McCain picks Woman as VP, Hell freezes over.

[Mythrandir]

personally i would say being agnostic or athiest is a religion in itself and a very dangerous one at that

Unless you completely muddy up the definition of religion, I would say that this is wrong, but there is something of a movement promoting the idea of atheism as well as some aspects that people associate with atheism (such as science). However, atheism itself is simply the absence of belief that a supernatural superbeing exists.

a belief in which you believe nothing but science means you have no moral standards beside what the government puts into law, and those laws were originally formed due to religions (which were around before governments) and thus are not moral standards for you athiests/agnostics

Here is some more imprecise language on multiple levels.

1. First of all, atheism is about a lack of belief in the existence of a god. There is no justification to go from 'does not believe that a god exists' to 'only believes in science' - what does that last statement mean anyway? This basically turns that entire paragraph into a straw man, but whatever, I'll proceed:

2. It is not clear at all why 'X believes nothing but science' implicates 'X has no moral standards beside what the government puts into law'. You need to justify this. No mat could span this huge jump to conclusion.

3. The following is a flat out contradiction:

[...] you have no moral standards beside what the government puts into law, and those laws [...] are not moral standards for you [...]

[Cops]

Way to take my advice Mythrandir, nice post though.

[Zerzera]

ok, so how do you guys justify a moral standard without a god? If a mass murder claims the human rights to be wrong and his gore to be the ultimate fate of all existence, what do you tell him?

By that definition, what justification would the will of God be? God gave me free will, what if I want to use that to defy Him? God gave us laws, but we are free to break them. If we can't justify it to Him we might end in hell, but that's our own choice. (Although this is a contradiction because in the bible he actually kills a lot of people who practice actual free will).

So basically there are two laws; the law of God and the law of man. We made up those laws, they are much better defined than the law of God. And by far the most laws have nothing to do with religion or God's morals.

[Fluffz]

a belief in which you believe nothing but science means you have no moral standards [...] at least any religious person's faith backs up moral standards

Exalt argues for a moral standard, or lets say thats how i translate another possible nonsense for the sake of argumentation. My emphasis is on standard, a norm under which multiple persons can live together.

Even the most scientific scientist on earth has to have faith in logic, after all he could be on a logic trip in an unlogical reality or living in this single of infinite universes in infinite time that raises the imagination of logic by highly unlikely luck until some future point where it becomes chaotic again. If it wasnt for his faith, how would he live with others? He would not be bound to anything he bases on this logic. This possible chaos is replaced by faith which creates a save environment for a group of people.

That would be if morale would be based on logic, from logic it still is a far, far and faithfull way to human rights. The bottom line is: Being "good" just like logic requires faith whether or not you have a God to express this. And in the end "good" and logic can result in the standard of human rights (that is not based on science but faith).

No, I have morals. But unlike you I rationalized them, my morals are mine and I live by them. I don't pretend some views to be my morals because of my fear of some diety. I am probably less likely to sell out my morals because I have principles.

But you do not follow a norm with that. Maybe you do not believe in the destruction of the world but someone who does could argue just like you do. In less extreme cases that is not a bad thing, conformity ruins cultures. But you do not follow a moral standard if you do not believe in humans to be "good" at some point. And "good" is defined from outside, from some sort of deity.

Very easily. Before 0BC (or whatever Jesus was born) Christianity didn't even exist, yet moral standards still exist

If age is your justification i have to say anarchy, sodom and destruction existed far before morale was tought of and any mass murder has every right to proceed.

[Zerzera]

But you do not follow a norm with that. Maybe you do not believe in the destruction of the world but someone who does could argue just like you do. In less extreme cases that is not a bad thing, conformity ruins cultures. But you do not follow a moral standard if you do not believe in humans to be "good" at some point. And "good" is defined from outside, from some sort of deity.

That's exactly the point! Anyone can do what he can put himself to doing and what he can get away with. Studies do show that a big group of human is only held in check by the laws we made and the chance of them being arrested, imprisoned. Everything is relative to our perception, not only of the individual, but of any group of human beings.
The fact that you can get annoyed by things that seem totally normal shows how little this margin is.
How much less intelligent is a 'retard' to a normal human being when you compare us to an ant? Yet for some people it's reason to abort these people or be generally annoyed by them.

Since I am liberal, I set my own boundary to where life starts and where it ends. Then from that I think that any person should be free to do whatever they please without endangering the well being of another human.

This is on individual level, I know we might be suffocating ourselves with our own industry, but I believe that we aren't smart enough to manage our own population that easily to fix these kind of problems ad hoc.

[Zerzera]

By the way, to get back to Warks comments on Osama uh Obama; McCain Foods ltd. has multiple French Fry factories. So it's obvious that McCain has ties with rogue state France, Americans sworn enemy. :fear: [/RETARD]

[Mythrandir]

Fluffz, I was about to address your entire post. Personally I think you are mixing up 'is' and 'ought' in your line of reasoning, which makes it confusing to dissect and understand. So I will just comment on this part:

But you do not follow a moral standard if you do not believe in humans to be "good" at some point

I agree with: you can only have a moral standard if you can judge some behavior to be desirable (good), and some behavior to be undesirable (good).

And "good" is defined from outside, from some sort of deity.

This comes completely out of the blue, it does not follow from the previous sentences, and you introduce a whole new set of assumptions and premises. I think you should justify this leap of reasoning.

[Zerzera]

This comes completely out of the blue, it does not follow from the previous sentences, and you introduce a whole new set of assumptions and premises. I think you should justify this leap of reasoning.

So, Fluffz, if there is a God, there is no free will. We are merely puppets and thus life is futile. If life, to you, is nothing but something you have to go through to go to heaven, why not call to your God and stop living? How would life be a gift when compared to heaven?
At least I enjoy life enough to see it as the meaning itself, if I die it's over so this is all we got and we should make the best out of it.

[Fluffz]

That's exactly the point! Anyone can do what he can put himself to doing and what he can get away with.

So to close the cycle, would you vote such a person with individual morale into a position where he can rule over others or would you rather vote a person that shares a morale with everyone? Because thats what we talk about, we pick a leader. Ideal ideas aside, in the current reality id rather have the conformist

Everything is relative to our perception

That kind of contradicts with the idea of norms. But while perception is relative, god is not. If we could free ourselves from genes and knowledge WHILE questing for a morale norm the only possibility is god. Those two go hand in hand. If you reject such a standard you have to accept that someone can come down the street, shoot you in the face and had every right to do so. Because your dogma "without endangering the well being of another human" has no justification other than relative perception.

This comes completely out of the blue, it does not follow from the previous sentences, and you introduce a whole new set of assumptions and premises. I think you should justify this leap of reasoning.

A morale standard can only be created from outside because we humans here on the inside of this universe are blind. Evolution and culture changed the truth into what we see today. We could define a morale but once we escape the prison of history it loses every credability. What kind of standard is this supposed to be? If you want a moral standard you need a god.

So, Fluffz, if there is a God, there is no free will. We are merely puppets and thus life is futile. If life, to you, is nothing but something you have to go through to go to heaven, why not call to your God and stop living? How would life be a gift when compared to heaven?
At least I enjoy life enough to see it as the meaning itself, if I die it's over so this is all we got and we should make the best out of it.

A monk asked me once: If you were a mice and locked in a cage, would you enjoy your life or would you rather sit down and meditate? I said i would race in my wheel as fast as i could. It was the wrong answer i think.

[Epinephrine]

If 'moral standard' means that my first born is slaughtered by some random angels because the sun-god pharoah who has nothing to do with me won't let some slaves leave the country, then I guess you're right. Not that any of that actually happened anyway, but just saying...

[Fluffz]

If you would rather have a leader that judges by his relative perception justifying genocide and slavery by his messed up childhood then i guess you are right. Two can play this game.

[Zerzera]

So to close the cycle, would you vote such a person with individual morale into a position where he can rule over others or would you rather vote a person that shares a morale with everyone? Because thats what we talk about, we pick a leader. Ideal ideas aside, in the current reality id rather have the conformist

That kind of contradicts with the idea of norms. But while perception is relative, god is not. If we could free ourselves from genes and knowledge WHILE questing for a morale norm the only possibility is god. Those two go hand in hand. If you reject such a standard you have to accept that someone can come down the street, shoot you in the face and had every right to do so. Because your dogma "without endangering the well being of another human" has no justification other than relative perception.

Sigh, again, he is free to shoot me in the face, even if there is a God. Whether he does it by his own morals or the morals of some deity. But morals is just something we as human beings came up with.
You are free to kill me, it's only that we put general morals into law, you may or may not agree with them, the fact that you might be punished is enough to keep you from doing so.
Religion is just a way to control people, it has nothing to do with morals itself.

A morale standard can only be created from outside because we humans here on the inside of this universe are blind. Evolution and culture changed the truth into what we see today. We could define a morale but once we escape the prison of history it loses every credability. What kind of standard is this supposed to be? If you want a moral standard you need a god.

No you do not, it's something that comes naturally in a society. God never made a rebel, that comes from within a person. Even God let you have free will and he would only deny you heaven if you acted upon your own values. People actually had them.


And please let's not start the dick comparing about religious/mystics and non-religious/mystics who put the world through cruelty. The Pharaoh lived by the moral of a God too.

[Mythrandir]

A morale standard can only be created from outside because we humans here on the inside of this universe are blind. Evolution and culture changed the truth into what we see today. We could define a morale but once we escape the prison of history it loses every credability. What kind of standard is this supposed to be? If you want a moral standard you need a god.

You're making this really difficult for me now Fluffz. You are making a bunch of assertions of which you seem to assume that I accept these to be true. But I don't, so I cannot accept your conclusion before I know the following:

1. Why are humans inside of this universe 'blind'? What does that mean?
2. From the great authority of 'define: universe' -> "everything that exists anywhere". So 'inside of this universe' as opposed to what, outside this universe?
3. What does 'changing the truth' mean?
4. Are you implying that in some past there was absolute truthness? What does that mean?
5. How does (the theory of) evolution affect truth?
6. How does culture affect truth?
7. 'escape the prison of history'. What does that mean?

"What kind of standard is this supposed to be?"
That is something I can address. My interpretation of the term 'moral standard' is this: a set of rules that define what is good and what is bad behavior. The kind of moral standard that we have is entirely dependent on our culture and time - this includes yours.

"If you want a moral standard you need a god."
I will disprove this statement by defining a moral standard myself.
[ a. murder is bad; b. cake is good; c. stealing is bad; d. driving in a SUV is good ].
Unless you think that I am a god (I would be flattered), your statement is false.

[gran guerrero]

it's simply a problem of ethnocentrism

[Epinephrine]

Morals are constructed by humans as a way for human society to function better. There are countless examples of altruism which shows that it leads to more success than everyone being a self-interested conceited bastard. As such moral standards have evolved everywhere because those groups that had some sort of rules to abide by, generally did better. Of course there is a fine balance, in that the rules must not be too onerous, or else the people are stifled and cannot progress. Examples of these include authoritarian societies and middle ages Europe.

Whether or not there is some concept of 'god' and having some sort of man-made 'religious document' to abide by, or whether it is simply a cultural, experiential or philosophical method of deciding what is 'good' and what is 'bad', the fact is they all serve the same purposes.

In the extreme, the 'law' is the most direct form of morality, because unlike some other morals it is the most explicit in exactly what is wrong. Of course when law is created undemocratically it can be distorted and oppressive, but when democratically created, it can accurately reflect community standards and what the overall populace considers 'good' and 'bad'.

In fact this is one of the biggest problems with religious morality. Because religious documents and interpretation of those documents are generally unchanging, or at best very, very slowly changing, the morals that they represent may not represent the reality of the present, but instead represent what was life thousands of years ago. Because some things simply were not fathomable or possible thousands of years ago, there are no rules against it, and because there are some other things which have changed so much now, perhaps it's not such a big deal. For example, why can't Jews and Muslims eat pork? Perhaps if those religions started today, the idea that the meat is unclean somehow would not be as prevalent thanks to factory farming.

The problem with religious authority, is that the code of morals is never changing, and thus cannot adapt to the times, and as time goes it, it may become increasingly irrelevant. True some ideas still last (i.e. don't murder), but then again these are universal good ideas anyway.

Look, no matter what religion, or even NOT religion, certain things are universally considered 'good' in human society, such as helping eachother, respecting your elders and caring for children. Meanwhile certain things are always 'bad' such as murder or stealing. It doesn't matter whether it was ancient Greece with it's many, many gods, China with its lack of centralized religion in its 3000 year history, or in monotheistic religions such as Islam and Christianity, certain ideals are universal, because they just make sense.