@vsbladz One theory is that most people are born with some form of innate morality. In an ideal world, everyone would want to live harmoniously with one another, but take a look at the world, it's far from ideal and harmonious. Rational people, whether atheist or not, can get their sense of morality from common sense and observation. The idea is that intelligent people don't need some sort of higher power to tell them what is right or wrong.
@vsbladz From exactly the same place that the men who invented gods got their morality from, except without the lying, wish-fulfilling story-telling phase.
.Whatever action causes the most happiness to the most amount of living things possible is the most moral
.Whatever action causes the most amount of suffering to the most amount of living beings possible is the least moral.
If you take an action, graph it, and review using the above Code, you get a level of morality. This is clearly the best moral code to live by that I have found.
@vsbladz Compassion is arbiter of good, Faith of righteousness. The righteous serve their god, the good their fellow human beings. The righteous are kind because it is their duty, the good because they have charity. The just punish, the good forgive. We trust in compassion and charity. If you truly need god to tell you what is good and evil how may you know a good god from a wicked one? The good see not sin, yet they see evil. The righteous see sin, and have been blinded to evil.
@JabborWacky That is about the size of it. Religious people use an entirely different kind of reasoning, or at least entirely different kinds of reasons. Just communicating with them on the most basic level is difficult.
If you look back at your Romans, and Greeks, and Egyptians and everyone in between (even some today) youll see that infant & child murder, sacrifice, rape, slavery, mutilation, torture and other acts were very often and acceptable if not praised. And people who did and do those things are and were overjoyed in their activities. Thats why morality is shaped by your environment and upbringing. Theres not a all encompassing standard as creationist or this atheist would lead you to believe.
@XenovannHellwolf Child sacrifice requires magical beliefs. The Jews abandoned child sacrifice, that is what separated them from the tribes they emerged from. Clearly they regarded child sacrifice as immoral although they wanted to have their cake and eat it too with the story of Abraham. Nobody has ever thought that killing children was good, only that it was powerful magic, and if magic is more important than people it could become a moral act - but not for a rationalist.
@MartinJWillett Your wrong. Your pressing your beliefs on history. All the things I said cant be summed up by pointing the finger at religion. In a lot of cases religion had nothing to do with the atrocities, it was how people were and were governed. Yes religion plays a part in it though it couldnt exist without the ones who made it up. Religion doesnt just turn good people bad as you press, people have been using it as a excuse for some time to play out their sick desires. Dont blame the gun.
@MartinJWillett Because religion isnt entirely to blame, there are other factors like government, education, technology, poverty, peer pressure, survival, society, and human instinct to name a few. Thats why some destructive religions still exist but their followers are passive and helpful and some are aggressive and harmful and with extreme difference in different locations with different government. Even without religion values will change and atrocities will happen, you must know that.
@XenovannHellwolf Isn't entirely to blame? So if it is partly to blame, and it is clearly irrational, why defend it? Please, this question deserves an answer.
Do you honestly believe that people wanted to kill children so they invented religion to justify child murder?
@MartinJWillett Do you really think the only thing making humans act badly is religion? Im saying its not entirely to blame Im not saying religion isnt stupid. People still kill children today in countries for population control so they dont need a religious excuse. Even animals do this which we came from so its not that inconceivable. Though its obvious that religions have included passages that condone these things its not apparent that they are the soul reason for the action.
@MartinJWillett I already answered your questions. People have killed children for other reasons and some did like doing it, some today Im sure would like to do it. Why am I defending religion? Im not Im saying it isnt entirely to blame,because that is accurate. I never said religion was irrational because that statement itself is inaccurate. Theres plenty of reason and logic why people have followed religions for ages.
@XenovannHellwolf Individual sick people, occasionally a pair of people, no significant-sized group of people wants to kill children outside of a war of extermination unless they have got superstitious magical thinking at the back of it.
Not entirely to blame? Religion is unnecessary and it causes death, suffering, war, hatred and enmity. What more is there to say? It isn't the cause of all the world's evil but as we don't need it getting rid of it will be a good move.
" I never said religion was irrational because that statement itself is inaccurate. Theres plenty of reason and logic why people have followed religions for ages."
If you believe in Yahweh... God is playing a game with you. He's forcing you to bet your eternal soul on something that only He can prove: Himself. Bet incorrectly and it's Hell forever. But He loves you more than anything and wants you to go to Heaven, yet refuses to prove His existence, something he could do at any time.
It's the sickest game ever conceived. No good, pure, moral being would allow such a game. Poof! Someone just vanished in a puff of rationality.
I am a Canadian teenager who's becoming closer to atheism year by year (it seems), and I think the idea that without religion we have no morals is stupid.
The Bible is 'true' because it is the word of God (God is 'true' because it says so in the Bible...nice circular reasoning eh?)...in the Bible it says you should kill your neighbour if you see him working on a Sunday. How come we don't do that? Because as our society has progressed, we've realized this is IMMORAL, against 'God's word'.
@TheSkookumchuk Lots of things men said that God said were immoral have been shown to be perfectly reasonable. And lots of things they said God is happy with have been found to be immoral: slavery, wife beating, treating menstruating women as unclean and so on.
@MartinJWillett Exactly. I'm very lucky my parents let me think independently. If I asked to go to church on Xmas Eve they'd take me, if there was a Jehovah's Witness at the door they'd let me know & ask me if I wanted to talk to them.
Nothing was ever forced on me, & I was free to explore what I wanted to explore. Without parents enforcing anything on me, I decided by myself religion is not for me & I feel like I'm not only a better person, but my own person. I think that's how it should be.
1) Atheists all share a MINDLESS BELIEF that NO GOD EXISTS without evidence or reason to justify that belief.
2) Atheists share a common psychological bias against God, but no evidence.
3) Atheists share pathological cognitive dissonance between the purposeless, meaningless, insignificant existence and moral incoherence that logically flows from Atheism verse the way they live their own lives.
@4TruthMatters Bullshit. You can't hate something which you don't believe in. Do you hate Dracula? If you believed he existed you almost certainly would, but as you don't you just see him as a fictional character of entertainment value.
There are as many ways not to believe in gods as there ways to believe.
As gods don't exist one non-existent god is no different to another. There is nothing special about your god or your belief. You're nothing special, get over yourself.
This is another dishonest Atheist avoiding the issue. Atheists have no basis for any objective moral truth or duties. They can only have morals if morals are real. Morality cannot be real if God is not real . If there is no God, 'morals' are nothing more than subjective chemical illusions of a brain with absolutely no basis in reality. The child rapist's illusion is no less valid than the non-rapist. Dishonest Atheists ignore this logical fact.
@4TruthMatters Have you looked at any of the comments? Your claim that morality has to be objective to be real is just a claim. Show how I'm objectively wrong.
@4TruthMatters That's handy for you, isn't it? You have no need to think at all. All answers are already given, all you have to do is accept just a few outrageous lies and never question what you're told to accept without examination.
"Have you looked at any of the comments? Your claim that morality has to be objective to be real is just a claim. Show how I'm objectively wrong."
You have no objective BASIS (true irrespective of belief) for objective moral truth unless God is that basis.
Atheists have absolutely no objective basis to ground objective moral values or duties - just subjective illusory opinions induced by chemicals aimed at a moral realm that has no actual reality.
@cammodragon1 No. My argument is what I say, not what you say. What you say of my ideas is a caricature. Always. Even if you try really hard to be fair and give me the same breaks you give yourself no model of my ideas inside your head is actually my ideas.
Being moral is its own reward. If you judge yourself (what you are about to do) as if you were somebody else you can be your own hero.
@MartinJWillett honestly if i had proof there was no god, i'd murder pillage and plunder my weasly black guts out. so i just try to understand how someone who already knows that has any incentive to behave a perticular way. everyone knows they will die. if you accept that truth, then what is the diffence when it happens? so what? why would you care if you kill someone else. from an atheistic point of view you may have spared them the pain of living. i don't see the practical philosophy.
@cammodragon1 You have not considered what it is like not to believe because it isn't something the human mind can do. You either believe something or you don't. If you do believe then you can't imagine yourself not believing, not really. You are clearly a believer in a very pernicious god because you hate yourself so much, accepting everything bad you do is your fault and everything good you do as his doing (probably with a capital H).
@MartinJWillett i do find it difficult to imagine, thats why i have questions, that's why i don't readily accept the first thing i hear blindly. i actually have some fairly liberal views on the idea of god, but at the end of the day i do belive that the sum of my actions have some greater consiquence. lacking that i have no reason whatso ever to even remotly care about how anyone might preceive my decisions. if empathy is your only motive to do good, what happens when that sense dulls?
@cammodragon1 Why do you ask questions and then shut out the answers?
Have you ever tried to spend a week ignoring God completely and doing those things which you, personally, see as moral? I suppose having a god and thinking about morality is rather like keeping a guard dog and barking yourself.
@MartinJWillett so you belive that religon and philisophical thought are mutually exclusive? that's a bit naive. but more to the point, i'm looking for answers that make sense. as it now appears to me that you have nither answers or sense i will leave you be. but in parting i'll leave this last comment, you claim that anyone with even the faintest belif in god is incapable of an open mind, but you cannot think deeply enough of your own position to give a reasoned argument. best of luck.
@cammodragon1 No. I don't. You have twice failed to understand my position and put that down to a failing in me. I can't make my position simple enough for you to understand when you're not even trying.
Why do you expect answers to make sense to you? What reasons have you got for believing that you are smart enough to understand what is going on?
@cammodragon1 There is no point in arguing with MartinJWillett. If you lose the argument, he will leave the argument smug as ever. If you win, he will delete your comments and any evidence of the debate. Luckily, I noticed that he did this to other people before he had a chance to do it to me so I copied and saved our whole argument just before he realized that he lost the argument and deleted any trace of it. I'll send you a pm with the contents of my argument with him.
It's kind of funny. Atheists aren't immoral, yet theists say we are. Theists love to tell us what they think we do, because we have no religious guidelines. But what basis do these people have? Only one: Their own experience. Their own 'what would I do without god' idea's. In other words, THEY would do those immoral things if they had no god. God is the only thing stopping them. Yet we, without god, whom don't do those things anyway, are the immoral ones?
@Sanquinity The religious find it hard to imagine thinking without their all-consuming self-affirming beliefs. They imagine that a lack of belief means a lack of morality because they choose to have all their morality shot through with superstitious beliefs.
@Sanquinity I'm agnostic. However, I would say that if someone believes in a good god, then that person is more likely to do what they believe to be right. For they have an extra incentive to do what is right. Morality isn't about self-interest (not exclusively - for sometimes we have a duty to sacrifice our own interests for the sake of others). However, a religious perspective can make morality and self-interest coincide. Of course, none of this has any bearing on whether god exists.
@Clear404 I'm technically agnostic too. You have to be more specific what you're agnostic about. I'm an agnostic atheist, for instance. That being said, I can agree to that much. There are plenty of believers whom are good people. I was of course talking about the slightly more extreme ones that say things like "Atheists have no morals" or "God gives me my morals". Things like that.
@Sanquinity I'm agnostic in the following respect: if metaphysical idealism is correct - and I think a very good case can be made for it, but most people find it intolerably wierd (which is really their problem) - then a religious world view according to which there is some kind or kinds of agency behind appearances is very plausible. However, if idealism is false, then some brand of materialism is true and god becomes completely unecessary and continued belief would be highly unreasonable.
@Sanquinity I'm agnostic in the following respect: if metaphysical idealism is correct - and I think a very good case can be made for it, but most people find it intolerably wierd (which is really their problem) - then a religious world view according to which there is some kind or kinds of agency behind appearances is very plausible. However, if idealism is false, then some brand of materialism is true and god becomes completely unecessary and continued belief would be highly unreasonable.
@Sanquinity I'm agnostic in the following respect: if metaphysical idealism is correct - and I think a very good case can be made for it, but most people find it intolerably wierd (which is really their problem) - then a religious world view according to which there is some kind or kinds of agency behind appearances is very plausible. However, if idealism is false, then some brand of materialism is true and god becomes completely unecessary and continued belief would be highly unreasonable.
Have you ever known a Protestant do good and have to have the idea that Jesus would be proud of them pointed out to them? Rather as a smoker feels wrong happy but not smoking a Protestant doesn't feel right acknowledging that they have made an effort to do the right thing without thinking about Jesus.
@MartinJWillett: I'm not sure that I follow you exactly, but it sounds like you are saying that Protestants' morality is flawed because their proximate reward for acting morally is thinking that Jesus would be proud of them. From a Consequentialist perspective, who cares what motivates someone to do good? Plus, I don't think that one can demonstrate that every Protestant (or even most) behaves morally to make Jesus proud. It could be more the exception than the rule.
@AaronPatrickLeeMusic What I am saying is it is sad, they can't do good without thinking about Jesus, they can never feel good for doing good without thinking about the supernatural. They are totally consumed by an external narrative, they are just a bit part player in somebody else's script.
@MartinJWillett: That sounds like a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. I could imagine Christians thinking that your (our) morality is sad because it never acknowledges God. I think that most Christians believe God to be perfectly good or maybe even the embodiment of good, so it follows that good acts or moral behavior will either stem from thinking about God or lead them to think and praise a perfectly good God even more.
@MartinJWillett That's a non sequitur, and you sort of contradicted yourself. If the meaning of a Christian's life is predetermined or pre-decided as you said, then their lives clearly have meaning by your own admission. Sure, they don't choose what their purpose will be, but that doesn't mean that their life doesn't have its own meaning. It's a different type of meaning than your (or my) life's meaning. Theirs is a supernatural meaning; ours would be a materialistic meaning.
@AaronPatrickLeeMusic A Christian's life doesn't have a meaning chosen by the person living the life, the meaning is given rather than chosen. My life does not have a meaning set out for me, I can develop my own meanings and goals, or choose not to.
I could see a valid Christian rebuttal to the claim about halfway through the video, where Christians behave morally in order to have an eternal reward. With the exception of Catholics and maybe some other denominations, Christians believe in salvation through faith alone. Thus, they wouldn't be doing good works to get into heaven, for they believe that already have that reward guaranteed. It follows that Protestant Christians do good for some other reason that to get into heaven.
@LeviProductions1 The Bible is the creation of ignorant people who thought slavery was natural, that women and children should be the property of men and that animals had no rights at all. These people have imposed their inferior ethics on future generations because they were too arrogant to admit they didn't know the answers and invented a magic man in the sky to be the answer to the questions they didn't begin to understand.
@Bernieo153 That assumes that being moral and being happy are related in some way. It could easily be claimed that defining what you find yourself wanting to do as moral is a simple way to "cheat yourself happy".
@PhrozenFenom You are making an assertion based upon concepts that I do not accept and holding on to it with faith. This is not debatable.
You say morality without "objective morality" is meaningless because you NEED to believe that. Debate is futile. You are never going to change your mind or mine. Please stop wasting my time.
@PhrozenFenom Right and wrong isn't a matter of taste. We can see that rape, murder and theft is harmful and therefore is wrong, seen by society as wrong. People who haven't ever heard of any Hebrew mythology at all are quite capable of seeing this. The legal codes of countries which regard Hebrew mythology as meaningless (e.g. Japan and China) do have a consensus on many matters including rape, murder, theft, legitimate taxation, marriage, perjury, bribery, corruption, slavery and so on.
@PhrozenFenom Of course you can say it is wrong. You simply have an obscene definition of wrong which involves the arbitrary will and whim of a tyrant.
@PhrozenFenom The entire concept of objective morality is crazy. You might as well look for an objectively perfect hamburger. Just because we can't agree on an objective standard for the objectively perfect hamburger it does not follow that a dead rat in a cowpat is as good as a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Likewise we can still make judgements about the morality of murder, torture and rape even in the absence of a perfect measuring stick.
@PhrozenFenom And you assume that God exists and therefore magic exists at least to the extent that is required to enable God to exist.
You have not explained what objective morality is and how it is created by the will of a magical being. I put it to you that it is a meaningless concept which does not become meaningful even in the presence of a universal creator unless it was greater than that creator and the creator was answerable to it.
if their is no god or punishment for our sins then why should i not do what ever i want to pleasure myself for example someone has something i want, i take it why would that be wrong
@quickdrawle That line or argument works equally well regardless of whether or not gods are real or imaginary, if people believe in them there is some, imperfect, deterrent effect. You will find criminals living in religious countries, ever heard of The Godfather? You will also note that statistically atheists are significantly less likely to be criminals than believers.
That way of thinking helps you see humanity as in need of saving. I have more respect for myself.
I don't think there's a god to reward or punish me after death. I don't think there's an absolute moral that says what is bad and what is good.
But I have my own personal sense of morality that says killing is bad, raping is bad, stealing is bad.
And where does that morality come from if there's no God?
We, as humans, developped in our evolution powerful tools that enhance interindividual collaboration such as empathy. If I hurt someone that makes me feel bad.
So could you do whatever you want to pleasure yourself? Of course you could. That would be not good according to MY sense of morality but it could be to yours. There's people with no morality, mainly psychos and people with no empathy. But, for the survival of the human specie it's been good to collaborate and, therefore, not hurt the others.
@PhrozenFenom You appear to be claiming that magic is real, that only a magical being knows what is moral and that what this magical being says is moral trumps the judgements, wisdom and wishes of every member of your own species. That appears rather outrageous to me. Have you never thought of it that way? Try it.
@PhrozenFenom An all-knowing and perfect god would need no 'life experience.' Perhaps. OK, but why would he need belief, fear, love, prayer and worship? Why would he have the personality of a Bronze Age tribal chieftain?
You are trying to prove that objective morality exists because you say it must, for reasons which don't work. The burden of proof is with you, the one making the outrageous claim.
@PhrozenFenom The prejudices of a god with no life experience are no more objective than the prejudices of a mortal. If a god creates agents with urges and says indulging in some of them in certain circumstances is moral and others in any circumstances is immoral how does that become objectively moral or immoral to those who can't believe a word of it?
@PhrozenFenom The basic assumption that if there is a god, just the one, what he says is moral is objectively moral does not follow. You need to explain why it is or must be so, not merely assert that it is so and do the standing tall and looking smug routine. Take it step by step and explain it fully.
None of your naked assertions convince me from the existence of the supernatural to the objectivity of a god's opinions, none of them.
@PhrozenFenom No, I disagree. A god could make a universe but he could not invent objective morality, all he could do is declare his opinion and enforce his opinion as if it was objective, the same as any rational being with draconian powers.
You have to prove that there is a god of any kind, which you can't, then prove the nature and character of that god, which means you need to have a frame of reference bigger than the god. Then you are still have to prove the logic of your contention. The ability to create does not infer the inability to be wrong or the right to define morals for others.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
@PhrozenFenom Things which hurt people are wrong because they hurt people. Are you really such a moral vacuum that you can't grasp that and need to be told it by the lackeys of a monster in the sky? Where does the sky monster get his morals from? The same place he got his desires and wisdom?
I'm an atheist. I give £10 a month to charity. I don't do it to get a thumbs-up from the big guy in the sky, I don't do it to get myself a free ticket to heaven. I do it because I care about people. Morality doesn't come from scripture, it comes from caring about people. I have three simple guidelines that I'm sure most people will agree with:
1. If something hurts somebody, it is usually bad.
2. If something gives pleasure to somebody, it is usually good.
@rawssremix Yeah, but how do you know that not hurting people and telling and respecting the truth is what the creator of the universe wants you to do? Maybe he's a total psycho-bastard who only cares about whether you love him.
This unfairly ascribes beliefs and motivations to Christians that they may not have. I think most Christians take the tack that atheists can be moral, but lack a sufficient basis for that morality. Also, just because someone professes religion doesn't mean that any good act he does is religiously motivated. You will usually find that someone's morality is more about him than about his groups.
@DeaconVerter A hell of a lot of Christians do ask where we get our morality from and at least pretend to find it a mystery why we are not living like Roman Emperors in a cheap porn film.
@R4t10n4L It wasn't a list of bad behaviours, it was a list of traits which atheists of the nose-ring and black T shirt persuasion try to make out to be virtues, or at least something to be actively celebrated, because Christians call them sins. Being homosexual is not a virtue any more than liking football or having long hair is a virtue. If something is not a sin it does not automatically become a virtue which everybody is required to be seen to celebrate!
@xergr Events? What makes you think they are events? Surely by far the most likely explanation for all the miracle stories is that they were invented or exaggerated from the mundane to the inexplicable. Human myths of all kinds are filled with descriptions of impossible events. By far the simplest explanation is that people were simply lying or caught up in group hysteria making them terrible witnesses.
aristoteles once said, the only reason to do good is for the sake it being good. it is reward in it self. so having any other reason to do anything other then just doing it is useless. only true reason to be good is the goodness of the action.
I'm not a theist but the problem with morality w/o god is you can choose not to have conscience. W/o god you are only liable to the laws of men. If you could get away with your crime, all is quits and no conscience would bother you. Atheism is good for "reasonable" people but could be a dangerous knowledge for some. I want to spread "mild" Christianity even if I don't believe in it for the purpose of control. No I don't think the people of today Dark ages will happen again
@MartinJWillett no seriously, there was an incident where I did something honest and I end up being frowned upon 'cause ordinary theist would just walk away with it. then it occurred to me, why did I did that? 'Coz of God breathing dwn my neck? 'Coz of my sense of justice?
Point is you're lucky you're a moral atheist, what about the non moral irresponsible (christian)theist? You expect them to be more moral if they found out? Extremist theism though is a problem
@ixataca You seem to be suggesting the thoroughly immoral practice of pretending that gods exist to keep the plebeians honest, by lying to them systematically from cradle to grave and beyond on the basis that it keeps the policing costs down. That is immoral.
@MartinJWillett Yes for peace and greater good's sake. Atheism is only for reasonable and intuitive people with high foundations of morality. If there is no hell to give the victims of heinous crimes justice, we must do all we can to prevent them from being victims. I'm willing to be immoral to do something good by lowering crime rates. No hell for my immorality anyway. As long as humanity never learn to be humane and civilize, I'm sticking to feeding them lies.
@ixataca how about your emotions. dont you have conscience? i have one and i can tell you, i cant choose what is right or wrong. i cant choose what i feel, i cant shut down conscience when i want. my instics gude me, we have biological leach. i have evolved to fell bad for death of close ones, i have evolved to sypathise, i have evolved to have sence of fareness. i cant shut these things of. if you lack conscience then you are sosiopath, i sorry but if you lack the basic instincs.
@ixataca I disagree. Nearly all members of the human species are biologically wired to feel empathy for other humans. Empathy is the root of our morality and is of our sense of moral obligation. A person can resist these feelings or try to rationalize them away, you cannot extinguish this elegant Darwinian social adaptation as easily as you seem to think.
Any human with a functioning brain has morality - we have a moral instinct. And every society has some sort of moral code - rules about living together (even animals have a type of morality). And of course there is a very wide range of moral codes. To say someone is "not moral" is typically a combination of (1) not understanding what morality is and how we have evolved a moral instinct; and (2) disagreeing with that person's morals. (Unless atheism is now a psychopathology!)
There's a negative correlation between atheism and crime, interestingly there's also a positive correlation between atheism and monogamy, atheism and scientific knowledge, and even atheism and religious knowledge with a recent study cited on CNN showing that Atheists and Agnostics generally know more about world religion and the history of religion than theists do.
@GodlessInfinity Yes, on my forum this week we have been answering the Pew Forum's test of religious knowledge and most of us atheists are getting 14 or 15 out of 15 questions right, way ahead of the average for any religious group.
thats a good point, why did god start the universe? so he could make people suffer for an eternity until he got bored and commit genocide? what a cunt. theres no better way to describe someone who creates a planet full of life just so he can give some people infinite pleasure and some infinite anguish because of how smart they are.
Hello everybody, check out my videos on how evolution by natural selection has shaped our moral interactions, whether with our family or with those presumably unrelated to us. If a religious zealot asks you where you get your morality, tell them you got your morality from the same place they did: evolutionary history. Natural selection has favored certain behavioral strategies over others. One of the more "optimistic" ones would be our ability to cooperate and collude.
In the name of carl sagan, a genius and deepthinking atheist with high morals, "We were hunters and foragers. The frontier was everywhere....We who cannot even put our own planetary home in order, riven with rivalries and hatreds, are we to venture into space? By the time we are ready to settle even the nearest other-planetary systems we will have change"etc. I have the full version on my channel. The basic idea is that our kind is stupid and we must find ways to fix our planet and ourselves.
@MartinJWillett: In the video you say that "nobody needs to have a belief in the supernatural to know that certain things are wrong". If this is true, then it cannot be true that religious morality "is tainted because they are doing good to impress the big spy camera in the sky". The inner conviction of right/wrong does not disappear with religious belief. If anything, it strengthens; Gods are not made to replace the pre-existing moral conviction, but to explain and then positively reinforce it.
@kayakmac08 Yes it can. What makes you think it can't other than a vague memory of the tune of a logical argument you heard somebody else make once? If you are doing something because you are following orders you are not doing it JUST because it is right, by definition. If two boys help an old lady across the road the one who is not a Boy Scout is the moral one. The other one can never be sure he would have done the right thing without his orders to do so - his motives ARE tainted.
@MartinJWillett: Poppycock! Sure he can be sure! The Boy Scout can react to the situation purely out of his own conscience; the words of his Scout Master need not enter his mind any more than the cars stopped at the crosswalk. The "punishment" for an immoral response lies not in the hands of his leader, but can still dwell within himself. Especially if he's a Bible thumper! From what I know of Christianity, getting to heaven requires only a belief; actions are not the determining factor.
@kayakmac08 If Christianity measures worth by belief and not actions it is clearly immoral and not worthy of any respect. If people believe they are superior to me because of what they believe then that is a belief which clearly does not deserve respect and only gets tolerance because of my morality.
@MartinJWillett: The Christianity I'm familiar with does not equate worth with belief, neither in the eyes of God nor in the way it instructs Christians to perceive non-believers. The Bible describes Hell as the final domain of those who must be separated from God because they have chosen to reject his sovereignty.
I must add that your very caricatured descriptions of Christianity show basic misunderstandings of the text. You ought to know what you're talking about. Or do you care?
@kayakmac08 There is a lot of the Bible. Have you read it all? I have. It is full of contradiction. You claim belief is what matters not actions, which is immoral, but that belief does not equate to worth and hell is the destination for those who reject God's sovereignty which clearly means that being sent to hell is nothing to do with your worth or your actions and entirely down to your beliefs. God punishes thoughtcrime in those who don't believe the inherently unbelievable. That is unjust.
You state that God punishes thoughts, which is to suggest he is a controlling Big Brother who uses the threat of violence to coerce us into how to think. Again, you’re either screwing with scripture or you must have skimmed the book. The Biblical God’s claim is that he IS Truth and Morality, being holy and unable to live in the presence of sin. However, through Jesus he also mercifully offers the opportunity to forgive sins. Those who reject his existence of course forfeit this option.
@kayakmac08 If he punishes us for not believing in him and his church peddles the notion that faith is a virtue, that struggling to believe despite an obvious lack of evidence is a Good Thing, then surely this is both policing thought crime and coercing belief with threats and bribes. If somebody wants to be believed in the first most obvious step is to exist, then to make their existence known clearly and unambiguously. It's not difficult.
@MartinJWillett: The Bible does not ask for a strained act of intellectual dishonesty but for a sincere conviction that results in the sincere love with which the Biblical creation story is concerned. There is a wide array of evidence for God, and any kind of conclusive proof would be more like an act of coercion with its stamp of certainty than the skeptic's dim fear of the possibility of Hell. For believers who are sincerely convinced, the notion of punishment is beside the point.
@kayakmac08 Beside the point? Tell me, would you be happy for one moment let alone all eternity knowing that good people were being tortured simply for not believing in somebody's myths?
@MartinJWillett Is it a myth or are they being tortured? I don't know if you're attacking the morality of happy Christians or simply the idea of Biblical Hell, which, if it is true, reflects only God's morality, not that of his followers. And the Bible has answers for that, namely that God is a fair judge (I suppose you have a strong moral construct for fairness) and knows the intentions of each person. Regardless, the point that has been sidelined is merely the believer's fear of Hell.
@kayakmac08 Answer the question. Would you be content for one moment in the presence of a monster responsible for torturing people who did not believe he existed? It is a simple question that can be answered with either a three letter or two letter word. Try it.
@MartinJWillett The answer should be clear enough, but I will spell it out for you: If the Bible's claims are all true, then of course I am content with an all-powerful and holy God being the chief arbiter of his own Moral system. After all, he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, is he not? And if the Bible is not true, then it doesn't much matter, does it? Now, in your third little universe, in which God is a monster, it's clearly not OK. But that describes neither Christianity nor atheism.
@MartinJWillett: I usually hate it when I can't make everyone happy. However, when dealing with the militantly close-minded, the wilfully ignorant, and the hopelessly narcissistic I make exceptions. Since you seem eager to declare yourself as all three, I can quite contentedly leave this conversation and bid you farewell. Christianity may well be a delusion, and I would be the last to deny it, but you've clearly got your own anyway, so enjoy it while it lasts.
@kayakmac08 Dig deep enough and this is what you find in Christians: hatred and a desire to see non-believers burn while they praise the name of the monster who supports the whole system. Enjoy it while it lasts? That is a combination of an ugly threat, an evil gloat and an insincere wish. Typically Christian indeed.
You'll never get my forgiveness for that holding sentiment.
@maxvog An ad hominem attack? Why, yes! I surmise that you've never experienced the enlightenment of contradicting Willett's sermons. I did, and our three-week discourse, otherwise intelligent, was punctuated with waves of personal attacks against me, on account of a religiosity which he (erroneously) assumed I possessed. After weeks of arguing with him I realized what should have been obvious after watching the video: that he is a raging ideologue, and thus unworthy of my attention.
@Lathox are you assuming that this would be morally wrong? as an atheist tell me whats wrong with God sending people to hell? and how do you know its wrong?
@Lathox ok so thats some of the reasoning of why you think its wrong, but how do you know that those things are actually fundamentally wrong? what moral law are you coming from? if its unfair, then on what grounds.. and furthermore, if your an atheist, why do you care because if its not true for you, then it shouldnt bother you should it?
It bothers me because people continue to believe that there is some merit in believing something because someone told you to, rather than believing it because you've looked at the evidence. Religion is a bane of humanity. I go by the rule of treat others as you would want to be treated, that is how I know it is wrong.
@Lathox what makes you think that people in religion believe without evidence? also, the morality of treat others as you would have them treat you is something Jesus said. this wasnt a common belief held in the world at the time. what makes religion a bane to the world. stalin, an atheist killed more people in one day then the entire spanish inquisition. and the spanish inquisition wasnt even a catholic movement it was government apointed leaders.
And hitler was a roman catholic. Stalin didn't kill people because he was an atheist. He killed people because he was a power hungry dictator. Religion however has opposed scientific, and social progress at every turn. No god ever wrote a book.
@Lathox yes but the difference is, hitlers actions were not consistent with christian teaching, and yet stalins action are perfectly within the world view and the right of an atheist... to what morality would you appeal to, to debunk stalins action. he is absolutley consistent with his worldview. and by the way, science arose out of a religious world view. this is the very words of Richard Dawkins. Religion has not opposed science at every turn, it invented it you nub.
You are incorrect in the assumption that Hitler's actions were not consistent with christian teaching. The Bible has verses in it that literally say that you must kill all non-believers, people who work on the sabbath, and disobedient children. Stalin's worldview is not consistent with any moral athiest view. Religion may have started science but whenever it made discoveries that contradict its worldview it rejects them. Inconsistent with the first principle of science.
@Lathox Balony.. your reading old testament views from an old covenant God made with His people.Jesus' teaching are very obviously against hitlers action. love your neighbor as yourself, pray for your enemies and love them, we do not fight with the same weapon but with prayer. shall i continue?.. there are a ton. Atheism has no morality. stalins action dont violate any atheistic teaching, and if so, then tell me what and how you know or why its wrong in atheism?
@BigG99 Are you saying god made a covenant to kill these people and then changed his mind so that they could be forgiven? Neither religion nor atheism have morality. Religion however obstructs morality with lies, dissproportionate rewards/punishments, and blatant hypocracy. Athiests don't really have any "teachings" per say. As we don't need to gather to a church once a week to remind ourselves what we believe. Atheists can be moral on basis of empathy, but can't on basis of superstition.
@Lathox no im saying that God was working within a system of already held ancient and barbaric law and practices. God never set up those rules, but merely placed boundries around them. In time as Gods purposes were fullfilled, that behavior was abolished. "empthay you say"... well my empathy is vastly different then yours, so once again your stuck with a delemma. whos good is the better good? you cant say, thus you cant make any claims to right or wrong in the bible either.
@BigG99 I'd rather base my morals off of something I can see and prove, and that wasn't written by desert goat herders in an age where people believed the world to be flat. The god of the bible is the most hypocrytical, vindictive, bully ever conceived. And killing his own son so that people can choose to avoid punishments for crimes they didn't commit is not a story of love and forgiveness. We use our own judgement, about what is right and what is wrong. You should try it sometime.
@Lathox you say you base your morals off of what you can see and prove... show me? like what? what can you see right now that makes you choose morality... lets pick a hot topic. abortion. what si your morality or belief on that? why do you believe it? and by the way, i base my morality on what i can see to. some would just say that your blind. if you think the world morality is ok, then you better take a closer look downtown my friend.
We can continue this indefinately. The morality of the world is flawed because short sided people take advantage of the weak and leave long term problems for short term gain. And this is due in large part because of religion. If you don't believe me I implore to look at the most impoverished countires of the world where people are killing each other. You'll notice a pattern, the places with the most deaths are usually the places of strongest religion.
@Lathox well i have. and quite frankly the country in the world with most notable human injustices is china. and guess what they are communist and are very abusive to religion. also the others countries that are notable are africa and mexico, where the deaths are the result of drug warlords not churches and people who are religious. your argument is rediculous. it holds no water which is why most serious people dont use it. funny how you never look at how religion has brought people together.
@BigG99 What about the middle east? And the countries of Africa have many religious zealots. Religious people have been killing each other there for a very long time. America allows freedom of religion, people should be allowed to come to their own conclusions. Problem is majority of people make their conclusions not based off actual evidence. Religion has torn far more people apart than it ever will bring together. This whole "MY INVISBLE MAN IS BETTER THAN YOUR'S!" thing needs to stop.
@Lathox well the honest truth is, hating religion tears people apart to, thus you are being hypocritical. truth often tears people to one side or the other. thats no change. we see this in buisnesses when the truth comes out on a leader, we see it also in the secular world, where atheist views are causing massive hate and attack. your no different then the people you claim to oppose. to single out religion, once again is rediculous. your singling out a group cause of your own hatred
@BigG99 I don't hate religious people I hate religion. People need to wake up and realise it is nothing more than an outdated method of controlling people. Until people figure this out they are going to continue to oppose science, medicinal, and social progress. It's socially acceptable brainwashing that takes arrogance and parades it as humility. It makes "faith" or guilibility a virtue. The world can not continue to function this way.
@BigG99 As a matter of fact, can you think of one God's own rules that he's managed not to break? Forgive others.....He sends people to Hell for eternity. Thou shalt not covet...He has admited to being jealous. Have faith....Being omniscent he wouldn't have ever needed to believe something without evidence ever. Do not kill....There are too many examples to list. Do not commit adultery, he effectively "raped" the virign mary. How could such a hypocrytical being be worhty of any praise?
@Lathox ha ha this response is the funiest thing you have wrote yet lol... raped the virgin mary? you dont actually believe that do you.. admit your being extreme right? I wish could answer this rediculous list but it wouldnt fit in this comment. hence ill pick one. Jesus died so that all might live and have life, but its not forced upon us, we are not made to act any particular way, but we still choose. who chooses who goes to Hell, we do. but what do you care your an atheist?
@BigG99 Why couldn't God just forgive us? Or at least base his admission policy solely off your deeds in life? He apparently is so obsessed with the death penalty that he needs to kill someone innocent to show any mercy at all. Everyone is already guilty for being born a human, with the sins they do in life as just icing on the cake of divine wrath. This is not a story of love or forgiveness by any stretch of the imagination. Why can't people understand this?
@Lathox if our forgivness were based soley off our deeds in life, we would all be screwed! think about it, how many good deeds is the minimum to get to heaven?once you have made it, can we then be bad?it has no logic. instead to admit that we all have done bad things, and that we all need forgivness for them in order to live with a Holy God, who can have nothing to do with darkness makes sense. everyone has been forgiven, we just need to accept this gift. but again, why do you care your atheist
@BigG99 I only care because a great many people believe this nonsense. You have to be absolutely perfect to get into heaven and because that is impossible you must be "cleansed of sin" by the hypocrytical entity who began this ridiculous system. Can free will exist in this goat herder's vision of utopia? There is the never ending threat of being sent to hell for a small misdeed hanging over you. As well as removal of your ability to feel pain, or empathise.
@Lathox although i would like to argue that everything you just said is absolutley false and rediculous, i would rather re state, that as an atheist you have no moral authority to call it wrong. nor is there anything in the universe that says its wrong. if it is, then you have to accept that morality is a law and that its given to mankind. by whom? otherwise i can disagree with you and as an atheist, you shouldnt even argue because it doesnt matter in your worldview. its in fact natural.
@BigG99 There is something in the universe that says it's wrong it's called "COMMON SENSE!". I won't pretend to have the word of some cosmic space daddy on my side. The bible was written by humans who were just human. No the mechanics of heaven don't matter to me because they don't exist. I'm merely asking questions of ye faithful to understand how you think it works and to show you that it isn't even decent in concept, let alone a legimate theory of the universe.
@Lathox there is no such thing as common sense... and even reason is based on individual understanding of the universe. thus you must accept that you place your faith and trust in a fallable mind or minds. you screw up thinking everyday as do I, but the nonsensical thing about it, is that you actually place your tust in that very faulty program that you call, common sense. its a myth. Even Hitchens admited to that point in his debate with douglas wilson.
@BigG99 Even if though our minds are falliable. I'd say the two thousand year old collection of desert scribblings written by desert goat herders is more falliable than anyone who has had sixth grade education in modern america. Seeing as you probably qualify, tell me how do you reconcile forgiveness for not being perfect and eternity of punishment?
@Lathox the bible was actually written by kings in some cases, a doctor, a tax collector, a soldier, scholars and governers and yes some goat herders... its quite an amazing book. youd be lucky if you could pick your nose as well as these guys had to function in there day without your modern conveniences. And how do i reconcile forgivness for not being perfect and eternity of punishment? I dont; God already did it.... Hes called Jesus... simple question. its no longer a problem.
@BigG99 I think you are misunderstanding the point I'm trying to make. A choice between either an eternity of paradise or eternity of torture is a essentially a threat. And for god to require someone innocent to die in order for people to not automatically have the latter makes no sense. The God of the bible is unjust, petty, malicous, vindictive bully. I would hate to live in a world with such a God. And I'm glad I don't.
@Lathox i understand your point, but two things to mention... for one you are assuming your understanding of things like justice and fairness are the right ones. you assume that you could do things better. If God just let everyone live the way they wanted and then rewarded them for it, would we be any better as a people for it? Also, its not a threat, if its simply just the way the truth is. If i shoot you, then the obvious outcome is you will probably die. i cant shoot you and make butterflies
@BigG99 I could be the most loving caring person on the planet. But if I "choose" to believe in the wrong god, I am bound for Hell. Suppose I live a long life, help people whenever I can, never steal anything, and never hurt anyone, but do not believe in any god. Am I doomed to hell? Suppose on the other hand I rape, pillage, steal and murder, and beseach divine forgiveness before I get sentenced to the electric chair. Am I forgiven? Who in the right mind would make this system?
@Lathox you obviously dont get the system.. people cannot do whatever they want and get away with it even if they believe in God.. in fact Jesus says, if you love me youll do what i ask. if people who claim to be christians live like violent animals, then one must ask do they love Jesus.. no.... on the other hand nobody lives a perfectly good life we all do bad things.. so no one can boast that they deserve heaven because they are sooo good. again its about consistency within the world view.
@BigG99 I don't love Jesus for the same reason that I don't love Santa Clause. We all "deserve" to go to hell, because we are not perfect. Even if we never break any of the ten commandments for our entire life we are still not perfect because we were born human and therefore our ancestors sinned. This would be akin to having everyone take a test a day late, getting half credit for doing so. And requiring 100% to not fail, and shooting everyone who fails. And this is somehow fair?
@Lathox i think the problem here is that your assuming that your a good person.. according to whom and what? your saying basically that its unfair to put a good person in hell... I agree! thats not what the bible teaches.
@BigG99 Assuming? I AM A GOOD PERSON! My friends and family would attest to this, the law of the land says I have a clean record. I've never taken drugs, stolen, or done any crime other than minor traffic violations. I have done community service and gotten good grades in school. I don't care what your imaginary friend says. That counts for something.
@Lathox I think you are a good person but are you telling me, that you have never done anything bad, or had a bad thought on done something you regret.. if not just give it time and you will. besides the point isnt that you generally are a good person, the point is, that we all have bad tendencies. some people on this earth would in fact call you bad, simply by the way you talk about God and religion. go figure.
Interesting, where does Atheists get their morality from?
vsbladz 1 month ago
@vsbladz One theory is that most people are born with some form of innate morality. In an ideal world, everyone would want to live harmoniously with one another, but take a look at the world, it's far from ideal and harmonious. Rational people, whether atheist or not, can get their sense of morality from common sense and observation. The idea is that intelligent people don't need some sort of higher power to tell them what is right or wrong.
madeleinemariee 1 month ago
@vsbladz From exactly the same place that the men who invented gods got their morality from, except without the lying, wish-fulfilling story-telling phase.
MartinJWillett 1 month ago 3
@vsbladz Preferable Objective Moral Code:
.Whatever action causes the most happiness to the most amount of living things possible is the most moral
.Whatever action causes the most amount of suffering to the most amount of living beings possible is the least moral.
If you take an action, graph it, and review using the above Code, you get a level of morality. This is clearly the best moral code to live by that I have found.
theBartone9119 1 month ago
@vsbladz Compassion is arbiter of good, Faith of righteousness. The righteous serve their god, the good their fellow human beings. The righteous are kind because it is their duty, the good because they have charity. The just punish, the good forgive. We trust in compassion and charity. If you truly need god to tell you what is good and evil how may you know a good god from a wicked one? The good see not sin, yet they see evil. The righteous see sin, and have been blinded to evil.
RicenCoal 5 days ago
@vsbladz common sense
billytwohatz21 4 days ago
@JabborWacky That is about the size of it. Religious people use an entirely different kind of reasoning, or at least entirely different kinds of reasons. Just communicating with them on the most basic level is difficult.
MartinJWillett 2 months ago
7 people don't understand this video
stoicfan 2 months ago
If you look back at your Romans, and Greeks, and Egyptians and everyone in between (even some today) youll see that infant & child murder, sacrifice, rape, slavery, mutilation, torture and other acts were very often and acceptable if not praised. And people who did and do those things are and were overjoyed in their activities. Thats why morality is shaped by your environment and upbringing. Theres not a all encompassing standard as creationist or this atheist would lead you to believe.
XenovannHellwolf 3 months ago
@XenovannHellwolf Child sacrifice requires magical beliefs. The Jews abandoned child sacrifice, that is what separated them from the tribes they emerged from. Clearly they regarded child sacrifice as immoral although they wanted to have their cake and eat it too with the story of Abraham. Nobody has ever thought that killing children was good, only that it was powerful magic, and if magic is more important than people it could become a moral act - but not for a rationalist.
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
@MartinJWillett Your wrong. Your pressing your beliefs on history. All the things I said cant be summed up by pointing the finger at religion. In a lot of cases religion had nothing to do with the atrocities, it was how people were and were governed. Yes religion plays a part in it though it couldnt exist without the ones who made it up. Religion doesnt just turn good people bad as you press, people have been using it as a excuse for some time to play out their sick desires. Dont blame the gun.
XenovannHellwolf 3 months ago
@XenovannHellwolf Why are you defending irrationality? It isn't even your flavour of irrationality!
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
@MartinJWillett Because religion isnt entirely to blame, there are other factors like government, education, technology, poverty, peer pressure, survival, society, and human instinct to name a few. Thats why some destructive religions still exist but their followers are passive and helpful and some are aggressive and harmful and with extreme difference in different locations with different government. Even without religion values will change and atrocities will happen, you must know that.
XenovannHellwolf 3 months ago
@XenovannHellwolf Isn't entirely to blame? So if it is partly to blame, and it is clearly irrational, why defend it? Please, this question deserves an answer.
Do you honestly believe that people wanted to kill children so they invented religion to justify child murder?
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
@MartinJWillett Do you really think the only thing making humans act badly is religion? Im saying its not entirely to blame Im not saying religion isnt stupid. People still kill children today in countries for population control so they dont need a religious excuse. Even animals do this which we came from so its not that inconceivable. Though its obvious that religions have included passages that condone these things its not apparent that they are the soul reason for the action.
XenovannHellwolf 3 months ago
@XenovannHellwolf No. That is why I haven't said such a stupid thing. Answer the question, third and final attempt.
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
@MartinJWillett I already answered your questions. People have killed children for other reasons and some did like doing it, some today Im sure would like to do it. Why am I defending religion? Im not Im saying it isnt entirely to blame,because that is accurate. I never said religion was irrational because that statement itself is inaccurate. Theres plenty of reason and logic why people have followed religions for ages.
XenovannHellwolf 3 months ago
@XenovannHellwolf Individual sick people, occasionally a pair of people, no significant-sized group of people wants to kill children outside of a war of extermination unless they have got superstitious magical thinking at the back of it.
Not entirely to blame? Religion is unnecessary and it causes death, suffering, war, hatred and enmity. What more is there to say? It isn't the cause of all the world's evil but as we don't need it getting rid of it will be a good move.
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@XenovannHellwolf
" I never said religion was irrational because that statement itself is inaccurate. Theres plenty of reason and logic why people have followed religions for ages."
- care to share some of it with us?
types10000 1 month ago
If you believe in Yahweh... God is playing a game with you. He's forcing you to bet your eternal soul on something that only He can prove: Himself. Bet incorrectly and it's Hell forever. But He loves you more than anything and wants you to go to Heaven, yet refuses to prove His existence, something he could do at any time.
It's the sickest game ever conceived. No good, pure, moral being would allow such a game. Poof! Someone just vanished in a puff of rationality.
ChipArgyle 3 months ago
I am a Canadian teenager who's becoming closer to atheism year by year (it seems), and I think the idea that without religion we have no morals is stupid.
The Bible is 'true' because it is the word of God (God is 'true' because it says so in the Bible...nice circular reasoning eh?)...in the Bible it says you should kill your neighbour if you see him working on a Sunday. How come we don't do that? Because as our society has progressed, we've realized this is IMMORAL, against 'God's word'.
TheSkookumchuk 3 months ago 2
@TheSkookumchuk Lots of things men said that God said were immoral have been shown to be perfectly reasonable. And lots of things they said God is happy with have been found to be immoral: slavery, wife beating, treating menstruating women as unclean and so on.
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
@MartinJWillett Exactly. I'm very lucky my parents let me think independently. If I asked to go to church on Xmas Eve they'd take me, if there was a Jehovah's Witness at the door they'd let me know & ask me if I wanted to talk to them.
Nothing was ever forced on me, & I was free to explore what I wanted to explore. Without parents enforcing anything on me, I decided by myself religion is not for me & I feel like I'm not only a better person, but my own person. I think that's how it should be.
TheSkookumchuk 3 months ago
@MartinJWillett
Atheists don't have that much in common"
Yes they do.
1) Atheists all share a MINDLESS BELIEF that NO GOD EXISTS without evidence or reason to justify that belief.
2) Atheists share a common psychological bias against God, but no evidence.
3) Atheists share pathological cognitive dissonance between the purposeless, meaningless, insignificant existence and moral incoherence that logically flows from Atheism verse the way they live their own lives.
Atheism is mindless.
4TruthMatters 3 months ago
@4TruthMatters Bullshit. You can't hate something which you don't believe in. Do you hate Dracula? If you believed he existed you almost certainly would, but as you don't you just see him as a fictional character of entertainment value.
There are as many ways not to believe in gods as there ways to believe.
As gods don't exist one non-existent god is no different to another. There is nothing special about your god or your belief. You're nothing special, get over yourself.
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
This is another dishonest Atheist avoiding the issue. Atheists have no basis for any objective moral truth or duties. They can only have morals if morals are real. Morality cannot be real if God is not real . If there is no God, 'morals' are nothing more than subjective chemical illusions of a brain with absolutely no basis in reality. The child rapist's illusion is no less valid than the non-rapist. Dishonest Atheists ignore this logical fact.
4TruthMatters 3 months ago
@4TruthMatters Have you looked at any of the comments? Your claim that morality has to be objective to be real is just a claim. Show how I'm objectively wrong.
Where would a god get morality from?
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
"Where would a god get morality from?"
God's nature is the moral good. Moral good is not external to God.
4TruthMatters 3 months ago
@4TruthMatters That's handy for you, isn't it? You have no need to think at all. All answers are already given, all you have to do is accept just a few outrageous lies and never question what you're told to accept without examination.
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
@MartinJWillett,
"Have you looked at any of the comments? Your claim that morality has to be objective to be real is just a claim. Show how I'm objectively wrong."
You have no objective BASIS (true irrespective of belief) for objective moral truth unless God is that basis.
Atheists have absolutely no objective basis to ground objective moral values or duties - just subjective illusory opinions induced by chemicals aimed at a moral realm that has no actual reality.
4TruthMatters 3 months ago
@4TruthMatters You have said that there is no objective standard. Correct. Run along now.
MartinJWillett 3 months ago
your argument is that you should be moral to impress theists and to be your own hero? right...
cammodragon1 4 months ago
@cammodragon1 No. My argument is what I say, not what you say. What you say of my ideas is a caricature. Always. Even if you try really hard to be fair and give me the same breaks you give yourself no model of my ideas inside your head is actually my ideas.
Being moral is its own reward. If you judge yourself (what you are about to do) as if you were somebody else you can be your own hero.
MartinJWillett 4 months ago
@MartinJWillett honestly if i had proof there was no god, i'd murder pillage and plunder my weasly black guts out. so i just try to understand how someone who already knows that has any incentive to behave a perticular way. everyone knows they will die. if you accept that truth, then what is the diffence when it happens? so what? why would you care if you kill someone else. from an atheistic point of view you may have spared them the pain of living. i don't see the practical philosophy.
cammodragon1 4 months ago
@cammodragon1 You have not considered what it is like not to believe because it isn't something the human mind can do. You either believe something or you don't. If you do believe then you can't imagine yourself not believing, not really. You are clearly a believer in a very pernicious god because you hate yourself so much, accepting everything bad you do is your fault and everything good you do as his doing (probably with a capital H).
MartinJWillett 4 months ago
@MartinJWillett i do find it difficult to imagine, thats why i have questions, that's why i don't readily accept the first thing i hear blindly. i actually have some fairly liberal views on the idea of god, but at the end of the day i do belive that the sum of my actions have some greater consiquence. lacking that i have no reason whatso ever to even remotly care about how anyone might preceive my decisions. if empathy is your only motive to do good, what happens when that sense dulls?
cammodragon1 4 months ago
@cammodragon1 Why do you ask questions and then shut out the answers?
Have you ever tried to spend a week ignoring God completely and doing those things which you, personally, see as moral? I suppose having a god and thinking about morality is rather like keeping a guard dog and barking yourself.
MartinJWillett 4 months ago
@MartinJWillett so you belive that religon and philisophical thought are mutually exclusive? that's a bit naive. but more to the point, i'm looking for answers that make sense. as it now appears to me that you have nither answers or sense i will leave you be. but in parting i'll leave this last comment, you claim that anyone with even the faintest belif in god is incapable of an open mind, but you cannot think deeply enough of your own position to give a reasoned argument. best of luck.
cammodragon1 4 months ago
@cammodragon1 No. I don't. You have twice failed to understand my position and put that down to a failing in me. I can't make my position simple enough for you to understand when you're not even trying.
Why do you expect answers to make sense to you? What reasons have you got for believing that you are smart enough to understand what is going on?
MartinJWillett 4 months ago
@cammodragon1 There is no point in arguing with MartinJWillett. If you lose the argument, he will leave the argument smug as ever. If you win, he will delete your comments and any evidence of the debate. Luckily, I noticed that he did this to other people before he had a chance to do it to me so I copied and saved our whole argument just before he realized that he lost the argument and deleted any trace of it. I'll send you a pm with the contents of my argument with him.
PhrozenFenom 3 months ago
It's kind of funny. Atheists aren't immoral, yet theists say we are. Theists love to tell us what they think we do, because we have no religious guidelines. But what basis do these people have? Only one: Their own experience. Their own 'what would I do without god' idea's. In other words, THEY would do those immoral things if they had no god. God is the only thing stopping them. Yet we, without god, whom don't do those things anyway, are the immoral ones?
Sanquinity 5 months ago
@Sanquinity The religious find it hard to imagine thinking without their all-consuming self-affirming beliefs. They imagine that a lack of belief means a lack of morality because they choose to have all their morality shot through with superstitious beliefs.
MartinJWillett 5 months ago
@Sanquinity I'm agnostic. However, I would say that if someone believes in a good god, then that person is more likely to do what they believe to be right. For they have an extra incentive to do what is right. Morality isn't about self-interest (not exclusively - for sometimes we have a duty to sacrifice our own interests for the sake of others). However, a religious perspective can make morality and self-interest coincide. Of course, none of this has any bearing on whether god exists.
Clear404 4 months ago
@Clear404 I'm technically agnostic too. You have to be more specific what you're agnostic about. I'm an agnostic atheist, for instance. That being said, I can agree to that much. There are plenty of believers whom are good people. I was of course talking about the slightly more extreme ones that say things like "Atheists have no morals" or "God gives me my morals". Things like that.
Sanquinity 4 months ago
@Sanquinity I'm agnostic in the following respect: if metaphysical idealism is correct - and I think a very good case can be made for it, but most people find it intolerably wierd (which is really their problem) - then a religious world view according to which there is some kind or kinds of agency behind appearances is very plausible. However, if idealism is false, then some brand of materialism is true and god becomes completely unecessary and continued belief would be highly unreasonable.
Clear404 4 months ago
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@Sanquinity I'm agnostic in the following respect: if metaphysical idealism is correct - and I think a very good case can be made for it, but most people find it intolerably wierd (which is really their problem) - then a religious world view according to which there is some kind or kinds of agency behind appearances is very plausible. However, if idealism is false, then some brand of materialism is true and god becomes completely unecessary and continued belief would be highly unreasonable.
Clear404 4 months ago
@Sanquinity I'm agnostic in the following respect: if metaphysical idealism is correct - and I think a very good case can be made for it, but most people find it intolerably wierd (which is really their problem) - then a religious world view according to which there is some kind or kinds of agency behind appearances is very plausible. However, if idealism is false, then some brand of materialism is true and god becomes completely unecessary and continued belief would be highly unreasonable.
Clear404 4 months ago
Note: replace "that" with "than" in the last line of my previous post.
AaronPatrickLeeMusic 6 months ago
@AaronPatrickLeeMusic And add a they into the penultimate sentence too.
Have you ever known a Protestant do good and have to have the idea that Jesus would be proud of them pointed out to them? Rather as a smoker feels wrong happy but not smoking a Protestant doesn't feel right acknowledging that they have made an effort to do the right thing without thinking about Jesus.
MartinJWillett 6 months ago
@MartinJWillett: I'm not sure that I follow you exactly, but it sounds like you are saying that Protestants' morality is flawed because their proximate reward for acting morally is thinking that Jesus would be proud of them. From a Consequentialist perspective, who cares what motivates someone to do good? Plus, I don't think that one can demonstrate that every Protestant (or even most) behaves morally to make Jesus proud. It could be more the exception than the rule.
AaronPatrickLeeMusic 6 months ago
@AaronPatrickLeeMusic What I am saying is it is sad, they can't do good without thinking about Jesus, they can never feel good for doing good without thinking about the supernatural. They are totally consumed by an external narrative, they are just a bit part player in somebody else's script.
MartinJWillett 6 months ago
@MartinJWillett: That sounds like a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. I could imagine Christians thinking that your (our) morality is sad because it never acknowledges God. I think that most Christians believe God to be perfectly good or maybe even the embodiment of good, so it follows that good acts or moral behavior will either stem from thinking about God or lead them to think and praise a perfectly good God even more.
AaronPatrickLeeMusic 6 months ago
@AaronPatrickLeeMusic Their life doesn't have its own meaning, the meaning is pre-decided.
MartinJWillett 6 months ago
@MartinJWillett That's a non sequitur, and you sort of contradicted yourself. If the meaning of a Christian's life is predetermined or pre-decided as you said, then their lives clearly have meaning by your own admission. Sure, they don't choose what their purpose will be, but that doesn't mean that their life doesn't have its own meaning. It's a different type of meaning than your (or my) life's meaning. Theirs is a supernatural meaning; ours would be a materialistic meaning.
AaronPatrickLeeMusic 6 months ago
@AaronPatrickLeeMusic A Christian's life doesn't have a meaning chosen by the person living the life, the meaning is given rather than chosen. My life does not have a meaning set out for me, I can develop my own meanings and goals, or choose not to.
MartinJWillett 6 months ago
I could see a valid Christian rebuttal to the claim about halfway through the video, where Christians behave morally in order to have an eternal reward. With the exception of Catholics and maybe some other denominations, Christians believe in salvation through faith alone. Thus, they wouldn't be doing good works to get into heaven, for they believe that already have that reward guaranteed. It follows that Protestant Christians do good for some other reason that to get into heaven.
AaronPatrickLeeMusic 6 months ago
Show a little less excitement, bro.
JK
redshark618 7 months ago
@LeviProductions1 The Bible is the creation of ignorant people who thought slavery was natural, that women and children should be the property of men and that animals had no rights at all. These people have imposed their inferior ethics on future generations because they were too arrogant to admit they didn't know the answers and invented a magic man in the sky to be the answer to the questions they didn't begin to understand.
MartinJWillett 7 months ago
Yeah sure, atheists are immoral...how come then that Denmark, 80 percent atheist, is the happiest country in the world?
Bernieo153 7 months ago
@Bernieo153 That assumes that being moral and being happy are related in some way. It could easily be claimed that defining what you find yourself wanting to do as moral is a simple way to "cheat yourself happy".
MartinJWillett 7 months ago
@PhrozenFenom Go away I've had it with this subject.
MartinJWillett 7 months ago
@PhrozenFenom You are making an assertion based upon concepts that I do not accept and holding on to it with faith. This is not debatable.
You say morality without "objective morality" is meaningless because you NEED to believe that. Debate is futile. You are never going to change your mind or mine. Please stop wasting my time.
MartinJWillett 8 months ago
@PhrozenFenom Right and wrong isn't a matter of taste. We can see that rape, murder and theft is harmful and therefore is wrong, seen by society as wrong. People who haven't ever heard of any Hebrew mythology at all are quite capable of seeing this. The legal codes of countries which regard Hebrew mythology as meaningless (e.g. Japan and China) do have a consensus on many matters including rape, murder, theft, legitimate taxation, marriage, perjury, bribery, corruption, slavery and so on.
MartinJWillett 8 months ago
@PhrozenFenom Of course you can say it is wrong. You simply have an obscene definition of wrong which involves the arbitrary will and whim of a tyrant.
MartinJWillett 8 months ago
@PhrozenFenom The entire concept of objective morality is crazy. You might as well look for an objectively perfect hamburger. Just because we can't agree on an objective standard for the objectively perfect hamburger it does not follow that a dead rat in a cowpat is as good as a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Likewise we can still make judgements about the morality of murder, torture and rape even in the absence of a perfect measuring stick.
MartinJWillett 8 months ago
@PhrozenFenom And you assume that God exists and therefore magic exists at least to the extent that is required to enable God to exist.
You have not explained what objective morality is and how it is created by the will of a magical being. I put it to you that it is a meaningless concept which does not become meaningful even in the presence of a universal creator unless it was greater than that creator and the creator was answerable to it.
MartinJWillett 9 months ago
if their is no god or punishment for our sins then why should i not do what ever i want to pleasure myself for example someone has something i want, i take it why would that be wrong
quickdrawle 9 months ago
@quickdrawle That line or argument works equally well regardless of whether or not gods are real or imaginary, if people believe in them there is some, imperfect, deterrent effect. You will find criminals living in religious countries, ever heard of The Godfather? You will also note that statistically atheists are significantly less likely to be criminals than believers.
That way of thinking helps you see humanity as in need of saving. I have more respect for myself.
MartinJWillett 9 months ago
@quickdrawle
I don't think there's a god to reward or punish me after death. I don't think there's an absolute moral that says what is bad and what is good.
But I have my own personal sense of morality that says killing is bad, raping is bad, stealing is bad.
And where does that morality come from if there's no God?
We, as humans, developped in our evolution powerful tools that enhance interindividual collaboration such as empathy. If I hurt someone that makes me feel bad.
0299792458 7 months ago
@quickdrawle
So could you do whatever you want to pleasure yourself? Of course you could. That would be not good according to MY sense of morality but it could be to yours. There's people with no morality, mainly psychos and people with no empathy. But, for the survival of the human specie it's been good to collaborate and, therefore, not hurt the others.
0299792458 7 months ago
@PhrozenFenom You appear to be claiming that magic is real, that only a magical being knows what is moral and that what this magical being says is moral trumps the judgements, wisdom and wishes of every member of your own species. That appears rather outrageous to me. Have you never thought of it that way? Try it.
MartinJWillett 9 months ago
Love the vids!! Keep it up! It makes so much sense!
ksniveegirl 9 months ago
@PhrozenFenom An all-knowing and perfect god would need no 'life experience.' Perhaps. OK, but why would he need belief, fear, love, prayer and worship? Why would he have the personality of a Bronze Age tribal chieftain?
You are trying to prove that objective morality exists because you say it must, for reasons which don't work. The burden of proof is with you, the one making the outrageous claim.
MartinJWillett 9 months ago
@PhrozenFenom The prejudices of a god with no life experience are no more objective than the prejudices of a mortal. If a god creates agents with urges and says indulging in some of them in certain circumstances is moral and others in any circumstances is immoral how does that become objectively moral or immoral to those who can't believe a word of it?
MartinJWillett 9 months ago
@PhrozenFenom The basic assumption that if there is a god, just the one, what he says is moral is objectively moral does not follow. You need to explain why it is or must be so, not merely assert that it is so and do the standing tall and looking smug routine. Take it step by step and explain it fully.
None of your naked assertions convince me from the existence of the supernatural to the objectivity of a god's opinions, none of them.
MartinJWillett 10 months ago
@PhrozenFenom The argument was not convincing, I was not convinced. Your claims that what you say is objectively true are just claims.
MartinJWillett 10 months ago
@PhrozenFenom No, I disagree. A god could make a universe but he could not invent objective morality, all he could do is declare his opinion and enforce his opinion as if it was objective, the same as any rational being with draconian powers.
MartinJWillett 10 months ago
@PhrozenFenom IF.
You have to prove that there is a god of any kind, which you can't, then prove the nature and character of that god, which means you need to have a frame of reference bigger than the god. Then you are still have to prove the logic of your contention. The ability to create does not infer the inability to be wrong or the right to define morals for others.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
MartinJWillett 10 months ago
@PhrozenFenom "Because the Great I Am said so" is not objective morality either. Objective morality is not necessary.
MartinJWillett 10 months ago
@PhrozenFenom If you were here in this room I could demonstrate with this pencil. I'm sure you'd get the point.
MartinJWillett 10 months ago
@PhrozenFenom Things which hurt people are wrong because they hurt people. Are you really such a moral vacuum that you can't grasp that and need to be told it by the lackeys of a monster in the sky? Where does the sky monster get his morals from? The same place he got his desires and wisdom?
MartinJWillett 10 months ago
Well said.
reuben 10 months ago
I'm an atheist. I give £10 a month to charity. I don't do it to get a thumbs-up from the big guy in the sky, I don't do it to get myself a free ticket to heaven. I do it because I care about people. Morality doesn't come from scripture, it comes from caring about people. I have three simple guidelines that I'm sure most people will agree with:
1. If something hurts somebody, it is usually bad.
2. If something gives pleasure to somebody, it is usually good.
3. The truth is almost always good.
rawssremix 11 months ago
@rawssremix Yeah, but how do you know that not hurting people and telling and respecting the truth is what the creator of the universe wants you to do? Maybe he's a total psycho-bastard who only cares about whether you love him.
MartinJWillett 11 months ago
@MartinJWillett According to the scriptures, he is XD
rawssremix 11 months ago
Its funny how believers are just so put off by this type of logic.
Silentsam7532 11 months ago
This unfairly ascribes beliefs and motivations to Christians that they may not have. I think most Christians take the tack that atheists can be moral, but lack a sufficient basis for that morality. Also, just because someone professes religion doesn't mean that any good act he does is religiously motivated. You will usually find that someone's morality is more about him than about his groups.
DeaconVerter 11 months ago
@DeaconVerter A hell of a lot of Christians do ask where we get our morality from and at least pretend to find it a mystery why we are not living like Roman Emperors in a cheap porn film.
MartinJWillett 11 months ago
Why did you lump homosexuality in among the list of bad behaviors?
R4t10n4L 11 months ago
@R4t10n4L It wasn't a list of bad behaviours, it was a list of traits which atheists of the nose-ring and black T shirt persuasion try to make out to be virtues, or at least something to be actively celebrated, because Christians call them sins. Being homosexual is not a virtue any more than liking football or having long hair is a virtue. If something is not a sin it does not automatically become a virtue which everybody is required to be seen to celebrate!
MartinJWillett 11 months ago
@xergr Events? What makes you think they are events? Surely by far the most likely explanation for all the miracle stories is that they were invented or exaggerated from the mundane to the inexplicable. Human myths of all kinds are filled with descriptions of impossible events. By far the simplest explanation is that people were simply lying or caught up in group hysteria making them terrible witnesses.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
aristoteles once said, the only reason to do good is for the sake it being good. it is reward in it self. so having any other reason to do anything other then just doing it is useless. only true reason to be good is the goodness of the action.
gooddarkjedi 1 year ago
I'm not a theist but the problem with morality w/o god is you can choose not to have conscience. W/o god you are only liable to the laws of men. If you could get away with your crime, all is quits and no conscience would bother you. Atheism is good for "reasonable" people but could be a dangerous knowledge for some. I want to spread "mild" Christianity even if I don't believe in it for the purpose of control. No I don't think the people of today Dark ages will happen again
ixataca 1 year ago
@ixataca OK, tomorrow don't have a conscience, grow it back on Thursday. Report back.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett no seriously, there was an incident where I did something honest and I end up being frowned upon 'cause ordinary theist would just walk away with it. then it occurred to me, why did I did that? 'Coz of God breathing dwn my neck? 'Coz of my sense of justice?
Point is you're lucky you're a moral atheist, what about the non moral irresponsible (christian)theist? You expect them to be more moral if they found out? Extremist theism though is a problem
ixataca 1 year ago
@ixataca You seem to be suggesting the thoroughly immoral practice of pretending that gods exist to keep the plebeians honest, by lying to them systematically from cradle to grave and beyond on the basis that it keeps the policing costs down. That is immoral.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago 2
@MartinJWillett Yes for peace and greater good's sake. Atheism is only for reasonable and intuitive people with high foundations of morality. If there is no hell to give the victims of heinous crimes justice, we must do all we can to prevent them from being victims. I'm willing to be immoral to do something good by lowering crime rates. No hell for my immorality anyway. As long as humanity never learn to be humane and civilize, I'm sticking to feeding them lies.
ixataca 1 year ago
@ixataca Why do you expect them to continue to believe if you don't? All you are doing is making the nervous more nervous and the smug more smug.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago 3
@ixataca, "Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior" ~Martha Nussbaum
advisorC101 1 year ago
@ixataca how about your emotions. dont you have conscience? i have one and i can tell you, i cant choose what is right or wrong. i cant choose what i feel, i cant shut down conscience when i want. my instics gude me, we have biological leach. i have evolved to fell bad for death of close ones, i have evolved to sypathise, i have evolved to have sence of fareness. i cant shut these things of. if you lack conscience then you are sosiopath, i sorry but if you lack the basic instincs.
gooddarkjedi 1 year ago
@ixataca I disagree. Nearly all members of the human species are biologically wired to feel empathy for other humans. Empathy is the root of our morality and is of our sense of moral obligation. A person can resist these feelings or try to rationalize them away, you cannot extinguish this elegant Darwinian social adaptation as easily as you seem to think.
BrooklynRagtag 1 year ago
Any human with a functioning brain has morality - we have a moral instinct. And every society has some sort of moral code - rules about living together (even animals have a type of morality). And of course there is a very wide range of moral codes. To say someone is "not moral" is typically a combination of (1) not understanding what morality is and how we have evolved a moral instinct; and (2) disagreeing with that person's morals. (Unless atheism is now a psychopathology!)
dbes02 1 year ago
atheist all seem to have same accent and way of talking lol thats cool.
bombat417 1 year ago
There's a negative correlation between atheism and crime, interestingly there's also a positive correlation between atheism and monogamy, atheism and scientific knowledge, and even atheism and religious knowledge with a recent study cited on CNN showing that Atheists and Agnostics generally know more about world religion and the history of religion than theists do.
GodlessInfinity 1 year ago
@GodlessInfinity Yes, on my forum this week we have been answering the Pew Forum's test of religious knowledge and most of us atheists are getting 14 or 15 out of 15 questions right, way ahead of the average for any religious group.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett Because we actively search the truth
ixataca 1 year ago
thats a good point, why did god start the universe? so he could make people suffer for an eternity until he got bored and commit genocide? what a cunt. theres no better way to describe someone who creates a planet full of life just so he can give some people infinite pleasure and some infinite anguish because of how smart they are.
TheBlasphemousOne 1 year ago
Hello everybody, check out my videos on how evolution by natural selection has shaped our moral interactions, whether with our family or with those presumably unrelated to us. If a religious zealot asks you where you get your morality, tell them you got your morality from the same place they did: evolutionary history. Natural selection has favored certain behavioral strategies over others. One of the more "optimistic" ones would be our ability to cooperate and collude.
aplee2006 1 year ago
In the name of carl sagan, a genius and deepthinking atheist with high morals, "We were hunters and foragers. The frontier was everywhere....We who cannot even put our own planetary home in order, riven with rivalries and hatreds, are we to venture into space? By the time we are ready to settle even the nearest other-planetary systems we will have change"etc. I have the full version on my channel. The basic idea is that our kind is stupid and we must find ways to fix our planet and ourselves.
Aresftfun 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett: In the video you say that "nobody needs to have a belief in the supernatural to know that certain things are wrong". If this is true, then it cannot be true that religious morality "is tainted because they are doing good to impress the big spy camera in the sky". The inner conviction of right/wrong does not disappear with religious belief. If anything, it strengthens; Gods are not made to replace the pre-existing moral conviction, but to explain and then positively reinforce it.
kayakmac08 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 Yes it can. What makes you think it can't other than a vague memory of the tune of a logical argument you heard somebody else make once? If you are doing something because you are following orders you are not doing it JUST because it is right, by definition. If two boys help an old lady across the road the one who is not a Boy Scout is the moral one. The other one can never be sure he would have done the right thing without his orders to do so - his motives ARE tainted.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett: Poppycock! Sure he can be sure! The Boy Scout can react to the situation purely out of his own conscience; the words of his Scout Master need not enter his mind any more than the cars stopped at the crosswalk. The "punishment" for an immoral response lies not in the hands of his leader, but can still dwell within himself. Especially if he's a Bible thumper! From what I know of Christianity, getting to heaven requires only a belief; actions are not the determining factor.
kayakmac08 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 If Christianity measures worth by belief and not actions it is clearly immoral and not worthy of any respect. If people believe they are superior to me because of what they believe then that is a belief which clearly does not deserve respect and only gets tolerance because of my morality.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett: The Christianity I'm familiar with does not equate worth with belief, neither in the eyes of God nor in the way it instructs Christians to perceive non-believers. The Bible describes Hell as the final domain of those who must be separated from God because they have chosen to reject his sovereignty.
I must add that your very caricatured descriptions of Christianity show basic misunderstandings of the text. You ought to know what you're talking about. Or do you care?
kayakmac08 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 There is a lot of the Bible. Have you read it all? I have. It is full of contradiction. You claim belief is what matters not actions, which is immoral, but that belief does not equate to worth and hell is the destination for those who reject God's sovereignty which clearly means that being sent to hell is nothing to do with your worth or your actions and entirely down to your beliefs. God punishes thoughtcrime in those who don't believe the inherently unbelievable. That is unjust.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
You state that God punishes thoughts, which is to suggest he is a controlling Big Brother who uses the threat of violence to coerce us into how to think. Again, you’re either screwing with scripture or you must have skimmed the book. The Biblical God’s claim is that he IS Truth and Morality, being holy and unable to live in the presence of sin. However, through Jesus he also mercifully offers the opportunity to forgive sins. Those who reject his existence of course forfeit this option.
kayakmac08 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 If he punishes us for not believing in him and his church peddles the notion that faith is a virtue, that struggling to believe despite an obvious lack of evidence is a Good Thing, then surely this is both policing thought crime and coercing belief with threats and bribes. If somebody wants to be believed in the first most obvious step is to exist, then to make their existence known clearly and unambiguously. It's not difficult.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett: The Bible does not ask for a strained act of intellectual dishonesty but for a sincere conviction that results in the sincere love with which the Biblical creation story is concerned. There is a wide array of evidence for God, and any kind of conclusive proof would be more like an act of coercion with its stamp of certainty than the skeptic's dim fear of the possibility of Hell. For believers who are sincerely convinced, the notion of punishment is beside the point.
kayakmac08 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 Beside the point? Tell me, would you be happy for one moment let alone all eternity knowing that good people were being tortured simply for not believing in somebody's myths?
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett Is it a myth or are they being tortured? I don't know if you're attacking the morality of happy Christians or simply the idea of Biblical Hell, which, if it is true, reflects only God's morality, not that of his followers. And the Bible has answers for that, namely that God is a fair judge (I suppose you have a strong moral construct for fairness) and knows the intentions of each person. Regardless, the point that has been sidelined is merely the believer's fear of Hell.
kayakmac08 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 Answer the question. Would you be content for one moment in the presence of a monster responsible for torturing people who did not believe he existed? It is a simple question that can be answered with either a three letter or two letter word. Try it.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett The answer should be clear enough, but I will spell it out for you: If the Bible's claims are all true, then of course I am content with an all-powerful and holy God being the chief arbiter of his own Moral system. After all, he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, is he not? And if the Bible is not true, then it doesn't much matter, does it? Now, in your third little universe, in which God is a monster, it's clearly not OK. But that describes neither Christianity nor atheism.
kayakmac08 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 So that's a yes. You and your theology disgust me.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@MartinJWillett: I usually hate it when I can't make everyone happy. However, when dealing with the militantly close-minded, the wilfully ignorant, and the hopelessly narcissistic I make exceptions. Since you seem eager to declare yourself as all three, I can quite contentedly leave this conversation and bid you farewell. Christianity may well be a delusion, and I would be the last to deny it, but you've clearly got your own anyway, so enjoy it while it lasts.
kayakmac08 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 Dig deep enough and this is what you find in Christians: hatred and a desire to see non-believers burn while they praise the name of the monster who supports the whole system. Enjoy it while it lasts? That is a combination of an ugly threat, an evil gloat and an insincere wish. Typically Christian indeed.
You'll never get my forgiveness for that holding sentiment.
MartinJWillett 1 year ago
@kayakmac08 the typical ad hominem attack, I will call you names so that I won't have to actually address what you are saying...
maxvog 1 year ago
@maxvog An ad hominem attack? Why, yes! I surmise that you've never experienced the enlightenment of contradicting Willett's sermons. I did, and our three-week discourse, otherwise intelligent, was punctuated with waves of personal attacks against me, on account of a religiosity which he (erroneously) assumed I possessed. After weeks of arguing with him I realized what should have been obvious after watching the video: that he is a raging ideologue, and thus unworthy of my attention.
kayakmac08 11 months ago
@kayakmac08
Just tell me this. Do YOU personally believe that people will burn in hell for eternity simply for not believing in an invisible diety?
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox are you assuming that this would be morally wrong? as an atheist tell me whats wrong with God sending people to hell? and how do you know its wrong?
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99
1. Because sending people to hell for not worshipping something that can not be seen would be like killing you for not believing in the easter bunny.
2. It's worse than the worst dictarship ever implemented on earth.
3. It automatically condemns 4/5 of the worlds population for believing in the "wrong god".
4. Even the person was what we might agree as evil, does the punishment fit the crime? Eternity for is a long time for a handful of foul acts.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox ok so thats some of the reasoning of why you think its wrong, but how do you know that those things are actually fundamentally wrong? what moral law are you coming from? if its unfair, then on what grounds.. and furthermore, if your an atheist, why do you care because if its not true for you, then it shouldnt bother you should it?
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99
It bothers me because people continue to believe that there is some merit in believing something because someone told you to, rather than believing it because you've looked at the evidence. Religion is a bane of humanity. I go by the rule of treat others as you would want to be treated, that is how I know it is wrong.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox Well said.
humanistheart 1 year ago
@Lathox what makes you think that people in religion believe without evidence? also, the morality of treat others as you would have them treat you is something Jesus said. this wasnt a common belief held in the world at the time. what makes religion a bane to the world. stalin, an atheist killed more people in one day then the entire spanish inquisition. and the spanish inquisition wasnt even a catholic movement it was government apointed leaders.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99
And hitler was a roman catholic. Stalin didn't kill people because he was an atheist. He killed people because he was a power hungry dictator. Religion however has opposed scientific, and social progress at every turn. No god ever wrote a book.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox yes but the difference is, hitlers actions were not consistent with christian teaching, and yet stalins action are perfectly within the world view and the right of an atheist... to what morality would you appeal to, to debunk stalins action. he is absolutley consistent with his worldview. and by the way, science arose out of a religious world view. this is the very words of Richard Dawkins. Religion has not opposed science at every turn, it invented it you nub.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99
You are incorrect in the assumption that Hitler's actions were not consistent with christian teaching. The Bible has verses in it that literally say that you must kill all non-believers, people who work on the sabbath, and disobedient children. Stalin's worldview is not consistent with any moral athiest view. Religion may have started science but whenever it made discoveries that contradict its worldview it rejects them. Inconsistent with the first principle of science.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox Balony.. your reading old testament views from an old covenant God made with His people.Jesus' teaching are very obviously against hitlers action. love your neighbor as yourself, pray for your enemies and love them, we do not fight with the same weapon but with prayer. shall i continue?.. there are a ton. Atheism has no morality. stalins action dont violate any atheistic teaching, and if so, then tell me what and how you know or why its wrong in atheism?
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 Are you saying god made a covenant to kill these people and then changed his mind so that they could be forgiven? Neither religion nor atheism have morality. Religion however obstructs morality with lies, dissproportionate rewards/punishments, and blatant hypocracy. Athiests don't really have any "teachings" per say. As we don't need to gather to a church once a week to remind ourselves what we believe. Atheists can be moral on basis of empathy, but can't on basis of superstition.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox no im saying that God was working within a system of already held ancient and barbaric law and practices. God never set up those rules, but merely placed boundries around them. In time as Gods purposes were fullfilled, that behavior was abolished. "empthay you say"... well my empathy is vastly different then yours, so once again your stuck with a delemma. whos good is the better good? you cant say, thus you cant make any claims to right or wrong in the bible either.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 I'd rather base my morals off of something I can see and prove, and that wasn't written by desert goat herders in an age where people believed the world to be flat. The god of the bible is the most hypocrytical, vindictive, bully ever conceived. And killing his own son so that people can choose to avoid punishments for crimes they didn't commit is not a story of love and forgiveness. We use our own judgement, about what is right and what is wrong. You should try it sometime.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox you say you base your morals off of what you can see and prove... show me? like what? what can you see right now that makes you choose morality... lets pick a hot topic. abortion. what si your morality or belief on that? why do you believe it? and by the way, i base my morality on what i can see to. some would just say that your blind. if you think the world morality is ok, then you better take a closer look downtown my friend.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99
We can continue this indefinately. The morality of the world is flawed because short sided people take advantage of the weak and leave long term problems for short term gain. And this is due in large part because of religion. If you don't believe me I implore to look at the most impoverished countires of the world where people are killing each other. You'll notice a pattern, the places with the most deaths are usually the places of strongest religion.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox well i have. and quite frankly the country in the world with most notable human injustices is china. and guess what they are communist and are very abusive to religion. also the others countries that are notable are africa and mexico, where the deaths are the result of drug warlords not churches and people who are religious. your argument is rediculous. it holds no water which is why most serious people dont use it. funny how you never look at how religion has brought people together.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 What about the middle east? And the countries of Africa have many religious zealots. Religious people have been killing each other there for a very long time. America allows freedom of religion, people should be allowed to come to their own conclusions. Problem is majority of people make their conclusions not based off actual evidence. Religion has torn far more people apart than it ever will bring together. This whole "MY INVISBLE MAN IS BETTER THAN YOUR'S!" thing needs to stop.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox well the honest truth is, hating religion tears people apart to, thus you are being hypocritical. truth often tears people to one side or the other. thats no change. we see this in buisnesses when the truth comes out on a leader, we see it also in the secular world, where atheist views are causing massive hate and attack. your no different then the people you claim to oppose. to single out religion, once again is rediculous. your singling out a group cause of your own hatred
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 I don't hate religious people I hate religion. People need to wake up and realise it is nothing more than an outdated method of controlling people. Until people figure this out they are going to continue to oppose science, medicinal, and social progress. It's socially acceptable brainwashing that takes arrogance and parades it as humility. It makes "faith" or guilibility a virtue. The world can not continue to function this way.
Lathox 1 year ago
@BigG99 As a matter of fact, can you think of one God's own rules that he's managed not to break? Forgive others.....He sends people to Hell for eternity. Thou shalt not covet...He has admited to being jealous. Have faith....Being omniscent he wouldn't have ever needed to believe something without evidence ever. Do not kill....There are too many examples to list. Do not commit adultery, he effectively "raped" the virign mary. How could such a hypocrytical being be worhty of any praise?
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox ha ha this response is the funiest thing you have wrote yet lol... raped the virgin mary? you dont actually believe that do you.. admit your being extreme right? I wish could answer this rediculous list but it wouldnt fit in this comment. hence ill pick one. Jesus died so that all might live and have life, but its not forced upon us, we are not made to act any particular way, but we still choose. who chooses who goes to Hell, we do. but what do you care your an atheist?
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 Why couldn't God just forgive us? Or at least base his admission policy solely off your deeds in life? He apparently is so obsessed with the death penalty that he needs to kill someone innocent to show any mercy at all. Everyone is already guilty for being born a human, with the sins they do in life as just icing on the cake of divine wrath. This is not a story of love or forgiveness by any stretch of the imagination. Why can't people understand this?
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox if our forgivness were based soley off our deeds in life, we would all be screwed! think about it, how many good deeds is the minimum to get to heaven?once you have made it, can we then be bad?it has no logic. instead to admit that we all have done bad things, and that we all need forgivness for them in order to live with a Holy God, who can have nothing to do with darkness makes sense. everyone has been forgiven, we just need to accept this gift. but again, why do you care your atheist
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 I only care because a great many people believe this nonsense. You have to be absolutely perfect to get into heaven and because that is impossible you must be "cleansed of sin" by the hypocrytical entity who began this ridiculous system. Can free will exist in this goat herder's vision of utopia? There is the never ending threat of being sent to hell for a small misdeed hanging over you. As well as removal of your ability to feel pain, or empathise.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox although i would like to argue that everything you just said is absolutley false and rediculous, i would rather re state, that as an atheist you have no moral authority to call it wrong. nor is there anything in the universe that says its wrong. if it is, then you have to accept that morality is a law and that its given to mankind. by whom? otherwise i can disagree with you and as an atheist, you shouldnt even argue because it doesnt matter in your worldview. its in fact natural.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 There is something in the universe that says it's wrong it's called "COMMON SENSE!". I won't pretend to have the word of some cosmic space daddy on my side. The bible was written by humans who were just human. No the mechanics of heaven don't matter to me because they don't exist. I'm merely asking questions of ye faithful to understand how you think it works and to show you that it isn't even decent in concept, let alone a legimate theory of the universe.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox there is no such thing as common sense... and even reason is based on individual understanding of the universe. thus you must accept that you place your faith and trust in a fallable mind or minds. you screw up thinking everyday as do I, but the nonsensical thing about it, is that you actually place your tust in that very faulty program that you call, common sense. its a myth. Even Hitchens admited to that point in his debate with douglas wilson.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 Even if though our minds are falliable. I'd say the two thousand year old collection of desert scribblings written by desert goat herders is more falliable than anyone who has had sixth grade education in modern america. Seeing as you probably qualify, tell me how do you reconcile forgiveness for not being perfect and eternity of punishment?
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox the bible was actually written by kings in some cases, a doctor, a tax collector, a soldier, scholars and governers and yes some goat herders... its quite an amazing book. youd be lucky if you could pick your nose as well as these guys had to function in there day without your modern conveniences. And how do i reconcile forgivness for not being perfect and eternity of punishment? I dont; God already did it.... Hes called Jesus... simple question. its no longer a problem.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 I think you are misunderstanding the point I'm trying to make. A choice between either an eternity of paradise or eternity of torture is a essentially a threat. And for god to require someone innocent to die in order for people to not automatically have the latter makes no sense. The God of the bible is unjust, petty, malicous, vindictive bully. I would hate to live in a world with such a God. And I'm glad I don't.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox i understand your point, but two things to mention... for one you are assuming your understanding of things like justice and fairness are the right ones. you assume that you could do things better. If God just let everyone live the way they wanted and then rewarded them for it, would we be any better as a people for it? Also, its not a threat, if its simply just the way the truth is. If i shoot you, then the obvious outcome is you will probably die. i cant shoot you and make butterflies
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 I could be the most loving caring person on the planet. But if I "choose" to believe in the wrong god, I am bound for Hell. Suppose I live a long life, help people whenever I can, never steal anything, and never hurt anyone, but do not believe in any god. Am I doomed to hell? Suppose on the other hand I rape, pillage, steal and murder, and beseach divine forgiveness before I get sentenced to the electric chair. Am I forgiven? Who in the right mind would make this system?
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox you obviously dont get the system.. people cannot do whatever they want and get away with it even if they believe in God.. in fact Jesus says, if you love me youll do what i ask. if people who claim to be christians live like violent animals, then one must ask do they love Jesus.. no.... on the other hand nobody lives a perfectly good life we all do bad things.. so no one can boast that they deserve heaven because they are sooo good. again its about consistency within the world view.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 I don't love Jesus for the same reason that I don't love Santa Clause. We all "deserve" to go to hell, because we are not perfect. Even if we never break any of the ten commandments for our entire life we are still not perfect because we were born human and therefore our ancestors sinned. This would be akin to having everyone take a test a day late, getting half credit for doing so. And requiring 100% to not fail, and shooting everyone who fails. And this is somehow fair?
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox i think the problem here is that your assuming that your a good person.. according to whom and what? your saying basically that its unfair to put a good person in hell... I agree! thats not what the bible teaches.
BigG99 1 year ago
@BigG99 Assuming? I AM A GOOD PERSON! My friends and family would attest to this, the law of the land says I have a clean record. I've never taken drugs, stolen, or done any crime other than minor traffic violations. I have done community service and gotten good grades in school. I don't care what your imaginary friend says. That counts for something.
Lathox 1 year ago
@Lathox I think you are a good person but are you telling me, that you have never done anything bad, or had a bad thought on done something you regret.. if not just give it time and you will. besides the point isnt that you generally are a good person, the point is, that we all have bad tendencies. some people on this earth would in fact call you bad, simply by the way you talk about God and religion. go figure.