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Atheist Forums › Community › Religion › Christianity v
What IS good, and how do we determine it?

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What IS good, and how do we determine it?
Dragonetti Offline
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#2501
RE: What IS good, and how do we determine it?
July 12, 2015 at 6:30 am
Your heart is to pump blood. I am not sure if writing on the heart would be healthy. So, a pace maker is against God's will? Or did God's slip when writing on patients with abnormal heart conditions?
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robvalue Offline
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#2502
RE: What IS good, and how do we determine it?
July 12, 2015 at 7:00 am
Those are all questions. God doesn't like questions. They make him confused and tired.
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Pyrrho Offline
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#2503
RE: What IS good, and how do we determine it?
July 12, 2015 at 1:14 pm
(July 12, 2015 at 4:58 am)robvalue Wrote: This always happens.

Someone says "Stuff is written on our hearts."

We say, "That makes no sense for the following reasons:”

They pretend we haven't said anything.

Next day, "Stuff is written on our hearts."

That is the only way to maintain an inconsistent and incoherent position.  One can see this in the bullshit about "free will" that is supposed to explain evil in the world (which it doesn't), and then they forget that when talking about heaven.

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TheRealJoeFish Offline
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#2504
RE: What IS good, and how do we determine it?
July 12, 2015 at 3:40 pm
(July 12, 2015 at 7:00 am)robvalue Wrote: Those are all questions. God doesn't like questions. They make him confused and tired.

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Lemonvariable72 Offline
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#2505
RE: What IS good, and how do we determine it?
July 15, 2015 at 8:44 am
(June 15, 2015 at 8:25 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:
(June 15, 2015 at 7:41 pm)Nope Wrote: This is the sort of question that used to bother me a lot when I was a Christian. 

 There are logical reasons why murder is considered immoral.  Instability would not be good for a social species  and killing each other would definitely hurt our ability to live with one another. It makes sense that our society has  evolved to the point that  we disapprove of murdering innocent people. 


Our view on murder has changed from biblical times. For example, we no longer put people to death for cursing their parents, having an affair or being raped while in the city. Those would be considered innocent people today. They weren't considered innocent in the Old Testament world. Our views change on these issues. 

There are no easy answers. Once I became an atheist I had to rethink about what I considered moral. I couldn't just accept what the bible said was good anymore. I had to ask myself why certain actions were bad or good. In the long run, I feel that this has made me a better person but when I first lost faith this questioning really frightened me.

Thanks for the answer!

I'd actually argue that it was always immoral to kill people for the reasons you stated above. I don't think morals change. I guess in the OT times people thought it was ok, so it was considered ok by society, but I believe objectively it was always immoral.

I do think it is important to ask ourselves why we believe what we believe about morality and not just blindly follow a certain path just because our religion tells us to. It is important to understand *why* it does.
(June 15, 2015 at 7:41 pm)Lemonvariable72 Wrote: It's quite simple really, you use empathy combined with reason to determine options cause and promote suffering and which options cause and promote pleasure.

Thank you for the response!

I believe there are 2 flaws with this thinking.

1. Empathy can be subjective, while the morality of certain things are not. For example, a vegetarian can feel empathy for farm animals and claim that it is immoral to eat meat. Meanwhile, a meat eater can say they do not feel empathy for such animals and so eating meat is not immoral.

2. Why is it immoral to promote suffering? Where does this law come from?

1. That's where reason comes in. And in this example I would say yes that continuing the farming of animals is moral because of the implications of forcing everyone on to a vegetarian diet. The thing that makes this approach far superior to yours is that it has room for discussion and debate thus giving it flexibility. For example, I am often told your bible says abortion is evil, in all circumstances. So does that mean a raped woman must carry the baby to term?
2. Why does it have to be rooted in law of some kind. Why must our morality be rooted in authoritarian thinking? Morality can not be authoritarian because it is not universal. And to say that God morality is just a law god makes no sense as you basically be admitting that if God did a 180 tm you would be okay with whatever that implies.
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IATIA Offline
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#2506
RE: What IS good, and how do we determine it?
July 17, 2015 at 7:29 pm (This post was last modified: July 17, 2015 at 7:51 pm by IATIA.)
(June 15, 2015 at 8:25 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I'd actually argue that it was always immoral to kill people for the reasons you stated above. I don't think morals change. I guess in the OT times people thought it was ok, so it was considered ok by society, but I believe objectively it was always immoral.

The god of the bible not only condoned mass murder, but commanded it.
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The Grand Nudger Offline
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#2507
RE: What IS good, and how do we determine it?
July 17, 2015 at 7:31 pm (This post was last modified: July 17, 2015 at 7:32 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
-and then punished his "chosen people" for having failed to carry it out as -thoroughly- as was commanded......Confused
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Atheist Forums › Community › Religion › Christianity v
What IS good, and how do we determine it?

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