World Situation

[nickspoon]

I attempt to be a man of logic. As such, religion simply is not an option - you make a bad problem worse. My (very simple) philosophy for dealing with other people is "Do what you like, don't hurt anybody and expect anything you do to come back at you."

Not all wars are based on religion. Most are based on power, resources, nationalism and imperialism.

 

[Hanz™]

I attempt to be a man of logic. As such, religion simply is not an option - you make a bad problem worse. My (very simple) philosophy for dealing with other people is "Do what you like, don't hurt anybody and expect anything you do to come back at you."

Not all wars are based on religion. Most are based on power, resources, nationalism and imperialism.

Okay, but I think that you have to realise that some people really can't bare the thought that this might be it, and that they won't "go" anywhere (other than the ground) when they die. So people want to believe in the supernatural. Maybe for them they might have much greater problems if they didn't believe in God - maybe they are the sort of people who would completely abandon all morales (ie. stupid) if there was no Heaven/Hell.

 

[nickspoon]

I attempt to be a man of logic. As such, religion simply is not an option - you make a bad problem worse. My (very simple) philosophy for dealing with other people is "Do what you like, don't hurt anybody and expect anything you do to come back at you."

Not all wars are based on religion. Most are based on power, resources, nationalism and imperialism.

Okay, but I think that you have to realise that some people really can't bare the thought that this might be it, and that they won't "go" anywhere (other than the ground) when they die. So people want to believe in the supernatural. Maybe for them they might have much greater problems if they didn't believe in God - maybe they are the sort of people who would completely abandon all morales (ie. stupid) if there was no Heaven/Hell.

I can agree with you there. The concept of death, and the concept of having no meaning at all are both impossible for humans to comprehend. Doesn't make it logical, but then again, we're not a logical race.

 

[Mr.Jabberwocky]

It is not as simple as just saying religion is the problem. In the UK Derren Brown recently reproduced the Milgram experiment. This was essentially an attempt to explore how the millions of participants in the holocaust allowed it to happen. It showed that the majority of people will over ride any natural moral resistance in order to comply with authority and peer pressure. In one test 85% of a cross section of the public delivered a lethal electric shock to another human as they believed that the ultimate responsibilty lay with a higher authority. This is not to say they did not find it excruciatingly stressful, but they did believe their actions would probably kill someone yet still flicked the switch.

This illustrates that most people refer to the current external moral framework in order to know how to behave. Religion provides this framework and an unquestionable ultimate authority who will judge/reward/punish each person's moral conduct. This is possibly a good thing in that generally the moral codes are beneficial to society and the individual.

This works fine as long as everyone in the tribe is kissing the feet of the same idol. When you travel to the next village and see they have a different god the trouble starts. You can either start questioning your own beliefs and every value you have lived your life by or just kill the heathen filth. No contest.

Ideally we should have a universal religion and then we could concentrate on killing each other for real issues like oil reserves and national expansion.

 

[DaveC]

Wow there are a lot of atheists here. Do what you want, but you must be a good person. I don't have a problem with praying five times a day. Were you raised atheist or did you turn atheist? :huh: It seems people turn atheist when something happens to them for them to "realise".

Well praying don't work even if you do it 100 times a day. The only effect it has is self hypnosis, IE a placebo effect. It is just your brain tricking itself. Prayer changes nothing, that is why even religeous fanatics run to the hospital as soon as they get sick. If prayer worked there would be no hospitals, you would all stay home and pray, If god wants you to live you live, if not see ya'.

People are hipocrites, they get all religeous when it suits them but when it doesn't they do something else and make excuses.

I was raised Catholic. I believed in that stuff when I was a kid. But at around the same time that I stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny I stopped believing in god.

Nothing "happened" except that I came out of the ether, grew out of it basically.

There is so much evidence to the contrary to any supernatural being. You can see as plain as day in the fossil record evidence of evolution of life on earth including man. Those thay say otherwise are simply in denial.

 

[LHC]

Atheist born and raised. My parents went out of their way to make sure I was never religious. I think that's the right way, because I would have believed it if they told me God existed.

 

[darkman]

It seems that a lot of you claim to be atheist. Humans are designed in such a way that their thinking must be based on something. Consciously or unconsciously you use something in life that you consider as an absolute. If there are physical laws in our universe, we must also logically conclude that there are also moral laws. My question to those of you that claim to be atheist is, “What is it that you base your thinking on in life that gives you a working foundation in which to build your reasoning for personal judgment of what is right and wrong?” How do you determine your own personal morality? And can you use this thing that you consider an absolute to build a society?

 

[Yono]

I'm a karma guy. I don't believe anyone controls it, just that it's there. And as for building a society, it's called India.

 

[Dzz]

If there are physical laws in our universe, we must also logically conclude that there are also moral laws.

That doesn't follow logically at all. It's like saying that there are "artistic laws" or "political laws" or "emotional laws". None of that follows from the existence of physical laws, because morality, aesthetics, politics, and emotions are not expressable in terms reduceable in a simple way to physics.

One thing that I certainly do notice is that whatever their supposed beliefs, people's behavior is at best weakly affected by those beliefs -- witness the constant questionably-justified exceptions to simple and clear laws such as "thou shalt not kill", the generally weak adherence to others like "thou shalt not commit adultery", and so on.

These mild sort of behavioral guidelines can come from codes of belief based on faith in a particular dogma, derived pseudo-logically from principles (secular humanism, e.g.), or simply adapted from the teachings of others or absorbed implicitly from observation of society (we behave in part the way people around us behave).

It seems to me that atheists just have one fewer of the many things that vaguely direct behavior, and thus their "moral" behavior as a group is not very different from that of deists. Atheists do not go around murdering, raping, pillaging, and stealing measurably more than non-atheists because the belief in god appears not to be a dominant determiner of whether people do those things.

 

[OMars]

Islam is the most accurate religion out there. See, we believe that all three of the main religion were Islam, but only today's Islam has not been tainted by nonbelievers and pagans and such. The reason Islam has attracted so many people to it, is that it goes even to the scientific level of things. How would people understand all of this 1400 years ago? Simple, Allah taught mortals this. I will tell you more later.

 

[deadlychicken22]

Islam is the most accurate religion out there. See, we believe that all three of the main religion were Islam, but only today's Islam has not been tainted by nonbelievers and pagans and such. The reason Islam has attracted so many people to it, is that it goes even to the scientific level of things. How would people understand all of this 1400 years ago? Simple, Allah taught mortals this. I will tell you more later.

Well, I may be wrong, but my guess is that if you ask a Christian, they will tell you their religion is the most accurate, and if you ask a Jew they will tell you that their religion is the most accurate. The only exceptions to this are some religions where they aren't rooted in historical events.

However, if I recall correctly, that the old testament is the most accurate historical document from its time period. I don't know exactly how they prove this, but it was from some historical show I was watching on the History Channel...

 

[LHC]

It seems that a lot of you claim to be atheist. Humans are designed in such a way that their thinking must be based on something. Consciously or unconsciously you use something in life that you consider as an absolute. If there are physical laws in our universe, we must also logically conclude that there are also moral laws.

As Dzz just said, that doesn't follow.

Morality is a human invention, physical law is a human discovery.

 

[Mr.Jabberwocky]

Islam is the most accurate religion out there. See, we believe that all three of the main religion were Islam...

The most accurate in what way ? Not the foetal development argument by any chance ?

Going by number of adherents the three major belief systems are Christianity, Islam and Atheism. Hiduism is in fourth place. Being 600 years younger than Christianity and over 3000 years younger than Hinduism how do you manage to rationalise that ?

It is exactly this 'my religion is better than yours' attitude that causes so much unnecessary grief in the world.

 

[darkman]

If there are physical laws in our universe, we must also logically conclude that there are also moral laws.

That doesn't follow logically at all. It's like saying that there are "artistic laws" or "political laws" or "emotional laws". None of that follows from the existence of physical laws, because morality, aesthetics, politics, and emotions are not expressable in terms reduceable in a simple way to physics.

One thing that I certainly do notice is that whatever their supposed beliefs, people's behavior is at best weakly affected by those beliefs -- witness the constant questionably-justified exceptions to simple and clear laws such as "thou shalt not kill", the generally weak adherence to others like "thou shalt not commit adultery", and so on.

These mild sort of behavioral guidelines can come from codes of belief based on faith in a particular dogma, derived pseudo-logically from principles (secular humanism, e.g.), or simply adapted from the teachings of others or absorbed implicitly from observation of society (we behave in part the way people around us behave).

It seems to me that atheists just have one fewer of the many things that vaguely direct behavior, and thus their "moral" behavior as a group is not very different from that of deists. Atheists do not go around murdering, raping, pillaging, and stealing measurably more than non-atheists because the belief in god appears not to be a dominant determiner of whether people do those things.

Are you saying that moral laws, nor what is right and wrong for a society, cannot be determined at all? Are you saying that atheists have nothing on which to base their "moral" behavior except upon a cesspool of the thinking of society as a whole? Be they from a religious origin or from whatever? How can you determine that the laws governing a people and culture are right for each person?

We exsist in a physical universe and we are a part of it, so shouldn't there also be laws that govern our own expressions of behavior? So if we step outside of those boundaries there are consequences?

Don't get me wrong by asking these questions. I am curious and am only trying to understand how you are thinking.

edit:typos

 

[OMars]

Islam is the most accurate religion out there. See, we believe that all three of the main religion were Islam, but only today's Islam has not been tainted by nonbelievers and pagans and such. The reason Islam has attracted so many people to it, is that it goes even to the scientific level of things. How would people understand all of this 1400 years ago? Simple, Allah taught mortals this. I will tell you more later.

Well, I may be wrong, but my guess is that if you ask a Christian, they will tell you their religion is the most accurate, and if you ask a Jew they will tell you that their religion is the most accurate. The only exceptions to this are some religions where they aren't rooted in historical events.

However, if I recall correctly, that the old testament is the most accurate historical document from its time period. I don't know exactly how they prove this, but it was from some historical show I was watching on the History Channel...

Yes, but with time religions get distorted. In Islam it is a sin to even think of changing the Koran. With the bible it's different, there are a huge variety of views and sects with their own version of the Bible. It seems that Bin Laden is taking it too seriously and opts to convert everybody by the use of terror/fear. I find that wrong, I think he should have spread the word instead of killing. Also, Islam is more "accurate" by your mind set because it is the latest of the three main religion. The Koran even mentions the miracles of Christ and other prophets, but it tells the truth. We do not believe anybody is the son of God and don't worship anybody but God. It seems strange to us that you believe that if you send money to televangelists, that your sins will go away. It also seems strange that you believe that Christ died for "your sins". Everybody is born pure, and they commit sins and also follow through with good deeds. Which ever ways down the other during Judgement Day will determine your fate.

Islam is the most accurate religion out there. See, we believe that all three of the main religion were Islam...

The most accurate in what way ? Not the foetal development argument by any chance ?

Going by number of adherents the three major belief systems are Christianity, Islam and Atheism. Hiduism is in fourth place. Being 600 years younger than Christianity and over 3000 years younger than Hinduism how do you manage to rationalise that ?

It is exactly this 'my religion is better than yours' attitude that causes so much unnecessary grief in the world.

We don't see it as bragging or something like that, in fact most people don't care what Christians do, unless it's hurting or offending us in some way. I am not here to convert you, believe what you want to.

 

[nickspoon]

Morality, I believe, is derived from the foundation of society. In order to live with one another, we needed a set of basic guidelines which evolved from simple requirements for survival and just generally getting along such as not killing each other and not stealing stuff.

 

[darkman]

Islam is the most accurate religion out there. See, we believe that all three of the main religion were Islam, but only today's Islam has not been tainted by nonbelievers and pagans and such. The reason Islam has attracted so many people to it, is that it goes even to the scientific level of things. How would people understand all of this 1400 years ago? Simple, Allah taught mortals this. I will tell you more later.

Well, I may be wrong, but my guess is that if you ask a Christian, they will tell you their religion is the most accurate, and if you ask a Jew they will tell you that their religion is the most accurate. The only exceptions to this are some religions where they aren't rooted in historical events.

However, if I recall correctly, that the old testament is the most accurate historical document from its time period. I don't know exactly how they prove this, but it was from some historical show I was watching on the History Channel...

Yes, but with time religions get distorted. In Islam it is a sin to even think of changing the Koran. With the bible it's different, there are a huge variety of views and sects with their own version of the Bible. It seems that Bin Laden is taking it too seriously and opts to convert everybody by the use of terror/fear. I find that wrong, I think he should have spread the word instead of killing. Also, Islam is more "accurate" by your mind set because it is the latest of the three main religion. The Koran even mentions the miracles of Christ and other prophets, but it tells the truth. We do not believe anybody is the son of God and don't worship anybody but God. It seems strange to us that you believe that if you send money to televangelists, that your sins will go away. It also seems strange that you believe that Christ died for "your sins". Everybody is born pure, and they commit sins and also follow through with good deeds. Which ever ways down the other during Judgement Day will determine your fate.

Islam is the most accurate religion out there. See, we believe that all three of the main religion were Islam...

The most accurate in what way ? Not the foetal development argument by any chance ?

Going by number of adherents the three major belief systems are Christianity, Islam and Atheism. Hiduism is in fourth place. Being 600 years younger than Christianity and over 3000 years younger than Hinduism how do you manage to rationalise that ?

It is exactly this 'my religion is better than yours' attitude that causes so much unnecessary grief in the world.

We don't see it as bragging or something like that, in fact most people don't care what Christians do, unless it's hurting or offending us in some way. I am not here to convert you, believe what you want to.

If I do not accept your teaching of Islam, what does it say in your Koran about tolerating others that do not hold your beliefs? And never will their whole life?

As far as I am concerned you can decide that. You have that freedom of choice. There are others here that will probably never embrace your Islam teachings. Are you taught to respect others and to tolerate their beliefs?

 

[Dzz]

Are you saying that moral laws, nor what is right and wrong for a society, cannot be determined at all?

If you are using the term "law" in the same way we use in physics then yes. Or at least none such exist now. A true law in this sense admits no exceptions. If you know of a moral law please let me know what it is. Even in the best of cases we seem to end up with things like "Thou shalt not kill, unless the person being killed has killed somebody else or unless he is trying to harm me or my family or unless my commanding officer told me to or unless I reason that the person is likely to cause others to die or....". If there is truly a moral law about killing (the clearest and easiest case of morality), please state it so we may be enlightened.

As for "what is right and wrong for a society", I believe it is at least in part a matter of opinion. Is it right or wrong for a society to perform research using stem cells? Is it right or wrong for a society to tax inheritances? Allow flags to be burned?

Are you saying that atheists have nothing on which to base their "moral" behavior except upon a cesspool of the thinking of society as a whole?

First, some people believe that Man is inherently a noble creature, and that the sum of his reasoning and history is more than a "cesspool".

Second, I believe many atheists have arguments from first principles that they claim forms the basis for rules of conduct. These come from various sources, such as game theory (a justification for cooperation), evolution (a justification for altruism), and so on. I have not studied these arguments as I am satisfied by and large with the quality of my behavior without the need for derivations of behavioral codes to correct it. I'm also not an atheist.

How can you determine that the laws governing a people and culture are right for each person?

Beats me. Since nobody in history has ever accomplished this in a way that convinces everybody else, I do not feel to bad that I don't know the answer either. We do the best we can without achieving such lofty goals.

We exsist in a physical universe and we are a part of it, so shouldn't there also be laws that govern our own expressions of behavior? So if we step outside of those boundaries there are consequences?

I really don't understand what you are asking here, because I don't know what you mean by "law". If you mean morality-derived-from-physics, that is silly to me to even try. By the time molecules combine into cells, the "laws" become far too complicated to apply so we use approximations that are useful. Trying to reduce ethics to physics is pretty hopeless.

If you mean laws in the civic sense, of course there should be laws. Only the most radical of anarchists would believe otherwise.

 

[darkman]

Morality, I believe, is derived from the foundation of society. In order to live with one another, we needed a set of basic guidelines which evolved from simple requirements for survival and just generally getting along such as not killing each other and not stealing stuff.

How do you determine those guidelines? What do you base them on? You mention "not killing each other." Somehow you would need some way to determine that human life is valuable before you come to the conclusion that it is wrong to kill another person. Are you saying that you think these thoughts evolve within a society and culture?

 

[Mr.Jabberwocky]

We exsist in a physical universe and we are a part of it, so shouldn't there also be laws that govern our own expressions of behavior? So if we step outside of those boundaries there are consequences?

Your previous post suggested you thought that laws governing morality were immutable like the laws governing matter. The laws defining a culture's moral norms are man made.
I agree that the majority of people require an environment that provides them with a set of moral guidelines. As Milgram showed, most people will behave abominably if those around them and those in authority behave badly. A civilized society is one where the majority of people behave in accordance with the 'Golden Rule' i.e. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Even then some people will get what they can at anothers expense if the secular laws allow them to.
Of the ten commandments that relate to inter personal behaviour, these are just examples of instances when breaking the golden rule caused the greatest problems to the tribe.
Killing and stealing were bad things then and they are bad now. Back then adultery was a far more damaging phenomena. The child mortality rate was high, life expectancy was shorter. If your bint was carrying someone elses child it would have been a serious slice of your chance to leave surviving offspring.
It is an odd thing that the bible mentions stoning adulterers yet christian societies no longer do this, while the qu'ran has no mention of it yet islamic societies still execute adulteres that way.