Atheists who announce "I'm good without god"

[Abaddon_ire]

Where do you get your morals? From your god. You have none of your own.

Do you think that there is a "my morals" and a "your morals"?   Do "your morals" apply to me?  Is morality something that we just make up or are free to change if it causes issues?  

Clearly, there are. You get your morals by fiat from an imaginary being. I do not. And equally clearly, you invent an imaginary deity who you then imagine delivers moral dictats that are automagically moral regardless of whether they are moral dictats or not.

I also don't understand your implied issue with the statement(question) "you have none of your own".

To clarify, you have morals of your own which you toss out in favour of whatever you sky fairy happens to capriciously say next

It's like asking, where do you get your physics from.

Reality, evidence, replication, the scientific method.

Don't you have your own physics?

Clearly not.

Now I have my own view and understanding of physics and morality.  But it doesn't start and end with me, for either of them.  Hopefully, my understanding of these things matches the reality of the world outside of me. 

I don't care if you are gullible enough to accept the imaginary words of an imaginary being as your basis for morality.

I don't see where each of us having our own morality is a good thing, and if true, then moral outrage, when another morality doesn't line up with your own is unreasonable.

Argument from ignorance. 

Even with the theory that society decides morality, you then don't are not a moral authority of your own, meaning that this statement doesn't make sense.   And then you can not coherantly complain, if society doesn't grant you rights, that you think are moral, nor can you complain that  another society is behaving immortally. 

And you are wrong. Gay marriage is legal in plenty of jurisdictions. That does not stop the god-botherers pronouncing it to be immoral. Same with extra-marital sex. Same with porn. Etc, etc, etc. Your claim is demonstrably false.

BTW how does one act "immortally".

I see this as an inconsistency in worldview.  People say one thing, but haven't really thought through the implications of what that view means.   If you think that the world is this way, then I think that your actions should follow accordingly.   If you cannot do this, then perhaps you should re-examine your worldview.

Except that I do. You claim that my worldview is inconsistent, that I haven't thought through the implications and implied that I cannot follow my own morals accordingly and should therefore re-examine my worldview.

This is a flat out lie. I have not even hinted at my worldview, and you have the arrogance, the hubris to sit there and tell me what I think, how I live, what I ought to do.

Whatever borked deity it is you believe in must be weeping by now. You doing so is in fact immoral.

[Whateverist]

Do you think that there is a "my morals" and a "your morals"?  

Yes and no. People can and do vary regarding which central values dominate the manner in which they believe they should behave. So when faced with a situation in which one choice would best serve the value you place on loyalty but a different choice would better serve the value you place on fairness, yes we can certainly disagree. There are regions of near unanimous agreement but there is also inherent competition between values. It is important to avoid oversimplification when studying morality.

[Mister Agenda]

Not murdering each other all willy-nilly is objectively good for having a cohesive society that maximizes our chance for survival. It's not universally good, we can imagine a species that does as well with pervasive intra-species violence, I suppose. But to get to the objective part, you have to accept that human survival and prosperity are 'good things'. I do, but there's no doubt some differ. The voluntary human extinction people come to mind.

[Alan V]

It's similar to saying, "I can walk without crutches."

Standard apologist response:  "But, but, but .. that's only your opinion!  Besides you rely on your own form of crutches as everyone must.  Also, you hate God."

Fun to have you here by the way, Thor.  (Can I call you that for short?)

Most religious apologists don't seem to understand the difference between reason and rationalizing.  I guess they consider it their job or something. Rationalizations are crutches.

You can call me "Thor," as have others.  "Thoreauvian" is a spelling challenge for some, and clumsy to boot.  I also go by "Jay."

It's nice to be here.

- Jay

---

Not murdering each other all willy-nilly is objectively good for having a cohesive society that maximizes our chance for survival. It's not universally good, we can imagine a species that does as well with pervasive intra-species violence, I suppose. But to get to the objective part, you have to accept that human survival and prosperity are 'good things'. I do, but there's no doubt some differ. The voluntary human extinction people come to mind.

Different species have different survival strategies.  Some insects don't seem to mind killing each other, but they reproduce very rapidly so that doesn't really harm them.

I like to look at morality as objective but relative to human interests.  We do, after all, have very specific conditions within which we survive and thrive.  Our morality can be seen as a part of our social nature, as one successful evolutionary strategy out of many different ones for different species.

[Whateverist]

You can call me "Thor," as have others.  "Thoreauvian" is a spelling challenge for some, and clumsy to boot.  I also go by "Jay."

It's nice to be here.

- Jay

Then Jay it shall be assuming my old memory chip ceases to degrade. By the way, the member formerly known as Brewer and I are known Marks, and I'm fine with that or "whatevs" or some other shortening of my user name.

[GrandizerII]

As I said, that most people have an inane sense of objective morality, makes me believe it’s true. In fact it’s difficult not to behave as if morals are objective.

And yet you apparently behave otherwise. You believe morality stems from God, but that's not objective morality. That's arbitrary "morality" (if you can even call it morality). That's obeying decrees and commandments.

It's clear you have a set of scripted answers to some remarks made by us atheists that you have learned from Sunday school and by watching William Lane Craig debates, but for some reason, you still are unable to address certain arguments made by some of us with regards to divine morality. You are all too happy to criticize objective morality in the absence of your god, but fail to acknowledge the issues with divine morality itself.

[Abaddon_ire]

As I said, that most people have an inane sense of objective morality, makes me believe it’s true.

Did you mean "inane" or "inate"? I can't tell.

In fact it’s difficult not to behave as if morals are objective.

They are without a need for some deity. It is your failing that you are incapable of working that out. Nobody else's.

[Brian37]

Do you think this is a good statement to make? It seems to me like they are trying to prove themselves to religious people. Is it a response to religious people who think atheists are less moral? I would rather not dignify that. If you wanna address that argument then bring it to them but to use that as your motivation is low rent.

1. We should not have to "prove" ourselves to anyone.

2. But no, it is not a good statement to make because our behaviors are always individual and vary from individual to individual. 

Our species behaviors both good and bad, our ability to be cruel or compassionate, have always been in our evolution, and were around before any written language or label we assign ourselves as individuals.


There are atheists I do not think are good such as Ayn Rand so no, judgment still remains an individual thing.

Are we capable of compassion and non violence? Certainly we are capable of it, but a word doesn't make it automatic. It is still up to all human beings as to how we choose to interact with each other. Labels do not have magic powers, not theist or atheist. Actions are how we compare and that should always be an individual judgment.

[Abaddon_ire]

Do you think that there is a "my morals" and a "your morals"?  

Yes and no.  People can and do vary regarding which central values dominate the manner in which they believe they should behave.  So when faced with a situation in which one choice would best serve the value you place on loyalty but a different choice would better serve the value you place on fairness, yes we can certainly disagree.  There are regions of near unanimous agreement but there is also inherent competition between values.  It is important to avoid oversimplification when studying morality.

Agree,but it does start off simple and then one gets to the not so simple. Take, for example, "Thou shalt not kill." Seems simple enough, but then the exceptions start getting lobbed in like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
Home invasion? Shoot the perp. That's moral.
War? Shoot the enemy. That's moral.
Different nation? Genocide them. That's moral.
And so on. 

Theists always end up trying and failing to defend their immoral god.

[Brian37]

Yes and no.  People can and do vary regarding which central values dominate the manner in which they believe they should behave.  So when faced with a situation in which one choice would best serve the value you place on loyalty but a different choice would better serve the value you place on fairness, yes we can certainly disagree.  There are regions of near unanimous agreement but there is also inherent competition between values.  It is important to avoid oversimplification when studying morality.

Agree,but it does start off simple and then one gets to the not so simple. Take, for example, "Thou shalt not kill." Seems simple enough, but then the exceptions start getting lobbed in like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
Home invasion? Shoot the perp. That's moral.
War? Shoot the enemy. That's moral.
Different nation? Genocide them. That's moral.
And so on. 

Theists always end up trying and failing to defend their immoral god.

If any written religion in our species history were required for life to create new generations then judging by their claim we cant survive without their holy book, we should have gone extinct a long time ago.

Guess how many people I have murdered in my life? NONE! And I don't need Islam or Hinduism or Jewish or Buddhism either.

But religion is great at creating tribalism.