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.
“Right, because we are discussing ideas, which we can subject to the rules of logic. The fact that those ideas emerged from chemical reactions is irrelevant. That's like saying you can't evaluate the hydrodynamics of metal ships because metal is a natural material.”
No… I think your argument is a little misplaced. In your metal ship example, it would be like saying that iron is evil because a ship made of it sank and killed all people on board. To say that a human being who rapes is evil when he is simply the product of some dead chemicals… is akin to that.
The example of ‘hydrodynamics’ is more like analyzing why a human being has ‘diabetes’… which has no moral implication.
He seems absolutely desperate to convince people bad thoughts aren't peoples fault one must wonder what terrible thoughts he gas to force him to spew such ridiculous nonsense.
And by the way no one claims to know the basis of thought so your entire argument is flawed. Once prevailing hypothesis is thought is a simple electrical byproduct of a chemical brain. But thats not the only hypothesis.
Until you can prove thoughts are a chemical production you shouldnt claim they are.
And like spewer said the origin is meaningless the consciousness evaluates thoughts using tool like empathy and logic.
Hey Wonderstruck, can I make a suggestion as a fellow Christian? It seems you might be trying to point out the absurdity in the atheist position by forcing them to the "logical conclusion" of their beliefs... or something like that. I was also taught to do that. But it's not a great method, it's a little patronising and it doesn't work. These guys aren't stupid and it's perfectly possible to hold a logical and reasonable atheist position - including one where you really care about people (eg. humanism). There are some very smart and caring atheists in the world, and they've thought through their beliefs well.
how about that he is an atheist in the 99.999999% of the religions out there himself :)
It's real simple for most people with critical thinking skills...... here it comes , live and let live.
Just a few quick questions? Really?
To the OP - I really don't see how any of what you've outlined about the development of morality flies in the face of human experience. Seems to fit perfectly to me.
Of course there are the aberrant sociopaths, but for the most part humans are social creatures and want to coexist with one another. Therefore, like other social animals, we would rather do right by one another than wrong.
For the sake of discussion, I'll say a thing or two about sociopathology. In a normal, natural world without the crutches of established law or religion, those who could not or did not desire to contribute in a useful (I'm purposely not going to define this term) way to a group would be ostracized from it. As hairless apes living in a hostile world, that usually means death, or at lesst removal from the gene pool. Natural selection works quite well. Humans are naturally empathetic, but not necessarily sympathetic.
Unfortunately, with the advent of religion to help sociopaths put on their masks of sanity (dogmatic religious behavior is highly correlated not only with sociopathology but also anxiety disorders such as OCD <== those guys aren't sociopaths, just neurotic), all those millennia of natural selection that made most humans cooperative, or "good" are ruined! Much in the same way the vast process that selected genes to make up the *perfect* human eye is trashed and made obsolete by measured glass lenses. Now, suddenly yet unsurprisingly, we see an increase in behavior issues and poor vision alike.
The problem is this - morality and vision are very complicated processes for a fetus and mother to orchestrate, and in the development process, it's much easier to have them done wrong than right. Thus, poor vision and poor morality are more heritable than perfect vision and perfect morality. We don't exactly go leaving "unacceptable" children in the woods to die like we used to do (and was considered a sound moral choice, for sound, moral reasons), and so we can witness the slow degradation of what was once one of the most amazing culminations of evolution.
If that knocks the wind out of your sails, sorry, not sorry.
It's going to take quite a while for mankind to rebuild solid morality without religion, but it's quite possible, and worth the effort.
We human beings have gone through many transitions throughout our time on Earth. We have amassed information only to have it destroyed, learned much only to be forgotten, built great cities only to have them destroyed. Ignorance has ruled by force of numbers, force from religions, force of powers that be, but all through ignorance of the majority as manipulated by the intelligence and desires of whatever powers take them into their deathly grip. I see you are a new "young earth Christian"..you would do just as well to come out and say "I'm an idiot, don't care who knows it and I choose wilful ignorance over reason, logic and facts."Since it isn't possible to be reasonable with unreasonable people, especially those who wrap the blanket of ignorance about them as if it's a comforting, safe place to be. I read your post and found it filled with the type of conclusive anti-logic that so often is found in Christian remarks.Once the brain is poisoned , the thought process tainted, it is very difficult to ever bring one back..or I should say, into reality. You seem to have convinced yourself that moral bearing is derived from Christianity...obviously, you haven't actually read the bible. You may not even be aware that those of the Islamic faith also believe in the old testament, sharing the same stories and lessons as Christians. The difference is, those of Islam take the bible literally as presented through the old testament....just as Christians of old used to. But, modern Christians no longer stone to death the adulterous or the heretic, they simply work behind the scenes to kill homosexuals or to punish them in some other way...all for the love of God. Subjugating women was also very popular in the bible, just as it is still within Islam, but to survive in a modern world, Christianity has been forced to evolve with the times just to fit in.You'll no doubt never figure out that the bible , as with other religious works, are and have always been the constructs of man. I can't provide answers to anyone who has bought into a falsehood so completely. I wish you well in life's journey.
It seems to me that YOU'RE the one who needs answers
We human beings have gone through many transitions throughout our time on Earth. We have amassed information only to have it destroyed, learned much only to be forgotten, built great cities only to have them destroyed. Ignorance has ruled by force of numbers, force from religions, force of powers that be, but all through ignorance of the majority as manipulated by the intelligence and desires of whatever powers take them into their deathly grip. I see you are a new "young earth Christian"..you would do just as well to come out and say "I'm an idiot, don't care who knows it and I choose wilful ignorance over reason, logic and facts."Since it isn't possible to be reasonable with unreasonable people, especially those who wrap the blanket of ignorance about them as if it's a comforting, safe place to be, I'll forego the effort. I read your post and found it filled with the type of conclusive anti-logic that so often is found in Christian remarks.Once the brain is poisoned , the thought process tainted, it is very difficult to ever bring one back..or I should say, into reality. You seem to have convinced yourself that moral bearing is derived from Christianity...obviously, you haven't actually read the bible. You may not even be aware that those of the Islamic faith also believe in the old testament, sharing the same stories and lessons as Christians. The difference is, those of Islam take the bible literally as presented through the old testament....just as Christians of old used to. But, modern Christians no longer stone to death the adulterous or the heretic, they simply work behind the scenes to kill homosexuals or to punish them in some other way...all for the love of God. Subjugating women was also very popular in the bible, just as it is still within Islam, but to survive in a modern world, Christianity has been forced to evolve with the times just to fit in.You'll no doubt never figure out that the bible , as with other religious works, are and have always been the constructs of man. I can't provide answers to anyone who has bought into a falsehood so completely. I wish you well in life's journey.
Pages