On The Subject of Morality

[Little Horn]

Do a large majority of Christians actually believe that atheists are without morals because we have no God? Do you believe that, in the big picture, if there were no god, we would not understand right from wrong? Would we not be able to ascertain on our own that murder and rape are wrong?

Your thoughts please...

[Weesnaw]

Originally Posted by floorpuncher

Do a large majority of Christians actually believe that atheists are without morals because we have no God? Do you believe that, in the big picture, if there were no god, we would not understand right from wrong? Would we not be able to ascertain on our own that murder and rape are wrong?

Your thoughts please...

This is strange, I asked my sister if she thought people would go crazy and society would collapse if all religion were to disappear as I took her to volleyball not 5 minutes ago. She of course said yes, and I died a little inside. I wish that I could go out and find a large amount of civil, society contributing atheists that never believed in any religion so I could prove my sister and the other dip****s wrong, but I'm too lazy

[Atrocious]

You should have morals regardless of what you believe or your lack of believing.
Morals aren't something "spiritual" or "religious" people have, it's just something people have.

[Little Horn]

Originally Posted by Weesnaw

This is strange, I asked my sister if she thought people would go crazy and society would collapse if all religion were to disappear as I took her to volleyball not 5 minutes ago. She of course said yes, and I died a little inside. I wish that I could go out and find a large amount of civil, society contributing atheists that never believed in any religion so I could prove my sister and the other dip****s wrong, but I'm too lazy

There are many. Too many to name off hand actually. But here are a few that have made strides to make the world a better place.

Jacques Monod
Richard J. Roberts
Julius Axelrod
and of course, Albert Einstein

All of these men are/were atheists. All of these men won the Nobel prize. And all but Albert Einstein made great discoveries in the way of medicine and understanding the human body and how certai nthings effect it.

Here is a group of guys that had no belief in God, yet managed help a large population of the world in a big way.

All this aside, I find it rather insulting that people believe that without God we would have no concept of right and wrong. And I feel sorry for them that this book is the only thing keeping them "in line". I'm not going so far as to say that this is all believers but my argument remains valid.

Also, before anybody decides to start a debate as to the religious alignment of Albert Einstein, I must insist that you read some of Einstein's personal letters that were published a few years back. In these letters he states quite clearly that he did not believe in God and insisted that a belief in a god is a "childlike one".

[Bear holding a shark]

No, I don't believe athiests are moral-less animals who roam about raping and pilaging. However, I do wonder what things would be like if there were no influence from religion. Honestly, I don't see how morals would come about. When does a monkey decide to become a man and realize that its wrong to have sex with his sister? ... and other stuff monkeys do. I'm not trying to blast athiesm, it's just a question I have.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

- Albert Einstein

Is the above statement the "childlike" one? Because he seems pretty clear in it he doesn't consider himself athiest.

[Atrocious]

Originally Posted by Saline

No, I don't believe athiests are moral-less animals who roam about raping and pilaging. However, I do wonder what things would be like if there were no influence from religion. Honestly, I don't see how morals would come about. When does a monkey decide to become a man and realize that its wrong to have sex with his sister? ... and other stuff monkeys do. I'm not trying to blast athiesm, it's just a question I have.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
- Albert Einstein

I hope you are being sarcastic, because if you aren't. You are dumb. Morals have actually decayed when more religion was brought into the world, people became power hungry and twisted and changed society.

[Bear holding a shark]

Originally Posted by Atrocious

I hope you are being sarcastic, because if you aren't. You are dumb. Morals have actually decayed when more religion was brought into the world, people became power hungry and twisted and changed society.

Thanks for flushing the possibility of a mature debate down the drain.

No, I was not being sarcastic. Calling me "dumb" is not going to make me agree with you. If you could show me some evidence of your point, I will glady read and consider it. Until we get past the 5 year old comebacks, I'm not going to respectfully read anything you type.

[Atrocious]

Have you never taken History? Ever heard of The Crusades? All it was about was the Roman Catholic Church taking over Europe. The Pope should want nothing to do with war or even considering joining a war, let alone waging one, in this case 9.

[Little Horn]

Originally Posted by Saline

No, I don't believe athiests are moral-less animals who roam about raping and pilaging. However, I do wonder what things would be like if there were no influence from religion. Honestly, I don't see how morals would come about. When does a monkey decide to become a man and realize that its wrong to have sex with his sister? ... and other stuff monkeys do. I'm not trying to blast athiesm, it's just a question I have.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
- Albert Einstein

I was hoping you would jump in here Saline, I enjoy your presence in these discussions...

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this very subject and this is the conclusion that I have come to.

What is a community or a society? In short, it is a group of people that have banded together to reach a common goal or a series of common goals. Would you all agree with this?

I think that more than anything it is our rational that instills morality in us. We are able to realize that murder is counterproductive to the over all goals of our society. We are able to rationalize in our brains that rape is not going to do anything to help us achieve the goals that we set down.

Above all of this, I think that it is our ability to empathize. We have an uncanny ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and understand that this is not something that we would want to endure.

I believe strongly in Evolution and Darwinian Theory so I also think that there is an evolutionary aspect to morality as well.

Try to look at things from my perspective as an Atheist and believer in Evolution for this...

Evolution is simply adaptation over the course of many generations. We understand these changes to be something that will ultimately aid in the continuance of the species. I see this as being a reasonable explanation when speaking of morality.

Evolutionary biologists start from the assumption that morality is a product of evolutionary forces. On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction (inclusive fitness). The strength of the maternal bond is one example. Another is the Westermarck effect, seen as underpinning taboos against incest, which decreases the likelihood of inbreeding depression.

The phenomenon of 'reciprocity' in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, on any given night for vampire bats, some individuals fail to feed on prey while others consume a surplus of blood. Bats that have successfully fed then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return the favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984)

It has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts.[6] They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social 'politics'[7] prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip, and reputation management.

Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion suggested that our morality is a result of our biological evolutionary history and that the Moral Zeitgeist helps describe how morality evolves from biological and cultural origins and evolves with time within a culture.

This is taken directly from Wikipedia. Honestly I'm too lazy right to try and explain it the way I feel it needs to be so I'll just rip some else off right now...

[Little Horn]

Originally Posted by Atrocious

Have you never taken History? Ever heard of The Crusades? All it was about was the Roman Catholic Church taking over Europe. The Pope should want nothing to do with war or even considering joining a war, let alone waging one, in this case 9.

This is something else entirely Atrocious. This has little to do with the topic at hand which is "Is religion necessary to have morality". We can sit here and argue all day about the evils of religion but it's not going to get any of us anywhere and it's completely off topic...

Originally Posted by Saline

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

- Albert Einstein

Is the above statement the "childlike" one? Because he seems pretty clear in it he doesn't consider himself athiest.

Saline, I will agree that at time Einstein seems to subscribe to Agnosticism more than anything else and I have always looked at him in that light but these personal letter that were publish like a year or so ago really seem to cement the idea of his atheism.

in t hese letters he does hint at the idea that he believes in a god but is quick clarify that his "god" is simply the natural order of the universe...

[Bear holding a shark]

Wikipedia, eh? =D

I actually did find that informing, I see where you're coming from.

As for Atrocious, here's a link with a chart on it showing, well... just take a look.
http://www.godandscience.org/apologe...trocities.html
Funny how "atrocities" is in the URL.

Originally Posted by floorpuncher

in t hese letters he does hint at the idea that he believes in a god but is quick clarify that his "god" is simply the natural order of the universe...

Yep, I read multiple parts of his letters concerning this (I'll have to google and read his whole letters later). Basically he veiws God as uninvolved and just an "author" as he mentions in his library metaphor. He could be argued athiest or thiestic, depending on whose doing the arguing. There's no way to get inside his mind and find his true thoughts, however.

[Evander]

Christian morality is based on "do the rigbht thing, or else suffer eternal damnation". I think that some people don't understand how other people can have morality without that particular sword of Damocles hanging over them.

I kno that Jewish morality stem from doing a thing just because it is the right thing to do (there is no heaven or hell in Judaism, and what little afterlife there is, is reallyt just an afterthought, not an integral part), and I imagine that atheistic morality is much the same.

[Evander]

Originally Posted by floorpuncher

in t hese letters he does hint at the idea that he believes in a god but is quick clarify that his "god" is simply the natural order of the universe...

That is not a reflection of atheism so much as a reflection of the fact that he was Jewish. Unlike Christianity, which preaches blind faith in Jesus, Judaism stresses that every individual has the ability to interpret the texts for themselves. Einstein's set of beliefs are not an uncommon one amongst Jews who are scientifically inclined, because it reconciles God directly with science.

[Bear holding a shark]

Originally Posted by Evander

Christian morality is based on "do the rigbht thing, or else suffer eternal damnation". I think that some people don't understand how other people can have morality without that particular sword of Damocles hanging over them.

At it's core, Christianity is based off "Love one another because Christ first loved us and it doesn't matter what you do, Christ will forgive you if you ask". But, as many of us have already been over, religious fanatics skew facts to their own advantages.

[Little Horn]

Originally Posted by Evander

Christian morality is based on "do the rigbht thing, or else suffer eternal damnation". I think that some people don't understand how other people can have morality without that particular sword of Damocles hanging over them.

I kno that Jewish morality stem from doing a thing just because it is the right thing to do (there is no heaven or hell in Judaism, and what little afterlife there is, is reallyt just an afterthought, not an integral part), and I imagine that atheistic morality is much the same.

I agree and disagree at the same time. Here's why

I think that morality is ultimately selfish in nature even if you take religious based morality out of the equation. People will do the right thing but it's always with a hidden agenda whether the person is actively aware of it.

You live in among a small tribe. You don't kill a person because it is wrong. But why is it wrong?

Because that one person maybe the best hunter in your tribe or the doctor or any other number of things that may benefit the tribe and ultimately you. As I said, this may not be a conscious rationalization that you might make but it is there nonetheless.

I think that this same logic can be applied to any situation in regards to morals and a sense of right and wrong...

Originally Posted by Evander

That is not a reflection of atheism so much as a reflection of the fact that he was Jewish. Unlike Christianity, which preaches blind faith in Jesus, Judaism stresses that every individual has the ability to interpret the texts for themselves. Einstein's set of beliefs are not an uncommon one amongst Jews who are scientifically inclined, because it reconciles God directly with science.

I can see what you mean in this instance, but I would suggest reading the entirety of his letters.

[ChrisV1]

Not all Atheists are without morals that's for sure. But I think it is very believable that Christianity could sway those without/very little morals to change their lifestyle.

[Little Horn]

Originally Posted by ChrisV1

Not all Atheists are without morals that's for sure. But I think it is very believable that Christianity could sway those without/very little morals to change their lifestyle.

But does it have to take Christianity to teach someone what the difference between right and wrong is? Is it possible, to teach morals without religion? Would it be fair to say that I could teach a "moralless" (I think I just made that word up) person the difference between right and wrong and what is acceptable and what isn't just as well as any Christian?

I'm not refuting your claim just trying to expand on it a little is all...