Maximizing Moral Virtue

[Mister Agenda]

Well, when was the last time you heard some Christian pluck his eye(s) because he looked at some woman and thought she was handsome? Or when was the last time you heard some Christian amputate his arm to prevent himself from masturbation? Or castrated himself for God? Or sold all his possessions and gave money to the poor?

The answer is almost never because those are all rantings of a vile lunatic and Christians ignore them as such, but they should be honest and admit that most of Jesus's teachings are insane and vile.

"If the salt has lost it's savor how can it become salty again?"

As for Nudger,

Seems to me like you are the kind of person who values fairness.

I don't think salt can lose its savor. I suppose it could be diluted so much it doesn't taste salty any more, but dry it out and it will be salty again.

[Mister Agenda]

Atheists talk about how good they are without religion but in all honesty I don't see all that much fruit. In my opinion (and observation) atheism just leads to materialism, nihilism and eventually, depression. You have no soul, no purpose (beyond the purpose that you create for yourself) and your life ultimately has no meaning as you are just a random cosmic accident. A mere product of natural selection and sexual bias.

I know hundreds of atheists in real life, exactly one of them could fairly be described as a nihilist, and on average they don't seem more depressed than the Christians I know, and they're thick on the ground her in SC. Apparently the purposes we create for ourselves serve us pretty well. I don't have a purpose (a hammer has a purpose), I have purpose. Which sort of materialism do you mean, physicalism or a tendency to overvalue material possessions and physical comfort.

Your argument regarding randome chance could be summarized as 'if you are a random cosmic accident, your life ultimately has no meaning'. You're missing that step in the middle where you connect your premise to your conclusion. Without that, it's just an opinion, with it, it can at least be valid or invalid instead of neither. Not to mention there are strong non-random elements to account for in our existence. We're not entirely accidental.

[Fake Messiah]

Atheists talk about how good they are without religion but in all honesty I don't see all that much fruit.

You just haven't been that honest as you claim.
Just look at prisons, they are filled with religious people and rarely with atheists.

In my opinion (and observation) atheism just leads to materialism, nihilism and eventually, depression.

Yeah, atheism leads to depression because atheists don't listen to Jesus who is saying to people to hate their own life, family, friends, and everyone and everything else.

The truth is that you have been brainwashed into your religion. The mantra of every religion is "you can not be happy without our religion", so just a Scientologists think that you are miserable because you don't practice dianetics, you think that atheists are miserable because they don't follow Jesus's teachings of hating their own life and family.

[Mister Agenda]

Looks like strong atheists and strong theists have similar (lower) rates of depression.

https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/9...40/1522338
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...-the-nones

[h311inac311]

No I'm mostly just appealing to what I see, most of the Atheists I've met in person are just kids who were raised in the wrong church who wanted to rebel against their parent's ultra-strict interpretation of how to apply the Bible. The more outspoken ones were more bitter. If you don't have a value or a purpose, beyond whatever you can imagine, then you will always have a weaker basis for morality and happiness. Anyone can be taken from you, and as anyone who has ever won the lottery can tell you, that age old mantra that, "money can't buy happiness," reigns true.

Inevitably your best choices are to dedicate your life to the service of others, or hedonism where you just try to get as much pleasure as you can out of the world.


A lot of people want to describe themselves as "religious" but it is their actions that determine weather or not they are actually living out the commandments.
There are countless lazy Christians who are almost never challenged to apply the Bible to their lives, and there are plenty of people who don't even attend church or read their Bible, or pray who would describe themselves as "religious" or "Christian".
The book was written for a small sliver of humanity, Jesus only had 12 friends despite all of the adoring crowds that would follow him around. So when you say that more "religious" people are in prison than atheists I wonder how many of them attended church on a weekly basis before they committed their crime. Or how many of them actually took any time out of their week to practice their faith or meet with fellow believers.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, you're here talking to us, not to whatever atheists you refer to above, aren't you?

I was never a christian, have always had purpose, and I'm left wondering what you think would be weak about my morality...lol? Fucks sake, it's the same one you've got floating around in your head. You realize that, right?

[Fake Messiah]

If you don't have a value or a purpose, beyond whatever you can imagine, then you will always have a weaker basis for morality and happiness.

Let's look at the first part:
"If you don't have a value or a purpose, beyond whatever you can imagine" - what does that even mean? Purpose beyond imagination.

Anyone can be taken from you

what?

Anyway, you sound like you have a lot of prejudice towards atheists so you are just trying to come up with some excuse why that is, but you just sound drunk because it's all nonsense.

Christianity has a long tradition of prejudice that anyone who is not a Christian (and even the right denomination) is not moral, which is a dangerous delusion that caused Christians to do a lot of genocide throughout history toward non-Christians because they were seen as immoral monsters.

One manifestation of this mentality is the Inquisition and Mel Brooks portrayed this mentality very accurately in his movie when he is playing grand inquisitor Torquemada and singing:

We have a mission
To convert the Jews

We're gonna teach them Wrong from right!
We're gonna help them See the light!
And make an offer
That the Jews just can't refuse

https://youtu.be/LnF1OtP2Svk

[The Grand Nudger]

It's kindof ironic, in that religious decrees trump our moral sense, to hear the afflicted telling me that I'm the one working with a handicap.

In mere reality, it's the other way around. God says do x..and you think it's shitty? Suck it up buttercup, do you want the golden ticket or not! This is the fundamental basis of every "not my rules, gods rules" excuse for personal immorality ever devised.

[Fake Messiah]

From what I'm trying to understand, h311inac311 is saying that atheists have nothing to live for because they believe that they will die one day and will not live forever in some eternal world.

This is nonsense because it doesn't mean that just because if something won't have value in the future it doesn't have value now. It's like saying "Why should I eat in this restaurant because one day it will close down", or " Why should I buy this food because it will spoil one day," and so on.

[GUBU]

No I'm mostly just appealing to what I see, most of the Atheists I've met in person are just kids who were raised in the wrong church who wanted to rebel against their parent's ultra-strict interpretation of how to apply the Bible. The more outspoken ones were more bitter. If you don't have a value or a purpose, beyond whatever you can imagine, then you will always have a weaker basis for morality and happiness. Anyone can be taken from you, and as anyone who has ever won the lottery can tell you, that age old mantra that, "money can't buy happiness," reigns true.

Inevitably your best choices are to dedicate your life to the service of others, or hedonism where you just try to get as much pleasure as you can out of the world.


A lot of people want to describe themselves as "religious" but it is their actions that determine weather or not they are actually living out the commandments.
There are countless lazy Christians who are almost never challenged to apply the Bible to their lives, and there are plenty of people who don't even attend church or read their Bible, or pray who would describe themselves as "religious" or "Christian".
The book was written for a small sliver of humanity, Jesus only had 12 friends despite all of the adoring crowds that would follow him around. So when you say that more "religious" people are in prison than atheists I wonder how many of them attended church on a weekly basis before they committed their crime. Or how many of them actually took any time out of their week to practice their faith or meet with fellow believers.

Oh I see, only you can Jesus right and every other christian in history is wrong. We've heard this argument before and we know it's bad. Your problem is that atheists tend to be much more cognizant of the bible than you are.