Christian morality: an atheist's point of view (comparison, church, bible)
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Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
How many kids in past generations committed mass murder by shooting up their classmates? Pornography didn't exist in past generations, but now young minds can view any kind of sexual perversion with just a few mouse clicks. I believe you can find more examples of how morality has degraded vs your perspective.
We also didn't hear about every burp and flatulence that happened half a world away.
If you don't think pornography existed in past generations, you are wearing your rose colored glasses.
How many kids in past generations committed mass murder by shooting up their classmates? Pornography didn't exist in past generations, but now young minds can view any kind of sexual perversion with just a few mouse clicks. I believe you can find more examples of how morality has degraded vs your perspective.
You really need to brush up on your history, Jeff. Porn? If that's all you're worried about, then I only wish you could spend a few months in medieval England to see if you think morality has gotten steadily worse. If that's the case, then medieval England ought to be damn near utopic, wouldn't you think?
Oh yeah, and if you think there was no porn in earlier generations? Think again. Porn goes all the way back to at least Rome ... did you know that arrows to bath houses in Herculaenium were in the shape of penises? And they were right out in the open were children could see them ... and they frequently went insane when their eyes brushed those images, pulling out a sword and killing their parents and then rampaging through the streets until they were put down like the rabid dogs they were ... all because *gulp* they saw porn!
Seriously, though porn has been around (and yes, the penis-arrows are actually true). Some ancient Indian temples were sculpted from top to bottom with porn, painters from the earliest to the latest have painted porn. I would show you some examples ... except it's porn and I'm not allowed to show that here.
The BIG difference is that no one in those days gave a crap about seeing porn. And they didn't call it "pornography." It was art. The fact that our society is somewhat more opposed to porn shows that, yet again, our morality is increasing, not devolving. You just WANT it to be devolving because that would herald the close proximity of the "End Times" and all of that apocalyptic nonsense.
The earliest recorded school shooting in the US occurred in 1764. To say that this is some sort of new phenomena is erroneous.
What's very odd is how there are no school shootings in nations where most people are atheistic or at least non-religious. America, which touts itself (truthfully) as being extremely religious (and indeed has a level of religiosity usually reserved for the uneducated Third World) has the most incidents of school shootings by far. By really really far. Is there a causation here? I dunno ... but I'm willing to bet there is a correlation.
And finally, perhaps the most important point I can make about morality - the further back in time you go, the less is known about it. Today, you can get online and know about the city of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma paving a side road that had too many pot holes ... or how much the Dade County School District spent on paper last year.
With the internet and several 24/7 news channels, you know more about the world than anyone else in history. You can hear reports and read about every last murder, every last pedophile, every last assault, mugging, domestic violence case ... it's all there. All of it.
That gives the illusion that things are worse when they're not. The difference is that society even 50 years ago did not generate more than a fraction of information our society generates now. Every 2 days, we create more information than we did from the dawn of civilization to 2003. In 1950, you only knew about what was going on locally ... and snippets of national news from a newspaper. You didn't hear about all of the murders and rapes and kidnappings unless it involved someone famous - like the Lindberg baby. Or perhaps the gruesome axe murders in Villisca in 1912 when 6 children and two adults were axed to death. Yeah, morality was so much better back then, wasn't it.
How many kids in past generations committed mass murder by shooting up their classmates?
Not a fair comparison at all and you know it. Firstly in earlier generations there was more barbaric times. Kids were trained to be warriors, knights, fighters. Killing was part of their life and training. So why would they need to kill classmates for the hell of it when they were likely doing it anyway?
Secondly how many kids in "past generations" COULD do it? It has nothing to do with Christian or atheist morality. Access to guns, the killing potential and capability of modern weaponry, and much more have a lot to do with it too. The reason kids who flipped out and went on killing sprees in past generations did not attain "mass" murder is that they were not equipped to achieve it. Kids in the 1800s who flipped out did not have access to automatic weapons. If they had, then the result of their flipping out would be no more, or less, gruesome than when kids flip out today.
Further this has nothing to do with morality anyway. Do you think kids who flip out and go on a killing spree are doing so due to their morality or some moral decision? They are not. They are flipping out, they are not in full possession of their rationality or senses. They have snapped, broken, gone mad. It has nothing to do with morality _at all_. If you want to blame anything for school shooting it is not morality, but the pressures and tribulations of a modern world. Social pressure. Education pressure. Employment. Money. Housing. Food. And more. The pressures and stresses on the average human today are more than you seem to want to acknowledge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Pornography didn't exist in past generations
So what? You are saying this as if pornography is defacto a bad thing and hence you have a point to make. I do not share your base assumption there. I see nothing wrong with pornography in and of itself at all. So where is your point?
You are trying to claim morality has degraded and are simply doing so by asserting some things are "bad" without establishing they actually are. What is wrong with pornography? Just that YOU do not like it?
And that is all before we point out that your claim is simply false anyway. Pornography did not exist? Are you for real? It has existed for as long as recorded history. If you really think it did not exist then you are living in a very weird bubble impervious to historical fact.
How many kids in past generations committed mass murder by shooting up their classmates? Pornography didn't exist in past generations, but now young minds can view any kind of sexual perversion with just a few mouse clicks. I believe you can find more examples of how morality has degraded vs your perspective.
Kids did not have access to high capacity weapons back in the day either.
Think about all of the people we know about in the past who did horrible things though. Jack the Ripper. Al Capone. Bonnie and Clyde. Lizzie Borden. Bille the Kid. Blackbeard. Torquemada. These are all well known names.
You can't possibly say that people in the best were categorically better than us.
Thankfully, true morality is not based on fickle human whim.
It isn't based on a capricious God's whims either, Vizio. It is based on our purpose for existing and is both absolute and objective. If something is constructive to our purpose it is moral. If it is destructive to our purpose it is immoral. If it is neither it is amoral. No excuses, no rationalizations, no nothing . . . absolute and unchanging.
Thankfully, true morality is not based on fickle human whim.
Except it is. It is merely your human whim that decides to interpret the religious text as conforming to the morality you want it to contain. You then retrospectively rubber stamp it with this imaginary authority you call god and pretend this makes it all "objective".
Yet you have, to date, in over 9000 posts not even BEGUN to substantiate the existence of EITHER this "god" or the existence of an objective morality. But perhaps the next 9000 posts will contain something of actual substance.
Except it is. It is merely your human whim that decides to interpret the religious text as conforming to the morality you want it to contain. You then retrospectively rubber stamp it with this imaginary authority you call god and pretend this makes it all "objective".
Yet you have, to date, in over 9000 posts not even BEGUN to substantiate the existence of EITHER this "god" or the existence of an objective morality. But perhaps the next 9000 posts will contain something of actual substance.
This has gone on for a long time and my memory stinks but I don't recall that he's ever even stated what those supposedly objective morals are.
This has gone on for a long time and my memory stinks but I don't recall that he's ever even stated what those supposedly objective morals are.
If he's like many Christians, those objective morals are whichever rules he decides (there's that human whimsy again) to cherry pick from the Bible. You know he isn't going to step up to bat for ALL of the rules, so objectivity is merely *cough* his personal opinion.
Last edited by Shirina; 09-10-2014 at 06:46 AM..
Reason: I whimsically decided that the original font I chose was objectively too small.
Except it is. It is merely your human whim that decides to interpret the religious text as conforming to the morality you want it to contain. You then retrospectively rubber stamp it with this imaginary authority you call god and pretend this makes it all "objective".
Yet you have, to date, in over 9000 posts not even BEGUN to substantiate the existence of EITHER this "god" or the existence of an objective morality. But perhaps the next 9000 posts will contain something of actual substance.
If, after all this time, you can't realize that I'm not arguing for my interpretation of a set of commands...I don't know what else I can say. I've adequately demonstrated that the OP has a pointless argument. Without being able to actually say what is moral and what isn't, the point of this thread is moot.
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