(September 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(September 25, 2015 at 2:45 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: In the sense that people are far less than what they could actually be. So much unfulfilled potential. But you ask a very good question. By what standard can an atheist make value judgments? It took me a while to realize that the moral theory  of the Nichomachean Ethics that I espoused presupposed such a standard that, as an ontological naturalist, I could not supply.

It seems to me that our technology and knowledge about the sciences have advanced far beyond that of our forebears - but our morality has not.

We have better stuff, but we are not better people.

I disagree, overall people are more tolerant of others and intolerance is seen as a bad thing. These days countries come together to fight disease and disasters there are selfless individuals who go where need is greatest. Violence is down in the more advanced and least religious parts of the world and equality of gender is at it's highest since forever. Our society has made huge strides towards better morality, coinciding with it's retreat from religious rule. The less religious the people become, the better and more inclusive the society becomes.

(September 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: It seems to me that our technology and knowledge about the sciences have advanced far beyond that of our forebears - but our morality has not.

We have better stuff, but we are not better people.

I can imagine you being not any better a person than a goat-herding barbarian. The rest of us, however have moved on past that primitive morality, which justifies genocide, rape and all that other evil biblical shit - even the vast majority of your fellow christians, who now happily denounce the stuff, you continue to cynically defend.

Catch up, Carson!

The main reason Randy gets insults slung at him rapid fire is because he has never considered the possibility that he is simply not a very good christian.

(September 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: It seems to me that our technology and knowledge about the sciences have advanced far beyond that of our forebears - but our morality has not.

We have better stuff, but we are not better people.

You got a mouse in your pocket? What's this "we" shit?

I'm certainly better than Lot, who gave his daughters up for gangrape. I'm certainly better than the slaveholders therein. I'm certainly better than David, who had a man killed because David wanted the wife.

Maybe you're no better, but humanity as a whole has done away with many of the immoral practices condoned by your god. We are better. If you don't include yourself in that we, then perhaps you should shut up about how you can only have morality with faith in your god? It's the intellectually congruent thing to do.

(September 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: It seems to me that our technology and knowledge about the sciences have advanced far beyond that of our forebears - but our morality has not.

We have better stuff, but we are not better people.

But by nearly every measure, we are better. There is less crime, violence, rape, torture now then there ever has been in history.

If you haven't try reading Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature." He lays out it out in pretty awesome detail.

MysticKnight Wrote:

Losty Wrote:Arguing for atheism is lame. Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. What is there to argue?

What you said is true, but Atheists usually take it further. They take the stance that people should not believe in God. And I've only seen one person (Tiberius) be humble enough to say perhaps people do know God exists, he doesn't know that, just that he doesn't believe he knows God exists.

That to me is a respectable Atheist. I respect him for that. But to argue you don't know whether or not God exists, and other people should then all not know it, is another stance all together. The only way to justify the stance is either to show God doesn't exist or why if he does exist people can't have knowledge of his existence. Good luck with either.

There is a whole other word for what you're describing: anti-theist, someone who thinks people shouldn't be theists and is vocal about it. It's like if I said Musilms take the stance that Sharia law should be imposed on all the nations. All the Muslims who don't agree with that are going to resent being included in that generalization.

Tiberius's view is a common one among atheists, I subscribe to it myself. Maybe you should assume less about what other people's opinions are.

(September 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: It seems to me that our technology and knowledge about the sciences have advanced far beyond that of our forebears - but our morality has not.

We have better stuff, but we are not better people.

You must then concede that Christian moral doctrine is not a strong foundation on which to build a healthy society.





If that wasn't already clear.

(September 28, 2015 at 11:06 pm)ApeNotKillApe Wrote:

(September 27, 2015 at 12:33 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: It seems to me that our technology and knowledge about the sciences have advanced far beyond that of our forebears - but our morality has not.

We have better stuff, but we are not better people.

You must then concede that Christian moral doctrine is not a strong foundation on which to build a healthy society.


If that wasn't already clear.

Technically, it doesn't prove that at all, one way or the other, because you're both stating the facts in a misleading/skewed way.

Our morality has improved in almost every measurable way, over the course of history. Still needs work in many areas, but we now almost universally recognize the abhorrence of the practice of slavery, for instance. For all that the bad actors who emerge have better and more-efficient means of carrying out their terrors against others, civilization as a whole (except for some troubled spots) is now calmer and less violent than it has ever been. We just have 24/7 satellite news to beam every bad thing that happens straight to our living rooms, creating strong observer bias. Most Christians tend to view our morals as "flawed" and ever-short of an imaginary ideal of perfection, and so they too tend to overlook the measurable improvements in the way humans are learning to treat one another, overall.

Some others argue that Christianity, as the basis of Western Civilization, was the foundation for that improvement; others cite the Renaissance and Enlightenment as secular triumphs over the blind dogmatism of the Dark Ages, even changing the values subtly among the religious.

Like most things in this world, there's some truth to both elements, and both seem to have contributed.

(September 28, 2015 at 11:33 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: Our morality has improved in almost every measurable way, over the course of history.

Six million Jews say otherwise.

(September 28, 2015 at 11:33 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: Our morality has improved in almost every measurable way, over the course of history. Still needs work in many areas, but we now almost universally recognize the abhorrence of the practice of slavery, for instance. For all that the bad actors who emerge have better and more-efficient means of carrying out their terrors against others, civilization as a whole (except for some troubled spots) is now calmer and less violent than it has ever been.

You appear to have missed what I said, the first time.