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.
@Matt-4
Oh, my word are you messed up or what?! Fucking unbelievable!
I don't work backwards idiot. That statement is just ridiculous!
Christianity spread because a fledgling myth religion gained prominence because Constantine wanted to consolidate his power. To do that had had to reduce religion from a polytheist society to a monotheist society with him holding the power.
The bible wasn't written until 325ADE at the Council of Nicea.
Christianity only spread at the point of a sword. Convert or die!
The bible isn't an instruction manual. It is a book of allegory myth folklore and fables.
You apparently haven't gone to college or a real one anyway because Universities don't dictate morality, never have.
The only "civil war" talk I hear comes from religious morons like you that want to relive Antebellum and slavery!
I'd there rals which are objective, they do not come from anywhere, just like math dies nor come from anywhere, they would be self evident.
They come from us. They come from an understanding of reason and empathy
Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
The problem with saying that morality comes from society and that it changes is that we can't really say for certain that certain acts are immoral. The most we could say is that we don't like what this society is doing.
Take slavery, for example. When slavery was outlawed in the US, you can that society changed it. But you cannot say that the previous society was wrong in accepting slavery.
Consequently, you can't say that killing sickly infants is wrong if a certain ancient society decided it was their way of preserving the strength of their society. The most you could say is "That's okay with them but not with us."
Oh I agree with most of that. The only portion that bothers me is the first two words: why is this lack of absolute certainty a problem?
In other thread, I explained the Sam Harris' theory on how to measure morals by objective standards, with which I agree 100%.
We can establish a scale in which "the worst misery for everyone" is the most immoral point of the scale and "welfare for everyone" is the goal to seek.
Example: Does same-sex marriage cost misery and suffering to human beings? To straight people is innocous (it only causes irritation to some extremists, but neither real misery, nor decreases their objective welfare), but to gay people costs suffering to feel like a second-class citizen and also, allowing them to marry increases welfare of society (increases the feeling of equality and freedom and creates family bonds).
I think it can be applied to almost any moral question. If anyone is interested, I wrote a longer post about it in http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/debate-room/2000-years-every-proof...
"The problem with saying that morality comes from society and that it changes is that we can't really say for certain that certain acts are immoral"
So what, this doesn't make it any less true. Besides even if we pretend a deity is real and pretend we know what it wants, you still can't be certain and are only offering an equally subjective opinion.
----------------------
"Consequently, you can't say that killing sickly infants is wrong if a certain ancient society decided it was their way of preserving the strength of their society. The most you could say is "That's okay with them but not with us.""
The bible claims your deity murdered babies and encouraged humans to do the same. Are you saying your deity was immoral? Or are you saying murdering babies is moral?
Which is it JoC you never seem to answer this question, you just endlessly repeat your assertion that atheism involves subjective morality. The hypocrisy and dishonesty is not going unnoticed.
So who determines who is morally good and who is morally bad? The answer is simple.
Its whoever wins.
MIGHT MAKES RIGHT for it is only the winner who decides the moral compass of history.
I don't believe this is true at all. Might may enable people without empathy to victimise others too weak to resist, but this doesn't make their behaviour moral. Nazism and the Holocaust proved this. Most people given the chance are decent and would not want others to suffer unnecessarily, it takes a lot of indoctrination to change this, and that's something ideologies likes fascism and religion have in common, they indoctrinate people to blindly obey dogma and doctrine, during the second world war of all the countries that were occupied by the Nazis, the ones that produced more people who were least likely to collaborate in the Nazis persecution of Jews were those that taught those people to think for themselves. Religion across the board was never found more wanting than during this era, the R Catholic Church behaved appallingly with all but a few admirable and notable exceptions. That's without considering the fact that the Holocaust was a direct result of centuries of virulent christian antisemitism.
Might may try to convince itself it is right, and force others to agree, but that just don't make it so. This idea by the way perfectly encapsulates religious apologetics that tries to justify evil crimes by their deities related in their bible or koran, god can do whatever it wants because it is god and created everything, the very definition of might is right. It's still evil by any decent human standard.
Might is right is malignant narcissism in its most pathological form. It should be shunned with the utmost contempt.
I suggest non-believers use the Golden Rule.
@ Mystic Crusader
Aaawww thats harsh! Can't we just follow the example of the christian church and torture people until they agree with us? Maybe a massacre or two of unbelievers (well those that don't agree with my way of seeing things)?
I find most atheists are well aware of "the golden rule" and follow it to their best ability. The Religious, on the other hand ,lack morals and a moral consciousness, they respond to the command dictums of their faiths.
I do believe that we are endowed with an innate moral sense born from the fires of evolutionary history and that we also use cultural constructs and language to determine how we ought to behave.
As discussed previously in this thread, reciprocal altruism ("I scratch your back, you scratch mine") is practiced across many different species. The best policy is tit for tat. If you help someone and they don't help you, you don't help them again until they do. Vampire bats do this with blood meals, they share some blood with roost mates that failed to get a blood meal in the hopes they will be repaid when they have an unlucky outing. If a vampire bat feeds a roost mate and is not returned the favour, he or she will not feed that individual again until they do.
Reciprocal altruism works with even genetically unrelated individuals, however, a powerful source of evolutionary selection pressure is known as kin selection. Essentially, by helping genetic relatives survive and reproduce, we help the copies of the genes we share with them reproduce as well. Worker ants are sterile and yet work tirelessly for their queen to reproduce. Their genes indirectly reproduce int his manner. Parents will sacrifice much for their children and families will help each other in ways that are perhaps unexpected given the misconception of "survival of the fittest".
Kin selection and reciprocal altruism combine to form the basis of many human emotions and moral behaviour such as guilt, sympathy, empathy and self sacrifice. We even have "mirror neurons" in our brains that activate when we see someone do an action that also activate when we do the same action, allowing the simulation of the experiences of others and thus empathy.
Human beings are also endowed with the capacity for complex symbolic thought and so we can use moral philosophy to determine how human beings "ought" to behave. Assuming that human suffering is bad, we ought to minimize it and maximize well being for conscious beings (Sam Harris).
I’d like to ask the atheists where this concept of “minimizing suffering” or treating others how they want to be treated comes from and why “survival of the fittest”, which seemed to be the moral code for most ancient societies, should not be the basis for our moral code.
Survival of the fittest is something observable in nature.
@ JoC
"Survival of the fittest is something observable in nature" but so is co-operation, altruism and social bonding.
"“survival of the fittest”, which seemed to be the moral code for most ancient societies" This is an absolutely stupid statement. Ancient societies had very complex moral and ethical codes. You can read some of the complaints about transgressors in the Babylonian Texts where a merchant complains about quality of goods and non payment by debtors. You can also have a look at the some of the texts that survive from the Egyptian kingdoms. All make fascinating reading and give an insight to how similar we all are.
You keep trying JoC but I sense you are running out of rational arguments and starting to question yourself.
Why atheists? Are theists unable to anticipate the concequences of their actions and act accordingly to avoid uneccessary suffering? Or do theist just not care about the suffering of others?
Survival of the fittest is an insentient evolutionary process. It's not and never has been a moral code. Ancient humans would have lived in vastly smaller groups as Hunter gatherers, the survival instincts would have been formed by evolution as with all animals. As societal animals humans also have evolved to be gregarious and to empathise. The switch from Hunter gatherers to farmers was a rapid change in comparison to evolutionary timescales. The industrial revolution even more so.
Survival of the fittest just means that species most suited to their environment have a much greater chance of passing on their genes by reproducing.
It's not some physical fight to the death between members of the same species.
Why would you want to base your morals on maximising suffering? Anymore than subjugating them to a blind adherence to ancient bronze age superstitious doctrine and dogma that ignores suffering?
What's the point of having the ability to reason if you don't use it except to parrot ancient dogma and superstion.
I definitely agree. Evolution's scalpel of change is death and time. We can change ourselves in a much more efficient manner using genetic engineering and our goals can be very different from mere numbers of gene reproductions. Culture already operates against evolution as we use birth control, which is very necessary.
2JoC
"Survival of the fittest " is the foundation of morals. Those species whose members that are better able to help each other can be more successful as a species. If we resorted to kill and steal, or society will be less functional. Don't you think? It will be less fitted to progress. Evolution works in whole populations or species.
read it http://joygts.blogspot.com/2018/02/who-wants-tokeep-hisher-lips-shut-all...
The evolved ability to choose, and to anticipate consequences of behaviour.
As societal animals most humans will also have inherited strong instincts regarding right and wrong behaviours. Though these instincts will not all have been able to keep pace with the speed of change from things like the move from Hunter gatherers to farmers who domesticated animals and more recently the industrial revolution.
Super easy question, and the very simple answer is......
Wait for it.........
.....
.....
......
.....
......
....
..
.....
Evolution
Evolution is about adaption, survival and growth.
There is no evolution with might is right, it is the same barbaric stupidity repeated millennium after millennium. It is the death of us all.
Religion is nothing more than might is right malignant narcissism and co narcissistic moral cowardice.
@Mystic Re: "Religion is nothing more than might is right malignant narcissism and co narcissistic moral cowards."
Dang, Mystic. I LIKE that.
I made a little mistake typing it, it should "cowardice". Although it can be said as malignant narcissists and moral cowards.
I made it into a meme: https://imgflip.com/i/25loy5
"one of the best principles about secular morality is that...we can revise every aspect of what we believe and what we understand, and it's all done based on evidence."
~Matt Dillahunty
Pages