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[–] salttypa ago 

By asking people who are christian to say that christ is not the only option is asking them to deny their own faith which is obviously inconsistent and no one could reasonably be expected to do. Imagine me telling you it's ok to be an atheist as long as you get on your knees and pray to Allah, this is identical to what you are doing.

No, its saying "its okay to not be religious as long as you are still a good person." How? Be good to each other. If you can't manage decency without a God telling you then by all means, go to church and learn how to be nice. simple. Would you like someone to rape you? No? Then rape is wrong. Would you like someone to murder you kids? No? Look how easy that is. No god involved.

This is interesting, as soon as you are asked to define right and wrong without god you default back to the christian idea of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto". Trouble is, in the christian faith this holds weight because it comes from the mouth of god himself, whereas in your atheism it is just merely you stating this. Why would what you would like to happen to you in particular be the morale barometer for the whole of humanity? This is quickly devolving into egotism on your part.

I think about it. Is it right for me to take something that doesn't belong to me? Well it depends on a lot of factors. Inherently, stealing is wrong. I wouldn't want people to steal from me. But what if its a Robin Hood situation? Maybe under certain circumstances its okay to take something that doesn't belong to you. Other circumstances it wouldn't be. "Thou shalt not steal" doesn't leave much room for someone who picks an orange off their neighbors tree does it?

Why is stealing inherently wrong? You have yet to justify this. You could claim "Do unto others..." etc again but the person on losing end of the Robin Hood situation surely will not be very happy about it, so you are contradicting yourself here. Again you seem to think your own thoughts of morality are somehow universally accepted by everyone. If stealing is ok in certain situations like a Robin Hood situation why shouldn't it be acceptable in all situations?

How do I account for it? They are different. Obviously. You show me one single society that thinks its okay to walk up to any person they want and just kill them for no reason. Or to walk into any home and take any thing that they desire without consequence. Show me one. How do you account for so many religions having so many Gods with so many different rules?

But this defeats the whole idea of right and wrong, if different societies have different ideas of right and wrong, then right and wrong are truly meaningless terms as we have no justification for why one societies morality is superior to anothers, and so we are led to morale nihilism. No one commits crime such as murder"for no reason" unless they are simply mentally deranged, but to answer your question plenty of muslims across the world believe murder of a non-muslim is completely acceptable, this is but one example. Whole books have been written about the presence of different religions gods etc, however I think it's important to understand there are not as many gods and religions as you might think, for one the god of Abraham is the god of Christianity Judaism and Islam, so the majority of the world actually worships the same god essentially. There are of course several differences, but it is the same god nevertheless.

Sure I can. Their society is sick. Those people need guidance until they learn how to play nice. A sick society does not need Jesus. They need a guiding hand. I could be that guiding hand if they would listen to me, but they wont. They are too stupid or too stubborn. But maybe if I threatened them with eternal hellfire and suffering for not listening to God... well maybe that would get us somewhere.

Your Egotism is in full force here. You realize said societies could just as easily turn around and say your society is the sick one, and that you are the one in need of guidance. To these people you will be seen as the stupid one.

No they wont. The idea of what is right and wrong is damn near universal. The details are what will differ. In your SA example for instance, you leave out the fact that the blacks dont think they are stealing the land. They think they are reclaiming it. They think that it was always theirs. They do think that stealing is wrong, and they think the white man stole from them. These are details. The over arching idea of right and wrong still applies to both sides of the coin, the issue is that both sides feel they have been wronged based on their own set of details.

The point i'm making is that right and wrong can never be universal, and so never exist at all, without god. You can try and say that it is but any attempt will fall flat. Blacks may see it as reclaiming their land, but they are still achieving this by mass violence and murder, they clearly think this is ok as a means to an end.

Of course they can. You are trying to do it right now.

This is of course speaking in a world without the universal truth given by god, if you think god doesn't exist you don't have this privilege of assuming a universal truth.

This is the idea that underlies the entire argument; without god there is no universal truth or universal value, and so truth and value altogether are meaningless, hence nihilism. So nihilism is the logical conclusion of a world view such as yours. Nihilism is perhaps extremely difficult to keep to by anyone who isn't completely psychotic, but it is the conclusion nevertheless. Many philosophical movements arose during the twentieth century as attempts to escape the hole of nihilism that there atheist beliefs led them to.

When my children become adults their thoughts and actions aren't my responsibility any longer, what they believe is up to them. Of course I would prefer they were christian, but by then it will no longer be up to me.