Question for the atheists?

I think the way the question is as follows is to determine if atheist have morals or not. I say the question is rigged no matter who answers it. I also say 90% of these people are full of it. People are killed on a daily basis far less and it doesn't matter what religion you are or lack of religion. The better question is how much would it take for somebody to kill. Would you kill for a dollar, $100, thousand dollars, million dollars, billion dollars, how about $1 trillion? On top of it all you know you will get away with it. In most cases I say it's price and nothing more.

I haven't read all of the replies yet but they are somewhat amusing. Sometimes the hardest one to be honest to is oneself.

How many people here would kill for their own survival for the survival of their family.

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint

Imagine you meet a person in the wilderness. The person has a valuable jewel in his body................

......The person is not an evil person, but he is not particularly likeable either. In fact, he is a bit annoying.......

My question to you is- do you kill the man and take the jewel?

Nah. This is what I would do:

After filling up a sackful of Morels(mushrooms), I went back to my car, and then drove back into town. Upon arriving in town, I stopped off at the bar. (many rich old lazy drunks will pay top dollar for some nice fresh meaty Morels)

After exchanging a sackful for Morels, for a handful of cash, I sat down and had a drink(or 5). I then proceeded to tell my new found friends about the extremely odd fella that I came across, while I was in the woods:


[color=B5FFDA]I have no idea who this guy was. I've never seen him before. I don't know where he came from, or how long he has been out there near my secret spot, but he stank. He stank real bad. I smelled him, at least 2 minutes before I even saw him.

[color=B5FFDA]Before seeing him, I thought for sure that what I was smelling was a rotten decaying deer carcass. [color=75BF7F]Nasty

[color=B5FFDA]At first, I acted like I didn't see him, and was gonna try to quickly sneak away without any confrontation, but he was too quick. That is when things started getting real odd. This guy is a nut. He was telling me some whacky fairy tale story about these little creatures, that he referred to as Hobblins.

One Hobblin that he seemed to be particularly fond of, was Bobo Babblins. Apparently Bobo has some sort of magical jewel earrings, that only have magical powers, when they are together. Bobo had received several death threats, so he gave one of the earrings to Stinky Woodsman. Apparently, Stinky accidentally swallowed it while he was eating a plate of spaghetti.

[color=B5FFDA]All I wanted, was to finish filling up my sack of Morels, but I wasn't gonna let Stinky Woodsman follow me to my secret spot, so I needed to get rid of him. I told Stinky that it was an awesome story, and he should go take a shower, and then head out to Hollywood ASAP, to start pitching his idea to the big name movie studios. It worked too lol. He took off........ dumbass.

I'd class myself an athiest (and proud) although I do have a healthy respect for nature.

I would not kill this man, the only reason I would commit a violent act against another living creature would be in self defence (something I'm more than capable of). I was raised as a Christian (protestant) but I never believed in god (and if he does exist he's getting a smack in the mouth from me in the afterlife) and just enjoyed the stories. Maybe that rubbed off on me but, at the end of the day all the bible is, is a good set of moral ideas and taken WAAAAAAY too literally by WAAAAAAY too many people! It's scary actually!

Originally posted by Awoken4Ever
reply to post by NeverSleepingEyes

 

There are no such things as "stupid questions" just "stupid answers."

www.abovetopsecret.com...

edit on 29-12-2011 by Awoken4Ever because: (no reason given)

I strongly disagree but not without this clarification: each and all are entitled to ask whatever they want to ask - even if what's being asked is plain stupid.

If you create a mental construct and leave that implicit (in this case: only religion brings morality, a statement that is proven wrong over and over again) and next ask questions that basically come down to accepting the validity of the implicit mental concept, then you are asking STUPID questions.

I support the statement that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers in a very specific context: if it means that it is better to run the risk of making a fool out of yourself by asking than to stay ignorant.
This is a different situation however, here the question is not related to growing ignorance a little smaller, it's related to that false association. Therefore I call this a STUPID question.

I hope I could clarify this for you. If I didn't succeed, well, what the F, i'm sure it will take not too long before another "believer" feels moral superiority and feels the need to hide that feeling in some dumb question.

Originally posted by Grimpachi
I think the way the question is as follows is to determine if atheist have morals or not. I say the question is rigged no matter who answers it. I also say 90% of these people are full of it. People are killed on a daily basis far less and it doesn't matter what religion you are or lack of religion. The better question is how much would it take for somebody to kill. Would you kill for a dollar, $100, thousand dollars, million dollars, billion dollars, how about $1 trillion? On top of it all you know you will get away with it. In most cases I say it's price and nothing more.

I haven't read all of the replies yet but they are somewhat amusing. Sometimes the hardest one to be honest to is oneself.

How many people here would kill for their own survival for the survival of their family.

edit on 29-12-2011 by Grimpachi because: add

Totally right, and still a lot of people says they won't do it, but that is bull...t, after all, everyday are cases of people who says the wouldn't kill a fly and then kill someone.

In my case i prefer to be honest to myself so i know i will do it for survival or my family.

reply to post by AwakeinNM


It's not so much being against those who believe in a god as it is protecting oneself from the same.

Most atheists couldn't care less what anyone else believes in until and unless those people try to force their beliefs upon others, which they inevitably do, since the presence of a single non-believer threatens them terribly.

Which tells you all you really need to know about the validity of religions.

Morals do not stem from religion, quite the contrary, I think, because religions that contain the concept of divine forgiveness for doing bad things actually is providing excuses to do them with a get-of-jail card free for the asking. Forgiveness of that sort doesn't lead to morality.

The difference between the morality of an atheist and a religious person is that the atheist doesn't have an easy out for bad actions, and must answer to his or her own conscious, whereas the religious person can do any number of bad actions repeatedly and get washed clean by their god simply by observing certain rituals (the money offerings don't hurt, either, apparently God can be bribed).

In the end I think atheists are probably more moral than religious types, and for better reasons.

reply to post by NeverSleepingEyes


Some of the most brilliant ideas came from stupid questions. Maybe you have never worked within a team, or done any type of team building concept work. If you point out to someone "that is a stupid question..." then all you are doing is possibly closing the door on the next brilliant idea to come along. There are many lurkers and conversations that have never been had because they are afraid to ask a stupid question because of responses like yours.

Originally posted by ixiy

Originally posted by followtheevidence
I don't understand why so many people are calling into question the validity of the OP's question.

The issue of naturalist ethics is a valid one and has permeated the corpus of western philosophy for quite some time.

If you reduce the logic of naturalism down to its component parts, there are a lot of inconsistencies which merit a response.

I agree. But if the question is of human naturalism, shouldn't the question include the atheist, the agnotic and the theist?

Perhaps the atheists are highlighted because they lack certain attributes that only theists might have excusive rights to claim?

Something that could be the purest, most superior compared to all the other types that may or may not exist in the world.

edit on 29-12-2011 by ixiy because: (no reason given)

Oops, missed your response until now! I'm actually pretty interested in this topic so I'm glad someone replied.

The issue here imo isn't about the inherent moral superiority of the theist vs the atheist.

We all (barring those of us with severe chemical/pathological imbalances) display some knowledge of morality - some more than others (regardless of belief), to be sure and with a very broad interpretation of what it means to be moral.

The OP doesn't challenge this, in fact he assumes it. He isn't asking the atheist if in fact he feels a moral imperative, but why he feels a moral imperative and to justify it rationally. Hopefully this can be done according to the formal rules of logic, as it should be when constructing any philosophical argument. As it is, a lot of what has been posted has been riven with emotive defensiveness ... which gets us nowhere really.

The difference between a theist and an atheist is that a theist appeals to an objective and unchanging moral agency that explains and accounts for his capacity as a moral creature. For and according to the naturalist, no such agency exists which leaves him with the task of justifying his existence as a moral being.

This isn't an offensive question. It's a question of logic and a pretty elusive one at that. I myself am a theist but remain interested in the case for naturalist ethics ... which I haven't really seen presented conclusively in any discussion so far.

Cheers everyone

Originally posted by Awoken4Ever
reply to post by NeverSleepingEyes

 

Some of the most brilliant ideas came from stupid questions. Maybe you have never worked within a team, or done any type of team building concept work. If you point out to someone "that is a stupid question..." then all you are doing is possibly closing the door on the next brilliant idea to come along. There are many lurkers and conversations that have never been had because they are afraid to ask a stupid question because of responses like yours.

could it be that you missed my first reply to you? In that reply I explained why I feel this is a STUPID question. I wrote:

"If you create a mental construct and leave that implicit (in this case: only religion brings morality, a statement that is proven wrong over and over again) and next ask questions that basically come down to accepting the validity of the implicit mental concept, then you are asking STUPID questions."

If the OP would have made his implicit mental content explicit in the question and asked something like "I take it that atheists aren't moral because only religion can bring morality. do you agree? would you - if you are an atheist - kill a person, since you don't have morals?" that would be an honest question.

Seriously, who would answer 'Yes, I would kill that person'?

As an atheist my answer is: under no circumstances would i kill a person to take something precious from his body because i am in an economical hard time. I see no reason to end someone's life no matter how he is just to help myself. To be rich in a system that will always make me poor. In a system that is so corrupt that we need to abolish as soon as possible.

Can't we just hit the dude over the head and knock him out and steal the jewel.

Originally posted by freedomSlave
Can't we just hit the dude over the head and knock him out and steal the jewel.

Maybe we can talk to him and share.

It is unfortunate that the OP (in reality) is saying or asking how Atheists can have morals because they don't believe in a god.

He just re-wrapped a question that has already been asked/addressed in several existing threads by believers.

How many more threads will believers start asking this same question? How many more clever wrappings can they invent - - to try to disguise the question?

Originally posted by Annee
How many more threads will believers start asking this same question? How many more clever wrappings can they invent - - to try to disguise the question?

Believers do not ask these questions because they KNOW it is all up to God to reveal himself to you.

Unbelievers ask these questions because they are trying to fake belief through validation from others.

Learn to discern my friend.

With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by IAMIAM


I know myself and my values. My curiousity and asking questions is not a result of trying to "fake belief" by getting validation from others. Seeking answers is not a bad thing and it certainly is not a symptom of theological insecurity.

Originally posted by absssssss
Seriously, who would answer 'Yes, I would kill that person'?

I'm not sure - but maybe don't turn your back to the OP

:-)

Originally posted by riley
reply to post by IAMIAM

 

I know myself and my values. My curiousity and asking questions is not a result of trying to "fake belief" by getting validation from others. Seeking answers is not a bad thing and it certainly is not a symptom of theological insecurity.

I said unbelievers my friend.

If the shoe does not fit, do not wear it.

With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by andersensrm
[mor

I watched that video and it was so sweet. The part where the leopard saves the baby baboon...not the part where the leopard kills the baby baboons mother. To stay on topic, I think the question is absolutely ridiculous. Why not come up with a real question? Nobody has jewels inside of them...unless it's one hell of an expensive nipple ring.

Originally posted by IAMIAM

Originally posted by riley
reply to post by IAMIAM

 

I know myself and my values. My curiousity and asking questions is not a result of trying to "fake belief" by getting validation from others. Seeking answers is not a bad thing and it certainly is not a symptom of theological insecurity.

I said unbelievers my friend.

If the shoe does not fit, do not wear it.

I am an atheist; an "unbeliever" in your god.

You made a sweeping arrogent generalisation about myself and ALL others who do not believe as you. Do not then say "friend" when you have made it quite clear you do not consider us your equals by judging and denograting from a self proclaimed high ground.

Originally posted by riley
Do not then say "friend" when you have made it quite clear you do not consider us your equals by judging and denograting from a self proclaimed high ground.

Its really annoying - isn't it.

I've asked him in the past to stop calling me "friend" and "brother". Now I just try not to respond.