[split] Are Questions About God Important?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, it could be..but man, I'm telling you, you've got to reach a little harder here. I'm not going to be alone in thinking, for example, that you don't actually have all that much trouble coming up with normative or moral statements that don't depend on a god. This is generous of your audience - because, as you see with the other gentlemen, you tend to keep professing that you really are the amoral sociopaths we don't think you are.

Alot..and I mean alooot...of these convos, never get passed that point. Where our new believing friend says "we're all sociopaths" and we say "I'm sure we're not, that you're not" and then for days it's just reassertion after reassertion and endless feigned ignorance until, finally, everyone gives up and says. "Okay Christian, i guess you're a sociopath..jesus fucking christ...." In fairness, many of you have grown up assuming these sorts of things so casually that you don't know how hard-core nut asshole it sounds when you show up here and share what would go without question, correction, or pushback in your own circles, even if literally none of you believe it as-such. Virtue signaling. Pious prattle.

Let's try a thought experiment. If you went to your church or temple or fellowship or whatever, and told the folks there that...if god weren't real... there'd be no reason you could think of not to eat their kids....what do you think would happen?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Hi Boru,

How’s it going today?

Imagine that you could be convinced, in your heart of hearts, that God didn’t exist. Would you offer food to a starving child? Would you hold a door open for an elderly person? Would you cry at the funeral of a beloved friend?

Virtue is its own reward.

Yes. Yes it is. But that’s only because our culture grew out of Christianity. Yes, Romans and Greeks had virtue, but a lot of the virtues we have they did not.

For example, they might cry at the funeral of a beloved friend. Not sure they would offer food to a starving child. They might even abandon their own child to a van down by the river, :-) if they didn’t want it anymore.

Have you seen anything by Tom Holland? (No, not Peter Parker or Danny Sullivan) The historian. I can’t link to anything yet, but if you search on “Tom Holland Christianity Roman”, then you’ll find some of his publications.

The reason the questions you asked touch us is due to Christianity. Regardless of whether we agree that God exists or not, let’s be true to the social dynamics of history.

p.s. Not saying you wouldn’t be. Just stating the point for the casual reader.

But if our values come from Christian history (they don’t, but I’ll play along), then it absolutely doesn’t matter if God exists, from a moral/ethical standpoint.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

"Charitable giving has been part of human culture for thousands of years. Dating back to 2500 BCE, ancient civilizations launched a tax to help the poor. The word philanthropy, meaning 'love of mankind,' dates back to ancient Greece, where it was considered to be a fundamental component of democracy."

It may go back a good deal further. There’s a story (probably apocryphal, but worthwhile all the same) that anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked when civilization began. Much to the questioner’s surprise, Mead referenced a 15 000-year old femur that was healed. She surmised that someone had cared for the injured person, finishing up with something like, ‘Civilization begins when we start to worry about what happens to other people.’

Even if the story isn’t true, it simply beggars belief that we are asked to accept the notion that attitudes like charity, caring, and loving kindness didn’t exist until Paul started hoodwinking the gullible.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

We see it in other species, and in our most closely related species. 50k years at least, full modernity, but very possibly older than we are. If animals can figure it out on their own, I think we can too. God never sent them a book.

[Ahriman]

Why is good virtue even necessary? It wouldn't be, in a worthwhile society.

[Bucky Ball]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41835-5
Rats have empathy. 
It evolved to promote the survival of the group. It has nothing to do with the Jesusisms. 
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0572-8

[The Grand Nudger]

Why is good virtue even necessary? It wouldn't be, in a worthwhile society.

A worthwhile society would, ostensibly, have good virtues..unless by worthwhile you mean nothing of any kind of virtues, at which point there's no question to ask.

A worthwhile society [wherein worthwhile is defined in any way so long as it doesn't as having anything to do with good virtues] would not need good virtues, to be called worthwhile. It would only need whatever other thing you mean by the use of the term worthwhile. Probably hookers and blow.

[Ahriman]

Why is good virtue even necessary? It wouldn't be, in a worthwhile society.

A worthwhile society would, ostensibly, have good virtues..unless by worthwhile you mean nothing of any kind of virtues, at which point there's no question to ask.

A worthwhile society [wherein worthwhile is defined in any way so long as it doesn't as having anything to do with good virtues] would not need good virtues, to be called worthwhile.  It would only need whatever other thing you mean by the use of the term worthwhile.  Probably hookers and blow.

Now we're talking. Forget feeding the homeless, or sheltering them, whatever. We could use that money for more drugs.

[Bucky Ball]

A worthwhile society would, ostensibly, have good virtues..unless by worthwhile you mean nothing of any kind of virtues, at which point there's no question to ask.

A worthwhile society [wherein worthwhile is defined in any way so long as it doesn't as having anything to do with good virtues] would not need good virtues, to be called worthwhile.  It would only need whatever other thing you mean by the use of the term worthwhile.  Probably hookers and blow.

Now we're talking. Forget feeding the homeless, or sheltering them, whatever. We could use that money for more drugs.

When was the last time YOU "fed the homeless" ?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, there we have it. Drugs..but, ofc, a person might suggest that's just you talking about the virtue(s) you think amounts to worthwhile, you see?

You're not actually using the word a different way, where a society being worthwhile is or even could be without virtue, you're negotiating over the contents of virtue. I personally think that a worthwhile society feeds the hungry, houses the homeless, and has access to all sorts of drugs. Ours isn't doing any of that at present.