The difference between ethical atheism and nihlism is that ethical atheists have more faith

[Ryantology]

Until you can satisfy my skepticism to an even basic degree, our lack of proximity is irrelevant.

[Tranquility]

How do you educate children? How do you teach them the difference from right and wrong when there is no reason to obey it?

Teach them the truth. There is no right and wrong. No duty. That such things are the lessons of fools. That it is prudence, wisdom, education, our hearts, and our well being that decide what it is we ought and ought not do. Teach them that doing otherwise is at our peril.

[jstrodel]

How do you educate children? How do you teach them the difference from right and wrong when there is no reason to obey it?

Teach them the truth. There is no right and wrong. No duty. That such things are the lessons of fools. That it is prudence, wisdom, education, our hearts, and our well being that decide what it is we ought and ought not do. Teach them that doing otherwise is at our peril.

How certain are you of this? What is your evidence? Do you know that if you are wrong you have told the most horrible lie in history?

I had God show me through prophecies revealing every event in my life. I saw many, many experiences of God revealing every moment in which I had told the lie of atheism to others. This lasted for several months and it was confirmed by someone else.

What if actually there is a right way to live. Do you know that you could ruin a child for the rest of their life? Really, what you are saying is far, far worst than molesting children. If you molest a child, it is a horrible thing, and they could get over it. But if you convince a children there is no right way to live, you are setting them up for a lifetime of sin and in the end they will go to hell.

[Esquilax]

How certain are you of this? What is your evidence? Do you know that if you are wrong you have told the most horrible lie in history?

Hi, I'm standing right here.

No, seriously. I had no religious instruction growing up, at least from a moral standpoint, and I turned out okay. My parents simply taught me what was right and wrong based on the effects my actions have and a rational consideration of how I want those actions to come off.

Hell, my dad wasn't even the best example of that morality, and I turned out just fine. I'm happy and healthy, I have a nice job and a great fiancee, I know exactly what I want to do with my life, and I use parts of that to help others. I do all this without a religious motivation instilled in me as a child, and so do plenty of other people too. There's your proof.

What if actually there is a right way to live. Do you know that you could ruin a child for the rest of their life? Really, what you are saying is far, far worst than molesting children. If you molest a child, it is a horrible thing, and they could get over it. But if you convince a children there is no right way to live, you are setting them up for a lifetime of sin and in the end they will go to hell.

As angry as I am at you for all that crap you just spewed about molesting children and the absurd minimization of the pain that causes for your own gain, I'll point out that you still have yet to prove that there's any god, let alone yours. And that you'd be wrong anyway: if you want to talk about sheer numbers, the prisons-at least in the US- are filled with proportionally more christian and religious people, and proportionally less atheists.

... So, if anything, the secret to a moral life seems to sit with atheists, who are willing to take their moral stances based on rational thought.

[Tranquility]

Teach them the truth. There is no right and wrong. No duty. That such things are the lessons of fools. That it is prudence, wisdom, education, our hearts, and our well being that decide what it is we ought and ought not do. Teach them that doing otherwise is at our peril.

How certain are you of this?

Beyond reproach, really. You're welcome to indulge whatever religion you like if that's really what you want to do. However, you'd be better off to at least understand that a person can find direction without it being obliged.

[The Reality Salesman01]

I don't see what theists could have against arbitrary morality. That is after all what all morality is, especially religious morality. The only difference is that secular morality is based on man's experiences and reason, and religious morality is supposedly based on what god says.

Secular morality: Murder is wrong because it deprives the victim of their right to live, and has demonstrable negative effects on the people the victim is close to.

Religious morality: God tells us that murder is wrong, and so therefore it is.

@jstrodel
You seem to be confusing the possibility of an objective or absolute morality as the only way a good person can be honest with themselves about what is truely good or right. That is to say, that in the end, long after the world is gone, why would anything that we do actually matter unless it was grounded in some absolute truth of what is objectively right or wrong.

For example, if I killed somebody, why would it ultimately matter? If all we are is thinking beings arbitrarily going through space and time (or space-time : ) ), how could anything we do really matter if not grounded in some teleological order or law? You seem to be questioning the relevance of moral actions of the present compared to their relevance long after we are gone.

To suggest that a murder is not objectively wrong in the immediate present if it is not teleologically affirmed absolutely doesn't quite make sense. Especially not to the family of the victem. The relevance of the act in question is relative to the time of occurence. This is what makes the idea of Absolute Morality difficult to affirm, not to mention the lack of any universal morality which supports the concept of moral relativity.

Think about space time as an analogy. It is all relative. Morality is relative to the time and place of the event being placed into the moral filter. There is no absolute time, and there is no absolute morality. The history of mankind illustrates this perfectly. The absence of absolute time doesn't allow us to choose a different continuum any more than the absence of absolute moralty gives us the right to kill whomever we please. The ability to reflect on our thoughts grants us that makes us human. The desire to ask my self why before I act on a thought or instinct. We make words like "right" or "wrong" to describe our conclusions. These should not be confused with rules as nothing of the sort is absolute.


Nothing that you said even remotely addresses the very serious questions raised by the post. Where does the victims "right to live" come from? To be an honest atheist means to reflect on the nature of these concepts. Is your knowledge that there is right to live stronger than your belief in absolute, unguided atheistic evolution as the means by which life was created? I do not think you can have both.

Why do people have a right to live more than ameobas? You may say "because people feel pain". But there are a million other considerations. What it is about people that makes them special?

Religious morality and secular morality are totally different. Religious morality says that people are created with a certain nature, and to disagree with that nature is to rebel against God. Things are not only prohibited because God forbids them, they are prohibited because that prohibition is part of the divine order of the universe that is established.

Secular morality simply invents categories, although usually those categories are related to Judeo-Christian values and past precedent, and are worth taking seriously, even if you are nihilist. But practically, there is no reason to accept those categories and believe they have more authority than some other category that you invent.

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Why are you so closed minded?

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I do not need moral absolutes to be a participant in the political process. I can use the politic process to follow my own arbitrary preferences.

That is exactly what I was talking about in the previous post, and that would make you cynical and a bad person.

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Nothing makes us better. Seriously. We're all just collections of atoms facing a completely indifferent universe.e

Labeling your position existentialism instead of nihilism does nothing to counter the nihilistic tendencies it would create in people that hear what you believe. How do you educate children? How do you teach them the difference from right and wrong when there is no reason to obey it?

What is a 'good person'?

A good person is a person that lives in a way that is consistent with how people are created to live.

You get your morals from the culture you're raised in. The morals in the US are going to be very different than the morals in China (for instance, individualism vs "for the greater good").

That is true that you get your morals from the culture you are from, but that does nothing to deal with the problem of cultural relativism. What if you have a choice to either fight in the Chinese military or the American military. How do you know which country to serve? Should you follow Hitler because you were born in Germany.

Nothing that you have written comes close to dealing with the problem of moral skepticism.

[Tranquility]

How do you educate children? How do you teach them the difference from right and wrong when there is no reason to obey it?

Teach them the truth. Teach them that the world isn't supposed to be this way or that way. That we are not supposed to do this or do that. That right and wrong, indeed all of morality, is the lesson of fools. Teach them to use prudence, wisdom, education, their hearts, and their well being to guide them in what they ought and ought not do.

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A good person is a person that lives in a way that is consistent with how people are created to live.

Teach your children the truth instead. That fulfillment is found in being true to the world around you, yourself, and your own heart. Not because you are supposed to, but because that is what these things bring. Teach them how to stand on their own and to think for themselves - how to judge for themselves. Teach them well so they too know how to tell what they ought and ought not do.

[Tranquility]

1. Deny the existence of the reality of any morality at all - a human being is no more valuable than an amoeba
2. Ascribe some sort of arbitrary value to human beings

There is that, but there is also the truth. A healthy world around us is fulfilling to ourselves and those we care about - bringing value to all humanity. Morality is mute.

[The Reality Salesman01]

@jstrodel
You seem to be confusing the possibility of an objective or absolute morality as the only way a good person can be honest with themselves about what is truely good or right. That is to say, that in the end, long after the world is gone, why would anything that we do actually matter unless it was grounded in some absolute truth of what is objectively right or wrong.

For example, if I killed somebody, why would it ultimately matter? If all we are is thinking beings arbitrarily going through space and time (or space-time : ) ), how could anything we do really matter if not grounded in some teleological order or law? You seem to be questioning the relevance of moral actions of the present compared to their relevance long after we are gone.

To suggest that a murder is not objectively wrong in the immediate present if it is not teleologically affirmed absolutely doesn't quite make sense. Especially not to the family of the victem. The relevance of the act in question is relative to the time of occurence. This is what makes the idea of Absolute Morality difficult to affirm, not to mention the lack of any universal morality which supports the concept of moral relativity.

Think about space time as an analogy. It is all relative. Morality is relative to the time and place of the event being placed into the moral filter. There is no absolute time, and there is no absolute morality. The history of mankind illustrates this perfectly. The absence of absolute time doesn't allow us to choose a different continuum any more than the absence of absolute moralty gives us the right to kill whomever we please. The ability to reflect on our thoughts grants us that makes us human. The desire to ask my self why before I act on a thought or instinct. We make words like "right" or "wrong" to describe our conclusions. These should not be confused with rules as nothing of the sort is absolute.

I'm new here, and it appears that I may have posted this in another place incorrectly, and it also seems that my name is being listed as saying something I did not because of how I incorrectly posted. The above was the only thing written by me.

[Mister Agenda]

Hm. If there is a God that defines morality, morality is subjective to God. If God wanted murdering 8 year-olds to be okay, it would be, so God's morality would be arbitrary. If there is a God that discerns morality by an objective standard, God is not required for that standard to exist. So if God is the source of morality, morality is subjective; and if morality is objective, God is not the source of it.