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Old 11-01-2013, 08:12 PM
 
50 posts, read 66,479 times
Reputation: 29

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Hi all atheists, what answer would you give to the following questions?

1- Why is there something rather than nothing (nothing being the non-existence of anything at all)?

2-If there is no God, is there good and evil, also called moral values? (No, there isn't) How could you come to the conclusion that helping is good and killing is bad?

3- If you believe that God is just a human idea and doesn't exist, than you have to consider that the moral values are also just human ideas and are not true in reality. If that is so, being you someone who was taught about the moral values since your childhood, how could you believe in your perspective of reality, once your own mind was built based in something that isn't actually true (moral values) by your own perspective?

Thanks!
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Old 11-01-2013, 08:37 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,571 posts, read 84,777,093 times
Reputation: 115099
Quote:
Originally Posted by iohanan View Post
Hi all atheists, what answer would you give to the following questions?

1- Why is there something rather than nothing (nothing being the non-existence of anything at all)?

2-If there is no God, is there good and evil, also called moral values? (No, there isn't) How could you come to the conclusion that helping is good and killing is bad?

3- If you believe that God is just a human idea and doesn't exist, than you have to consider that the moral values are also just human ideas and are not true in reality. If that is so, being you someone who was taught about the moral values since your childhood, how could you believe in your perspective of reality, once your own mind was built based in something that isn't actually true (moral values) by your own perspective.

Thanks!
I'm not an atheist, and your questions don't make any sense to me.

Why can't moral values be true to a person who doesn't believe in God? Why do you think that a person couldn't come to those same conclusions without believing in God? There's no logic to what you're saying. Belief in God is not the only reason people do good things or choose to help others.
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Old 11-01-2013, 09:24 PM
 
Location: Baltimore, MD
11,369 posts, read 9,282,640 times
Reputation: 52602
Quote:
There's no logic to what you're saying.
Correct, Mightyqueen801.

I'll address this:
Quote:
being you someone who was taught about the moral values since your childhood
I grew up in a strict religious household with domestic violence. My childhood was horrible. I was robbed and cheated out of it.
I turned away from those "values." Atheism made sense to me but it took me until age 19 to realize it.

I know the difference between right and wrong.
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Old 11-01-2013, 09:40 PM
 
Location: Rivendell
1,385 posts, read 2,454,556 times
Reputation: 1650
Quote:
Hi all atheists, what answer would you give to the following questions?
Okay, but if you use the search feature you will find these questions have been done to death.

Quote:
1- Why is there something rather than nothing (nothing being the non-existence of anything at all)?
Why not? I really don't know and I don't think the answer is knowable.

Quote:
2-If there is no God, is there good and evil, also called moral values? (No, there isn't) How could you come to the conclusion that helping is good and killing is bad?
I don't believe in "evil". Of course "good" exists. So does "bad". Have you ever heard of the Golden Rule?

Quote:
3- If you believe that God is just a human idea and doesn't exist, than you have to consider that the moral values are also just human ideas and are not true in reality. If that is so, being you someone who was taught about the moral values since your childhood, how could you believe in your perspective of reality, once your own mind was built based in something that isn't actually true (moral values) by your own perspective?
Yes, moral values are just human ideas. Define what "true" means to you. I'll bet your definition is not the same as mine. Therefore, the last part of your question is not logical to me.
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Old 11-01-2013, 09:55 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,995 posts, read 13,475,998 times
Reputation: 9938
The same person keeps signing up with new accounts and posting these questionnaires. They are always someone with almost no posting history. Then other than maybe professing to be doing a term paper, the poster very seldom discusses or engages or debates, they just vanish. Rinse and repeat.

I'd say "don't feed the trolls" except that there is no overt goading. It's almost like some kind of OCD thing. Creepy though. I'm not participating.
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Old 11-01-2013, 10:07 PM
 
Location: KYLE TEXAS
431 posts, read 474,529 times
Reputation: 282
The poster is a troll doesnt want to debate just post .
there is no answer to the questions cus the questions dont make any sence .
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Old 11-01-2013, 10:08 PM
 
Location: Deep Dirty South
5,189 posts, read 5,335,175 times
Reputation: 3863
Quote:
Originally Posted by iohanan View Post
1- Why is there something rather than nothing (nothing being the non-existence of anything at all)?
Because bellybutton lint, of course.

Quote:
2-If there is no God, is there good and evil, also called moral values? (No, there isn't) How could you come to the conclusion that helping is good and killing is bad?
I still cannot believe they let King Kong defeat Godzilla in that one Toho movie.

Quote:
3- If you believe that God is just a human idea and doesn't exist, than you have to consider that the moral values are also just human ideas and are not true in reality. If that is so, being you someone who was taught about the moral values since your childhood, how could you believe in your perspective of reality, once your own mind was built based in something that isn't actually true (moral values) by your own perspective
All I can say is, punctuate the following:

that that is is that that is not is not is that it it is
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Old 11-02-2013, 03:03 AM
 
17,842 posts, read 14,382,736 times
Reputation: 4113
Quote:
Originally Posted by iohanan View Post
hi all atheists, what answer would you give to the following questions?

1- why is there something rather than nothing (nothing being the non-existence of anything at all)?

2-if there is no god, is there good and evil, also called moral values? (no, there isn't) how could you come to the conclusion that helping is good and killing is bad?

3- if you believe that god is just a human idea and doesn't exist, than you have to consider that the moral values are also just human ideas and are not true in reality. If that is so, being you someone who was taught about the moral values since your childhood, how could you believe in your perspective of reality, once your own mind was built based in something that isn't actually true (moral values) by your own perspective?

Thanks!
Look up the evolution of empathy.... for a start

Last edited by Ceist; 11-02-2013 at 03:30 AM..
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Old 11-02-2013, 06:21 AM
 
Location: Type 0.73 Kardashev
11,110 posts, read 9,812,975 times
Reputation: 40166
Quote:
Originally Posted by iohanan View Post
Hi all atheists, what answer would you give to the following questions?

1- Why is there something rather than nothing (nothing being the non-existence of anything at all)?
I don't know.

Note: "I don't know." ≠ "God did it!", any more than our ancestors failure to understand infectious disease (having no knowledge of bacteria and viruses) meant that God was causing a particular malady.

Quote:
2-If there is no God, is there good and evil, also called moral values? (No, there isn't) How could you come to the conclusion that helping is good and killing is bad?
The same reason every society - including those peoples that have no deity-centric religion (and, yes, those cultures do exist) - come up with similar models of good and bad behavior (hint - those societies function better and tend to supercede societies that do not have such models, a sort of cultural natural selection).

Quote:
3- If you believe that God is just a human idea and doesn't exist, than you have to consider that the moral values are also just human ideas and are not true in reality. If that is so, being you someone who was taught about the moral values since your childhood, how could you believe in your perspective of reality, once your own mind was built based in something that isn't actually true (moral values) by your own perspective?

Thanks!
Yes, moral values are just human ideas. Happily, humans have the power to reason out those things that are beneficial to individuals, beneficial to society at large, and how to balance those two interests. We quibble (a lot) about the details, but that is only natural. Of course, I know that this idea of reasoning is astonishing to some people, who think humans cannot possibly function without first taking lessons from ancient texts.

Here are some examples of moral values:
Democracy. That's a human idea, and nowhere to be found in the Bible.
Freedom of Speech. That's a human idea, and nowhere to be found in the Bible.
Racial Equality. That's a human idea, and nowhere to be found in the Bible.

I'll point out, as I always do, to those baffled by the idea that the non-religious aren't thieving, raping, murdering lunatics - if your ideas were correct, then we would tend to see higher rates of all manner of immoral behavior in parts of the country that are less religious compared to those parts of the country that are more religious, and in parts of the world that are less religious compared to those parts of the world that are more religious. But we don't.

Have you ever thought to actually look at whether or not your assumptions bear out in the great laboratory we call reality?
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Old 11-02-2013, 07:23 AM
 
Location: Tampa, FL
2,637 posts, read 12,631,710 times
Reputation: 3630
These questions always bother me because they imply that the sort of religious types who pose these questions are only restrained from terrible acts by their belief that their deity will punish them.

I don't abide by "moral" values. Instead, I have a little thing called ethics.
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