Moral without God? 12/12 Nugent v Murray debate (Michael Nugent summary)

Michael Nugent, chair of Atheist Ireland, debates John Murray, director of the Iona Institute for Religion and Society, on the motion: That one cannot be truly moral without God.

The debate took place on 30 March 2010 in Maynooth University, and was organized by the Maynooth Christian Union and the Maynooth Literary and Debating Society.

Opening speeches
1/12 - John Murray opening speech
2/12 - Michael Nugent opening speech
3/12 - Student speeches for motion
4/12 - Student speeches against motion

Questions and answers
5/12 - Relative morality in the Bible
6/12 - Can we live without God?
7/12 - Interpreting morality in the Bible
8/12 - Human rights and true morality
9/12 - Can we be moral with God?
10/12 - Science, morality and animals

Closing speeches
11/12 - John Murray summary
12/12 - Michael Nugent summary

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• morality
• god
• bible
• christianity
• atheism
• secularism
• Atheist
• Ireland
• Iona
• Institute
• Michael
• Nugent
• John
• Murray
• Maynooth
• christian
• union

[JOHNINCOLUMBUS]

Morality is determined by society, how we get along with each other, no good needed.

[PepsiMewMew]

Moral religious people act morally because they are afraid of hell and want to earn a place in heaven.

Moral atheists act morally because they choose to be good people regardless of rewards or thanklessness.

Enough said really.

[JOHNINCOLUMBUS]

Yeah god is really moral, destroying the whole world with a flood, killing everything, ordering the genocide of entire villages, advocating slavery, and rape, gee with morals like that, why the hell would be need man-made laws! Hmmm

Wake up you fools, there is no god, only the one man created in his own image and to do what he wanted it to do, nothing supernatural about that, just sinister.

[youngidealist]

One small criticism/suggestion I have for Nugent is that I think he would have been a bit more effective to point out the self-contradiction that Murray makes by saying that moral relativism isn't what true morality is while giving a perfect example of moral relativism in his definition of morality. This point was insinuated quite a bit but I didn't hear it directly stated that Murray's idea of morality was the very thing he denied as being moral.

[youngidealist]

<-- from the US. I stumbled upon this debate by researching Atheists in Ireland as I would think that Irish atheists would be among the most ready to radically break from religious indoctrination of their government. Perhaps even more so than the US ever has. I see from this that I was right to look into the interesting activities taken by Irish atheists today.

[croutonfada]

@NYatheist hey. this was part of a college Christianity week so we were at their mercy. Given the expensive literature the christian union there had for the event I was surprised they didn't have roving mics and such. We'll look into a radio mic system for our recordings. I'm someting of a luddite at times but I'm sure we can get it done.

[Sirstingray]

Thanks for posting. I like Michael Nugent as chair, he seems quite sensible. This topic, however, is somewhat repulsive. And, once again, the theistic side chooses a la carte from whatever argument they like.

[CutieBabe25]

This was a wonderful debate!

[skyzthelimi7]

Great to see these debates in my native country, keep it up, and thanks for posting.

As per the comments below, sorry but the sound is poor. All the best.

[NYatheist]

@NYatheist I understand that if AI is not hosting the event, then they have to go with whatever audio system is provided by the host. But I would imagine a host would not object to you bringing your own audio set up, if it is superior to theirs. I hope you agree with me that this is an important issue that should be looked after.