Why Are Atheists Moral

Originally posted by queeq
No, it has to do with laws. To get someone convicted you have to follow laws... laws of presenting evidence, following procedure etc... They are all meant to secure a morally just course of events. And yet they don't.

Plus... one cannot debate laws... one can debate morals.

One can debate whether laws should be changed. One can debate whether someone's morals should be changed.

One cannot debate what laws do exist at the moment. One can not debate what morals a certain person or institution holds.

You are comparing different things to one another to show a difference, it makes no sense.

"They are all meant to secure a morally just course of events. And yet they don't."

This sentence is the whole problem with your argument you say they do not secure a morally just course...but that's your opinion, they do, in fact, secure one morally just course, the one they are defining. That may not be your morals, or mine or that of the church, but it is morals nonetheless.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
[b]So Why Are We Moral?

My personal response (please note this is just me I speak for now): All things are subject to our subjective interpretation of them. Nothing is so until we perceive and interpret it as such. In that sense, we have great power over how we view reality, and how we let it affect us. Nothing is inherently "depressing" or "joyful" for example, unless we make it so. Nothing is intrinsically "loved" or "hated" until we decide to love or hate it. To that end, it is possible for us to be joyful, loving, etc. at ALL times about ALL things. In practical terms, this is impossible to always achieve, but it becomes a way of looking at the world that maximizes the tolerance and love I have for others, and increases the happiness both within me and (I hope) in others. To me, it goes beyond religious labels of Good and Evil and simply loves all of it.
[/B]

That is the problem, most can't look beyond petty individual differences and see that we are all one.

Originally posted by Mark Question
That is the problem, most can't look beyond petty individual differences and see that we are all one.

Maybe we should all drop acid.

Originally posted by queeq
Maybe we should all drop acid.

We are not? 😕

Originally posted by Bardock42
Or the problem is that some do too much acid and can.

Give me a break, i only did it once.

WE ARE ONE

The voices told me so... 😱

Originally posted by Deja~vu
WE ARE ONE

The voices told me so... 😱

😑

Originally posted by Mark Question
That is the problem, most can't look beyond petty individual differences and see that we are all one.

People should be able to look past theological differences, but I'm personally not going to accept the idea that we are all one.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
We are not? 😕

That actually explains a lot.

Originally posted by Deja~vu
WE ARE ONE

The voices told me so... 😱

What acid doesn't do this to you???. 😕

A non-dualistic, unified philosophy of morality seems to me inherently the best of possible systems, because it doesn't differentiate between anything as being good or evil....ALL things receive love, tolerance, and acceptance, and it makes sense to do so based on the subjective way we interpret all existence.

Myths, many of them central to religions, often carries variations on this same theme, even Western ones that would seem to be at odds with such thinking, and it's only when they become dogmatic instead of metaphoric that people lose sight of their meaning.

Now, the danger comes when people take a philosophical approach to morality and try to take it too far. I've seen similar mantras as the basis for "holistic" pseudo-science more times than I can count, and it infects alternative medical practices more than anything but can be applied to other realms of influence ("The Secret" anyone?).

Originally posted by Quark_666
People should be able to look past theological differences, but I'm personally not going to accept the idea that we are all one.

I'm not implying we are linked as one... I'm leaning towards Tabula rasa, at the core all humans are essentially the same.

Originally posted by Mark Question
I'm not implying we are linked as one... I'm leaning towards Tabula rasa, at the core all humans are essentially the same.

That's not really scientifically tenable unless you qualify it rather heavily.

We share a remarkable number of genetic similarities with the entire population of humans. Yet we see how the small percent difference (anywhere between 0 to 10%, ranging from identical twins to distant cultures) accounts for a surprising number of differences.

The nature/nuture argument, from which the tabula rasa argument stems, is mostly a moot question nowadays, as most are able to see naturally that it is both things that influence us. Genetics provides the hardware, while culture is the "software," to made a crude analogy to modern cpus. The analogy actually works quite well, imo, as you could imagine computers as people. Dell computers could be Italians, maybe, and HP is Norwegians. Similar in basic areas but cosmetically different. Then the software we install onto the computer, that actually personalizes it for us, is how we live our lives.

Not talking about genetics. If you raise 5 kids of various ethnic groups together, they will not have any innate cultural or religious differences towards each other, so IMO the latter is illogical.

Originally posted by Mark Question
I'm not implying we are linked as one... I'm leaning towards Tabula rasa, at the core all humans are essentially the same.

That's stupid. Plenty of people are utterly different at their core.

Originally posted by Mark Question
Not talking about genetics. If you raise 5 kids of various ethnic groups together, they will not have any innate cultural or religious differences towards each other, so IMO the latter is illogical.

By latter you mean genes? But there's still differences in both the physical complexion as well as other characteristics (brain size, aptitude for various motor reflexes which would help with sports, lung capacity, even possible variations in aggressiveness and/or docility, etc.). Granted, the similarities outnumber the differences, but to ignore genes in favor of solely cultural aspects of our person is to grant "nuture" far too much weight, and to simplify the causal forces behind a human being simply for the sake of your argument.

Originally posted by Bardock42
How. Some people don't like randomly guessing in matters which aren't decided either way.

How? Because they're not exactly sure where they fit in, or how to classify themselves. It's like they're wandering in a religous no-man's-land. "Do I believe?....Or is it nonsense??"

Originally posted by Mindship
Gotta disagree here. Since, ultimately, no one knows whether or not "God" exists (despite how fervently one may believe one way or the other), "I don't know" is therefore the most honest position one can take. Any decisions made from that point on depend on what that person is looking for in a reality map.

See above.

It isn't whether god exists or not that is the issue. It's how human he needs to be to satisfy our understanding of him that actually fuels the debate.

Is he a force, or a single entity, or one made three dependant of each other, or simply order from chaos that eventually reduces itself back to it's original state?

What he absolutely is not, is what anyone expects him to be. He isn't vengeful or judgemental or petty or considerate. He isn't partial or impartial, much less gracious or vindictive. These things are human constructs and irrelevant to what happens when a life no longer is. Toss out eternal immovable understanding of the self and add karma to the list of dismissable human concepts.