Ok.....So you killed off Religion...

[wwjs]

Another atheist that believes in the Bible!! Can I get a Hooooraaaay!!

Nice try. Will you answer it?

[ronedee]

Just look around you. Society is functioning just fine through the joint effort of being rational.

Look who's "delusional"! You're the one under a rock?

But...most likely in a shrinking suburb where your biggest problem is watering your brown lawn.

Let me enlighten you: Society is NOT functioning fine! As a matter of fact its falling apart because of the joint efforts to "demoralize" its people.

And what have all the "laws" gotten us? More lawyers. Laws aren't morals. They are rules to be broken and to get around. And who is teaching these 100,000's of laws to our kids? YOU? Their parents? Or is it TV's, video games and movie stars?

And talking about lack of "COMMON SENSE"!? Your idea of a moral society functioning with no bases for it's appearance is actually laughable and ignorant! Actually it's more than a lack of common sense on your part! Its a detachment from freaking reality!

Next time you're in the inner-city take a walk around and spread the love to your fellow godless moral brothers! There are plenty of atheist's here! And hopefully you'll make it back to your chaise in the 'burbs!

[Ryantology]

Society was so much more moral when the Church ran things. Why, all we need to do to fix all our problems is to kill everybody who isn't Catholic enough. Then we could return to the earthly paradise that was 12th century Europe and we can all live happily under the Papal thumb until we die of easily curable diseases at the age of 28.

[Gilgamesh]

To answer the OP: Morals come from ourselves. Not religion. Not laws. Every person has their own ideals, and their morality just aims to make those ideals a reality.

[cratehorus]

...hypothetically of course!

Maybe 50 or 60 years from now when science finally proves that all of you are right and there is no God..... and religion dies out for you!

Where as a society will the moral compass come from?

my balls.........

[FallentoReason]

Just look around you. Society is functioning just fine through the joint effort of being rational.

Look who's "delusional"! You're the one under a rock?

But...most likely in a shrinking suburb where your biggest problem is watering your brown lawn.

Let me enlighten you: Society is NOT functioning fine! As a matter of fact its falling apart because of the joint efforts to "demoralize" its people.

And what have all the "laws" gotten us? More lawyers. Laws aren't morals. They are rules to be broken and to get around. And who is teaching these 100,000's of laws to our kids? YOU? Their parents? Or is it TV's, video games and movie stars?

And talking about lack of "COMMON SENSE"!? Your idea of a moral society functioning with no bases for it's appearance is actually laughable and ignorant! Actually it's more than a lack of common sense on your part! Its a detachment from freaking reality!

Next time you're in the inner-city take a walk around and spread the love to your fellow godless moral brothers! There are plenty of atheist's here! And hopefully you'll make it back to your chaise in the 'burbs!

The funny thing is that you can take as many stabs at secular morality as you want, but in reality you're no better:

(1) Humanity hasn't discovered the set of objective morals since the dawn of civilization.
(2) Theists can't agree upon a set of objective morals even until this day.

The fact is that if you don't know what these objective morals are, then you can't possibly be living by them, meaning that your everyday moral actions are coming from a subjective interpretation of morality by definition. This is evident by the mere fact that theists argue all the time about what's in and what's not.

You'll just have to deal with it. We are the ones who have to think for ourselves to determine what the best way to live is. Not some metaphoric projection of human thought that is the god of the Biblical narrative. We have always been the gods on this world and always will be.

[max-greece]

Thanks for your reply! I always learn something from you!

I guess my question should be: Where do morals come from?

I mean what really stopped us 5,000 years ago from smashing someones head in for a berry? Did we wake up one day and say, "I love my fellow barbarian"?

Now on an individual level, your argument may be correct (more in a minute)....

But, there musta been a "wide spread" conversion of those animal instincts long ago. I don't believe there was a higher learning institute in those days.
And to say that it just happened naturally, that people most everywhere on the globe wanted a deity in their life is ...well... a stretch! Superstition is enough for believing in a God....but for the masses to start believing in morality?

And sure.... why wouldn't an educated, intelligent, thinking secular society be moral? These types of individuals are drawn to atheism and their own godless, peaceful lifestyle. But, the masses aren't so "smart". The masses are looking to be directed. The masses are in need.

You are probably getting my point about now.

And you are definitely correct that religion as "a weapon" needs to be removed from the hands that will do harm. But this is where religion gets the bad rap! and even though the "good" far out-weighs the "bad"....the religious community far out-weigh anyone!

So atheism attracts a "certain", small, defined group of individuals. Religion attracts EVERYONE! And there my friend is my dilemma as a religious person.

No matter how good I, or the 10's of millions of Christians could be...the "bad ones" are still more than the biggest secular society there will ever be!

---

Apologies for butting into this exchange but I would just like to add a few comments:

"I mean what really stopped us 5,000 years ago from smashing someones head in for a berry? Did we wake up one day and say, "I love my fellow barbarian"?"

5,000 years ago we were already farming. Better to look further back, say 20,000 years ago to the hunter gatherer societies.

What is interesting is there is no evidence that this sort of thing happened to any degree. As a social mammal with a large brain it quickly became apparent that working and living together was a better strategy for survival than an "every man for himself" approach.

We do not see evidence of such errant behaviour in any of our nearest relatives - chimps, gorillas, bonobos etc. Even in more distant species that operate in groups we see cooperation and the establishment of hierarchy which avoids internal fights to the death as much as possible.

Once you get to that point the rest of your argument is negated. There wasn't any kind of spontaneous development of morality. It was a gradual process over time. The move to farming (10,000 years ago) would have introduced a whole plethora of new moral judgements with the idea of personal or group ownership so that a group that works the land reaps the benefits. If this had not come about then farming would have died out. What would be the point of working for a year to grow crops only to have them stolen by a warrior group?

That people continued to farm shows us that in the main this did not happen.

What religion probably did do was formalize morality at some point and introduce the idea of punishment for bad behaviour.

Sadly, however, this came at a cost. With religion being the first attempt to interpret the world it assumed angry deities caused any and every catastrophe to happen. Angry gods took lives. Religion sought to appease these gods by pre-empting their need to take life and human sacrifice was borne.

This was replaced over time in some parts of the world by animal sacrifice (largely during the period of the OT) but was then recalled in the NT with the idea of Jesus Christ having to die for our sins. Sociologically this is a huge step backwards from the ancient Jewish idea of scape-goating where sins were placed on an animal that was sacrificed.

Neither concept is palatable in today's western societies.

[DeistPaladin]

[Faith No More]

I dunno? What's your take on that?

There would probably be some collective anxiety for a while, but I think human resilience would eventually persevere. Of course, there would be some that panic at the thought of not having a god, and even some that go on mass crime sprees, perhaps even violently.

I think ultimately, however, humanity would discover that all of the things they had attributed to their deities were simply inside of themselves all along. You have to remember that if a god were proven non-existent, that would mean that it would have never existed and humanity had been propping itself up the whole time.

I think of the god concept as being analogous to my two year old's pacifier, not in a derogatory manner, but in the sense that he thinks he needs it and can't imagine life without it, however, once he goes long enough without having it, he will realize that he is fine, despite its absence.

---

nicely dodged. You really are a pro at avoiding legitimate responses.

In GC's defense, I think that most of the time he is accused of dodging, he simply didn't understand the point being made.

[Whateverist]

UNSUPPORTED CLAIM:Let me enlighten you: Society is NOT functioning fine! As a matter of fact its falling apart because of [UNDEFENDED ATTRIBUTION OF CAUSE:]the joint efforts to "demoralize" its people.

And what have all the "laws" gotten us? More lawyers. Laws aren't morals. They are rules to be broken and to get around. And who is teaching these 100,000's of laws to our kids? YOU? Their parents? Or is it TV's, video games and movie stars?

(My bolded and capped insertions to label what I think you are guilty of here.) In all of this you assume that morals are more than how we have been conditioned to feel about interactions which impend on others or our perception of the common good. Getting angry about how obvious that seems to you does not serve you well. It does not convince.

And talking about lack of "COMMON SENSE"!? Your idea of a moral society functioning with no bases for it's appearance is actually laughable and ignorant! Actually it's more than a lack of common sense on your part! Its a detachment from freaking reality!

Next time you're in the inner-city take a walk around and spread the love to your fellow godless moral brothers! There are plenty of atheist's here! And hopefully you'll make it back to your chaise in the 'burbs!

You make numerous assumptions about how others come to hold the beliefs they do but seem singularly unreflective as to the origins of your own. This is a recipe for becoming an irrelevant old blowhard. Trust me, you don't want to be that guy.