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[Siquo]

How was it a good moral value? I mean it doesn't completely goes over my head that viking society had it's golden age, but to call these value "good"...

Unless you realise that "good" and "bad" are not what you think they are, there's no argument to be had at all.

There are no good or bad morals. There's only morals, and a perspective. Something can be good for all, or good for a few, good for expansion, good for keeping the "race pure", good for happiness, good for stability, good for your country, good for all countries, good for you, good for others. In essence, nobody is evil, as everyone has some kind of rationalisation for his perspective.

If that rationalisation is "because God says so", that can mean nothing to you, and everything to someone else. Do not be mistaken, however, that religions blindly say stuff like "because the bible says so". There's theological arguments between and inside religions all the time, weighing pros and cons and value and ratio and logic (yes!) against each statement. "Religion" is not one big monolith that knows the truth, they argue a lot more than atheists do.

[Criptfeind]

Yes, and it can be used to defend any value, good or bad, as opposed to argumentation who fail at defending bad value, by definition (or should I say "are less efficient", given that someone persuasive can defend a bad position, even though, by definition, a good argumentation can dismiss it's position.)

Dude, tool of society. If society says something is bad, then it will be labeled as. If society says something is good, it will be labeled as good. There is non of this 'oh it can be used to defend something bad' because ultimately you will have two groups, people who use it for one thing and people who use it for the other. The bigger group will always be the group who is using it for good.

This is true of basically everything.

How was it a good moral value? I mean it doesn't completely goes over my head that viking society had it's golden age, but to call these value "good"...

It was a time of war and strife. They had (or at least did) kill and loot and plunder to survive. Thus it was good.

Obviously now such values are not good, but values change over time.

[Leafsnail]

I guess deities could be true, but if they're true in such a way that it doesn't effect reality and there's no way to test it... well, to be frank, I don't care.  I don't have the infinite amount of time and brainpower required to consider every possible "Thing that could be true but would not effect observable reality in any way", especially since the vast majority of them do not appear in any religion at all.

Even if they kindof effect reality but in a non testable way (such as Heaven and Hell) I don't see any need to speculate.  A God (all powerful, all knowing, all good) who rewards you for doing good things is just as likely as a Devil (all powerful, all knowing, all evil) who punishes you for doing those things, after all.

Obviously whether it's useful for some people to believe in deities, whether religion has a positive effect on society and so on are all completely separate issues.

There are no good or bad morals. There's only morals, and a perspective. Something can be good for all, or good for a few, good for expansion, good for keeping the "race pure", good for happiness, good for stability, good for your country, good for all countries, good for you, good for others. In essence, nobody is evil, as everyone has some kind of rationalisation for his perspective.

It's interesting - I personally would say that some morals are relative, and others are more fundamental.  The Golden Rule (which is common to basically all religions - I think humans realise that it's necessary for a remotely stable society, and therefore it got written into most religions) of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or whatever phrasing you prefer... I think can be applied universally, and that "good" and "bad" can be to some extent defined by it.

So... for example, knowingly inflicting harm on someone else purely for your own gain would always be bad if you defined "good" and "bad" in this way.  Obviously there are loads of shades of grey (just because it's a universally applied morality doesn't mean everything has to be "right" or "wrong"), though.

[Astral]

How was it a good moral value? I mean it doesn't completely goes over my head that viking society had it's golden age, but to call these value "good"...

Good and bad are subjective. To reference one of the most cliched events: Hitler, to much of the world, was considered "bad," but many of the Germans and those under him witnessed Germany becoming an industrial revolutionary.

To put it plainly: there is no good or evil, just what people interpret them as, usually through personal experience. Even using the title topic Religion, Lucifer/Satan/whatever you want to call him was simply the heavenly version of a rebellious teenager. It was only later that people demonized him and gave all the bad associations; at the time he was used as a "follow your parents wishes or you'll become evil/go to hell/burn/etc."

This is coming from someone who has a third person view on organized religion in general; I dislike it, but it's fun to analyze the "whys" and "hows" of what these guys came up with.

"If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?" 

[Criptfeind]

Leafsnail, I disagree quite hardly with you. I believe that good and bad are always subjective. I believe that there are some things any sane human would call bad, but once again that is only subjective to a sane human.

[Omegastick]

In answer to the OP (as I can't be bothered to read the whole topic):

I believe that there is a God for several reasons. First and foremost is because see miracles in the world around me; miracles happen all over the world every few seconds (my definition of a miracle is something that completely defies physics/ignores almost impossible odds that someone has prayed for). For example, I have been to Newday (A Christian youth event) three times now. Each time , on the one from last night, a healing night is held. These are amazing, and literally hundreds of people are healed. Healings there range from things like people's eyesight being fixed to allergies being fixed to full on spinal restructure (one girl had a horribly deformed spine that was fixed in about ten seconds. One of my friends had a lactose intolerance healed and another had is broken leg made better instantly.

Secondly (it should really be my first reason, but I'm not a brilliant Christian), Jesus has told us that it is true. How we know that Jesus was telling the truth is something else altogether which could take up pages and pages. If you really want, I can skim the surface of the topic, but I don't have the time for a full thing.

Thirdly, it seems impossible that we are just computers. There is no way that we are simply random chemical reactions going off in our head that causes us to be able to manipulate the world around us and think/talk about philosophy. Animals work in just the same way, but are nothing like us because they have no spirit. We have a spirit and therefore we can reason rationally and act the way we do. We can create art and come up with new ideas (which you never see an animal doing). It is impossible for computers to be truly creative like us because computers do not have spirit. We can make computers that appear to be creative, but they are actually just following out the algorithms that the creative human has given it to do and assigning logical values to random bits.

Anyway, I'm out of time now, so I can't write about the fourth reason. Maybe I will later.

[Glowcat]

I'm with Criptfeind and others on morality. What is "good" and "bad" is entirely dependent upon goals/values and how they compromise with each other. Of course, most of us have a basic sense of empathy which can make certain moralities seem extremely evil when looking in from the outside. I believe I'm also with Leafsnail in the sense that I recognize certain moralities are necessary to even keep a society, and therefore morals, in the first place... though they are essentially still subjective. What's "necessary" also breaks down once humans divide into tribal groups that rely more on inter-group morality than external-group interactions.

Subjective morality doesn't mean that we aren't able to judge other values as inferior or something to avoid. We can objectively identity harmful effects to our own goals/value and, with any agreement between us, seek to remove those evils from a position where they can harm us. Nobody thinks twice about incarcerating a serial killer. On that basis, I think Phmcw is very much able to argue against "bad" moralities.

[Criptfeind]

Ah. Only too true Glowcat.

But still, trying to apply modern morality to ancient society is just silly.

[ed boy]

I believe that there is a God for several reasons.

Do you mind if I ask you what exactly you mean by god? It seems that a lot of atheists do not understand what religious people mean when they talk about god. Instead, they make a guess at what god is to religous people, which tends to result in something absurd.

[Duke 2.0]

kill your enemies, die a warrior and feast and fight for eternity in Valhalla Was a good moral value.

How was it a good moral value? I mean it doesn't completely goes over my head that viking society had it's golden age, but to call these value "good"...

Bravery, defending your family/clan/village, make sure your life meant something to someone, etc. The morals themselves as presented are iffy, but they do represent morals that are considered valuable even today. Taking the 'morals change over time' idea we started with very harsh and crude versions of morals we value today that got refined over the generations. Back then you didn't have all the morals we take for granted ingrained in society and such moral values would lead to the general population respecting the ideas that develop from them. You needed to start somewhere with something.

[Strife26]

Valhalla is an awesome idea. Keep people like me out Heavan, where we'd break shit, and out of hell, where we'd mess up the fundamental order of things.


Yeah, I'm mostly here cuz someone spoke my name.

[Phmcw]

Yes, and it can be used to defend any value, good or bad, as opposed to argumentation who fail at defending bad value, by definition (or should I say "are less efficient", given that someone persuasive can defend a bad position, even though, by definition, a good argumentation can dismiss it's position.)

Dude, tool of society. If society says something is bad, then it will be labeled as. If society says something is good, it will be labeled as good. There is non of this 'oh it can be used to defend something bad' because ultimately you will have two groups, people who use it for one thing and people who use it for the other. The bigger group will always be the group who is using it for good.

This is true of basically everything.

How was it a good moral value? I mean it doesn't completely goes over my head that viking society had it's golden age, but to call these value "good"...

It was a time of war and strife. They had (or at least did) kill and loot and plunder to survive. Thus it was good.

Obviously now such values are not good, but values change over time.

With this set of value how come you disagree that hard with me on the piracy thread?
You're displaying hardcore objectivism here, and when I shoot down copyright as a right to control all copy as obviously inefficient and out of touch with reality you defend it on moral grounds?

You're obviously right on societies, that label things as good or bad depending of the context, but as an individual, I feel that humanist values are universal (more or less : they are not world of god but I think there is a profound truth in them).

[Omegastick]

I believe that there is a God for several reasons.

Do you mind if I ask you what exactly you mean by god? It seems that a lot of atheists do not understand what religious people mean when they talk about god. Instead, they make a guess at what god is to religous people, which tends to result in something absurd.

When I say God, I mean the all-powerful being that holds the universe together as he is described in the Bible. This means that he is all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere, loving, the Trinity, etc.

[TherosPherae]

And this thread has now turned into an outright good-vs.-bad objectivity mindscrew. I'm outta here.

[Criptfeind]

Now you want consistency? Good luck with that.

Anyway, I am not going to debate if good and evil can be 'true' cause I don't give a fuck.

I said my reasons about religion, and if anyone wants to debate me on them I will, but if you want to talk about if morality is  objective or not make a new thread.