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[Kuraudo]

Forgive me for picking and choosing what to respond to, as is there is much.  I do enjoy this however, and I hope the spirit of introspection continues.

Whether or not the Crusades were actually motivated by religion isn't much of an issue; the fact is, religion was used as a justification by the instigators, which caused fervent laypeople to fight even more viciously in the Holy Land. That's not even mentioning the butchery of European Jews while they were on the way.

The same argument can be said about anything, really.  "Cult of Personality," "Humanism," .etc.  It seems to me that all, in the end, are merely  causes that people manipulate to project control over a group to achieve some sort of end.  Since I doubt the existence of truly greedy people who have no "cause" in this world, even the manipulators likely are fooled into believing their own lie or another tied within it.  Regarding Jews The oppression of Jews is a longstanding tradition in this world for many (ill-conceived) reasons.  Were I the type, I would take the ongoing persecution and hatred of jews as a sign that God does exist: he certainly enjoys making hell for his "chosen" people.  Either way, this is nothing new.  When's the last time they had a fair shake?  Cyrus the Great?  I honestly don't know, however.

As I said before, he and the Nazi party created a state and personality cult, which was, essentially, a state religion. The same can be said of communist nations, most notably North Korea: the North Koreans are taught to revere Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il as gods in all but name.

This creates the problem of "what is a religion?"  Under those definitions, any mode of thinking that requires adherents to act in a certain manner qualifies as one.  Since I am not one which enjoys hearing people parrot 'The US government is its own religion!" or "Church of Obama!" slogans, I must decline to accept that definition : (

Atheism isn't an over-arching philosophy anyway; atheism is simply the lack of belief in god(s). And religion doesn't have a monopoly on morals.

Your point is well taken, however I feel that you have touched upon the crux of my own line of thinking in your efforts to persuade me (which I am more than open to - my world view is incredibly depressing).  Without a belief in a single moral backbone with terrible consequences for one who strays, straying in that morality is vastly easier.  To say otherwise, forgive me, but to say otherwise seems lacking in common sense.  Regarding a religious monopoly on morals, I never inferred otherwise (unless I did, but then I would be wrong wouldn't I?).

Anyone can create morals out of thin air - it doesn't require any thought at all.  The problem, as Nietzsche acknowledged it, is that without a God to impose a goal for humanity, humanity's morality diversifies and becomes hopelessly diffused - that is to say everyone has a different idea on morality.  Thus we are left with the problem of who determines morality - this is a question that can not be answered as even Nietzsche, who essentially devoted his life to the pursuit of the answer, failed to do so.  Society, or more specifically, the State can determine laws, but it can not hope to set forth morality.  Morality varies from one to another - Judging by responses, I am positive that my morality is vastly different than anyone else's here.  Were I Islamic, however, my morality would very likely be nearly identical to others of my particular sect - it's all spelled out for them.  They take it to heart and beat down their own personal feelings on the matter because they are under the misconception that God told them so and they better get with the program.

Ultimately, that's a desirable state of affairs if one is capable of swallowing that pill.

An atheist does indeed have something to back his morals up with: biology. Altruism is an evolved trait, observable among many primates. Reciprocal favors are as well. Since most morals can be seen as stemming from these basic principles, I think your assertion falls apart.

Forgive me, but I do not agree despite my lack of biology credentials.  Wikipedia's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology page seems to go backwards with that argument.  Far be it for me to treat Wikipedia as fact, but it is a source I have access to so I must use it in lieu of something else that I can accept.  It's breakdown of what it calls altruism seems to be more in line with Hive mentality (to a certain degree) than an actual moral imperative to help others.  I think the primary problem with associating morals with biology is that morals differ wildly. 

I'm sure there are many people who donate money to Hurricane victims, for example, but there are many who don't and have plenty of money to do so.  It's not that they can't be bothered, it's because they believe that those Victims should be helped by the Government/God/help themselves .etc

Even in dire situations like that, morality differs wildly - there is certainly no such thing as a "basic" morality.  Thus, it is I who feel that the contending argument falls apart simply by virtue of the sheer diversity of moral imperatives.

Consider this, who is more likely to commit murder? The man that knows he will spend eternity in paradise for his act, or the man who knows he has but one life to live and he shouldn't throw his or others' away?

Don't forget the IRA; we must be fair to our Islamic friends.

None the less, there are several fundamental flaws with this argument.  First of all is, what is murder?  For example, is killing in any situation murder?  If so, what are the moral consequences for that?  Are there exceptions? 

I don't think it needs to be said that there everyone has *wildly* different views on this.  Just look at abortion - there are people out there, perhaps people reading this thread, who feel that aborting a fetus conceived as a result of rape is murder that is morally equivalent to murdering a 12 year old child.

Thus, the problem, once again, stems from the system of morality, which inevitably goes back to religion.  The horrifying fanaticism of our Islamic and IRA friends is especially salient to this point: They can be driven to go against even a 1st world country's society's rules/laws (in the case of the IRA) in the name of their God-mandated morality. 

What's even more interesting is, it's not murder in their book. 

A state attempting to condone the murder of someone, on the other hand, wou...... oh wait a second.

Huh.

As an Atheist, I feel inclined to point out that the vast majority of human suffering in this world has been caused by those sharing our beliefs.  The 20th century alone pretty much cements this even if you take the Nazi's out of the equation.

I guess... even though I failed to get to where I was going I went full circle back to the original supposition?  I don't even know.

Enough quote monsters for me though - in the future summaries and short posts I promise.


*****

Because of my obnoxiously long post, here, have some TRUE RELIGION as repayment:



http://www.fredvanlente.com/cthulhutract/pages/

[Pwnzerfaust]

Forgive me for picking and choosing what to respond to, as is there is much.  I do enjoy this however, and I hope the spirit of introspection continues.

Whether or not the Crusades were actually motivated by religion isn't much of an issue; the fact is, religion was used as a justification by the instigators, which caused fervent laypeople to fight even more viciously in the Holy Land. That's not even mentioning the butchery of European Jews while they were on the way.

The same argument can be said about anything, really.  "Cult of Personality," "Humanism," .etc.  It seems to me that all, in the end, are merely  causes that people manipulate to project control over a group to achieve some sort of end.  Since I doubt the existence of truly greedy people who have no "cause" in this world, even the manipulators likely are fooled into believing their own lie or another tied within it.  Regarding Jews The oppression of Jews is a longstanding tradition in this world for many (ill-conceived) reasons.  Were I the type, I would take the ongoing persecution and hatred of jews as a sign that God does exist: he certainly enjoys making hell for his "chosen" people.  Either way, this is nothing new.  When's the last time they had a fair shake?  Cyrus the Great?  I honestly don't know, however.

As I said before, he and the Nazi party created a state and personality cult, which was, essentially, a state religion. The same can be said of communist nations, most notably North Korea: the North Koreans are taught to revere Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il as gods in all but name.

This creates the problem of "what is a religion?"  Under those definitions, any mode of thinking that requires adherents to act in a certain manner qualifies as one.  Since I am not one which enjoys hearing people parrot 'The US government is its own religion!" or "Church of Obama!" slogans, I must decline to accept that definition : (

That's because those two examples you put forth are strawmen attacked by political opponents. There is little realistic justification in the assertion that the US Government or Obama is promoting any sort of personality or state cult. On the other hand, one need only look at the massive propaganda campaigns in Korea, the old Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany to see the cults built around those totalitarian states.

Atheism isn't an over-arching philosophy anyway; atheism is simply the lack of belief in god(s). And religion doesn't have a monopoly on morals.

Your point is well taken, however I feel that you have touched upon the crux of my own line of thinking in your efforts to persuade me (which I am more than open to - my world view is incredibly depressing).  Without a belief in a single moral backbone with terrible consequences for one who strays, straying in that morality is vastly easier.  To say otherwise, forgive me, but to say otherwise seems lacking in common sense.  Regarding a religious monopoly on morals, I never inferred otherwise (unless I did, but then I would be wrong wouldn't I?).

The problem here is assuming that all the "moral imperatives" put forth by religious doctrines are necessarily good. Take a read through Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers if you would like to be disabused of that notion.

Anyone can create morals out of thin air - it doesn't require any thought at all.  The problem, as Nietzsche acknowledged it, is that without a God to impose a goal for humanity, humanity's morality diversifies and becomes hopelessly diffused - that is to say everyone has a different idea on morality.  Thus we are left with the problem of who determines morality - this is a question that can not be answered as even Nietzsche, who essentially devoted his life to the pursuit of the answer, failed to do so.  Society, or more specifically, the State can determine laws, but it can not hope to set forth morality.  Morality varies from one to another - Judging by responses, I am positive that my morality is vastly different than anyone else's here.  Were I Islamic, however, my morality would very likely be nearly identical to others of my particular sect - it's all spelled out for them.  They take it to heart and beat down their own personal feelings on the matter because they are under the misconception that God told them so and they better get with the program.

Ultimately, that's a desirable state of affairs if one is capable of swallowing that pill.

I fail to see how a single universal moral code is in any way desirable if it is one which infringes on human rights, metes out unfair punishments for minor offenses, etc. On the contrary, I think that intellectual and moral diversity makes for a much healthier (and far more interesting) society--so long as those individual codes do not infringe on another person's right to life and personal liberty.

An atheist does indeed have something to back his morals up with: biology. Altruism is an evolved trait, observable among many primates. Reciprocal favors are as well. Since most morals can be seen as stemming from these basic principles, I think your assertion falls apart.

Forgive me, but I do not agree despite my lack of biology credentials.  Wikipedia's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology page seems to go backwards with that argument.  Far be it for me to treat Wikipedia as fact, but it is a source I have access to so I must use it in lieu of something else that I can accept.  It's breakdown of what it calls altruism seems to be more in line with Hive mentality (to a certain degree) than an actual moral imperative to help others.  I think the primary problem with associating morals with biology is that morals differ wildly.

I said it was the basis, not the end-all be-all. And if morals do not ultimately stem from biology, from whence do they come? Are morals not simply a part of human psychology, and is psychology not simply a biological function of the brain?

I'm sure there are many people who donate money to Hurricane victims, for example, but there are many who don't and have plenty of money to do so.  It's not that they can't be bothered, it's because they believe that those Victims should be helped by the Government/God/help themselves .etc

Even in dire situations like that, morality differs wildly - there is certainly no such thing as a "basic" morality.  Thus, it is I who feel that the contending argument falls apart simply by virtue of the sheer diversity of moral imperatives.

While it is true that one can objectively look at it and say it's dire--it most certainly is--the fact remains that the recipients of the charity and the providers are too far removed to have the personal connection upon which altruism is ultimately based. For some it's more difficult to connect on a level beyond statistics with a person you don't know and will never know, than it is for others. The fact that some do not donate to such a distant cause is more an attack on the assertion that all people think exactly alike--which is not an assertion I was making.

Consider this, who is more likely to commit murder? The man that knows he will spend eternity in paradise for his act, or the man who knows he has but one life to live and he shouldn't throw his or others' away?

Don't forget the IRA; we must be fair to our Islamic friends.

None the less, there are several fundamental flaws with this argument.  First of all is, what is murder?  For example, is killing in any situation murder?  If so, what are the moral consequences for that?  Are there exceptions?

Murder is, by my definition anyway, the killing of a person for no legal reason. That is, for reasons outside self-defense, and perhaps other situations which I may be more equipped to enumerate at a more reasonable time of day.

I don't think it needs to be said that there everyone has *wildly* different views on this.  Just look at abortion - there are people out there, perhaps people reading this thread, who feel that aborting a fetus conceived as a result of rape is murder that is morally equivalent to murdering a 12 year old child.

True enough.

Thus, the problem, once again, stems from the system of morality, which inevitably goes back to religion.  The horrifying fanaticism of our Islamic and IRA friends is especially salient to this point: They can be driven to go against even a 1st world country's society's rules/laws (in the case of the IRA) in the name of their God-mandated morality.

But saying that it ultimately goes back to religion is implying that religion invented morals of all sorts. I can't see any way this could be the case.

What's even more interesting is, it's not murder in their book. 

I suppose that's a failing of their religious doctrines. Which just goes to show that religion isn't necessarily a force for good in the world.

A state attempting to condone the murder of someone, on the other hand, wou...... oh wait a second.

Huh.

As an Atheist, I feel inclined to point out that the vast majority of human suffering in this world has been caused by those sharing our beliefs.  The 20th century alone pretty much cements this even if you take the Nazi's out of the equation.

I guess... even though I failed to get to where I was going I went full circle back to the original supposition?  I don't even know.

Not quite seeing the connection between a state attempting to justify murder and atheism.

[Siquo]

so long as those individual codes do not infringe on another person's right to life and personal liberty.

That's exactly what they're for, to infringe on your liberty, so that you taking your liberty don't infringe someone elses.

And yes, religion did/does have a monopoly on morals, at least until the ascent of philosophy. IMHO, that's exactly what they were created for: To preserve coherence in the group, and stop everyone from bashing eachothers heads in. Before there were no morals except what came naturally, but those were never before put into words or a code, created into a system.
In small groups and families this works well by nature, but as our population grew, more and more tribes were competing for less land, and started living together in cities. Codes of conduct were necessary, where evolution was too slow to pick up our pace. A judge that was (kind of) impartial, has all the evidence, and has all the power to judge you until the end of times must've been a good deterrent.

[RAM]

As I said before, he and the Nazi party created a state and personality cult, which was, essentially, a state religion. The same can be said of communist nations, most notably North Korea: the North Koreans are taught to revere Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il as gods in all but name.

This creates the problem of "what is a religion?"  Under those definitions, any mode of thinking that requires adherents to act in a certain manner qualifies as one.  Since I am not one which enjoys hearing people parrot 'The US government is its own religion!" or "Church of Obama!" slogans, I must decline to accept that definition : (

I consider religion as one of many blind-devotion based beliefs. This provides a reason that religion(along with many other beliefs) should be avoided. Its only function in this debate is to create a situation in which just accepting religion for the fun of it is not a satisfactory default position. Religion has negative side effects, it requires overpowering positives to justify itself.

  The problem, as Nietzsche acknowledged it, is that without a God to impose a goal for humanity, humanity's morality diversifies and becomes hopelessly diffused - that is to say everyone has a different idea on morality.  Thus we are left with the problem of who determines morality - this is a question that can not be answered as even Nietzsche, who essentially devoted his life to the pursuit of the answer, failed to do so.  Society, or more specifically, the State can determine laws, but it can not hope to set forth morality.

I do not believe that other's failings are proof of impossibility. I say that seeking a goal can be a goal itself, and one that necessitates the maintenance of society. One can logically deduce whether an action will support or undermine such a pursuit. Which is all you need in order to provide morality. Of course, getting people to actually accept such a thing is a different matter entirely. I really do need to conquer this world...

[Neruz]

Ah, but then Religion or Ideology is a mere weapon, not the reason why people were killed.

And in that train of thought, ANYTHING can be used as a weapon, it's just that one is more effective than the other, so I still fail to see the point of what Hitler had for breakfast.

What Hitler had for breakfast is completely irrelevant.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

Ah, but then Religion or Ideology is a mere weapon, not the reason why people were killed.

And in that train of thought, ANYTHING can be used as a weapon, it's just that one is more effective than the other, so I still fail to see the point of what Hitler had for breakfast.

What Hitler had for breakfast is completely irrelevant.

i wholeheartedly agree! a man should not be judged for the first meal of it's day!

[Micro102]

Regarding morals, they mostly come from instinct.

"Desire to protect one's self"
"Desire to protect one's species"
"When you see a child cry you feel sad and want to help them"

[Siquo]

Regarding morals, they mostly come from instinct.

"Desire to protect one's self"
"Desire to protect one's species"
"When you see a child cry you feel sad and want to help them"

"When I see my neighbour has more stuff than me, I bash his head in and take it for myself" is also an instinct.

What you describe are not the only morals we have, only a very small and limited subset of them, the "natural morals". Most morals we have were "made up" by humans and agreed upon/forced on us. Religion had a large part in that.

[Andir]

Regarding morals, they mostly come from instinct.

"Desire to protect one's self"
"Desire to protect one's species"
"When you see a child cry you feel sad and want to help them"

"When I see my neighbour has more stuff than me, I bash his head in and take it for myself" is also an instinct.

What you describe are not the only morals we have, only a very small and limited subset of them, the "natural morals". Most morals we have were "made up" by humans and agreed upon/forced on us. Religion had a large part in that.

Most humans understand that there is favor in numbers and societal groupings (thus living in large cities for the most part.)  If you kill off all your neighbors, you only make it harder to defend your station in the case of attack (in the wild kingdom.)  Before religion established a set of rules, humans would live in communities together without much trouble.

[Siquo]

Small tribal ones, as I said earlier. The "natural morals" are usually not capable of scaling up, a set of laws and rules must be created and maintained. These were often created not by religion, but by a king or somesuch. Laws are however not morals. The moral approach either needs an amount of reasoning that only the early greeks achieved, or some inspiration from above, such as the ten commandments. The "maintaining" part became a lot easier, since the only police, judge and jury was some infallible Force up in Heaven.

The Islam, for instance, was created at just the right time: Tribes had grown to the extent where they had to co-exist peacefully, but none of them wanted any other of them to become the supratribal king over all tribes. They knew about the "people of the Book", the Jews and the Christians, and had an actual need of spiritual guidance, in order to save themselves from killing eachother.

From wiki:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Andrey Korotayev and his colleagues suggest to view the origins of Islam against the background of the 6th century AD Arabian socioecological crisis whose model is specified by Korotayev and his colleagues through the study of climatological, seismological, volcanological and epidemiological history of the period. They find that most sociopolitical systems of the Arabs reacted to the socioecological crisis by getting rid of the rigid supratribal political structures (kingdoms and chiefdoms) which started posing a real threat to their very survival. The decades of fighting which led to the destruction of the most of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms (reflected in Ayyam al-`Arab tradition) led to the elaboration of some definite "antiroyal" freedom-loving tribal ethos. At the beginning of the 7th century a tribe which would recognize themselves as subjects of some terrestrial supratribal political authority, a "king", risked to lose its honour. However, this seems not to be applicable to the authority of another type, the "celestial" one. At the meantime the early 7th century evidences the merging of the Arabian tradition of prophecy and the Arabian Monotheist "Rahmanist" tradition which produced "the Arabian prophetic movement". The Monotheist "Rahmanist" prophets appear to have represented a supratribal authority just of the type many Arab tribes were looking for at this very time, which seems to explain to a certain extent those prophets' political success (including the extreme political success of Muhammad).

[Earthquake Damage]

The moral approach either needs an amount of reasoning that only the early greeks achieved

That claim seems a bit bold to me.  Consider a hypothetical ancient culture with well-developed philosophies but no system of writing.  We may have no records of their philosophical/academic achievements, but that doesn't mean they had none.

Just sayin'! 

[Siquo]

Well, it's also impossible to prove that the greeks did exist, and it's not an elaborate hoax by some deity who created all of their history, texts and artifacts from nothing.


I'm also not saying religion created morals from nothing, but they did a lot for the acceptance of morals by people, and spreading them.

[chaoticag]

No, kings and priests did that (or so I would argue) before the existence of kingdoms and priests, there were simply no, or very little, moral guidence in societies. It just happens that you need a simple system of morals, and the best way to achieve that is to scare people into following them. Religion happened to fit nicely there, but untill then, morality was never a large part of religion, which was made of superstition about what brings more fish/game/etc. and had nothing to do with saying "Thou shalt not steal" (Because those societies were small enough that stealing is not a good idea, where would you hide it, and how could you use it?).

I think we have moved beyond the need for a supernatural entity of sorts to tell us what is right or wrong. We can very much decide that for ourselves.

(Also, nice lovecraftian tract there)

[Andir]

Well, it's also impossible to prove that the greeks did exist, and it's not an elaborate hoax by some deity who created all of their history, texts and artifacts from nothing.

That's like saying nobody could prove your Great Grandfather or George Washington existed... you realize that, right?

I could also argue that the Greeks never had the widely accepted religion that you read about in school, but it's misinterpreted history from the temples of a cult.

[smigenboger]

...Which leads back to, you can't prove anything beyond your own emperical senses, and even those are subjective