What replaces christianity and other religions?

If you are for the elimination of religion, if you deny the existence of a God, and you treat the holy books as simply books written by fallible man, what do you offer in its place?

If you deny the existence of morals and ethics as nothing more than tools of control, then what do you see replacing them?

If you wish to be among people - not living as a hermit in the wilderness, growing your own food and devoid of human interaction - if you wish to live within society, can you expect the elimination of religion to be the same as the elimination of morals?

What 'religious' morals are so disturbing that someone would seek the elimination of religion and morals all together? Thou shalt not Kill, thou shalt not steal - these are the rules of people, living together, not the commandments of God.

Originally posted by quango
If you are for the elimination of religion, if you deny the existence of a God, and you treat the holy books as simply books written by fallible man, what do you offer in its place?

Justice and moral.

Originally posted by quango
If you deny the existence of morals and ethics as nothing more than tools of control, then what do you see replacing them?

All due to respect,
You're wrong if you think that religion = morals.

Q : who seeks to destroy/eliminate religions ?

A : religion ( most of the time, I'm not talking about nazism... )




[Edited on 16-7-2003 by Salem]

[Edited on 16-7-2003 by Salem]

where do the morals come from?

a banana...

named Fred.

Originally posted by quango
where do the morals come from?

My parents, my schools, my life etc...

It's the other way around, nothing can replace religion, becuase as long as people have faith then they will always believe in something.

If you believe in yourself then you have it in you to believe in something else.

[Edited on 7/16/2003 by FoxStriker]

Originally posted by Salem

Originally posted by quango
where do the morals come from?

My parents, my schools, my life etc...

And where do your parents, your schools, and your life get them?

You could have used less of my own wordsif you were directing to everyone but that's ok with me, kind of enjoyed the atention


What to replace religion?
Truth, well let's go for some Camus, you deal with this whole issue of replacing christianity as if christianism and religion are the only way to maitain order and peace.
What I think is that not only they aren't but also "order and peace" are not desirable unless they come naturally.
I am an anarchist, I prefer truth to imposed peace and order, if it really is our nature to kill each other to rob each other than why not let it happen? in the name of some bigger human value? Don't make a mistake, I also have dreams and I also would like to see humankind be more than the parasites of a palid blue dot in some godforsaken solarsystem of some godforsaken branch of some godforsaken galaxy on a godforsaken universe. But what I also acknowledge is the Camusiesque Absurdness of our situation, humankind takes itself to serious, thing is, we are but animals we have no bigger purpose nor an inherent meaning.

The elimination of religion is not the same of elimination of morals. I stand for elimination of both.

What religious morals?
all morals, the simple fact that 2 people have the same exact set of morals is disgusting if we take in consideration we are rational beings who have the ability to think for themselves, religion is all for the globalization of morals.

Originally posted by quango

Originally posted by Salem

Originally posted by quango
where do the morals come from?

My parents, my schools, my life etc...

And where do your parents, your schools, and your life get them?

My parents : probably from their parents, their school and their lifes.

My school : From the gvt of province of Qu�bec ( no religion in public school. )

My life ? well I'm like anybody else, I learn from what I experienced.

Q : From where did the religion taked the morals ?

[Edited on 16-7-2003 by Salem]

Religion is replacable with enlightenment, self-actualization and personal fulfilment. It is hard for most to get those in a crass materialistic culture based around commodity fetishism.

Morals and ethics are not tools for control. Laws are.

Kohlberg on moral development:

1. Pain and pleasure
2. Good boy bad boy
3. Law and order
4. Principles
5. Oneness

Antichrist, Anarchists are pretty stupid on all levels.

You're not going to get very far preaching that crap.

You being here obviously shows labeling yourself an Anarchist is a Misnomer because you unlike them are open to learning. Maybe even understanding.

Anarchy is the abscense (excuse bad spelling) of social control and can never last more than a few hours, where the strongest individual asserts control over the weaker individuals, forming coalitions to dominate larger but weaker groups and thus you have Heirarchy.

Not to mention Anarchy can not provide even bread to the people...hunter gatherer societies are based on family organization...humans can not grow up alone...

As you can already see there are many superficial flaws to Anarchy...if you're trying to judge life through those browny-green colored glasses you'd best stop and wash off the lenses.

Morals and Ethics ARE tools for control.

Let's see it like this, you are an animal, you have no ethics, only a distinct sensibility towards survival you are out of food, your neighbor has plenty of it, you go, you rob it, it's your survival that is at stake.

You are a man, a very moral man, you are near death because you are so hungry, you go to your food-wealthy neighbor and ask him if he'd give you some, he won't, you ask him if he'd pay you in food for work, he won't you moan he'll go to hell, you die in the process.

In the second case you just got killed by your moral code, it controlled you it kept you from stealing food for your own survival, now you are dead, how good does it feel there's no heaven to pay you for your moral strictness?

Originally posted by Antichrist
Morals and Ethics ARE tools for control.

Let's see it like this, you are an animal, you have no ethics, only a distinct sensibility towards survival you are out of food, your neighbor has plenty of it, you go, you rob it, it's your survival that is at stake.

You are a man, a very moral man, you are near death because you are so hungry, you go to your food-wealthy neighbor and ask him if he'd give you some, he won't, you ask him if he'd pay you in food for work, he won't you moan he'll go to hell, you die in the process.

In the second case you just got killed by your moral code, it controlled you it kept you from stealing food for your own survival, now you are dead, how good does it feel there's no heaven to pay you for your moral strictness?

If your neighbor was merely a moral he should give you some food.

Good come back...in the case of morality it is only respected when returned.

If you were a moral and upstanding person, and you are starving, your moral neighbors would help you out, your immoral ones would not.

Hell that's what's so lovely about Freemasonry...

An immoral neighbor who does not give spare food, doesn't deserve to be treated with respect.

Antichrist

OK, morals and ethics are tools for self-control.

Laws are required to turn them into tools of social control.

Lawmakers in states which were/are supported by so-called 'divine laws' are where this whole mess got started.

Freemason, thanks for the compliment.

Anarchists are open to learning, maybe they just don't like themselves called stupid before any other "teaching".

I did not say I was for political anarchy what I meant, and I am sorry you misunterpreted it was I am for MORAL Anarchy, I thought I didn't need to specify the kind of Anarchy I am for since we were discussing morals and ethics but now I guess I have done it.
If you want me to be more specific I am for a kind of Moral anarchy like that influenced by Nietzschean and Sartrean tought, alike many other nihilist thinkers.

I am not specialised in political anarchy, but, I think that, as stupid as it might seem, political anarchists are for the creation of "institutions" which would first create a proper environment to the establishment of anarchy and after that perpetrate anarchy, acting against the likes of the kind of people you say would asset control of weaker individuals. That kind of anarchy I've also seen it called comunism, and I really can't seem to have an opinion on it.

One man can live of his own efort for survival alone, hermits could prove you that.

Salem, your mom, your father, you, your teachers, they all understand morality because it has been engrained into society from the religion of the forefathers. You did not come up with the moral code by yourself, nor did your parents, and certainly not your school system.

LOL! You must be still in the grips of the school system to believe they teach the established morality! My gosh, the NEA has finally done it! They've finally convinced the kids it is a god!

Originally posted by Antichrist
You could have used less of my own wordsif you were directing to everyone but that's ok with me, kind of enjoyed the atention

I was hoping you wouldn't take offense

What to replace religion?
Truth, well let's go for some Camus, you deal with this whole issue of replacing christianity as if christianism and religion are the only way to maitain order and peace.

I just believe the most basic christian morals - the ones that get lost in all the arguing over the bible, god vs. allah vs. etc. - are excellent. Namely, nonviolence and love and forgiveness. With these three virtues, opinions could differ on almost everything else and a peace could be maintained. (A peace which has never existed, but towards which, I believe, we are headed. Even if our pace is dreadfully slow.)

What I think is that not only they aren't but also "order and peace" are not desirable unless they come naturally.

I agree here - it must come naturally - it can't be governed into existence because there will never truly be peace while some people hold power over others. Even if their cause is righteous.

we are but animals we have no bigger purpose nor an inherent meaning.

I agree with most of what you say. Here, I would argue that the fact that we can dream and have aspirations does set us apart from animals and does provide meaning. We provide our own meaning, we get what we put into life or however you wanna phrase it.

What religious morals?
all morals, the simple fact that 2 people have the same exact set of morals is disgusting if we take in consideration we are rational beings who have the ability to think for themselves
religion is all for the globalization of morals.

To me, the most important thing is teaching people to think for themselves. This doesn't necessarily mean an end to religion. I think we all have a spiritual side and i don't see anything terrible about some people finding the same god/not-god. Too many people simply believe what they are told and never ask, does this make sense?

To me, religion isn't bad. It's the power system of most religions and the intolerance they generate. I'm not even Christian but I like to defend them sometimes. Generally I just ignore them because they don't interfere with me and it doesn't do any good to tell them i disagree.

When a baby is born he cries.......
True emotions are within everyone.....even the worst person has some sort of morals.....a child does understand when he has done something wrong because of his reaction to what he does......you simply tell him that it was wrong or right.....but the initial reaction is that he reacts to the action....showing an inbuilt capability to react....

As for an animal each to his kind has it's own in built emotions which categorizes it's type.
eg.like a lamb led to the slaughter......why do we say that?
Because a lamb will quitely bow it's head to be killed.
But then there's other animals that will fight to free itself.......each differs depending on it's inbuilt character.
Humans are not animals and obviously have many different emotions that respond to how one is brought up and have the capability to distinguish between reason of good and bad.
What replaces Christianity and other Religions?
Truth replaces Christianity and other religions......
What is truth?
Truth is man over animal, plant and the world.
Every man has the right to choose what is free will and that distinguishes us over everything else on this planet!

Sorry antichrist shoulda specified but didn't know Salem was his name.

I was promoing his come-back.

But I should promo yours to it wasn't bad either.

But what it comes down to is my opinion is that we need morality, morality begets freedom.

It doesn't matter where it comes from.