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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Strongpoint]

The White House announced Wednesday the administration will develop a National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia in the United States.

If your ideology promotes misogyny, homophobia, pedophilia and many other "good" things...  You will be protected by the state if that ideology includes belief in supernational beings

[hector13]

That’s been the case since Amendment 1, brah.

[Laterigrade]

I fell out of my faith a few years ago and I think I’ve acted pretty intellectually dishonestly with regards to it, but I just can’t bring myself to care; to take up arms and wade into the swamp of figuring out whether Jesus did what was claimed, or establishing the accuracy and relevance of the Old Testament, or the trustworthiness of the Gospels, or any other such thing.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

[Strongpoint]

I fell out of my faith a few years ago and I think I’ve acted pretty intellectually dishonestly with regards to it, but I just can’t bring myself to care; to take up arms and wade into the swamp of figuring out whether Jesus did what was claimed, or establishing the accuracy and relevance of the Old Testament, or the trustworthiness of the Gospels, or any other such thing.

I see nothing dishonest in this. You have no obligation to check if something is true, to "fix" a lack of belief in something.

I can understand why you may feel this way. For a Christian, believing in God is the main element of morality and if your faith wavers it is your moral duty to fight the doubt and bring that faith back. But it really isn't.

[Eschar]

I was going to say what strongpoint said but then strongpoint said it

[MaxTheFox]

I'd say something but I know I am an unusual case in that I was an utterly rotten person in my atheist days.

Honestly most atheists I know are probably more moral than I am now. I'm not a good person though I am trying. At least my past self and her actions and ideology lie dead, obliterated. So it's all worth it. Which is part of why I keep my faith: as protection from the militant, deranged arch-pseudo-rationalism of oldMax.

(But I also went through the effort of making my faith coherent by figuring out what to discard and what not which is more thought than most raised-Christians put into it... I don't blame anyone for not doing so. It's draining.)

[Strongpoint]

Worries about my morality were the last thing that kept my last theistic views. I was worried that once I become fully convinced that there is no reason to believe in an afterlife in which everything is rewarded or punished, that there is no divine justice or some other kind of karma, that there are no even mandated, pre-created rules of what is good and evil - I will become cynical and cold.

Never happened. I still care deeply about what is just, what is good, and what is honorable.

[MaxTheFox]

To be honest I was kind of a bitch for the first 2 years of so of my conversion so like. It probably wasn't a major factor.

[Telgin]

Worries about my morality were the last thing that kept my last theistic views. I was worried that once I become fully convinced that there is no reason to believe in an afterlife in which everything is rewarded or punished, that there is no divine justice or some other kind of karma, that there are no even mandated, pre-created rules of what is good and evil - I will become cynical and cold.

Never happened. I still care deeply about what is just, what is good, and what is honorable.

Same.

Well, I never worried that I'd lose any sense of morality when I stopped believing, but losing my belief never changed my morality.  Actually, I'd argue it changed for the better.  I stopped splitting hairs over meaningless things and judging people for things that hurt no one.

If you think about it, it's a bit silly to think that religion is the only thing keeping people from twirling mustaches and tying helpless women to train tracks.  A lot of morality is pretty deeply baked into humans being social cooperative creatures, if you want to look at it from a more objective point of view.

[Strongpoint]

When you are a theist, your evaluation of the morality of some act is polluted by questions like "Is this good or evil on a cosmic scale of morality? How does God see it? What magical effects will it have on the soul of the one who does it and souls of others?" and other completely meaningless questions which are impossible to answer honestly even if those things exist.

[McTraveller]

Huh? Those are not the questions I ask at all about morality, and I'm a theist.

The questions I ask are more "Why do I behave in ways that are contrary to what I think is moral? Do I really believe these things, given that I don't put them into practice? Do I really think morals are what I think they are?"

[MaxTheFox]

Yeah that's a strawman, unless you're talking to a fundamentalist (don't talk to fundamentalists).

[Strongpoint]

Huh? Those are not the questions I ask at all about morality, and I'm a theist.

The questions I ask are more "Why do I behave in ways that are contrary to what I think is moral? Do I really believe these things, given that I don't put them into practice? Do I really think morals are what I think they are?"

Those questions answer seek a different answer. Those are variants of "Why do I not act in a way I consider to be morally right?", my questions are "Is this action moral and why?"

How exactly do you determine the latter?

[McTraveller]

Eh, that’s a flawed question anyway: actions don’t have morality, it’s the intent behind them that matters.

[Schmaven]

Eh, that’s a flawed question anyway: actions don’t have morality, it’s the intent behind them that matters.

While any action could be good or bad depending on the circumstances, some can be seen as just plain immoral for 99.9recurring% of the time.  What makes war crimes immoral for example?  Only when the other side does it?  Or are some actions simply never justified?  And what would those commiting such attrocities have to say about why they do them?

For the more neutral actions, intent absolutely is the main factor in whether something is moral or not.