Christianity, Religion and Atheism

This has nothing to do with religious morals. What I believe through The Bible does not come into play here...this is about what YOU believe. You say yours are more meaningful: meaningful how? Meaningful in that they produce desired results? Desired by whom? You desire them because it is your OPINION that they are good. So therefore, everything you believe is opinion, and absolutely none of it is based in anything outside of opinion either. Therefore, all opinion carries the same weight, as there is no measure outside of our own opinion.

I can't remember everything from all of my old history classes. When I think of history class, the first image that pops into my head is George Washington. But there are certainly classes that do focus on this material, and there are countless books and all sorts of material to LEARN things from.

Are we born with morals? I still say no. Plus, I'd need to define this evil society. At what age would I recognize it as an evil society? Kids don't know much when they're young. They have to keep learning things.

We are born with our instincts, and one of them is to know our surroundings. You've gotta check out the place and learn about what's going on. In time, you can make your own judgements and your own morals.

I'm going to the library right now, ironically. Buh bye.

I didn't say mine are more meaningful. I said a very good case could be made that they are. The reason is that experience and logic are things based on reality. When you claim that our morality has no grounding and no meaning, we all understand that you are saying yours does. But we have proof for why our morals make sense, while you have none at all. I'll continue this debate later. I'm going out.

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One of the biggest myths told is that being intelligent is the absence of the ability to do stupid things.

Well, that's a good question. I think, though, that the fact that we need to grow up a little is not because we don't have some of those morals already in us (I'm talking about basics. Jaywalking is not a crime we're born to know about, naturally. )...but rather, because children are designed to soak in information, and they don't spit as much out until later. It's just the way we work. Call me naive (and sometimes I am), but I think I could be raised among murder and rape and taught that it is okay, and know better anyway. Some of these morals feel FAR too deeply engrained for me to believe they are a product of my upbringing alone. That's half the equation here, IMO.

How could you make that case? What experience and logic? Are you saying that yours can be shown as more likely to be better than mine because...why? Because they have been proven to produce what YOU deem as a "good" society, or as "good" traits? But see, the measure you use to weight the merits of your opinions is ALSO opinion, because not everyone agrees on what is good.

I was about to in my last post. Thanks for doing it for me!

It's not so hard to understand that most morals make sense to people because their experience and logic tells them it does. It's like what I asked you before: is it more wrong to scream "God Damnit!" when you almost hit someone with your car than to torture someone with third degree burns? Of course not, but if we are to believe the ten commandments, then we would think that way. Most people, bible believers and non-bible believers alike, realize that it doesn't make any sense, and have certain morals that are more important to them than some of the ten commandments. Those morals come mostly from experience and logic. So on that basis, you and I have morals for mostly the same reasons. However, I realize that you think all of your morals come from your god. Ok then. Back to where we were before. If you are going to have any legitimacy at all in your claim that your morals have merit and the morals of non-believers don't, then you have to have some kind of evidence that your god exists, because the existence of that god is the only reason you are putting more importance on theistic morals than non-theistic morals.

I'm pretty tired today, so if I'm not making much sense, I'll try to sort it all out and explain myself better tomorrow.

I'm sorry I keep posting two messages, but I think there are some pretty important things most people learn in life that you keep disregarding.

1. You keep insisting that if there is no god, then everything is opinion, and all opinions have the same value. You don't really believe that do you? If someone says that rape is ok, you think that opinion is as valid as the opinion that it is wrong? Well, you will probably say that God gives us the opinion that it is wrong. I think most people understand why we don't like rape. We can empathize with the torture that rape victims must go through, and feel that it should happen to no one.

Ok, I'll choose an example that is obviously opinion. In my opinion, the Rams were the overall best team in the NFL last year. What? You think the Detroit Lions were the overall best team? Hmm... I guess experience and logic might lead me to have my opinion, but I really need some higher power if that opinion is going to be anything more credible than the opinion that strawberry icecream is better than chocolate icecream. Come on, that is how you are sounding. Yes, morals are opinions, but if there are no gods, morals are not all the same, just because there are no gods.

2. Not all religions that have one all-knowing, all-powerful god can be correct, can they? If one reliigon believes in the wrong god, than theirs doesn't exist; so how can their moral legitimacy be any better than mine? And what about religions that have multiple gods or no gods? Did you know that most Buddhists, not having a belief in any deities, are atheists? Are you going to make this closed-minded, overly simplistic accusation about most Buddhists that you make about other non-believers, that their morals aren't real? Why can't you just accept the fact that my morals are not as real to you as they are to me, and that your morals aren't as real to me as they are to you. From my perspective, you are believing in fairy tales, made up by humans. How real is that?

You may be insensitive to the solemnity and seriousnes of asking God to call you to answer for what you've sworn to in court, but most people believe in God, and take an oath before God quite seriously. Silly is just not the right word.

If you, after much thought and study and reflection, took something seriously enough to solemnize it, I wouldn't be so quick to call it 'silly.' I would ask myself "what does SC see in this thing that is so important to him?"

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Good times, noodle salad.

Um, what are you basing that on? Since when do the Ten Commandments approve of torture? Or The Bible, for that matter? Isolating the Ten Commandments from The Bible is like isolating local law from federal law.

You're not answeing a constant, recurring question of mine: when you say "experience and logic," what on EARTH are you referring to? When you talk about yours being grounded in these things, what are you saying? Are you saying your morals are proven because...what...they have shown themselves to produce what most people consider to be a "good" society? You go on and on about how our opinions are NOT the same, because yours are more proven...but proven to do what? What if we can't even completely agree on the measure of goodness? Even THAT is opinion. Hence, it's all opinion. ALL of it. This is a simple fact in a world without God...there's no way around it.

Why are they not all the same? Says who? You? Well, that's your opinion. It is a logical fact...and an inevitable one...that if there is only us, and nothing Higher...nothing to measure things against, or to set rules, then opinion is all we have, and technically anyone can say anything and you can't really ever prove them wrong. The fact that you continue to argue as if there is some reasonable way to measure which is better tells me you KNOW, one way or another, that there is a measure out there beyond ourselves. If there isn't, then none of what you're saying here makes much sense.

It is not close-minded to simply point out a logical INEVITABILITY. Without God, opinion reigns. There is nothing more, and nothing less, PERIOD. It's not even open for debate...I have no idea how you can even argue with it. It is as plain as day. You can argue about this opinion being good, or that opinion being bad, but you must inevitably come to the point that even those concepts of good and bad are opinion. Opinion becomes all you have. It's a big, sloppy, gray world, with no REAL Truth.

I can very readily accept the fact that you believe your morals are "real." What I cannot accept is that it makes sense to declare them as any more important than any other opinion. If there is no God, then we're not here to do good. We're not here for any reason. We're just here...and there's no one to tell us what right or wrong is, or what to want, or anything. Yet you still talk as if there's some common ground...some common good you expect me to relate to...but I won't, because we're talking hypotheticals, and if there is no God, where is this concept of goodness coming from? From you?

A little boy asks his father if he can steal,

The father can answer in three ways.

1) "NO you can't steal, because I said so and I'm the boss of this household."

2) Well we'll go and have a family meeting and vote, if majority says "no" then you can't steal. If "yes" is voted in favour then of course you can steal.

3) "God's law says that you cannot steal."

Sorry I didn't see this.


This was a question to people who think other religions are just as good as Christianity.

But anyways,

Is God Merciful? - Yes instead of leaving us to die in our sins he gave us his Son to die, the ultimate sacrifice.

Does He punish? - Yes, if we have not been cleansed from our sins.

S.C. understands that people take it seriously.

S.C. vividly imagines his own picturesque worlds suited to his style of perfection. (In one of these worlds, The Bible is not used in trials for people to swear under oath. Either nothing is used, or something colorful, like Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's wedding photo album, is.)

S.C. takes you there. In return for your silliness, I give you mine.

S.C. knows he is being deliberately silly to try to make a point. S.C. knows, if he cares to be tolerant, that there is much more to the swearing on the Word of God than just the fantastical whimsy he indulges in when he makes Pam Anderson jokes.

I'm glad you know me!

I didn't say the ten commandments approve of torture. I'm not isolating The Commandments from the bible, I am singling them out as the top ten moral laws, according to your god. Don't you think they are the top ten?



Well, I think I have explained it several times. Let me give you an example of ways that I, and I am very sure you, use experience and logic to have morals.

Experience and logic tells us that murder is wrong in at least two ways:

1. You and I probably both realize that if everyone went around committing murder there would be chaos. We also know that if we commit murder, we are likely to go to prison or be killed ourselves. We know that because we have learned from murders in the past (experience) and because we are capable of putting the pieces together (logic). We don't want to live in chaos, or be put in prisons, in part because we realize that it would hurt us personally (again, logic).

2. Whether it is mostly due to natural human instincts, experience and emotions, or some other reason(s) (like a god giving us morals), people tend to have certain "nice" qualities like compassion, a conscience, empathy, open-mindedness, generosity, and so on. If you punch someone in the face, you might very well feel the emotions of guilt and sadness (experience), because your sensibilities tell you to. I believe you have those sensibilities mostly because of instincts, emotions and experience that I do not completely understand. When you feel that guilt and sadness, you obviously realize that you don't want to do it to anyone ever again (logic). There are many such ways that you can learn that it makes sense to you not to hurt people, or take away their rights or freedoms (you don't necessarily have to go around hurting people or taking away their rights). One example is simply seeing an imprisoned woman crying because her freedom was taken away (experience), and then realizing that you wouldn't want to take anyone's freedom away from them, unless there was a real good reason to, like keeping them from committing a crime (logic). You don't want to murder someone for similar reasons that you don't want to hurt them in other ways, because your experience and logical skills make you realize that it is something you don't want to do. They also make you realize that you wouldn't want the world to live in chaos, because your "nice" qualities make you care about the world.

I believe very firmly that you and I both have these kinds of morals. The relevance of me bringing up the Ten Commandments is that that list is supposed to be the top ten moral laws in the bible. If you really believed that they are the top ten, then you would believe that no action which isn't remotely covered in the ten commandsments is worse than any action that is covered by those laws, and you don't believe that. The reason you don't believe that, is because you get many of your morals mostly from experience and logic, just like I do. That is why you feel that torturing someone is worse than using your god's name in vain, or working on the sabbath, or not being jealous of your neighbor's property, etc.

I also addressed non-moral opinions, like which sports team is better, which you didn't reply to. Are you seriously saying that all opinions have the same merit, even when comparing an opinion that The Rams were the best team in the NFL last year to the opinion that The Lions were the best? Different opinions have different amounts of fact and intelligence to them, so different opinions have different merit. For example, if someone said to me that Mike Tyson is a very self-controlled, decent man, I would have very little respect for that opinion, as I'm sure you would. It is when opinions address the subject of right and wrong that they sometimes become morals, and they don't automatically all contain the same amount of merit just because they become morals, and just because there are no gods (if there aren't any).



Morals are opinions, but many of them are entirelty based on fact, while many are based on no fact at all. And of course, there is everything in-bewteen.



What you can do is prove how much sense an opinion makes. Taking my Mike Tyson example, we can easily deduce that it makes no sense to call him decent and self-controlled, just going by his actions and attitudes. The opinion is obviously stupid and nonsensical.



No; it says that I place value in logic. Using our brains, we can get a real good idea of how much sense an opinion makes, just like I illustrated with the Mike Tyson opinion.



I don't argue that opinion reigns. But you continue to express the notion that all opinions are worth the same, an idea I find to be a very silly one.



Whether there is any real truth or not (I believe there is) it makes sense that we should assume there is. For example, "2 + 2 = 4" is correct. "I am 29 years old," is correct. It doesn't take a leap of faith to consider those things facts. As I have said before, opinions vary on how much they are supported by fact. Treating all opinions with the same merit is absolutely preposterous.

Actually, you were the one declaring your morals as being more important than non-believers' morals, not the other way around. The only way you can justify that, is if you can show some proof that your god exists. However, I do believe (and I think this is the first time I have expressed this opinion on this site) that morals stemming from mostly experience and logic have much more credibility than those stemming from some religion. I believe that, because the former are morals that can be examined logically, while the latter you simply have to take on faith. Would following a moral make sense, for example, if someone claimed that moral came from some talking dragon he read about or met? To my way of thinking, no. Just the same, I don't think god-based morals make sense.

Yes, I believe they are. What I'm saying is that there's no grounds for your example...that The Bible somehow says that cursing over a stubbed toe is worth than torture.

Indeed. There would be chaos. So, what I'm asking you is this: why is chaos bad? Because you say it is? Because it will harm you, and others. Certainly there are those who would benefit from it in some way. Even the definition of what is desirable and good, makes for something subjective.

When you say you do not quite understand human emotions, do you mean that you think there is more to the human brain than we know, that there could be something spiritual (or beyond us) there, both, or neither? And if the human brain is much more advanced than we already know it to be (which is already highly advanced), would that not serve to imply intelligent design even FURTHER?

But there is a problem with this...I see no examples, for example, of this being so. As I said before, I think the Ten Commandments cover more ground than you give them credit for. Some of them are quite vague, even to the point of overlapping with others (Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Not Covet, for example).

My apologies...I am not avoiding any question (please note that not all I say is addressed either...it is an inevitability). I'll address it now:

Am I saying I actually believe all opinions have the same merit? No. As you said, that is preposterous. But from your standpoint...one in which there is only opinion, then yes, why not? After all, the ruler I would use to judge that merit is based on myself...my opinion. It's a circle. No, of course I don't believe all opinions are the same. But if I were to have your beliefs, logically, I would have to, give or take (I'm not speaking 100% absolutely).

BUT, if you trace that fact backwards, it comes to opinion. And of course if there is no rhyme or reason to the Universe, you can start questioning ANYTHING, as I'm sure you realize (I've known a few people like that)...and that becomes rather tiresome.

I'm getting off subject, though...here's an example: you say moral X is good...because it prevents undesirables like murder and chaos...or at least, tends to according to the past, and other such things. This is true (assuming we're not going to dispute the meanings of words or the concepts of truth). It is true that, using history as an example, it tends to hinder those things. It is not necessarily true that that makes it GOOD, though, because good is an opinion.

So do I...which is one of the reasons I believe in God.

More important? Depends on what you mean. I believe the morals in The Bible are true morals, yes. I believe they represent right and wrong. I think anything else is faulty in some way. However, as I'm sure you know, my morals (as in, the ones I practice) are not the same as those in The Bible.

I can only justify my opinion if I have proof? No...that's what makes it an opinion. If I had proof, it wouldn't be an opinion. As for your comment about logic and experience: I disagree. I think they are one in the same. I think, in the end, we will find the two to be identical...logical laws and religious laws (when executed properly...which we will never achieve, sorry to say). The latter, I believe, is set in perfect logic...whether or not we know that, or why we follow them, is irrelevant to how well they work, and how logical they are.

If a moral came from a talking dragon, and it was a good moral, sure, it'd make sense. If a pink unicorn tells me that a penny saved is a penny earned, I'll agree...regardless of how ridiculous or unbelievable I find the unicorn. You're saying the source matters. I'm saying the morals themself matter. The words...the message...is the SAME regardless of who or what says it. I see no logic whatsoever in saying that it makes less sense if you were, for example, to find out later who ACTUALLY said it.

It can be likened to The Wizard of Oz, I'd say. If (what you think is) The Wizard gives you advice, and you follow it, and it works, and you later find out that The Wizard is just a man with a big, red nose behind a curtain, the advice itself is no different.

Pretty good points. I hope you don't mind if I discontinue participation in religious debates for awhile. I am spending about 2 hours a day on them, and they are wearing me out! However, I did enjoy our debate and I hope to have another one with you in the future, whether it is about religion or not.

I don't mind at all. And I won't think of badly of you for bowing out (be it temporary or otherwise), either. I can't fault you in the least for making better use of the time spent on this nonsense.

Well, I don't personally think of these kinds of debates as nonsense, but there are certainly more important things I could be doing that they are stealing time and energy from.

Well, of course...I was kidding around. But yes, I completely agree. I've had to cut stuff like this off before myself...and I've no doubt I put too much time into it most of the time. Perhaps, one day, Yoda and Bagface (can I call you Bagface?) shall discuss this again.