack.
New Hypothesis: I think it was Ain't-Humble-Can't-Think who hired some Russians to DDoS attack this site since he knew he could not prove anything he typed. Thus, in his arrogant, ignorant, ignorant, narcissistic, schizophrenic, megalomaniacal, psychotic, sociopathic fuckwit brain, he hated losing every time and hoped to bring down this site.
Reasoning: Before the DDoS attack, he was a whiney-ass baby proselytizing us in hopes we would convert. Now, he is nothing more than a mean-ass, ad hominem, arrogant, ignorant, ignorant, narcissistic, schizophrenic, megalomaniacal, psychotic, sociopathic, pissed off fuckwit.
Then he admits the irony he spews is staggering.
rmfr
@Humble Thinker: I literally just can't wrap my brain around why I am being called arrogant and self-important, when I have NEVER made a comment that would suggest this to be true.
Is your memory so short that you don't remember writing this?
you were obviously too dense to pick up the message
I tried to engage in reasonable discourse with you, and you retort with a puerile insult. If you "can't wrap your brain" around that, then I pity you and your poor little brain.
HumbleThinker: Arrogance?
In all fairness, you are the one professing immediate contact with the all powerful creator god and his inerrant book of inane babblings. You are the one who falls back on the Childhood taunt each time you assert your bullshit "My daddy is bigger than yours." My beliefs are superior to yours. And our response is a very legitimate, "Go fuck yourself" What were you expecting. Your magical belief system has no weight around here. You want people to respect your ignorance, Go TO CHURCH.
Methinks mumblingstinker is a troll.
@Sheldon
I am not a troll, dude. But I can not address every asinine comment made by Arakish in his 1000 word essay responses that are copy and pasted from the black lagoon of conceit. So forgive me if I just slap him and walk away. Same goes for most of you.
At the very least, I would say I am no bigger a troll than anyone else here...
Hate to say it, but your attempts to slap anyone have been missing by a nautical mile.
rmfr
You're moments away from playing the victim, I blame Jesus for stetting the precedent.
You still haven't demonstrated any objective evidence for any deity, yet have time and energy to troll and insult, I am afraid I am way past feigning surprise. If your beliefs had any merit through objective evidence you'd have led with it.
The only asinine comments I've seen in this thread are yours.
"At the very least, I would say I am no bigger a troll than anyone else here.."
And you thought you'd seek out some atheists to tell them this. Same old nonsense.
THERE IS NO MORALITY IN FOLLOWING DICTATES FROM A GOD.
Doing moral acts to avoid punishment, Hell, or receive a reward, Heaven, is not moral at all. I can train a frigging dog to obey commands and it is not behaving morally. There can be no act of morality when one is seeking to please a God and gain a reward or avoid a punishment. An act of morality requires altruism. Altruism is when we act to promote someone else’s welfare, even at a risk or cost to ourselves. Evolutionary scientists speculate that altruism has such deep roots in human nature because helping and cooperation promote the survival of our species. Introducing reward and punishment to encourage altruistic behavior destroys any sense of morality a human being might have.
@cog
"An act of morality requires altruism"
Does it? According to Merriam Webster there are multiple sufficient definitions, none of which mention altruism as being required for something to be moral. Take this definition :
Moral: adj: "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character."
While I can't deny that "religious" believers are just as likely to commit non-moral acts (if not more so), I can say I have NEVER proclaimed to be more moral than anyone else, theist nor atheist. In fact, I know I am pretty low on the totem pole for acting righteously. I do think your approach to morality falls short of the truth though. On the surface, it seems like all we are struggling for is the "reward" or to avoid the "punishment." But it is much more than this. Religion attempts to guide its' followers towards what they believe is more moral, based on their interpretation of their holy book. It is a gradual process to change the heart of a human to act in a more moral manner, which is in direct opposition to our natural inclinations. It is just as wrong to suggest that someone who has studied religion for 2 years is a moral superior as it is to suggest someone who studied karate for 2 years is a black belt, so we shouldn't expect it.
To summarize, I don't think most religious people are morally superior, nor believe themselves to be. At least within my circle, it is the exact opposite. And atheists of course can act morally, even more so than theists, I think the question usually is "What is moral". Since everyone here thinks it is subjective, than the conversation may as well end there. If you believe it is objective, then it is worth having a conversation to figure out what is right and what is wrong, and I do believe religion gets closer to the answer than a scientific groupthink worldview, imo.
@HumbleThinker
"I think the question usually is "What is moral". Since everyone here thinks it is subjective, than the conversation may as well end there. If you believe it is objective, then it is worth having a conversation to figure out what is right and what is wrong, and I do believe religion gets closer to the answer than a scientific groupthink worldview, imo."
First off, this is not a scientific topic, and please explain this "scientific groupthink worldview".
We can have a conversation on what we may consider right and wrong, and balance objective against subjective.
Do you think it is morally correct to own another human being? Can I buy your daughter?
From a subjective viewpoint of "do no harm", I am sure your daughter would not be happy that her freedom was taken away, she would spend the days scouring the floors and evenings serving wine, and the nights... well, she would be kept busy.
From the objective viewpoint, Exodus 21:7-8
7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself,[a] he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her.
HumbleThinker, do you agree that it is moral to sell your sister or any female into slavery?
@david
Thanks for the response. Not quite sure what you’re getting at but I’ll play along. I don’t believe it is moral to sell your sister or any female into slavery, no.
Do you?
IMO slavery is completely immoral.
But I thank you for the honest answer Humble Thinker, because you are a better person than god/religion. Whether you understand it or admit it to yourself, you are applying subjective morality because holy books definitely preach and practice extremely immoral conduct.
It was not difficult for me to pluck an example. When I was a child, I was exposed to all the bible stories. I had theistic parents and there were children's bible story books liberally scattered around the house. And at that time I believed that religion was nice and happy cotton candy Mary Poppins wonderful. I had not applied critical thinking and examined the stories from all angles.
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