cloudgoddess:

Lol. Get over yourself.

hopefulLandlord:
Umm... I'd say only atheists can have meaningful moral opinions. "Because god said it is a sin" is not a meaningful opinion. Religion takes the meaning out of morality. When religious people are thoughtfully moral, it is usually in spite of their religious belief, not because of it.
Arguing that something is wrong because it is a "sin," as David Foster Wallace once wrote in a different context, is like arguing that murder is wrong because it is against the law. It's a circular, deeply superficial and content-free argument. You merely substitute one word for another ("sin" for "wrong".

To the extent that the religious go beyond "god said it is a sin" they are actually appealing to fundamentally atheist moral arguments. For example, "because it causes pain to others" is actually an atheist argument, not a religious one. When religious people use it in some form ("god said it is a sin, because it causes pain" they are bolstering the weakness

The only way religious people can make their arguments deeper without using atheist reasoning is to appeal to the afterlife and some sort of calculus of beyond life reward and punishment. In my opinion this is actually a lousy way to deepen the argument (even ignoring the fact that there is no reason to believe it to be true) because it places notions of wrong and morality into an extrinsic motivation framework. You should not kill or rape because even if you get away, you'll be punished with eternal hellfire? Really? That's the best you can come up with? You should be kind to the unfortunate because you'll get booze and women in heaven? Really? That's "meaningful" morality? It's the reverse. It empties behavior of even its natural moral meaning. Even without reading deep ethics tomes, a small child will be kind to a crying friend. Putting religion in that child's head is equivalent to taking that natural unreasoning empathy out.

How do you actually make the argument deeper (for instance by asking, "why is causing pain wrong?"? You have to go where no truly religious people will go. To subjects like evolution.

For instance, we can understand "pain" through evolutionary notions of empathy, cooperation and reciprocal trust and get to a point in the analysis where we don't even need the word "wrong." Only within a Darwinian framework can we even talk about what the existence of rape among dolphins implies for the corresponding human behavior, because we understand at some level that our model has to cover both cases (since there is no artificial distinction elevating man above animals for atheists).

This allows atheists to analyze and apply the "don't cause pain" in much deeper ways than religious people. For example the religious usually make humans out to be special and don't usually care much for animal pain. In fact, one religious guy I know argued, "but God put the animals on the earth for us to eat!" What do you get as a result? Factory farming. A military-industrial complex of horrendous pain-creation justified by some notion of humans having dominion over animals by divine sanction. Yes, I assign a significant proportion of the blame for things like factory farming to religious notions of morality.

The religious are also less likely to understand and apply practical notions of deterrent pain and more likely to cause more pain than necessary. The religious might believe in some notion of divine symbolism and symmetry (an eye for an eye, or cutting off the hand of a thief, or stoning an adulterer or pretending that killing in war and capital punishment are somehow different from murder) in their pain calculus.

Edelweiss44:


Point of correction sir, I never implied that "God CANNOT kill you"........in fact, God CAN kill you, and if you continue on this path of foolhardy opposition to your creator without repenting, I can assure you that HE MAY KILL YOU SOONER THAN YOU THINK. He has only not done so now just because it doesn't make Him happy to see a soul He created die and go to hell. God sent Jesus Christ to die for our sins so that the price for salvation can be paid. Love is what made Jesus suffer and allow Himself to be crucified for my sin and your sin. God does not take lightly the price that Jesus paid for humanity, and that is why He is seemingly very slow to judgement these days, just so that the sinner can be given a long time to perhaps repent and escape eternal damnation before he dies in his sin and goes to hell. It is only love that has made God not kill you yet, and you will be grateful to Him for giving you such privilege any day you come to realise yourself and see why you need God!

winner01:
[s]Can we find any sect as hardy as the atheists? I bet this dude didn't read the article and was just in a hurry to sound reasonable. It's sad that no amount of rational explanation can wave their hatred for God.

Let me see if I can address the memes above in the simplest way

1. The Bible was not written by people who thought slavery was right. However, the Bible records the history of the Israelites as a people and other early humans, boldly stating all they condoned and the inner workings of their various governments. If the writers of the Bible were half as dubious as atheists, they will carefully omit those parts that show the wrath of God, and paint God in a very acceptable way.

2. Christianity was not imposed on the blacks, slaves could adopt their masters religion. The is no evidence of force being used to propagate christianity. (Catholicism or Islam may have used force), But what we know for sure is that Christianity and other religions brought about the development (Education in particular) that Africa needed.

3. Murdered? Who tries a lion for murdering a buffalo? Komodo dragons feed on their young ones, they are not blamed for murder. If you sell or destroy your phone in anger, you are not blamed for wickedness (and you didn't even create your phone). How much more a creator taking what he created.
My point is this: The "Word murder is meant exclusively for man". When you use such word for God, it only shows that you have reduced God to a man, which is precisely what most atheists do.
As for the destruction of lots wife, you can get your answers HERE.

4. Morality is not a social construct. The article has handled that already. Canada legalized bestiality, does not make bestiality any less sick.


Next time, read first. Don't be in a haste to hand wave it away. That is what open mindedness means[/s].

adoyi8:
I CHALLENGE HIM TO KILL ME NOW unless if he is as dead as he is supposed to be.

adoyi8:
The last time i checked China (with an overwhelming population) and Japan are doing pretty well

KingEbukaNaija:


Please stop the blatant circumlocution and answer my question . Do you think societal laws should decide what's right or wrong ? Yes or No

KingEbukaNaija:


Please stop the blatant circumlocution and answer my question . Do you think societal laws should decide what's right or wrong ? Yes or No

adoyi8:
it is soceital law that decides what is right or wrong. Nobody fears God and that's y leaders continue to loot in our very religious country

winner01:
China is very mild on religion and has a surge in the growth of christianity. https://www.nairaland.com/3172960/china-course-worlds-most-christian#47157331



A Country that is serious about their atheism is North Korea. They have maintained their resistance to religion. And we know where they are today.

adoyi8:
it is soceital law that decides what is right or wrong.

adoyi8:
according to christianity, premarital sex is bad and will lead you to hell but i can tell you that almost 90% of unmarried christians above 25 years are not virgins and they remorselessly have sex every week of the month especially pastors children this is because the global society does not see it as immoral. now imagine that a law was passed and fully enforced to reduce premarital sex. what do you think will be the result?

hopefulLandlord:
Cont'd:

The atheist is much more likely to see that pain delivered by the criminal justice system needs to be applied with reason (you put a hungry street orphan who steals bread into an orphanage and FEED him; only a religious monster would cut off his hand) and at the bare minimum level required to serve as a deterrent to prevent future crimes of the same sort.
In fact the very word "justice" is a terrible word, pregnant with religious meaning. If we renamed the "criminal justice system" the "crime deterrence system" it would become a good deal more sane overnight. For starters, we'd be more willing to frame questions like sky-high incarceration rates of certain class of people. A "justice" framing automatically applies the divinely stupid logic that "crimes" must be "punished" in proportion to their severity. It is a notion of societal revenge (on behalf of the victim in some cases) legitimized by some notion of god and sin. A deterrence-centric system automatically assumes that the goal is to minimize violent crime and find deterrents that actually work and don't punish individuals for systemic ills created by historical forces.
"Social justice" is an even worse religious-morality framework, but we won't go there.
A particularly tough one is the abortion/euthanesia pair. I am neither pro or anti-choice in either of those cases. I think it is a situation-dependent tradeoff among competing factors, where the responsible thing to do is to promote life where possible, but be willing to make the calculations if necessary and abort/not abort euthanize/not-euthanize depending on the situation.
But the abortion and euthanesia debates are
deeply muddied up by bringing religious morality to bear, because it shifts the debate towards thought-stopping absolutes and usually causes untold real pain in the name of avoiding abstract
"wrongs." In a way, "pro-choice" is language that shows that the religionists have won these debates. The real dividing line is between "pro-thought/anti-thought." The "pro-choice" foundation of right over one's own body is deeply limited in how far it can go, and will always lose to the "pro life" framing for abortion and euthanasia.
Religion stops such thoughtful, deep morality in its tracks by adopting absolutist stances where thinking is needed.
Ultimately, to be moral is to be thoughtful. To be thoqughtful is to be willing to think as hard as you can to make decisions. Sometimes you can think all the way to an answer that leaves you no real choice. Sometimes, you are left with a residue of unknowns and you have to make a choice guided by some heuristic such as "first, do no harm."
But in either case, unexamined religion usually stops thought in its tracks.

adoyi8:
You can't join the communist party UNLESS you are an atheist. china been mild on religion shows you that atheists can also be tolerant contrary to the stories you theists spread about atheist leaders using stalin and the Nazi as example

KingEbukaNaija:


Please tell us to continue reading here and don't post this rigmarole again .

https://www.quora.com/Where-do-atheists-get-their-morality

Its a shame that you need another atheist's view to understand where you stand on morality . Logical thinkers indeed

winner01:
hopefulLandlord
You're empty.

winner01:
hopefulLandlord
You're empty.

KingEbukaNaija:


Here is my first question :

Canada recently legalized bestiality - according to you , this is right in Canada . Adoyi8 , if you were to start living in Canada with your family , would you reprimand your son for performing sexual acts on any animal ?

adoyi8:
i will reprimand him but i cannot punish him

naijadeyhia:



Why would you reprimand him afterall the law supports it.

Also by reprimand do you mean giving him a piece of your mind or something worse?

winner01:
I can also use the same argument and say, their tolerance of religion is the reason for their development.

Afterall, no true atheist country in the past have tolerated religion like china, and their ideologies all failed woefully.

adoyi8:
i will reprimand him but i cannot punish him

adoyi8:
[size=15pt]it is soceital law that decides what is right or wrong[/size].

winner01:
90% of unmarried christians are not Christ.

And that is further proof that Nigerians are pretending to be religious.

adoyi8:
The law in Nigeria permits alcohol intake but i dont take alcohol and will stil rerimand my son for taking alcohol

Elohim1:
.

KingEbukaNaija:


Oh no no no ! You cannot reprimand him because he is doing the right thing , if you do then you are a bad father who does not want his son to LEGALLY enjoy himself . Only people who do wrong are reprimanded . According to you , societal laws determines what's right or wrong . And he is right for doing what is legal in Canada .

Have you forgotten your own words so quickly ?




Welcome to atheism , where confusion rules

KingEbukaNaija:


Please tell us to continue reading here and don't post this rigmarole again .

https://www.quora.com/Where-do-atheists-get-their-morality

Its a shame that you need another atheist's view to understand where you stand on morality . Logical thinkers indeed

Edelweiss44:


Point of correction sir, I never implied that "God CANNOT kill you"........in fact, God CAN kill you, and if you continue on this path of foolhardy opposition to your creator without repenting, I can assure you that HE MAY KILL YOU SOONER THAN YOU THINK. He has only not done so now just because it doesn't make Him happy to see a soul He created die and go to hell. God sent Jesus Christ to die for our sins so that the price for salvation can be paid. Love is what made Jesus suffer and allow Himself to be crucified for my sin and your sin. God does not take lightly the price that Jesus paid for humanity, and that is why He is seemingly very slow to judgement these days, just so that the sinner can be given a long time to perhaps repent and escape eternal damnation before he dies in his sin and goes to hell. It is only love that has made God not kill you yet, and you will be grateful to Him for giving you such privilege any day you come to realise yourself and see why you need God!

adoyi8:
i may feel it's wrong based on my values but the society supersedes my values so ican reprimand him but not punish him. .... bestiallity is wrong to me but i cannot punish my son for doing it it canada