Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
@Catlin
I haven't missed any point. The original post was essentially saying that we should all just let religion dictate morality whether we believe in a god or not, that the lie is okay because the purpose is for the greater good. There are several problems with that premise.
1) Morality doesn't and never did come from a god. It comes from the society that dictates it.
2) Going along with a lie is giving it credibility. Thus the moral imperative.
3) People that believe in a god should not be allowed to dictate their sense of morality on others for it is neither moral or just, it's just their fucking opinion.
4) Believers think that atheists are not and are incapable of being moral when the fact is that historically and statistically, atheists are the most moral of any segment of society. Statistically, the least moral people in the USA are christian.
1) Where did society get their ideas originally? What inspired early society's moral compass? If God's existence is still a mystery, how can you say that morality didn't come from God?
2) What distinguishes religion as a lie? Disagreeing with it does not constitute it as lie.
3) Your morals entail that people should not force their beliefs on others but a part of being a christian means sharing the word of God with others so that everyone can with God. While at times I think people share their beliefs in an unflattering manner, they are trying to serve God.
4) If you are measuring someone's morality along the lines of what today's society deems as correct then yes christians are the least moral. Morality is viewed differently between secular society and christianity. While there are similarities between the two, I can see how christians are seen as immoral in a secular society but, christians view the secular society as immoral. Being athiest from a christian viewpoint is immoral but it does not mean that they are bad. Athiests are incapable of being moral in terms of christianity because they reject most ideas that christians align themselves with.
Caitlin
Do you have any proof your god is the giver of morals? Do you have any proof your god is real?
The Bible would be the example of how God inspired morals. This is speaking in terms of christianity morals and not so much secular morals.
The bible is an example of contradictions, hypocrisies, allegories and ancient fables and nothing more.
The Bible is a collection of books divinely inspired by God.
Nope, the bible was a political instruction to consolidate power of Emporer Constantine. There was nothing "divine" about it.
@Caitlin
1) I can say that morals don't come from god because they don't!
Every society has a moral standard. The Spartans decided that babies that had defects should be thrown off of a cliff by their mothers, and those mothers did it gladly because that was morally accepted by their society.
2) No disagreeing with something doesn't make it a lie, but professing something to be true with not one shred of evidence of being true IS a lie.
3) Sharing "the word" is far different than pushing legislation that forces prayer in school, forcing the ten commandments in courthouses. It's far different than forcing your belief on people.
4) Rejecting a myth is NOT immoral. What I was alluding to as why christians are more immoral than atheists is because christian commit more crimes and more violent crimes, they discriminate against certain humans instead of having the forgiveness that they say they have. The jails are dominated by christians, that is the largest demographic in every American jail.
That is just a fact.
1. That is your view not the truth (aka a lie according to you).
2. There is evidence but you reject it as unacceptable
3. I agree but it's the fact that religious and secular people live different morals and to religious people a legal law does not qualify a just law. Religion is a way of life and people should not have to act religious in church and then secular in society.
4. Christianity is not defined as a myth. There is historical evidence of Jesus and his apostles. And I agree that people misuse the word of God but it doesn't mean it should be ignored.
I'm not looking to argue, just to express my point of view. Again I agree that people can sometimes be too in your face about religion but when you live in a secular society and you're religious, everyday is difficult. It's okay to disagree with me, I'm not necessarily trying to change your viewpoint. I'm just trying to understand and give perspective.
@Caitlin
1) No that is a fact not my opinion.
2) I don't reject them. Logic rejects them. There is no credible evidence. Evidence of a god is only the bible which does not meet a basic standard in science, logic, a court of law, and any respectable and credible forum.
3) Religious people can live religious as long as they don't violate the individual rights of others. There is NO historical record of jesus and the apostles.
Also you don't know what difficulty is. Christianity is obtrusive. It's overbearing.
Again; collectively we (as a species) have already been doing this (lying to people and telling them that a god(s) is watching what they do) for thousands of years. We already know it won't produce the results you want.
Gonna jump in here and put my 2 cents on your first 3 points.
1)Society got their ideas from themselves as the ideas gradually changed and evolved. Originally they came from instinct before we had complex societies that lifted us from simply being controlled by instinct.
Before humans had the tools to dominate all life on this planet, they had to survive, survive against other life that could kill them. How? By grouping up, strength in numbers, and making the loss of any one individual not mean the loss of babies still dependent, or the ability to continue to multiply in number. This arose as instinct to not kill each other whenever we felt like it, and had a disagreement, to protect the young and the weaker, etc, many other animals all depict this behavior. Ours just evolved over the years to be better and yet more complex, as we separated geographically these varied some, to adapt to that particular environment. Now as the earth is getting increasingly crowded with increasingly limited resources these varied morales end up often times being in conflict.
2) Religion does not have any solid evidence to its truth, where the amount of evidence against religion's existence, (any of them,) is enormous. We know this, especially us atheist that: are able to take a step back and look at it objectively. To say religion is truth is a lie, when we know the evidence very strongly points to: that their is no god that is depicted in the religions.
3) How would you feel if I started a religion and gathered a large following, and told them that it is there moral imperative to spread word of that god. To have followers knock on the door of every non believer of my god everyday. All my gods people are instructed to track every non believer and talk to them whenever they leave their home? To try and say: hey in your court of laws, my god's 5 big rules must be displayed, the 10 commandments must be taken down. And having the political power/following to pull that off? To tell you your god is wrong, mine is right. But on top of that, my people are also instructed to treat people of christianity as the worse of the bunch, they are the devils, where the rest are just merely confused. (Many atheist face this sort of "you are the worst, the devil, cannibal etc)" over simply believing in a different god. That just goes into today. What if my god idea been around for a while and has been responsible for many wars and converting many people against their will?
I always enjoy how lively these discussions can be. Going back to the original question, definitely no lie can be used as a basis for a good society.
It's like a building with a very weak foundation. The smallest winds or quakes can topple it and thrn what are you left with. I guess the point I'm getting at is this: you can fool some of the people all the time or all of the people some of the time. But not all of the people all the time.
Religion has done a great job of lying to the people all the time. Sadly the people believe the lies.
I too like how lively these discussions are. Even if we disagree. The anonymity afforded here allows us to debate w/o really hurting one another. No real damage is done unless you allow a completely anonymous person behind thousands of miles of wiring actually bother you. Which of course, if someone can bother you that way it is illogical.
To me it is all the fun of debate without virtually any of the drawbacks of debate.
@ vfd -
The imagination is what you are referring to. Are you suggesting a person should imagine a god and feel good about that thought to make a short life more enjoyable, or tenable? That already exists in theology. Theists think that way. Atheists do not. Theists take some relief from their imaginations. Atheists prefer to embrace reality for the truth in it.
Theists live in a fantasy world mostly for the reason you example. In their world all manner of good visits them frequently and even the bad is nothing less than an opportunity to forgive. It is the ultimate drug-free trip. But, it isn't reality. Nothing can provide what reality provides and that is truth and honesty. Would you subscribe to trading such virtues for the sake of a delusional world viewed through rose colored glasses? Is this the acceptable alternative to reality's tough love?
Atheists are not imbued with that kind of self-deception. They cannot accept, much less tolerate such a conjured image of themselves suspended inside their imaginations. They prefer to view life in the sense of abject truth, embrace it and work it as any craftsman would work his craft rather than repulse it with happy thoughts.
Pages