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Can someone please explain why some Christians seem to think that atheists live an anything goes life?
Do they honestly think this? Is the only reason they aren't out raping and killing is that their book tells them it's bad?
Can someone please explain why some Christians seem to think that atheists live an anything goes life?
Do they honestly think this? Is the only reason they aren't out raping and killing is that their book tells them it's bad?
I really don't understand this line of thinking.
As a couple of users have pointed out... the common theistic position is not that Atheists lack morals. But that atheists can act morally and be moral.... but they have no rational objective standard to justify doing so.
Neither do theists, but they have invented one to fulfill that need. They want.... even need.... there to be objective standards of right and wrong.... for some sky daddy to tell them the difference between right and wrong..... so they invent one.
All they are really doing however is inventing their own moral standard.... then inventing a god.... and that god always just happens to have moral standards that perfectly align with their own. It is all packaging. A way to rubber stamp their own opinions with an authority they themselves feel is lacking in themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clintone
Think less, not more. You'll understand it better.
I would recommend the exact opposite. If you want to turn off your critical faculties and go around mindlessly doing things then by all means have at it. I have a brain however and I intend to keep using it.
I would say those Christains who feel like atheists lack morals have another thinking of how the society works. I mean maybe they think of the society as based on more traditional values. And these values are definitely a bit more... conservative and religious. That's my opnion. By the way I appreciate that you wrote "some" Christians - the most don't have that attidtude I think.
In fairness a portion of my moral system is based on fear. I certainly do not want to wind up in prison and that partially governs my decisions. I do not want any traffic fines, that partially governs my driving behavior.
I think most normal morality is based on the fear of how you will be perceived by others if you behave in a selfish, harmful manner.
If all fear was removed, religious, social, cultural, familial, I suspect the result would be a far less moral world.
I don't know that I fear getting a ticket and this keeps me within the speed limit. I think we perform a cost / benefits analysis of any action based on the expected consequences. Penalties for breaking laws are simply layering societal consequences on top of natural consequences. If I am a skillful driver under good road and traffic conditions, it may well be unlikely for me to have an accident if I go 25 miles per hour over the speed limit, and there may even be a benefit, such as compensating for being late leaving for work. But that calculus may well change if I think getting a ticket is likely. It may change even further if I understand that the ticket could result in higher car insurance premiums or if I think I'll be humiliated by the experience.
In general, I find that laws are simply codifications of societal mores, designed to either improve awareness of, or make clearer, the costs of transgressing those mores. But imagine if all laws had death sentences on them -- right on down to traffic and parking violations or failing to cut your grass. Worse, imagine that they all had life sentences in a torture chamber. Now you would have something to live in terror of. And that is a more accurate parallel to the theist hellthreat and the fear we're talking about.
I wasn't sure what you were refering to, probably the fish in the window part.
I was told by a self made multi millionaire, depression era guy, 25 yrs ago...never go to a place with
a fish ...meaning they are advertising they are Christian....I did once before he said that
and once again...they both were cheaters, liars, and dishonest.
I listen to men of experience...they learned the lesson for me.
Sorry good Christians out there reading this, I know it will be
offensive. I'm sure some businesses are great...I will not be
getting burned again, tho, trying them out.
I wasn't sure what you were refering to, probably the fish in the window part.
I was told by a self made multi millionaire, depression era guy, 25 yrs ago...never go to a place with
a fish ...meaning they are advertising they are Christian....I did once before he said that
and once again...they both were cheaters, liars, and dishonest.
I listen to men of experience...they learned the lesson for me.
Sorry good Christians out there reading this, I know it will be
offensive. I'm sure some businesses are great...I will not be
getting burned again, tho, trying them out.
I am in a Bible Belt, btw.
My experience in the Bible Belt was similar. Where I grew up, odds were good that almost every business owner was a Christian. It was the ones who were trying to leverage their faith for a business advantage, using bible verses on business cards, fish of billboards or in the yellow pages, or lots of religious iconography in their business that you had to watch out for. Jesus himself had strong words for people who made a profit from the faith of others, he made a whip, kicked over their tables, and drove them out of the temple...
My experience in the Bible Belt was similar. Where I grew up, odds were good that almost every business owner was a Christian. It was the ones who were trying to leverage their faith for a business advantage, using bible verses on business cards, fish of billboards or in the yellow pages, or lots of religious iconography in their business that you had to watch out for. Jesus himself had strong words for people who made a profit from the faith of others, he made a whip, kicked over their tables, and drove them out of the temple...
-NoCapo
Oh, I get it...it's that they are using a sign that they are Christian for their business.
I don't get how they can then be dishonest...I mean out right.
Still, I don't like to make a generalization...but, burned twice, plus the advice
from a smart guy...doesn't take a brick....
Still, I don't like to make a generalization...but, burned twice, plus the advice from a smart guy...doesn't take a brick....
Yeah this has been my experience too. Not only has it been true for me that everyone advertising they are Christian has been problematic or flaky in some way (and I recognized this when I was a Christian, BTW) ... but it even strikes me intuitively that the need to advertise that you have integrity in any way including "integrity by association" strongly suggests that you are probably lacking in that regard.
I don't take this to mean that all Christians are dishonest, BTW, but that most business people who feel the need to trumpet their honesty are dishonest. This is just a particularly ironic application of that principle. You could just as well advertise that you belong to the Better Business Bureau, and oddly it's been my experience that BBB members also tend to be problematic. Like church members, belonging to the organization doesn't mean you are actually policed by it. All the BBB provides is a grievance handling mechanism which, predictably, tends to minimize the significance of all but the most egregious behavior by its own members.
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