Is There a Point To Living a Moral Life?

[CapnAwesome]

It doesn't really 'matter' whether or not you are moral, but I believe it helps you be a happier person.

[robvalue]

If jesus isn't watching me masturbate, what's the point of life?

Why should I behave kindly to others if there isn't an insane man in the sky randomly keeping score?

Even if there is, why bother anyway if I can just say sorry before I die and wipe it clean?

[Lucanus]

Don't you people know that necrophilia is immoral?

[Foxaèr]

I hope you take this thread seriously!

You clearly did not. Therefore, there is no reason for me to take it seriously.

[Mister Agenda]

...for an Atheist that is?

Why wouldn't there? Are you salivating at the prospect of raping people and only the fear of God stops you? Is that why you have so much trouble figuring out why a person would be moral in the absence of supernatural carrots and sticks?

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I see the mods have been busy!! Well.... I've been busy myself! Converting Atheists, and godless peeps in general is hard work!

Probably frustrating too. I hope one of your success stories will join sometime and share how you convinced him or her.

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Plus... I figured you'd all want to wish me a Happy Anniversary!! Especially those who said I'd be run outta Dodge within a month! Really though... no cudos necessary! I know you all love me!

Happy anniversary, ronedee. It's good to see you in a good mood.

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Back to the subject at hand! Given the natural cynicism and nastiness of Atheists [here] in general... is there any reason to live a "Moral" life?

Gone for so long and insulting us in your first post when you come back. You get back what you give, ronedee. I can only conclude that you, craving the feeling of being persecuted for your Lord's sake and being unable to get the ill treatment you want if you behave decently, like it.

And goodness is its own reward, ronedee.

[The Grand Nudger]

In my experience....people who claim to be busily and successfuly converting people to their faith - are lying.  

[Mister Agenda]

"Moral", in terms of [Good, Honest] deemed by traditions through time. Maybe to include a few slightly general commandments: Lies, stealing, adultery, etc.

I mean... if there is no one or nothing to [say you are wrong, but you] about; a little swing w/ your buddies wife, or that $10 the acne faced kid gave you extra w/ your change at the Walmart; or telling your wife you were out w/ your buddy instead of his wife... How do you keep it in check? Or do you?

You know we do, ronedee. And it really bugs you that most of us behave no worse than the average religious person and some of us behave better.

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Yeah, yeah....I know you would say that Christians are doing the same thing....And they are! But, they do have a conviction in the Lord Jesus. and they know that they will answer to their words and deeds.

So it doesn't make them behave any better, just keeps them afraid? You're quite the salesman.

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What do you have to answer to?

 Those close to us. Society. The law. But primarily ourselves. Our own consciences. Our principles and values. Our self esteem.  I can't hurt other people without hurting myself to some extent as well. If I start down that path, I will lose myself. I will become a person other people would be better off without. It will gain me trivial things while costing me everything that is most important. And while those things are subjective to varying degrees, they are certainly real.  

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Is there a point to living any kind of "honest" life?

I can see why you want to know that, because like so many Christians you don't have a clue as to why you shouldn't be dishonest if you could get away with it. You're stuck at a toddler's stage of development, where the reason you shouldn't bite your sister is because mommy says 'no, no!'. Even a seven year-old can get that she shouldn't bite her sister because it hurts her and makes her cry and that makes the seven year-old feel bad, too. That's still not at the adult level, but it would be an enormous improvement over where you are seemingly at, currently.

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As an observation as a Christian... Your words are pretty mean spirited to any religious.

Hypocrite. 

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And I've witnessed a lot of hate here.

 You have a beam in your eye there, hypocrite. 

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Maybe you feel you have that right?

More right than you, since we're usually minding our own business before you start accusing us of things and misrepresenting us. 

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But also people are individuals, and deserve at least to be heard for their ideas, and concepts relating to just about anything.... religious or otherwise.

Yet I've never seen you let that idea even momentarily give you pause before you start generalizing about atheists.

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Anyway... what do you as an atheists feel is your moral compass. And what is the gauge set at? Honesty in general... where is the line drawn, and how?

For startes, as you should full well know by now, neither mere atheism nor mere theism set anyone's moral compass. The only thing you can say about the moral compass of every atheist or theist is that it's set by some other consideration than the mere fact that they do or don't believe some sort of god or God is real.

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I hope you take this thread seriously!

 Have you considered that an OP where you don't insult us might be conducive to that? 

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Thanks for your answers. As a Christian I have a guide/threat (if you will) in my life. I'm just curious how a person acts w/o what many here would call an "obstacle"?

Your posting behavior indicates that with the aid of Christ, you have the moral development of a baby troll. I think the average person on the fence encountering your body of work would be more likely to become an atheist than if they never heard a word you said. That's the thing I like about you.

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Again! Good to be back celebrating ONE YEAR w/ all my A-team buddies!

I'm glad to have you back. It would have been nice if you had learned to treat people the way you'd want to be treated while you were gone, but apparently that's not something your religion has been able to successfully teach you.

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...for an Atheist that is?

Good question! I know how Dostoevsky would have answered.

... I figured you'd all want to wish me a Happy Anniversary!!

I remember when you joined. I thought it great to have a representative from the Whore of Babylon here (wink, wink).

Given the natural cynicism and nastiness of Atheists [here] in general... is there any reason to live a "Moral" life?

Evolution! Its all evolution! Hip Hip Hurray! Random chance has given us reason, values and brotherly love.

Yeah, yeah....I know you would say that Christians are doing the same thing....And they are!

Those vile hypocrites. How dare they HAVE beliefs to violate. At least if you don't have any values you cannot violate them.

As an observation as a Christian... Your words are pretty mean spirited to any religious. And I've witnessed a lot of hate here.

Atheists don't hate believers. They just think they are stupid bigots. Don't take it personally. (And they all know a gay couple that's so much nicer than any church-goers.)

Honesty in general... where is the line drawn, and how?

I TOLD you! Evolution, man.

I hope you take this thread seriously!

You've been here and still haven't learned that anything a believer says is just a big joke to most of them?

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We're pack animals. We need others to survive, and not just to protect us from other packs.  Morals are different from society to society, but we all have rules of conduct for living in the pack. Is there a point? Yes. To be able to live with the pack.

And they call us "sheeple".

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I do hate people claiming that humans can survive death ...

That's a lot of people and a stupid reason for hating them.

From the assholery, can I take it that you used to be known as Chad?

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I don't want you to fuck my partner, so I won't fuck yours. I don't want you to steal my goods, so I won't steal yours.

But if you wanted to fuck and steal and you knew you could get away with it what's stopping you?

Ah, yet another Christian for whom this remains an eternal mystery.

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Context matters and I think you missed that.

No. You were pretty clear. You hate people that believe in life after death. Ergo, you hate your mother. Logic's a bitch.
Open mouth. Insert foot.

You seem to be a liar, Chad. Or is the idea of hating the sin but loving the sinner too big to get your head around?

And by the way, why don't YOU cheat and kill? Panentheism provides no hell or judgment day. But of course, you're lying about that , too, aren't you?

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People get away with it all the time.

Not if there is a just God. Which is the whole point of the thread in case you missed it.

Actually, you missed the point of the thread, which is about why one should be moral if one can get away with immorality. Which question has you at a loss, apparently.

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But if you wanted to fuck and steal and you knew you could get away with it what's stopping you?

I don't want to.

But if I did... oh wait, but I don't.

I'm not saying I have never done anything that goes against my moral system, but I have felt awful, therefore I keep away from it, face the consequences, or do what I can to fix the broken pieces.

It's called integrity. Yeah, even atheists can have it.

So can Christians, though you couldn't tell it by ronedee and Chad.

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From what I've read so far, it seems like it's a good thing many of the religious are religious, if they weren't they really might start doing harmful things to others simply because they no longer believe in the threat of hell.

Most of them aren't actually as bad at heart as they've been convinced.

[Mister Agenda]

Thanks to everyone for your... eh... Honest replies!

I particularly like yours "Fallen". I think you should be [back] on our side of the street!

And as far as my motives? They are also honorable.... and speaking of honesty, face it Maggy... I was considered a jerk by you, before you ever even laid those big brown eyes on me!

You weren't considered a jerk by me. You're always as good as your last post as far as I'm concerned, but it's hard not to notice how often your last post reveals you to be a jerk.

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Most of you did answer the first question. And interestingly enough, society (or pack) seems to form "reactions" to actions perpetrated! So, if society broken down (total chaos) then for many of you, so would your moral compass. That's probably true for a lot of Christians too! But when we (Christians) are held to a higher source, society is not our standard to live by. 

 Everywhere, Christianity reflects the society in which it is found.

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And generally speaking....we would die for basic moral values, and what is right.

Generally speaking, a tiny few of you would. And so would a tiny few of atheists. Some things are worth dying for, but not many.

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But, I didn't really get the answer to the more important second question; Where is the line drawn?

Sure we can talk about moral matters in life or death situations that we would ALL fight side-by-side for! But what about the little things? The passing little lies, and cheats! The things we all take for granted.

We all have to draw our own lines, ronedee. That is inescapable. Even if you follow someone else's line, you're the one who has to decide that the line you're following is superior to the line you would draw yourself. If you need an authority figure to tell you to practice honesty consistently, that is your own moral deficiency speaking.

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Jesus tells us, "If you are honest in small matters, you will be honest in big matters."

And Jesus more than anything else tells us about the evil of our "sins of omission"...aka "what we fail to do."

Personally, this is a slippery slope for me, and I'm sure for many! Some of these "omissions" are frustratingly in-grained. Only my deep reflections through Jesus' words and guidance am I able to root them out, and remedy them...in some form.

Reflectiveness in general is a good way to sort out one's morality.

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How do you as "singularly moral" people able to avoid the [subtle] occurrences of...well... sin and injustice and lies? Or, is that below the bar of caring?

Thanks again everyone! I really enjoyed reading most of your replies! Ron

Unless Christians can actually be demonstrated to do a better job of towing the moral line, the fact that no one else is perfect at it either is of no relevance to the topic of being moral without God.

You're welcome. I appreciate your second post not being nearly as insulting as the first.

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I would argue with good reason based on what we observe of the human situation on the ground that genuine compassion, altruism selflessness goes beyond your utilitarian view of naturally evolved mutual survival systems. It wouldn't explain why a soldier would jump on a grenade to save his squad mates for example. They're not genetically related to him, if they died and he survived that's no disadvantage to him personally. There was an example of this in the recent shootings in Kenya when someone drew the terrorists attention to himself so saving a group of children. They weren't his children so no good reason to care if they were shot and he himself survived.

You suppose that evolution 'knows' that man's squad mates weren't genetically related to him? You think evoluton 'knows' those children weren't his? We evolved under conditions (organization rarely above the clan level) where saving any human 'on your side' likely meant saving a blood relative, so there was no need to evolve a 'pause and calculate genetic relationship before acting' mechanism between the urge to act and the action. We did not evolve to only consider kinship when risking our lives to save someone, and arguably that has turned out to be a feature rather than a bug, in that it helps us extend the bonds of trust beyond narrow kinship circles.

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It's the survival of the individual and their genes within the species not the species as a whole. Even Richard Dawkin's would disagree with you if that's what you're saying. A starving child in Africa does not negatively impact your own survival or the survival of our species in any way. If you wanted to you could say the weak are being weeded out and the stronger more resourceful populations thrive. I'm not saying that but you may as well if you don't believe God exists.

'Weak' is not the same thing as 'unfortunate'. Africans in themselves are one of the vastest human genetic resources on earth. We'll never know what we've lost letting so many die while we've stood by.
Of course, we have moral reason in addtion to inherited moral sentiment at our disposal, and we are by no means limited to what evolution has given us regarding morality. One axiom, like 'life is good but unneccesary suffering is bad' can take you a long way into a moral code. And it would be the naturalistic fallacy to use evolution as the measure of what is right and wrong.

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Yeah! I do understand.

And (good) is all that is important to God, no matter what we percieve Him to be!

Personally? I feel the same way (as God) does. All that matters to me is that we can have a "good" relationship and "try" to understand each others methods and motives. That is the point of my questions!

I've never condemned any of you for not believing in God. What I have projected is the closed-mindedness, and persecution of those who love God.

I bolded the part where I fixed that for you.

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As God's children, we are to love one another. And I do love each one of you! But I do hate the personal attacks for what our belief's are! Just because we are part of a religion does not make us inherently guilty by association..... especially since most of you know that our relationship with God is based on a "personal" one. We are not saved collectively, but individually. And we are well aware of religion's shortcomings. And most of us want to change that.

But....people organize religion, not God. I might love people, but I have little faith in them to do anything right. Like our govt for example!

Thanks for your thoughtful reply!

If only you could hate the personal attacks you make against us equally.

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What do I have to answer to? The billions of other people on this planet, and the smaller group of those that I care about and want to be happy. The fact that you don't seem to see this as sufficient is the most telling thing of all.

You always read things [into] what I say that aren't there. Why have any conversation at all?

ASSume everything I say is from your dark, evil perspective and just go away.

That's exactly what you do with us. You couldn't even make an opening post without saying something ugly about us. If you can't follow your own advice, you should just go away.

[Mister Agenda]

At the heart of Christianity is community, family, peace and good will to all mankind and charity as you know.

I take it that you don't live in America. Here, the heart of Christianity is whining about being persecuted, particularly if Christians aren't being allowed to discriminate against gay people, that seems to be what many of them consider the height of persecution. I seem to vaguely remember it kind of being about the things you mentioned about 40 years ago, but that stuff has all become peripheral to the circus of near-continuous attempts to secure special privileges and endorsement from our governement...and the whining about being persecuted whenever they don't get their way or have to live by the same rules that apply to everyone else. The Christians in your part of the world sound like wonderful people. We have them here too--it might even be most of them--but the whining and political ploys pretty much drown them out.

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Values of a God rather than a self centered life then. You probably live in a Christian culture though so we will call it Christian values to avoid beating around the bush.

It would be equally true to say that Western Culture is based on pre-Christian English, Greek, and Roman civilization, culture, government, and thought. American Christians have a tendency to remind people of their roots while the debt we all owe those who preceded them.

[Bad Wolf]

Don't know if you noticed how old those quotes are....