Chaos without religion?
Posted on: July 29, 2007 - 2:01pm
Offline
Chaos without religion?
Many theist claim that religion was the base for our laws, therefore our social values are based on religion. If we get rid of religion, we would not have any social values. What is your stand on this? Example:
Quote:
As to religion = morality. The idea of consequences for actions certainly predates religion, but the modern day laws are in large part based off of Hebrew biblical law, which in turn is based off of the polytheistic religions of ancient man. This goes back to the first point I was trying to make about how if you take the superstition out of religion, you (usually) end up with a decent societal framework. The very first civilization in Mesopotamia, Sumer, was structured around a central ziggurat from which the priests of the polytheistic religions held quite a bit of power. It isn't hard to imagine that early man, at a loss to explain the natural phenomena around him, ascribed the meaning of storms and droughts to the anger of the gods over their actions.
If this is true, then why are we trying to get rid of religion? If this is false, then how can we prove that humans without religion will not be chaotic.
- Login to post comments
It's bullshit. Notice the most religious nations have very high crime rates, while more secular ones have lower rates.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
if someone believes that the removal of religion would lead to chaos, i'd be very curious as to what their definition of "chaos" is, exactly. because it would seem to me that the middle east is utter chaos, and religion factors very heavily into their governments and daily lives. you could even go so far as to say that the more fanatical a society is about religion, the more prone they are to chaos. i.e. the bloodthirsty mobs that resulted from simple cartoons of the prophet.
www.derekneibarger.com http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=djneibarger "all postures of submission and surrender should be part of our prehistory." -christopher hitchens
Christians themselves don't believe it: they steal from secular morality.
http://www.rationalresponders.com/christians_must_steal_from_secular_morality
Christians believe that people can be responsible moral agents, they believe in doing things for more than just rewards and punishments..... these are secular concepts.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I'll be echoing others in some places, but I'll say it none the less.
1. Morality is not based on religion nor is religion needed for morality.
2. Look at countries with high or low religiosity.
3. Point out places in the bible (or X holy book) where there is something immoral. This may even be shown to be immoral to their standards...
Check this out. Now if a theist is being moral because their god tells them what to do and an atheist is being moral on their own accord for personal reasons who is more moral?
I did a blog entry on this same subject recently after I asked theists and non theists a series of questions to determine where their morality actually comes from. I found that most of the theists morality was based on fear while most non-theist's morality was based on compassion. In my opinion religion doesn't give people morality, it strips them of it.
http://arlettaq.spaces.live.com
Thanks for that link void. Got anything else similar to this? I would prefer something from outside this website, as theist consider this to be a hate website.
Social values come from respecting others, not Biblical rules.
Fundamentalist Christians think we need the ten commandments in the schools and on government property as God's moral code to society.
Do we really need a set of rules telling us that killing somebody or stealing property or lying are not good things to do? Common sense tells us that doing these things will bring bad results.
If somebody kills somebody it's not because they didn't know they weren't supposed to do it. It's not like they're saying, "I never knew about the ten commandments so I thought it would be okay to stab him."
"Thou shalt not kill. " - God
Gee thanks God. I would have never figured that one out on my own. ( rolling eyes )
By the way God, whatever happened to all those people in that big flood you created?
Frosty's coming back someday. Will you be ready?
If you are talking about the link about moral development the theist must be smoking crack or something. The site is run by a psychology professor who teaches at a university, which is who hosts it.
If you are talking about todangst's link follow his sources and use them to support the points you plan to make.
You could use the same kind of thing for the link I gave you, but honestly all I did was search for moral devlopment (Kohlberg's Theory), something I learned in highschool psychology, with an edu tag.
I hope they don't think about.com is a hate site...
http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentalpsychology/a/kohlberg.htm
Edit: You could also check out Beyond Belief '06. In Session 5 this topic is talked about towards the end. Probably wont win over a theist from just watching, but it could give you some good info.
I try to avoid using the word “morality” but here I will because you folks are using it.
Can moral value be drawn without religion? Of course. Yes.
As a matter of fact it can be drawn more accurately. We will have a better society if we indoctrinate the whole world with a set of morality that is drowned out of scientific method.
Can majority of the people understand the moral values? No.
If suddenly (3 months or 3 years) most people of the world started to believe that religions are false without any in depth knowledge of science, logic, language, meaning of words/thought processing power then would the world be in chaos? Absolutely.
90% of Muslims or so and over half of Christians will start raping every man, women and child that they can get their hands on.
Let’s accept the fact that only a very tiny minority of people are intellectually capable of deep thought processing about complex topics like morality.
Only a slow evolutionary process of transition from religion to secularistic society will benefit mankind.
Please see my post at http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/the_rational_response_squad_radio_show/freethinking_anonymous/9085
Is there a way to set up polls at this site?
I doubt 90% of muslims or half of christians would go around raping women. (because women would then not be worried about killing a male for raping her) Most of these societies live in an orderly fashion, normally, unless religion is brought up or in their view disrespected, when this occurs a mob mentality takes over it seems. As well, this is a personal opinion, if one day they woke up knowing that religion is bullshit, they probably re-evaluate their lifestyles and moral choices. Everything they believed in and how they lived has changed, their moral beliefs have changed as well.
Would some go on a killing spree? sure, would some rape women? sure, would some rob? sure, however this would happen to any society in which it's set of law and order is disrupted, as it has been shown historically.