atheism and children

[Cephus]

Personal morality exists and it's largely based on a social contract. It's objective morality that doesn't exist.

In any of those you cannot logically make statements like:

Rape is wrong
Hitler and Stalin were wrong
Kindness is a virtue
Cruelty is a vice
Its wrong to drown a baby in a bathtub for entertainment

These statements cannot be made sense out of without objective morality or would you care to say these are a matter of opinion or societal norms?

You cannot objectively say those things, you can quite easily say that your societal morality forbids those things and be perfectly valid.  Just because it makes you personally uncomfortable to acknowledge that's how morality actually works, that doesn't change the facts.

[Alex K]

It would be more useful if you read my entire text instead of bolding selected pieces to show how I allegedly come across, which I don't really understand. My position is more differentiated than your cartoon version of it where A must be better than C lol. I'm not saying you are a bad person either, I'm sure you're great actually. But you are good, in my opinion, not for the reasons you provide, but despite of it - you give yourself too little credit

I haven't just stated things either, I have given arguments which you ignore.

Now, there's a difference between "personal opinion and societal norm" and the empathy and instincts most of us share because we are all humans. The latter is a much stronger bond. That being said, societal norm plays a role, and when I say that A or B are moral or immoral, I can't help but speak as someone who was shaped by society. Nature vs. Nurture, who knows The problem is that you do, too, but you don't admit it! What Christians thought was the right thing to do has changed a lot over the past 2000 years, and changes from place to place. Why? Because we're not so different. Christians change around what their God wants all the time to better fit the sensibilities of the time, to be compatible with social norms - because even if you don't admit it, what your God says in your book fortunately does not play the major role in how you obtain your morals, you just cherry pick some pieces out of it, sometimes with fatal consequences, see condoms, HIV and overpopulation.

[IATIA]

The "god is evil" thing is generally the OT god.  My reference to the OT god is "evil tyrannical misanthrope".  Even if there were a god, it is not that asshole in the bible.  If there were any truth to the bible, it would be the stories of tyrannical overlords presenting themselves as gods and nothing more.

But I thought you thought there was no such thing as evil?

Correct, but I am engaging in discussion with one that believes in a deity and subscribes to a reality of the bible god.  The bible god is evil, but only if it is a god, else it is just a bad man/men. If one creates a god then good vs. evil is a necessary byproduct of that creation.  There are many examples of god's poor moral judgement in the bible and none for Satan, yet christians believe Satan to be evil and god to be good on the word of the bible.  

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Is it true that Satan was logical and God was emotional?

[Alex K]

Is it true that Satan was logical and God was emotional?

Contrary to what Star Trek tells us, actions based purely on logic are structurally impossible because logic needs Axioms.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Is it true that God was more emotional than Satan in The Bible?
Who's actions benefited humans more.Satan's or God's?

[Excited Penguin]

We call things evil because of our evolutionary instincts, not anything else. "God", in this case, while still being nothing more but the most unfortunate fictional character in the history of literature, is evil because he's supposed to be omnipotent yet people die and life isn't perfect. It's that easy.

But that would still be by your own definition, opinion or feeling of what is evil. Evolutionary ethics is nothing but pragmatism. Even Darwin admitted that if the philosophical out workings were to be made of his theory the future is nothing short of unbridled violence.

I wasn't deriving any philosophical underpinnings from how evolution works. I was merely stating a couple of facts - whether you accept them as such or not, though, is irrelevant.

Just a side note:
Darwin being the one who first proposed the theory certainly doesn't make him an infallible authority with all of its implications. I wasn't talking about any such thing though. I was pointing out to you that your ethical instincts have a real, biological, experimental even(from nature's point of view) - if you wish - basis, and there is no reason to believe that any sort of supernatural phenomena is involved in bringing this about.

[Pyrrho]

That means that god is evil.  If he has the power to stop such things, without risk to himself, and chooses not to do so, he is responsible for it.  (Not to mention the fact that if he created the world in the first place, he is totally responsible for everything that naturally occurs as a result of his creation.)  You worship a cruel, heartless bastard.

You must certainly understand the Christian belief that we live in a fallen world as a direct result of the original sin.

Of course.  Blaming us for what our alleged ancestors allegedly did is the epitome of evil and being immoral.  How would you react to us locking you in prison for life if we found out that your great-great-great-great-grandfather murdered someone?  Is that your idea of justice?

Your addition of us being in a "fallen state" only shows more conclusively how immoral your god is.

What's more important to point out is that you call God evil. On what basis?  Your own?  You cannot call anything evil without invoking a personal moral authority of which you say does not exist.

So, you want to change the conversation to be about the basis of morality?  Whenever someone condemns a rapist murderer as being evil, do you say to them, "Now wait a minute, on what basis do you judge them to be immoral?  If there is no objective morality, you cannot say that!"

I am fine with a conversation about the basis of morality.  But it is a different conversation from this one.  If you want, you can start a thread on it, telling us all about the basis for morality.


That it is a different conversation is shown by the fact that utilitarians, Kantians, etc., pretty much all tell us that rape and murder are wrong.  Once two people agree on those principles, then the argument can proceed using them, regardless of whether they agree on the basis of what it is that makes those things wrong.

Very few ethical theories tell us that rape and murder are okay.  If you think they are, then we do have a need for discussing the basis of morality for the present discussion to proceed.  But otherwise, it is just a needless distraction, possibly motivated by a desire on your part to change the subject instead of dealing with the issue at hand.

[Excited Penguin]

It is immoral to have kids, in a certain sense, but this is only by extrapolation from evaluating available global resources. I love kids, I have nothing against them, if it were possible to have them as much as we wanted to, I would certainly be the first in line to become a father, but sadly though, our feelings on the matter don't dictate how things actually are - they never do.

[Javaman]

I later, in multiple other posts, added to this by saying that by "reproduction" we mean the actual conception... the actual joining of egg and sperm, which is the fixed point when a new human life begins.

Since we think human life is sacred, and thus the creation of human life is sacred, we believe it should remain guarded and protected in the confines of sexual intercourse. Remember, we also think sex is sacred. As is marriage, and as is the love between husband and wife. We think something as sacred as human life should come from a place that is equally as sacred - the lovemaking between husband and wife, where a human being can come into this world through love, literally.

We don't think masturbating into a jar and then having a stranger join sperm and egg together on a petri dish in a medical office, is the proper context for such a sacred thing as the beginning of new human life to take place.

Of course, none of this can even begin to make sense to you if you don't think human life is sacred, if you don't think sex is sacred, and if you don't think the love between husband and wife and marriage is sacred lol. But we do. So you have to see it through our lenses if you're genuinely trying to understand where we are coming from.

....And everyone else should be sick of reading this because I've already typed it out so many times lol. But I keep getting accused of not, and I keep getting asked the same questions, so that's why here it is, once again. My apologies lol.

Can you clarify just what you mean by the word sacred? Particularly with regards to the italicized part of your statement?

I can think of two possible meanings here. One, as a sort of general euphemism for thinking that human life is possibly the most precious thing we can imagine (colloquial usage). Or two, a word that has a specific and exclusive meaning to those who already believe Catholic doctrine is true.

You use the word sacred a lot, so I want to be sure I'm understanding you correctly here.