Sharpton / Hitchens Debate - Can Morality Exist Without God?

He didn't answer the 2nd question.

It's funny that when people come across someone who is intelligent, they label them an "Antichrist"

1. The bible is fiction... Christ was not real, so there is no such thing as an antichrist.

2. That's yet another stranglehold that religion has on us.... Religion says, oh no don't believe those who can speak clearly and intelligibly because they are a wolf in sheep's clothing. That's absolute nonsense.

alexander77741

If your statement that we can't make the distinction between good and evil on are own knowledge was true, then how come I'm an atheists who has no belief in god what so ever and i choose to do good deeds on a daily basis?

Well, Sharpton got schooled big time.

@alexander77741

With your god, we are merely trained monkeys. Promised a heaven or threatened with a hell.

Without a god, you live life to the fullest, knowing it's the only one you'll ever get.

Your god is a jealous god, remember?
Petty, vain and capable of temper tantrums. If that isn't a man made idol I don't know what it.

@alexander

That's wrong for several reasons.

1) No supernatural being is required for humans to arrive at universal understanding of behavior or to listen to their own conscience (which is real whether there's a God or not)

2) If there IS a God, that provides no firm basis for morality either. It only names the identity of a celestial policeman. It doesn't tell us why something is good or evil.

/well if God is not the basis for morality, then what is? how do you distinguish between good and evil? without God, morality and logic are subjective, and therefore, meaningless. so who gets to decide?

"how do you distinguish between good and evil?"

That's a question we need to ask even if we believe in God. Belief in God doesn't get us there either. We all have a conscience and are equipped with a moral sense that is integral to our species, a sense that has evolved with our own understanding of humanity, science philosophy etc.. As for who decide? We do. Humans do. The challenge is in how to decide correctly. But all of this is true whether you happen to believe in God or not.

Many philosophers have believed that man is the measure of all things, of those that are that they are and of those that are not that they are not. However, when we set up man as the ultimate standard of knowledge we do not take into account that man is finite and imperfect. Man cannot be the measure of anything that is out of it's limits. Good and evil are out of our limits because they are absolutes that guide our lives and form part of the consequenceses of the actions that we take.

As such any distinctions that we can make between Good and Evil cannot come from us. They are eternal truths that have been imparted to us all by the higher order that has created and still controls all things that are in existence.