[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Stalin and Mao didn’t kill people because they were atheists or on behalf of atheism. They did to gain and keep personal power and (ostensibly) on behalf of Communism, which was just another religion.
[/QUOTE]
Communism has its holy books, its saints, its martyrs (Commie Martyrs High School) and has the refreshing view that if the tenets of Communism and reality clash, reality has to go. Who but a naturally religious person would back Lysenko, after all?
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
As to the Padeophiles the answer is something like: they do it less than most professions that have prolongued contact with children. Dunno if it proves anything, at least it kills the idea that priests are the worst.
[/quote]
And is there any evidence of this assertion ?
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
You cannot have morality without religion. Period.
[/quote]
Garbage. If anything being religious makes being moral harder. After all, “God wants me to” makes such a great excuse. And doing something or not doing something because a god demands it isn’t morality at all.
[QUOTE=scottkris]
So, who the fuck cares? Even you don’t care. Why did you post this?
[/QUOTE]
Huh? Wah? Buh?
Obviously I do care, as I took the time to watch the show, even interleaving it with 24. The topic has spawned two threads that have gone on for multiple pages. So obviously others care too.
What in the unholy fuck are you babbling about?
:: observes the by-now-obligatory redefinition of “religion” to include a political doctrine that denies the existence of the supernatural or a Supreme Being, eschews prayer, holy books, priests and places of worship ::
:: marks scorecard ::
:: ambles out of thread ::
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
You cannot have morality without religion. Period.
[/QUOTE]
Um, yes, you can. Your education is inadequate.
How about for a start you go read John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism and Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals; those are required reading for any first-year philosophy student. That’ll be a good foundation for your study of the nature of morality and at least open your eyes a bit. When you’re done, maybe you’ll be ready to talk with the grown-ups again.
(note: I’m not saying or endorsing that either utilitarianism or Kant’s categorical imperative are ideal as the basis for a system of morals, but they deserve to be read and are worth thinking about and discussing.)
Atheists don’t just flicker into existence. They generally come from religious backgrounds. They are citizens of a state that is humming along with rules and regulations to make it possible to live in some sort of peace.
What would make you think that becoming an atheist would negate all that.?
I just came to the conclusion that the concept of god and religion are silly. We are part of a universe with billions of planets, black holes, and endless planets and suns.
To think that a creature created all this and finds it important for me to be on my knees praying to him is not only silly but places way to much importance on people. Churches are businesses selling something they can not deliver. Priests and religious leaders are charlatans pretending they have an insiders knowledge that they do not possess.
The idea of an all powerful creature that runs everything would be nice ,but evidence suggests we are part of a random universe that we do not have any control over. When a comet blasts into this planet again ,you will have to find a religious significance to it. It will be probabilities catching up with us.
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
:: observes the by-now-obligatory redefinition of “religion” to include a political doctrine that denies the existence of the supernatural or a Supreme Being, eschews prayer, holy books, priests and places of worship ::
:: marks scorecard ::
:: ambles out of thread ::
[/QUOTE]
That’s an incomplete doctrine for Communism. Communism sought to forcibly replace those instututions and beliefs with its own (faith-based) ideology, “holy book,” and sacred leaders. Atheism, per se has no doctrine or ideology and has no organized agenda to eradicate competing beliefs or religious institutions. Communism used the mechanics of religion and indoctrination to manipulate masses of people into committing acts of violence, war and suppression of dissent on behalf of an ideology. Just being an atheist did not make anyone a Communist, nor was just being an atheist enough to make anyone safe from Stalin or Mao.
Beyond that, Stalin and Mao did not kill people because they really cared about atheism, or even because they cared about Communism. They did it for power. Before you ask, yes, the same has usually been true for the fomenters of religious violence.
I thought Communism was founded on the philosophising of some supposedly great rational thinkers? Even you are obliged to put “holy book” in quotes, because there was nothing holy about it, nor were the leaders “sacred”.
Agreed that it was all about power, though. And yes, you’d have to say the same about most wars with supposedly religious origins - convenient excuses for going and picking a fight with people who don’t look, talk or act the way we do. Did Vikings pillage Anglo-Saxon monasteries as a doctrinal statement against Christianity, or because there was stuff there worth stealing?
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
I thought Communism was founded on the philosophising of some supposedly great rational thinkers?
[/QUOTE]
Supposedly great thinkers, according to Communism’s followers; I also hear Christians claim that Christ was such a thinker, Buddhists claim that Buddha was, and so on. It’s all the same thing; no one wants their ideological founder to have been just another writer/speechmaker whose followers happened to gain power, much less a loon or a fraud.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Supposedly great thinkers, according to Communism’s followers; I also hear Christians claim that Christ was such a thinker, Buddhists claim that Buddha was, and so on. It’s all the same thing; no one wants their ideological founder to have been just another writer/speechmaker whose followers happened to gain power, much less a loon or a fraud.
[/QUOTE]
As far as I am aware, Marx et al. did not claim to be embodiments of or representatives of god(s).
So, ANY organised group with ANY sort of “book” isn’t atheist? Well, what can I say. I imagine that inividual atrocities commited by individual atheists don’t count either…I guess they win.
When I said that you can’t be moral withourt religion I mean that even if athiest behave in the same way as religious people, morals-wise, they are not moral since morality is a spiritual category. It ain’t science…oh sorry sicence has book and precepts…I guess science is religion too.
[QUOTE=athelas]
As far as I am aware, Marx et al. did not claim to be embodiments of or representatives of god(s).
[/QUOTE]
They, or at least their followers certainly claimed them to be the source of absolute truth. Nor does disbelief in gods mean you are not religious, it just means you are atheist.
And as for Communism specifially, Communist dictatorships are notarious for deifying their leaders.
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
… morality is a spiritual category. …
[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily.
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
So, ANY organised group with ANY sort of “book” isn’t atheist? Well, what can I say. I imagine that inividual atrocities commited by individual atheists don’t count either…I guess they win.
When I said that you can’t be moral withourt religion I mean that even if athiest behave in the same way as religious people, morals-wise, they are not moral since morality is a spiritual category. It ain’t science…oh sorry sicence has book and precepts..I guess science is religion too.
[/QUOTE]
Morality is also a spiritual concept, but it is not exclusively a spiritual concept. Please read over this page from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
From the page: Morality: normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
When I said that you can’t be moral withourt religion I mean that even if athiest behave in the same way as religious people, morals-wise, they are not moral since morality is a spiritual category.
[/QUOTE]
Huh? No, that’s just plain wrong.
I suppose it could be right if you define immorality as having the primary function of recording itself on your immortal soul. But then that would be a circular definition.
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
When I said that you can’t be moral withourt religion I mean that even if athiest behave in the same way as religious people, morals-wise, they are not moral since morality is a spiritual category.
[/QUOTE]
This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what “morality” is. “Morality” is not “doing what God says.” Seriously, go. Do some homework. When you’ve studied up some, when you’ve learned how to spell “atheist” and when to make nouns plural and such, then we might take you seriously in an argument about morality.
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
It ain’t science…oh sorry sicence has book and precepts..I guess science is religion too.
[/quote]
There are books about composting; that doesn’t make composting a religion.
[QUOTE=Max Torque]
There are books about composting; that doesn’t make composting a religion.
[/QUOTE]
You’re obviously not doing it right.
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
So, ANY organised group with ANY sort of “book” isn’t atheist? Well, what can I say. I imagine that inividual atrocities commited by individual atheists don’t count either…I guess they win.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, doesn’t count. I guarantee you that you can find more theistically-motivated atrocities than you can find atrocities committed by atheists. If you really want to compare theist jerks to atheist jerks, you’ll lose.
[QUOTE=Homo Ergaster]
When I said that you can’t be moral withourt religion I mean that even if athiest behave in the same way as religious people, morals-wise, they are not moral since morality is a spiritual category. It ain’t science…oh sorry sicence has book and precepts..I guess science is religion too.
[/QUOTE]
So what is your definition of “morals”? Going by your logic, anything done by a religious person is moral by default. That, right there, frightens me- that’s how fanatics and extremists get made.
[QUOTE=tdn]
You’re obviously not doing it right.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I sacrifice to my compost pile a few times a week.
[QUOTE=Max Torque]
It has been done to death. We can probably polish the debate off right here in a few quick posts. How about we start with this:
Murder is wrong (I presume we can agree on this). Is it wrong only because God said it was wrong? If so, then morality is based purely on the whim of God. God could just as easily have said that murder is wholesome family fun, and it would be so, because God said it was so.
Some would say, “But, God would never say that!” Well, why not? If what makes right things right is God’s edict, and if there’s nothing compelling him to prefer not-murder over murder as the right action, God can say anything he wants. Nothing is right or wrong until God says so.
If, on the other hand, there’s some underlying reason that murder is wrong, and God was just passing along the information, can we not figure out what that reason is, without bringing God into it?
[/QUOTE]
We also have to realize that God didn’t say anything,we just believe what some human said God said about something.
There is no Historical proof that Moses existed anymore than Cinderella or other character that was written about.
One could say all humans were Atheists until in human evolution people came to understand that if they wanted to survive they needed to look out for other humans as well.
The beginning of religious beliefs in a God could have come about by perhaps seeing a person struck by lightening( or such event) and thought they had been punished by some being in the sky. Then they started to make sacrifices etc. to appease this being. Most ancient religions had some type of sacrifice to appease their gods.
Monavis