Ethics

[Dunno]

I've noticed that some people on here are saying that religion is bad. Well, no one likes being fooled, and if you're an atheist, you're kind of sure that religious people are just messing with you.

However you can't say that religion is bad, because the motive of religion is to be the peacekeeper, to do good, it is, in effect, humanity's earliest ethics, an ethics that, in all forms of religion, has a supernatural punishment if you don't follow their ethics.

No form of ethics is bad, ethics is a force for good, if there is bad, then that bad is the cause of people, who do not understand their own ideas.

It's true that not everybody understands ethics. However if you are going to be an atheist, you still have to follow ethics. You must. Because you are an atheist your mind is free to explore every possible source of ethics that there is, and I beg of you to understand, religion is one of them. Since you are an atheist, you are free to explore every religion's ethics. I also recommend the Ender Quartet by Orson Scott Card to learn about ethics. There's probably lots of other people who have written about ethics.

You must remember ethics. Remember that it is good for your survival to have good ethics.

As of yet on this website, I have seen no ethics, just the anger of being tricked, just denial of something, and that isn't anything at all. But if you create a solid set of ethics, you'll be something, and no longer be free. So you must just be open to any form of ethics.

I think that most of my ethics comes from me. I want my ethics to encompass the entire world, and I want everyone on earth to respect and love one another. Sounds like miss america? Unreasonable? Who cares, that's ethics, that's why sometimes you need faith (the common sense definition), and things change, so maybe one day that will happen, if people believe in universal ethics.

As of now, I see lots of pain. Which is why as many people as possible need to believe in ethics, to be the force that tries to stop this pain, and help other people.

I don't believe in god. Never have never will. But say I don't believe in ethics, and you've got a fight on your hands.

[downbeatplumb]

Some religions can be viewed like a club where like minded people hang out share cakes and have a gossip.
Other religions force their views on others, retard human progress and start wars.
Its the latter I am against.

[Dunno]

Other religions force their views on others, retard human progress and start wars.
Its the latter I am against.

It's good to be against that, that's good ethics. But I'm sorry, you are wrong, religion doesn't do that, people do that, if they use religion as their tool, it is not religion's fault, because religion was created to keep good ethics, so they were using it wrongly.

[Raeven]

But I'm sorry, you are wrong, religion doesn't do that, people do that, if they use religion as their tool, it is not religion's fault, because religion was created to keep good ethics, so they were using it wrongly.

I think it is you who are wrong. Since most here believe that religion is a construct of people, then religion as it is practiced by those people IS the problem. For the very few church cultures that ONLY engage in creating a space for like-minded people to hang out, share cakes and have a gossip (I can't think of ANY that confine their activities to just these things, can you?), there are so many more who use their beliefs to create cultural divisions, assert moral superiority -- hell, superiority, period -- advance political agendas, kill and torture others, fight wars and generally impose their "ethics" on the rest of us. What the hell is ethical about THAT?

[Tonus]

I've noticed that some people on here are saying that religion is bad. Well, no one likes being fooled, and if you're an atheist, you're kind of sure that religious people are just messing with you.

I don't think that religious people are "messing with" me. I think that for the most part they genuinely believe and are dedicated to their religion or religious beliefs. If we consider some of the things religious people have done in the name of those beliefs, that is what makes religion bad.

[Raven]

Religion was not created for the purpose of ethics. Why would it be? People can come up with that without any of that attached to it. Religion is all about control. Ancient Israel was a theocracy, the priests had a lot of power and only their own were let in. Even with even less developed societies than that the local Shaman has a great deal of influence. The religious leaders have frequently been the only ones who could give the political leaders a hard time. How about the pope back in the days of the Borgias and Medicis? That good old ladie's man Henry VIII started his own religion to get around that. Control of the people is what it has always been about, nothing more. The best way to get people to behave the way you want historically was to scare the shit out of them with what the gods would do if they did not behave.

Kinda doesn't work so well anymore, but some still fall for it. Religion is just a crock, and no good can ever come of it.

[Doubting Thomas]

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg

[paulpablo]

I don't believe in ethics, bring it on.

[genkaus]

[Faith No More]

My ethics say religion is harmful.

Q.E.D.