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Old 11-26-2018, 12:50 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 303Guy View Post
Sure, we can use a pen but why attribute it to 'God'?
GoCart has at least put his finger on one of the Big Three. Consciousness which really covers the three abilities that have set us apart from the other animals. Sure, bats have learned to fly - really fly - the only mammal (ex birds) that did. Also sonar - though Cetans do that, too. And migration in fish and birds.

But humans have an upright posture like no other, opposed thumb for tool use like no other that I know of, and a problem solving brain like no other, thr three combining to an adaptability that can only be compared with...with....the survivability, evangelism and lust for domination of the Abrahamic religions. No wonder we cover the world like a rash.
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Old 11-26-2018, 08:25 AM
 
10,077 posts, read 5,708,216 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by monumentus View Post
Especially Christians if they are doing it to win favor with a god and improve the quality of their eternal after life.

So regardless of whether you think there is a god or not - and I have yet to see you even attempt let alone achieve showing there is one or might be one - the "issue" of selfish motivations behind our good deeds is a universal one - not a specifically atheist or theist one.
A born again Christian doesn't seek to do good in order to win brownie points. Our redeemed nature makes us want to resist sinful behavior.


Quote:
Originally Posted by monumentus View Post


The thing is though I do not think it is an "issue" at all. Even if _every_ good deed has a seed of the self behind it - so the hell what? Why is that a problem?

The real problem would be if we acted like that made all such motivations and deeds equivalent. I do not think that selfish motivation is the issue so much as _what_ each particular selfish motivation is.
The problem is the unsaved will respond based either on emotions or weighing the consequences of one's actions. That's not a true sense of morality. If you dedicated your time or money to helping a group of people who were completely unappreciative or spit in your face, your sin nature would have a hard time continuing in such actions. Yet the Christian does such deeds even if we do not get positive responses, attention or accolades. We do not seek the praises of men.
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Old 11-26-2018, 08:39 AM
 
3,458 posts, read 1,449,162 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by badlander View Post
So what ab9ut all those groups which did not have writings or letters. Modern man have made up new letters and symbols in 9rder to make oral only language also written. No wonder North Americans spent two centuries slaughtering First Nations people. Do other species do that?

Most wolves when fighting each other stopped when one shows submission. Perhaps the Holy books do not consider his moral.

Another question, if dogs are only animals why are they smarter than earthworm?
And I will add, Giraffes prefer to eat meals in the company of friends, a new study has found.

Researchers said the animals typically like to couple up with a selected companion when searching for food and eating.

The findings of a two-year study of giraffes in the Great Rift Valley region of Kenya suggest the animals prefer to have meals with chosen members of their social group due to particular benefits like added protection against predators.

Dr Zoe Muller, who led the research team from the University of Bristol, said: “It is presumable that if you are with a ‘known’ partner, they may be reliable at alarming you if a predator is around, or it may be that you both share the same meal requirements, and so your foraging and eating behavior is complimentary.”
https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/gi...ws-887473.html

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/gi...ws-887473.html
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Old 11-26-2018, 09:21 AM
 
3,458 posts, read 1,449,162 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
A born again Christian doesn't seek to do good in order to win brownie points. Our redeemed nature makes us want to resist sinful behavior.




The problem is the unsaved will respond based either on emotions or weighing the consequences of one's actions. That's not a true sense of morality. If you dedicated your time or money to helping a group of people who were completely unappreciative or spit in your face, your sin nature would have a hard time continuing in such actions. Yet the Christian does such deeds even if we do not get positive responses, attention or accolades. We do not seek the praises of men.
Our IQ's have risen steadily over time. They've risen 30 points since 1950.
Mothers nurture their children and when they don't have them they seek others to nurture with no benefit to themselves. Animals will also do this.

Every woman with a menstrual cycle knows that nesting and nurturing are an instinct. We are driven to do it, even if we don't have children. During PMS we clean more, nurture more, and get emotional. It's called nesting.
At the same time, we will see defects. A mom will kill her children, some claiming God wants them to. In the natural cycle of mass production, you will see defects like this. I doubt a God would leave a few out just for fun.

Tell me, what did this lioness have to gain from helping this tiger mom care for her cubs? Is the lion Christian?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNkFMMAjNm4
You will be amazed by this video, it's a beautiful friendship. Just be prepared for the song at the end. lol
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Old 11-26-2018, 09:25 AM
 
Location: West Virginia
16,631 posts, read 15,583,585 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
A born again Christian doesn't seek to do good in order to win brownie points. Our redeemed nature makes us want to resist sinful behavior.




The problem is the unsaved will respond based either on emotions or weighing the consequences of one's actions. That's not a true sense of morality. If you dedicated your time or money to helping a group of people who were completely unappreciative or spit in your face, your sin nature would have a hard time continuing in such actions. Yet the Christian does such deeds even if we do not get positive responses, attention or accolades. We do not seek the praises of men.
In response to this statement:

"The problem is the unsaved will respond based either on emotions or weighing the consequences of one's actions. That's not a true sense of morality."

I think you are seriously underestimating the ability of people you don't know to to contribute good in society simply because they see a need that they are able to meet, based on their innate sense of morality, regardless of whether they claim their morals are derived from the Bible, any other religious text, or whether they are simply doing good because it is a good thing to do.

Regardless of the source, it is certainly a true sense of morality.
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Old 11-26-2018, 09:35 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
A born again Christian doesn't seek to do good in order to win brownie points. Our redeemed nature makes us want to resist sinful behavior.

.
You're just pushing the problem down the line. WHY does your "redeemed nature" (which, Like Agape Love, seems only to lead to an increase in closed -mindedness, arrogance and intolerance) make you avoid sin? To ensure that you don't miss out on heaven? Then it's brownie points.

Because doing the good is worth doing for it's own sake or the sake of ourselves? Then it's done for the same reason that we do it.

And please save yourself the discredit of claiming that unbelievers are incapable of doing good.
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Old 11-26-2018, 09:46 AM
 
10,077 posts, read 5,708,216 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
This is just a dumb premise all around so I'm not going to waste a lot of time responding to it.

Plus, the idea of atheist morality has been done to death and I'm still waiting for someone to even challenge my arguments much less refute them.

And yet you do waste your time responding to it with typical arrogant tone. I wonder if atheists are just seemingly incapable of seeing that they could be wrong and they are not the supreme know all of all things.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

What I will bother saying about this is as follows:

Whether we believe in your Bronze Age desert tribal wargod of the Hebrews or not, we still have to live in this world - and we'd rather not have to live in some apocalyptic Mad Max world with roving rape gangs, wanton murder and violence, and a constant, never-ending fear that you're going to end up geeked or your stuff stolen.

Morality is simply beneficial for society and civilization. Even if we were to assume that animals do not have morals - which I actually don't agree with - notice how animals don't have civilizations?

We lived in a sin cursed fallen world that is dog eat dog and pain and destruction exists all around us. Morality comes from the heart of man so without God's standard, all you end up with is more and more disagreement, confusion and conflict over issues of morality. The scary thought is would our society be like Mad Max or those Purge movies if we eliminated our laws and let people decide their own morality? It doesn't say much for the heart of sinful man if we need laws with consequences in order to keep people from descending into chaos.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

I know people like you are trying so very hard to hijack and then kidnap morality like religion does with everything else.

But I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why authoritarian morality is better than secular morality? Why is it better for an entity that is not a part of our society to tell us what our morality should be? Or, put another way, do you think it would be beneficial to your life if the mayor of your town set the rules for your household? Would it help you if the mayor told you what your bedtime was, what to have for breakfast and when to have it and how long you have to eat it? If the mayor tells you what furniture to buy, what pictures to hang on your wall, what you and your wife are allowed to do on date night - including setting rules about your sexual habits? He'll tell you how to raise your children and what values to teach them, what televison shows you can watch, the temperature of your thermostat, how much health insurance to buy ... yeah, you get the idea, right?
How can you know what is best for you unless you have supreme knowledge of the universe, past, present and future? God does so it's pretty arrogant for the creation to think they can come up with a better plan or think they can behave more moral than God. IF we leave it up to man then no two people are going to see things exactly the same. Futhermore, emotions and biased nature can taint a viewpoint on a moral issue. For instance, I found it pretty disgusting last week to see all the anti-Christian loudmouths go on about how stupid and wrong it was for the Christian missionary to try and contact those natives. He was murdered and got what he deserved in their eyes. But isn't all murder wrong? If so, why the cold lack of sympathy for a man who lost his life just wanting to love a group a people?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

Now, authoritarian morality might seem like an awesome way to go so long as the mayor's morality and rules correspond with what you already want.

But what if you have to be at work at 7am, but the mayor says you can't go to bed until 3am? What if you're allergic to eggs, but the mayor says it is immoral to eat anything other than eggs at breakfast? What if the mayor demands that you raise your kids to be atheists instead of Christians? What if the mayor says you're only allowed to hang pictures of Kim Jung-un and Stalin on your wall?

Well, hopefully by now you're beginning to see the problem with authoritarian morality - especially when that authoritarian dictator doesn't actually live within your society. Oh, I know what you're going to say: "But God is, well, God and he doesn't have to be a part of our society to know and understand it!"

Sure - except God has proven time and time again that he has no understanding of human society. For instance, instead of simply declaring slavery a sin and stamping it out completely in the Bible, he instead opted for a big list of complicated rules regarding slaves which, of course, favored Hebrews above everyone else making the rules exceedingly racist on top of being flagrantly immoral.

The authoritarian morality only fails if fostered from sinful man. Then any laws not rooted in logic or fact will be tainted by their own personal beliefs. Again, unless you share the same level of knowledge as God then your slavery argument is just arrogant and silly before the Creator of the universe. Slavery in the OT was engrained in the social-economical construct of that region. How do you know that God demanding that the practice end immediately would not cause mass chaos, death and pain? God chooses to limit Himself because He will not violate free will.

Let's say Americans are God's chosen people. God knows that the Wall Street greed with the housing market is going to set up a financial disaster that could crash the entire world economy. By God's standards, their actions were immoral. It was immoral to give out mortgages like candy to anyone who wanted a house. But stupid man thinks he can make debt disappear by chopping it up, bundling it with good debt, repackage and resold. But in the end, someone has to pay. Yet God does not force man to not change their financial practices because this would violate free will including the freedom to be greedy at the cost of hurting others.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post


By the same token, God never bothered to declare such things as torture, pedophilia, and other heinous acts a sin, either. Nor did he grant women equality with men which resulted in further awful immoral rules such as forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist whether she wants to or not.
Well God didn't bother to declare porn as sin either. Yet we know by the Bible that lust of the flesh is a sin. God doesn't want us to be spiritual mindless drones who have to be told what to do in every suitation. The Bible would have to be a massive tome carried by a fork lift if it included every possible sin scenario.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

This is the kind of sick and twisted society one gets when that society allows a dictator to declare what its morals will be. What's more is that one never knows from one day to the next if that moral code will stay the same. On a whim, the celestial dictator can change his mind and decide murdering non-believers is perfectly fine ... and why not. God already has rules that would result in the death of 95% of modern Western people. Once you murder everyone who has committed adultery, worked on the Sabbath, and spent their adolescence rebelling against their parents, you'd have practically no one left.
God's way is the only way. The vast majority of our social problems would be wiped out if we followed the principles of the Bible. Imagine if the Kim family in NK had seeked to put needs of their people before their own selfish desires? Imagine if we had communities where no one would be left isolated or alone. Everyone pitched in to help each other. Ever seen that Netflix documentary, Wild Wild Country? While I don't agree with the religion, their society was much akin to God's way. And for a period, people felt happiness and peace in that microcosm world.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

The bottom line is pretty simple: Every society must find the moral compass that is right for themselves. Ideally, this morality would hinge upon the concept of human well-being. Now, do I think there is an objective morality? Yes, in fact, I do, but which moral ideals or objective is rather narrow in scope.

This comes from the fact that, regardless of society, time period, culture, religion, or nation, everyone is still human. As such, there are a number of things that ALL humans do not want to have happen to them. Those things include, but are not limited to, murder, rape, torture, wrongful imprisonment, being lied to, being betrayed, having pain of any kind inflicted upon them, etc.
Most people have a natural aversion to violence and we certainly don't like pain so I don't think you really make any points here that everyone would agree to set up moral barriers to protect us from experiencing such. The problem arises once you start looking at moral issues outside of that scope especially if the moral issue has pros and cons on both sides of the fence.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

And finally, as if I haven't beaten this dead horse enough, if all you're doing is following orders, then you're not actually being moral. You're just ... following orders. I cannot believe how many times I have heard Christians do mental gymnastics trying to defend indefensible positions because their arbitrary celestial dictator MUST be correct even though he isnt.
Christianity isn't about following orders. When we have our spiritual eyes open and a heart for God, we
desire to seek righteousness. If your heart of morality has a selfish desire at the core then it's not really a moral decision.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post



I have even heard African American Christians defend slavery because it's allowed in the Bible. I have heard people openly admit that they'd kill their own children if God ordered them to do it. And the list goes on. It just goes to show you indubitably just how immoral and disgustingly sociopathic authoritarian "morality" can cause one to be.
Such positions have to weighed against the entirety of God's Word. As for slavery, the type of slavery you
infer goes against the core of Christianity itself which teaches that we are all equal, uniquely created by God. The fact is that everyone is a slave to some type of system in this life. That doesn't inherently make it immoral. If you take the stance that all forms of slavery are immoral then you would have to say it is immoral for children to be forced to obey their parents or that a debtor must pay their creditor, or immoral to be forced to pay our taxes.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

A society or civilization is just like any organism - it intuitively knows what it needs to survive. Granted, intuition is not always correct such as the case of Nazi Germany or Pol Pot's Cambodia. But intuition has gotten it right far more than it has gotten it wrong - which is why no society on earth has ever condoned free-for-all murder, theft, rape, and other such things.
Nazi-Germany clearly shows how easily man's sense of right and wrong can be completely warped without God. Some of the Nazi leaders in charge of the prison camps were baffled in the end as to why they were treated as criminals. In their mind, they did nothing wrong. They were only following orders and running a camp with great efficiency. They were born with the same brains as we are today. Do you really think it is impossible for this generation to ever sink to such a level of cruel immorality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post


Why does morality matter even if we're animals? Well, because we are thinking animals. We aren't ruled by instinct. We are able to puzzle out what is moral and what is not which is precisely why morality has gotten steadily better over the centuries, not worse (despite the occassional slippage in some areas of the world).

Morality isn't about thinking. It's about knowing in your heart what is good and right. From a purely evolutionistic perspective, that shouldn't be a reality. We SHOULD be living by pre-programmed instinct like every other freaking species on this planet.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post


There was a time, for instance, when simply stealing a slice of bread to prevent starvation could land you on a table in the town square where priests - yes, priests - would rip the criminal open and remove organs one at a time until the poor sod died. What's worse is that the entire town would turn out to watch this horror take place, with fathers putting their sons on their shoulders so their 4 and 5 year-olds could get a better view of a man being torn apart while still alive.
And the priest was not living according to God's Word which tells to show love, not violence or intolerance to your neighbor.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

These days? We fret about fake violence on a television set and wonder how it affects children. And this is usually "clean" violence. Someone getting shot or beaten up. You're likely not going to see the kind of horrific torture that occurred a thousand yearsa ago being recreated on television. Now imagine today exposing your children to someone - criminal or not - being brutally tortured, savaged, and ripped apart slowly. The horrible screaming. The stench of blood. The puke-inducing smell of an open intestine. The sound of skin ripping open. Yeah, I bet you're just itching to have your 5 year-old watch that - live and in person with the victim being a real human being and not an actor with fake blood on his shirt.
I would never want to witness or expose a child to seeing such brutal acts. Yet if you are exposed to it frequently enough, you start to become immune to it. And modern technology has not sanitized us from such dark displays of humanity. You can go online and watch things like torture videos from ISIS and South American cartels were they skin people alive and tear out their eyes. Funny, most people would say someone who does that to another human being is an animal. By your side would say they are already animals.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post

As you can plainly see, morality has gotten better over the years - and this is in spite of religion, not because of it. We've had to move away from the barbarism of ancient holy books in order to reach this stage of morality. Otherwise, as I said, there would hardly be anyone left alive anywhere. Just the priests who were always above the law.
We have mass shootings nearly every week along with epic suicide numbers and you really think things are getting better?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post


Hence why the entire premise is ridiculous prima facie. I really don't understand why you people keep bringing this up. I know every now and then you'll run across some new tidbit of information that you think you can build a "gotchya" argument around.

But it just never pans out for you, does it.

Nope.

So how about you give up the idea of trying to prove that non-believers are immoral or ammoral because we don't have a celestial dictator telling us what our moral compass ought to be. Because the only way Christians can co-exist in modern society is to ignore most of the morality found in the Bible. Therefore appealing to it as some kind of guide to morality is just insane. Barking mad.

Get it yet?

Unfortunately ,your side just can't get that just because the Bible reports something doesn't mean God approves of it.

Last edited by jeffbase40; 11-26-2018 at 10:17 AM..
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Old 11-26-2018, 09:57 AM
 
2,854 posts, read 2,045,793 times
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I think this deserves repeating
Quote:
Originally Posted by granpa View Post
A moral person is a person that understands that the universe does not revolve around their ego.
A civilized society is a society whose laws do not revolve around any one person or group of people.
The more a society treats everyone as equals the more civilized it is.
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Old 11-26-2018, 10:14 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
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Jeffbase "This is the kind of sick and twisted society one gets when that society allows a dictator to declare what its morals will be. What's more is that one never knows from one day to the next if that moral code will stay the same. On a whim, the celestial dictator can change his mind and decide murdering non-believers is perfectly fine ... and why not. God already has rules that would result in the death of 95% of modern Western people. Once you murder everyone who has committed adultery, worked on the Sabbath, and spent their adolescence rebelling against their parents, you'd have practically no one left."

Then you don't see that this supposed God's morality is not going to make things better, but worse?

You can't see that what we have been doing is following a gradually -evolving human morality (1) that does the good for its' own sake and not because it's in the Bible?

Christians cherry pick the Bible to fit morality and then claim they are following the Bible.

I won't answer every single point as it's up to Shirina and the point is really here. Anyone who can't see how screwed up your argument is after using my post here as a template is never going to see it.

(1) No, you can't see it. Few do. But let's try it "Unfortunately ,your side just can't get that just because the Bible reports something doesn't mean God approves of it." Why doesn't it? I mean if it's in the Bible - how do you know that it's wrong even if God doesn't say so, any more than you know somemething else is right even though God doesn't say so?

You are applying Human morality to God's doings, whether you realise it or not. Sure you find ways of excusing those actions afterwards, but you are judging God using Human morality.
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Old 11-26-2018, 10:54 AM
 
Location: Sun City West, Arizona
50,469 posts, read 24,044,107 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
A born again Christian doesn't seek to do good in order to win brownie points. Our redeemed nature makes us want to resist sinful behavior.




The problem is the unsaved will respond based either on emotions or weighing the consequences of one's actions. That's not a true sense of morality. If you dedicated your time or money to helping a group of people who were completely unappreciative or spit in your face, your sin nature would have a hard time continuing in such actions. Yet the Christian does such deeds even if we do not get positive responses, attention or accolades. We do not seek the praises of men.
The problem is that "sin" and "sinfulness" is in the eye of the beholder. Hence my view that the religious right who overwhelming voted for the orange one is sinful.
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