My first question here.

Hands
Theist
Hands's picture
Posts: 5
Joined: 2010-11-28
User is offlineOffline
My first question here.

To my athiest friends (I apologize if this is a simple or silly question): On what do you base your sense of morality? I know many of you claim that God is evil and not moral, so what is your ultimate basis for morality? Are there moral absolutes in the Athiest worldview?

 


 

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."


Zaq
atheist
Zaq's picture
Posts: 269
Joined: 2008-12-24
User is offlineOffline
Game Theory

Game Theory


harleysportster
atheist
harleysportster's picture
Posts: 3359
Joined: 2010-10-17
User is offlineOffline
Hands

Hands, hopefully your still on here and reading these posts. I would like to pose a question to you about your  ideas of morals and where you may feel that you develop your sense of morals from. I know that you have stated that you are a Christian, so therefore you probably believe that morals are given to you by God. But, if you don't mind taking the time, check out this link and tell me what you think. Don't worry, it's only a little over three minutes and I don't think that it will bore you :

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DjmoM1OlpI

 

I would just like to hear your feedback on the video and what conclusions you draw.

 

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno


BobSpence
High Level DonorRational VIP!ScientistWebsite Admin
BobSpence's picture
Posts: 5939
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
It is impossible to get

It is impossible to get absolute moral standards from God.

If we are to base such absolute standards on what God says, we are stuck because we cannot be certain than anything we read, even in a claimed holy Book, really is the 'word of God'. Or that any feeling we have that God is telling us what to do is not our own imagination - many people have famously done terrible things based on what they thought God was telling them to do.

And even if we could be confident that we knew the 'word of God', we cannot know whether the behaviour He commands is actually Good or not.

We cannot know what His ultimate motivations and intentions toward us are.

It is pure assumption that 'God is Good'. There is no logical way to demonstrate that a God wishes us well - the observation of the world he has allegedly created, with natural disasters and nasty disease organisms and parasites, would suggest otherwise.

 

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology