A certain amount of kindness ( towards others in the same species (or subgroup)) is required for a species/subgroup to continue. Morality is not limited to the Christian worldview, there are some questionable morals in the bible, most other morals that are shared among pretty much all worldviews.
Morality doesn’t prove or disprove the existence of any gods.
..if a country decides it is morally right to kill 6 million Jews.or countries have an ideology that leads to the death of over 100 million is correct,your post sounds good but is illogical. Only faith in Christ,turning to God and following his truth in the Holy Bible will bring peace and happiness rather than chaos and misery.
Hey Gurney .. what part of my post was incomprehensible to you? Seemed straightforward enough to me. You indicated that violence and death was a problem linked to people of faith as opposed to atheists. In light of Stalin, Mao, Xi, Pol Pot etc I suggested that you might like to have another look. ( OK .. I said it was delusional!)
You also said that ‘coming out’ as Atheist’ would wreck a person’s career in public life. I challenged this as being the prevailing cultural norm. (OK. I said it was bonkers!)
I am not trying to ‘get one over on you’ ..so there’s no need to be dismissive. I genuinely think that you have intelligence and communicative skills .. but that you are for some reason messed up in your arguments because of ‘blinding’ hostility to any faith position in general ..but to Christians in particular.
The problem I have with BPG’s argument about needing a god as moral arbiter is that it leaves humans justifying actions that harm others because ‘God says it’s right’. This is what allowed Christian zealots of the past to wage war and commit massacres through history. The retort is usually that these weren’t or aren’t true Christians, but these ‘not true Christians’ would say the same about those rejecting their methods, citing scripture to justify actions that harm others. A humanist perspective of basing moral decisions on the foundations of ‘the golden rule’, involving basing decisions on empathy, treating others how you would want to be treated, and realising such moral decisions can lead to advantageous outcomes for a peaceful life for yourself and everyone else can also form a moral bedrock. I don’t think such thinking is precluded from being a Christian; I would say that Christians who developed such positive morals in Christianity were (maybe unknowingly) dipping into such thought when ascribing them to God.
JI is right in pointing out to Gurny that moral issues exist outside of religion. Sometimes atheists can argue as if that without religion we’d have a moral utopia without irrationality. Yet, without religion, many still turn to nonsense pseudoscience and conspiracy theories like the idea that ancient aliens developed human society or that there is a Zionist occupation government that aims to control population numbers and dilute the blood of white people through immigration and mixed race marriages. These things do not necessarily require belief in God or religious belief. Also, there are other extreme ideologies that have caused misery through warfare and atrocities, such as fascism, Nazism and communism. The problem for me is dogmatism, which does include thinking along the lines of using morality as a means of being driven by God, but is not limited to that. Arguments from “God desires others to be treated lesser because they are of heretic or heathen beliefs” to “we need to root out the bourgeoisie and make them pay for causing the suffering of the workers” are both dogmatic ways of thinking that dehumanises others and causes oppression and suffering. Gurny’s posts neglect the need to be sceptical of ideology outside of religion and BPG does the opposite.
I would also say that BPG misunderstands the mindset of the zealot who justifies the deaths of others. The Nazis committed the Holocaust because they thought it was moral and they were doing humanity a favour by ridding the world of those who cause it harm. It doesn’t come about because of the lack of Christian belief, but because they are applying a similar dogmatic mindset to another ideology. A large part of the problem comes with moral certainties without due care for others and justifications based on ideology. Such ideological certainties can convince many that something which harms others is not such a big deal, because it suits those they care for, be it God, their favoured ‘race’ or the workers.
Of course there are more complexities in that some ideologies are worse than others, because their teachings have less going for them. Nazism is worse than Christianity, because the latter can provide teachings that can be positive while the former doesn’t, but both can encourage dogmatism and dogmatic/fundamentalist adherents to both would be convinced they are doing the right thing for humanity.
Tl;dr, for these reasons I do not have much time for arguments about morality being based around God, because that can be used to justify immoral behaviour which can be passed on, because God says it’s right. I would say that the good aspects of Christianity (yes, Gurny, I do think they exist) come from the human philosophy of seeing how you want to be treated and treating others the same with empathic thoughts. This basis can form moral systems that have developed globally and among many backgrounds, religions and non-religions. The only difference is that Christians link such morals to being guided or instilled by God. I have no issue with that, so long as they don’t start making comments about how without their religion there would be no moral framework or basis.
Keeping to the question I put to Gurnelista.
You state a humanist perspective of basing moral decisions on the foundations of the ‘golden rule’…empathy…perfect life…etc. I put it to you as well Siderite,if there is no God ( which the humanist claims),if someone comes along and thinks the complete opposite..doesn’t want empathy,perfect life,etc and wants to destroy and get all you stuff etc,if there is no God,how do you DEFEND your position you are right and they are wrong?
Given such ‘destruction’ causes observable misery to others I’d say that’s evidence for it being something which can be deemed immoral. It usually takes ideological dogmatism to portray such actions that cause harm, because it’s for the good of’God’, the ‘people’ or whoever they claim to stand for.
,…I’d say that’s evidence for it being something which can be deemed immoral.”
Your view is there is no God. How do you justify something is immoral? Who says?
You are continually stealing from the word of God in the Holy Bible to make sense of your world,if you did but know it.
Moral systems predate Christianity and some of them don’t come from Christianity. It doesn’t need a god to know how stealing or destroying someone’s stuff can be wrong because it hurts others.
..The people who say “ there is no God”,we can kill 6 million Jews or we can kill 100 million with our ideology ,did they care about “ destruction and misery”?
There is only one way to live ,and your view of reality is flawed due to your rebellion against your Creator.
People who believe in God have said they should kill Jews, as they did in the Crusades, because God wills it and they justify it as good as a result of such beliefs.
Also, the people who said we should kill 6 million Jews don’t represent all atheists, do they? Many also had weird occultist beliefs. The world isn’t a binary. Dogmatism should be opposed, no matter its stripe, as I have said.
As you have stated Siderite,we need to cooperate to get along,actually that’s not true.Take someone like Stalin,he cooperated with very few people,just his henchmen and he killed millions of people to get what he wanted.He died on his deathbed at 74 shaking his fist at God one last time,he never paid for his sins in this life
So the problem it seems is we know and you know right from wrong,and I don’t need to believe in God to know that,I just need there to be a God to justify it.
Let me put it this way,a lot of atheists say look I know right from wrong,and I agree with you,but that’s like saying I can know what a book says and deny there is an author,which is true,but there would be no book to read unless there was an author.
The same is true with morality,you can know what the right thing to do is and deny there is a God,but there would be no right thing to do unless there was a God.FT.
Why can’t you just accept that some people believe in god and some don’t bpg? Some people believe they have proof of the existence of god whilst others refute it, for valid reasons.
I’d say Stalin is a representation of the issue I oppose. A rigid dogmatist. My own stance is to dislike any form of rigid ideology that forces itself upon others, be it religious fundamentalism or communism, so my own thoughts on Stalin is that I disagree with his moral stance as I do the religious when they try to justify things I disagree with. While I am sure Christianity has had some influence on my thoughts, since I am from a country with a large cultural Christian past, I would say that my ideas have formed from other things too. So I wouldn’t say that God is a necessary basis for morals to make sense.
The only people who would see the ability to defend morality as proof of god, are the already unwavering believers, not going sway anybody one way or the other. The kind of argument that would work in a bible study group, or YouTube video from an online preacher, not in a group of football fans with very different religious views.
Why can’t you just accept that some people believe in god and some don’t bpg? Some people believe they have proof of the existence of god whilst others refute it, for valid reasons.
Agreed, this debate like many others has gone down the sterile back and forth route with no end in sight and bill has once again chosen to hide behind you tube to back his opinion. I find that for most part the majority of believers and non believers are quite happy with each others viewpoint and only the small percentage of either camp continue to bang their heads against each other. Like most species on this planet are time on it is relatively short and we should get the most out of life while we are here, raise and love our children to the best of our ability and enjoy watching them embrace their short time on this planet too.
Think I’m going all Ringo Starr now, love and peace man.
The ‘silent one’, if you glance back even through this thread Bill, has made several clear faith statements ..but all in the flow of the discussion. I doubt that you would find little agreement from the regulars that I have been silent about my faith over a number of years. I could be wrong.
As for apologising for offending …
I reckon I’ve managed to offend a number of folks on here …you included. And you above all should know that I will only apologise when I genuinely believe that I’ve done something wrong.
I guess what this boils down to is that I don’t see the presentation of the good news,the Gospel, as a confrontation or a kind of battle to be won. The challenge is in the message itself..the presentation should be with respect, kindness and sensitivity.
May I ask ,where have you ever presented the Gospel message on this site? Besides trying to be fair and show a holier than thou attitude,and showing you are a “good”(in human terms)person,trying to show other people how to behave,where have you declared we are sinful people who need to repent and put our faith in Jesus Christ(etc) . You have declared you are a Christian,true, but as for any interactional,you declare anyone who does that is confrontation and fighting a kind of battle to be won! Our friendly disagreements led to a false character assassination about a person you hardly knew ,and an arrogant attitude than had failed to seek reconciliation.
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