Why do you think

It is. He’s got a warped sense of humor. His name calling insults were actually pretty hilarious. I don’t get a laugh like that often from people who’ve insulted me.

Hey! Are you trying to make fun of my T.I.O.C.A.D.D.? (Tourettes Inducing Obsessive Compulsive Attention Deficit Disorder) I have you know- FISHFART! - that is a very serious conditi- COCKSUCKER! - condition that-… Oh, look! A fucking squirrel!.. FLOOGLEFLAPPER!.. (eye twitcheye twitch)… And the little bastard left part of the nut in- SEAHORSESHIT! - in the acorn shell! FUCK! Where are my tweezers?!? :dizzy_face:… JESUSANAL!..

(Edit beyond my control… GOOSEGOBBLER!..)

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So leaving aside the comedy gold of that capitalisation of sir, and congrats to @UKAtheist, as you appear to have received a knighthood surreptitiously. It appears Bullwinkle can dish it out, but can’t take it, enjoy the 6 months stewing, I look forward to some more “pearls of wisdom” when your sin binning is up. :innocent:

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I think you mean @Sherlock-Holmes

@Sherlock-Holmes was responding to UKAtheist in that quote, and addressed him as Sir (sic) not sir. Now either UKAtheist has been lucky enough to be knighted, or it was yet more hilarity from our recently departed friend.

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Arrogance and a sense of entitlement do mot really exist according to many of you. or are you able to objectively give me evidence that arrogance exists? How about a sense of entitlement how can you give me objective evidence for that?

You are claiming there is no such thing as morality?
Explain what you think of Mao, Stalin, etc.

The point of my question is that objective evidence/science doesn’t answer all questions regarding truth. Then how can we objectively give evidence to or show with science the statement “objective evidence/science leads to all truth”? Because this is not objective evidence or science its a statement about objective evidence/science. So when its true its false. Because that statement is not given to us by objective evidence/science.

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Nope, nor did I mention morality. You didn’t mention it either.

I see no reason to explain nor can I explain the actions of immoral beings like Jahweh’s minions, Stalin, Pol Pot, Manson, Hitler, Goebbels or any other monster. That they all carried out utterly amoral acts is self evident.

If you want to discuss evolutionary morality I am happy to oblige.

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We always seem to circle back to the idea that a sense of morality and/or ethics can only come from a belief in God’s existence.

As a counter-argument, I suggest the following points:

  1. People believe in God because of faith.
  2. Why is it so impossible so simply have faith in the idea that there is “good” and “evil” (however we define these ideas) since one must have faith to believe in God anyway?
  3. Why is it neccesary to automatically associate God with good and evil?
  4. Why not have faith in the idea that one should be a good person simply for its own sake?

In other words, if we believe that we should be good because we must please a God that we have faith in, then why not skip a step and beleve that we should be good simply because we have faith in the idea that we should be good simply for its own sake?

I get very tired of hearing this canard, as I work in the medical field . . . and many co-workers and a few of my superiors seem to believe that I am not worthy of trust because of my Jewish upbringing and my humanistic beliefs.

There seems to be a side of the medical field that is very spiritual, and “turning my back” on religion–as an essential part of patient care–is like a nurse or a doctor who refuses to wash his or her hands.

Everyone seems to find it very hard to believe that I am capable of setting aside my personal beliefs for the sake of patient care, and that I am capable of respecting beliefs that are different (or even opposed) to my own.

It’s similar in the military. Atheists don’t advance, and are punished for their beliefs (or at least they used to be).

I submit that my humanistic beliefs make me better at the spiritual side of patient care, as I’m better able to treat everyone’s beliefs equally . . . but this point is lost on my co-workers.

That’s pure bullshit and propaganda from the religionists, of course. But their “argument” fails to acknowledge that people (and also some animals) are born with a hardcoded ability to feel empathy. And the argument from biologically built-in empathy flies in the face of the idea that religion/belief in a god is necessary for having morals. The reason being that if you feel empathy for your family, friends, neighbours, coworkers, your in-group, or even people in your out-group, this forms the basis of forming moral rules that most people can agree on. And these rules are made to encourage making your family/tribe/ingroup/whatever work better together, thereby increasing the chance of survival as a group. Then you have the obvious utilitarian approach of “I help you now, and you help me when I need it”. No religious bullshit necessary here.

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That is the biggest load of bullshit ever. You really expect to get by with such a deflective and dishonest answer?

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What a bizarre claim? Are you seriously going to say you have never seen a single example of someone having or revealing an exaggerated sense of they’re own importance or abilities?

Well then you can carefully examine the notion some religions contain, for example the obvious inference from the Genesis creation myth, is that the entire universe and everything in it was created for the sole purpose of providing a testing ground for humans, and even stating unequivocally that a deity has gifted humans dominion over all the earth and every living thing. Yet the the overwhelming objective scientific evidence demonstrate that we are merely one species of evolved great apes, that emerged among countless other species a mere 200k years ago, in a solar system that is 3.5 billion years old, and a universe that is over 13 billion years old. This clearly indicates arrogance, and a misplaced sense of entitlement.

Quod erat demonstrandum

This is something of a straw man, what is being asserted is not that morality doesn’t exist, merely that objective morality doesn’t exist, morality exists but is subjective. Do you think everyone would agree that even your loaded examples of Mao and Stalin were immoral or evil? They would not, as these notions are themselves subjective. Are you seriously going to assert that if a deity doesn’t exist you would not still believe the actions of Mao or Stalin to be immoral? Do you think religion is evil? What about the Crusades, the Inquisition, torturing and killing people accused of witchcraft, or the Taliban or ISIS, you see opinions on morality reveal a subjective perception, often based on what we perceive as overtly harmful or pernicious.

The question is odd, since truth is merely a quality of certain claims, parenthetically science is a tool or a group of methods designed to help us explain reality, it would be useless if it’s conclusions were never true, or even if they were often untrue, though negative results can and do increase our understanding and knowledge of course. Your assumption that there are questions science cannot answer would need to be demonstrated of course, but you are simply being dishonest, and trying to imply science can’t answer questions, when the questions themselves simply have no objective answer, like what is immoral for example, or the oft used canards “why are we here?” or “What is the meaning of life?” Such questions can only be answered subjectively, and those last two carry an inherent and unevidenced assumption, that life (human especially) has some overarching purpose or meaning. There is nothing there for science to answer, since the questions offer no objective data to examine.

This is a straw man you have created, no one who understood science would ever make such a risible and sweeping claim. The efficacy of science in helping us explain and understand reality, is objectively evidenced in the results it has produced in just a few hundred years. No one is claiming a method or methods designed by humans is, or even can be infallible. In fact as far as I am aware it is only religions that make the demonstrably false claim to possess infallible or immutable truths. Even irrefutable scientific facts must remain tentative in the light of new evidence, even when the likelihood they will be substantively changed, let alone entirely reversed, is effectively so unlikely it is nil.

Incidentally there is quite a bit of objective scientific evidence that indicates many other animals possess the ability to differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable behaviours, ipso facto they possess morality. Hardly a surprise given this ability would be essential for any animal that had evolved to live in a societal group. So even though human morality is subjective, it’s precursors can be seen throughout evolution.

More problematic for the notion that morality is an absolute is that it the definition suggests this not possible, since it must by definition involve some autonomy and choice. I shall try to explain, if we are able to differentiate between rectitude and moral turpitude, then we obviously wouldn’t need divine diktat or moral absolutes. Paradoxically if we were unable to do this, then we couldn’t know if divine diktat were in fact moral or not, thus we would be just blindly following rules, and that by definition is not morality, we’d be reduced to amoral automatons, and even “good” Nazis managed that much, and that example is not an accident, You see blindly following rules can be demonstrated again and again as leading to moral turpitude. So give me subjective morality and secular reasoning every time, it may be imperfect, but at least we are not bound to pernicious ideas, or the notion they are immutable and cannot be disputed, like the homophobia, racism and misogyny of the bible, that endorses behaviours like slavery, murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, rapine, sex trafficking female prisoners of war etc., to name but a few.

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I don’t disagree that skipping the god step would be an improvement, however,
respectfully, faith is unnecessary to embrace an acceptance of the idea. As can be amply demonstrated, the benefits of collective “good” behavior towards others has indeed facilitated the advancement of individual rights, etc., and did not and does not require faith but rather an awareness of the efficacy and rationality of such behavior. In addition, as @Get_off_my_lawn succinctly stated: “And the argument from biologically built-in empathy flies in the face of the idea that religion/belief in a god is necessary for having morals.”
We are hardwired for “good behavior towards others”. Although it may need to be spelled out for some, a modicum of self-awareness is more than adequate for others.
Rather than expressing it as “faith”, I would suggest “justifiable confidence”, and it is not for it’s own sake, but rather for the sake of our fellow humans and other creatures.

Edit (what’s good for the goose)

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Heard in the schoolyard:

Kid #1: “You’re a poo-poo!”
Kid #2: “Am not! You are!”
Kid #1: “Am not! You are!”
Kid#2: “Am not! You are!”
Ad infinitum.

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My favorite is the plane crash where hundreds are killed, but one survives, and that’s a miracle.

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There are older living things, like Pando, the clonal Aspen that’s over 10,000 years old and King Clone, a creosote bush estimated to be 12,000 years old.

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But it IS a miracle, you ignorant heathen! You are SO horribly blinded by your atheistic beliefs! :roll_eyes: Can’t you see? God killed all those other innocent people and spared that ONE to PROVE to everybody how loving and powerful he is. Duh! PLUS, if the survivor was like some kind of rapist or child molester, then he will know how god spared him and gave him a chance to repent for his sins and get to go to heaven after living the remainder of his life as a born again Christian. See? It makes perfect sense. And if you cannot understand that, then I’m afraid there is no hope for you. May god have mercy on your soul. :pensive:

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lol I find it funny how a god would allow the absolute worst people into paradise just BECAUSE they believe in him and asked for forgiveness even though they committed some really bad atrocities. I was being taught by my parents and the church that god was all for justice and the gooody good when I was growing up. Never fucking mind that. Christianity is pretty fucked up if all a chomo or a serial killer has to do is simply say the magic words to live blissfully in the hereafter for eternity. Heaven my ass! Xtians are full of it :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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And these are testaments to how old these things are, not how old the Earth is.

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Damn! Again, you godless infidels are SO ignorant! It is blindingly obvious that god (in his infinite wisdom) planned ahead and made those things many thousands of years before he made the Earth so that they would be immediately ready to put in place once the Earth was completed. That is why he was able to make our entire universe in only six days. He already had everything pre-made before the beginning of the universe. Therefore, all he had to do was just stick everything where it belonged. You all are going to hell for doubting god.

(Edit for timeliness.)

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Does DNA count :dna:? :smirk:

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