For what reason do atheists have morals? I would really like to know. There are no real consequences for your actions...

For what reason do atheists have morals? I would really like to know. There are no real consequences for your actions. Besides doing something blantently illegal you could do whatever you want.

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They have only animalistic instincts and material interests

the only reason athiests do anything is so that they can think feel and act like theyre better than you.

We all have them because God's law is written on our hearts, we have something called a conscience.

The problem is Atheists cannot ground their conscience objectively, so there cannot be any absolute right or wrong in their worldview.

Atheists care about other humans because they focus on this world rather than presuming to know what happens after. Acting moral towards other humans ensures security for themselves. Not that difficult.

Oh so they only care about others because it affects them. Good to know

Isn't that the same as Christians? "I'm moral so I won't be punished in the afterlife"

Why make shit up faggot.???
Jesus I don't care about god and I just live my life

>For what reason do atheists have morals?
Atheists are the only people capable of having morals. Religious people have no morality! They are brainwashed robots.

That's not the Christian view at all, Jesus taught us to love others including our enemies, like he loved all of us.

Jesus died on the cross also for those who crucified him, he loved all, and so we are also called to love all people.

We all deserve punishment, but Christ already took it in our place, so all we have to do is accept that free gift so that the wrath of God will not be upon us when judgment comes.

Because we really do care about ourselves, other people and the future, and take personal responsibility for our actions, and not ajust our behaviour in accordance with fear of eternal punishment and reward.

If you do not understand that, you are a terrible Christian, since Catholic theology believed that a true Christian would remain such in an absence of the knowledge of God, heaven and hell.

>religious dude
>didnt give a fuck till 16 years old
>"converted"
>saw uncle get lowered to his grave 4 days ago
>world feels even more void and pointless except if there is an afterlife in which we will all be judged

I don't get atheists.

You feel bad after and you will get in trouble

That's Christians

No we don't have instincts we aren't monkeys.

But I can still be atheist and believe that Jesus was a great moral teacher without being divine. So how would being Christian make someone more moral (OP's post).

>There are no real consequences for your actions.

Except there are? There are all kinds of consequences for anything and everything for everyone.

christinas don't believe in consquences

Hypothetical situation. If society was fine with rape and there would be no consewuence for doing it what is the consequence. See your morals are constructed by whatever society you live in. Morality for you depends on location and societal values

we are monkeys and have morals to benefit from a society.
yup. THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES. just not from god, or krishna, or zeus or whatever deity you can think of.

Sure you can, most Atheists are probably good people (Humanly speaking, we've all fallen short in reality)

The problem isn't that you can't do good, it's that what you think is good, cannot be grounded objectively in reality, it remains as your subjective opinion and is just as valid as anyone else's opinion.

So if you say "Rape is bad", and someone else from a different culture "Rape is good", which one of you is correct? Given Atheism, both statements are valid, because moral values begin and end with the individual, it's their opinion.

Then you could say that the culture decides what is good, but you see even then it's not objective. If that culture dies and the next one had a different set of values, then those would become good. In other words, might makes right, and values can change depending on human opinion.

Objective moral values mean that they are valid and binding independent of human opinion. So even if Hitler had won WW2, and managed to brainwash or exterminate anyone who thought killing homosexuals and gypsies was wrong, so that everyone on earth thought it was good, it would STILL be wrong, because they're independent of human opinion.

Yeah no that's just YOUR denominations interpretation of the collection of books known as the bible. Don't tell me how to interpret my bible you fucko

>Besides doing something blantently illegal you could do whatever you want.

That's true, 'real' atheists (not the plebbitor kind) have no delusions like Christcucks. Also religion has not stopped human cruelty throughout history, particularly the Middle Ages.

i'm cool with how christians run their countries. just can't make myself believe in a god for some reason

Umm.... may I ask how you're interpreting it? actually, are you even sure we're talking about the same book?

If you deny the things I said, you might as well not call it Christianity anymore...

You just read my reply, was it obvious what I'm saying or not? If you somehow interpreted it to mean "I like strawberry cake" then I have to question your sanity. The Bible is just as clear.

>given atheism, both statements are valid

Both statements are "valid" regardless, doesn't mean people are going to agree. You don't have to adhere to somebody else's desires just because they are on the same level of objective justification as yours. In fact quite the opposite. When two people disagree, they have to fight each other (not necessarily a literal fist fight, sometimes it's a fight for public opinion) or else how can they achieve their desires?

Objective absolute moral values are just an incoherent idea, in the real world, you have to fight for what you believe, even if that fight is easy because most people agree with you.

>culture decides what's good

Sort of, if you don't get people to agree with you, then you won't get what you want. It's as simple as that.

>objective values mean they are binding independent of human opinion

Moral values are not "binding" in any way. Even if god is real and he has given us "objective morals", there is nothing binding abot this, people break these rules all the time and the only thing that can stop them is other people disagreeing and stopping them.

>even if hitler won and blah blah all these immoral things became normal, it would STILL BE WRONG

and what the fuck does that matter? Great victory for objective morals, even when nobody follows them, even when they are utterly defeated by the forces that conspire against them, they still somehow win, but only in the abstract realm of "objective values"

I ask you what value there is in this magical realm? There is nothing

we have morals because we genuinely want to help others and not because god will punish us
yeah thats pretty hard for sub 100 IQ idiots to understand

Humans are group animals and have evolved into trying to maintain good relations within their groups. A healthy person instinctively loves his family (taken that they have taken good care of him), doesn't kill other men that aren't threatening him and helps people in need in order to secure to survival of the group. Doing these moral things purely because of rewards and punishments (heaven and hell) shows psychopathy.

Right? Its interesting to see how true believers think about morality. If all of sudden, they realized there is no God, it seems like they would immediately start stealing and raping everything in sight, since now there "no need" for morals

Well, you're denying the existence of objective moral values, which is something you certainly can do but I find it very hard to believe that this is what you actually believe. You don't understand the logical outworking of such a worldview.

It's easy to give lip service to subjective moral values, but when the rubber meets the road, you're not going to be saying the things you're saying.

Concepts like love, hate, kindness, justice, mercy, and so forth make no sense whatsoever in an Atheistic world. They are simply non-sense, but as soon as the criminal who killed your parents is let free by the judge for lack of evidence, you're going to be crying out "JUSTICE!!!!"

>I ask you what value there is in this magical realm? There is nothing
There is value in you, and me, intrinsically. We are made in the image of God, therefore our lives have value. In an Atheistic worldview, as Dawkins put it, there is at bottom no good or evil, we are all just chunks of matter and DNA.

It's easy to say "We're just chunks of DNA", but from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, not for one second do you live life as if you were "Just a chunk of DNA".

I've written enough but I suggest you think more deeply about this issue.

If you're interested in the moral issues, I suggest watching the debate between Sam Harris and William Lane Craig. Also, check out some speeches by a Ravi Zacharias, very well spoken and intelligent man.

Good people who don't believe in heaven and hell love their lives by a set of morals because it's the right thing to do, not because of fear based self interest.

>*Tips fedora vigorously*

As I've said, this is incorrect, we ALL have a conscience given by God to be able to tell the difference between right and wrong.

The question is a philosophical one, not a practical one, namely about moral ontology, or in other words their grounding in reality.

based natural law

You think it is a fucking coincidence that society goes degenerate at the same time it becomes more atheist? You leave morality up to subjective "virtue". You guys may be buddies right now because you are both atheists but your morals are probably way different than one another

It's just how you view behavior/things. It's the same as if one would say that Christians only act altruistic in fear of eternal punishment/Hell. Essentially every philosophic dilemma is just semantics; what is good to you may not be good for someone else, and what you consider good is subjective.

The reason people have morals is because people have a natural predisposition to live a social life with social rules.

Saying people who don't subscribe to some arbitrary scripture have no need for social rules is retarded.

Because there are real consequences to your actions, the exact same consequences as for a religious person. If you act like a cunt no one will want to be around you and they'll treat you like a cunt.

Maybe that was off-topic, but to answer your question more precise -- a true reductionist would answer you that we have oxytocin which makes us emphatic. Again see what I wrote, this is just one view of things.

Muslims believe in God and they're the most immoral people on the planet.

>Given Atheism, both statements are valid, because moral values begin and end with the individual, it's their opinion.

Atheism is not a religion or cult. One atheist to another share no other thoughts than lack of belief in the supernatural. You're also constructing a strawman argument to attack, it's not a real argument that moral values begin an end with the individual. Morals are social constructs by definition, saying they end with the individual is inherently wrong.

What you are saying has nothing to do with morals. You do it because you have to in society not because it is in itself good. People misconstrue gods punished with the reason we guide our actions. We guide our actions based on objective morality. I guess an atheist could adopt the Christian method of objective moral values but most do not.

Shill GTFO

not an atheist, but atheism does not equal nihilism. You can be an atheist neckbeard and still have morals. Just as Christians have morals outside of those specifically in scripture.

This thread is more proof theists are literally retarded.

You can have morals without God.

Why do you think humankind, before organized civilization and religion, still found it in their best interests to form groups and work together? To not mercilessly kill one another?

Harmonious community and selflessness is at the core of human spirit and is advantageous to our species.

Christianity is like all other pagan religions and myths:

>has a messiah or savior who is basically God in the flesh
>said savior is born on 25th of December
>worshipping the Sun (Sunday, Easter is the equinox)
>countless other parables that steal from ancient pagan religions
>throw in some Egyptian religion for good measure

Religion is a social and political tool to enslave humankind.

morality doesn't come from religion.

you're pretty fucking dense if you think the only reason a religious person wouldnt want to commit crimes is because they believe in a god.

The point is that without God, moral values become subjective.

Let's assume we are the last 2 people alive on earth, you say "Stealing is wrong", and I say "Stealing is right".

Which one of us is correct?

Really, the whole question actually makes no sense in an Atheistic worldview, but since we both affirm the existence of moral values, we can ask the question.

I don't believe in god but I play along with the world's mechanics in which you have to help others, be kind and obey the laws to get better rewards.

Atheist here.
The basis of our morals generally settles around empathy and the golden rule. If we wouldn't want to have something happen to us, then we shouldn't let it happen to other people. Anything that causes unnecessary harm is considered immoral. Anything that unjustly violates a person's rights and freedoms is considered immoral.
I don't refrain from doing bad things because of fear of punishment. I refrain from doing bad things because I have empathy and I want to live in a society where I and the people I care about do not have to live in fear of being harmed. If the only thing holding you back from doing horrible things is fear of eternal punishment, or promise of a reward, then YOU are the monster, not me.

Now here is my question; where do you get your morals? The bible? Are you saying that the only way to have morals is to have them dictated to you based off of whatever some deity arbitrarily decides is right or wrong? That doesn't seem like a very legitimate moral foundation to me.

“What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references – nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death – even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era – there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress that we do have a large number of documents from the time – the writings of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus’ name ever so much as mentioned.”


tldr Jesus is made up

You say this but ignore that Christianity allowed for mass acceptance of morality. Leaving morality up to subjective opinion is stupid. Atheists have no divine judgement involved so there is no grounding of morality. In your world a serial killer dies the same death as you. You have no reason besides personal opinion to really follow your creed.

You're right. Morals are relative.

He's right. Everyone looks down on muslim morals the most because the muslim world is a thousand years behind the rest of the world in that regard.

Moral behavior comes out of habit, not out of belief

Saged

Personal ethics and loyalty to the good of myself, my family, and my community. It is my choice to be a good person, I am not forced by a religion.

Sounds like a good enough reason to me.

Dharma

Define what the are the rewards you get that some greedy pig that obeys all he laws but is still an unapologetic asshole

don't be fooled user this is a typical postmodern logical fallacy.
put simply, morals come from the heart because evolution/consciousness

I have empathy

If a person needed Morals to live then they would be Religious.
Simple.

If a person does not requires Morals to live, they might be Atheist.

You idiots worship a fucking kike sand nigger birthday illusionist, who is supposedly the son of the same fucking god muslims and kikes worship. Why isnt there a real white religion? Worship Thor or some shit. You are literally worshipping an enemy god.

Religion is morality for the masses, it gives more solid ground than instincts (like ancaps want) an far more liberty than social engineer projects (like liberal want), it's by far the best way to have a free and ordered society.

Not an atheist, my morals come from the true god, Lucifer. I spit on your fake messiah.

You are assuming that I believe in no objective morality. I do believe in objective morality, but I don't believe this is a sign of divine presence or something foreign to human nature.

What I am saying is that it is in the best interests of human survival and being able to thrive and live peacefully as a species that humans are kind to those around them, to those we share our land with, and to our family.

Humanity has a natural aversion to death, pain, and discomfort.

Being a savage, animal-like psychopath who thinks killing someone without remorse and for no reason, raping, or manipulating other people is NOT productive to our species as a whole and would naturally be ostracized by their society.

what

>be religious
>don't kill, steal or do anything horrible ONLY because a book tells not to
>critizise atheist moral

I have morals due to a personal sense of conviction pertaining to what is right and what is wrong.

People can't see the difference between someone who don't believe in god and some amoral bastard or economist, who use the lack of faith to preach pure self-interest as being the only logic behavior.

Fine. Lets say god isn't real and you can still be moral. Would you disagree that religion is the best delivering mechanism for morality? You are allowing for to much subjectivity by the public to determine what is moral. You must see that morality needs to be law at least. And to your point about savage people not being rewarded look at Ghengis Khan. He conquered tons of land and his offspring disperse far and wide.

>For what reason do atheists have morals?
They dont have religion to coorupt them

There are grammar errors because I'm typing fast but you should still be able to understand my question. "He" should be "the" and "does not" belongs at the end of the sentence

>fake messiah
So why Lucy tried to tempt him in the desert if he was fake?

I am an atheist and understand your concern and I don't blame you, atheism is often muddled with degeneration and communism. There are two answers to your question:
The first is that atheism doesn't have a default moral system, like Christians have.
The second is that moral is objective and thus what is moral or not subjected to your believes and your choices; however people can choose not to be moral.
The question that necessarily follow is: then why would an atheist choose moral over depravity?
Because happiness can only be attained by following your values; by not having objective morals, your values will inevitably degrade and you will eventually lose track of them. The live of a degenerate is not a happy life. However, it's hard for most atheists to make all these links. Religion is the most basic philosophy principle, and often the only, people receive in their lives, refusing it without finding an answer to the essential philosophical questions of life is the ruin of most atheists.

You have a fundamental lack of understanding of the word atheism, because you keep projecting onto the strawman villain you've constructed. You should just not use the word, because there isn't such a thing as an atheistic world view.

Even with god, morals are subjective. This is why you have literally hundreds of interpretations of just the christian bible. Saying that god makes morals objective is just straight up wrong. Not to mention that there are other scriptures with other "objective morals" that you now have to argue against.

Morals are a social construct. If, in a system with two people that don't agree like your example, there is no agreement on a subject like stealing, then there doesn't exist a moral about stealing. You could say that both sides argues for a morality, but if there is no social consensus it's just a personal belief, or if you really want to, a personal moral belief. If there were four people with two on each side, there would be two moral stances. Morality is when people agree to uphold a certain way of conduct. When something is morally wrong, it is wrong according to some society.

As for who is correct, that is a subjective question. A subjective question doesn't mean that it's a 50/50 option or distribution. Humans are social animals with complex emotions, but we are as a species predisposed to act in certain ways. This means that the answers are weighted, in this case against stealing.

Don't Wall of Text

This guy is just right.

Because without others, I would have no perspective.

I rely on others because of this.

Because we figured out that life is easier through cooperation and not being a twat to one another.It doesn't take a "all knowing/powerful being" to be able to understand that concept. You don't kill people because it is overall disadvantageous to you, you help someone else out because they might help you later, etc. It is sort of selfish, but then again so is being self-righteous enough to claim that your religion is the one true religion and the others need to be destroyed.

>Would you disagree that religion is the best delivering mechanism for morality?

Yes, I would. Morals should come from the parents and further up from the society that these parents and earlier generations created.

>You are allowing for too much subjectivity by the public to determine what is moral.

You claim your morals come from some divine presence, but your morals are from the same humans that my morals would be from.

God has never, and never will, because he is a parable, a myth, speak to anyone, ever. Anyone claiming to have heard "God's word" is a lunatic.

Why hasn't God made himself apparent in this ripe age of degeneracy?


>You must see that morality needs to be law at least.

Sure, and that law comes from society, and human beings, from the same people who drew up your Christian morals.


>And to your point about savage people not being rewarded look at Ghengis Khan. He conquered tons of land and his offspring disperse far and wide.

Yes, there have been many atheist conquerors and dictators and tyrants and kings who have done horrible things to other humans, just as much as there have been horrible things done by supposed "Godly" people.

These are instances of evil people who did evil things to get in positions of power, and then used that power to do more evil things. There are good and bad people. This is not a case for religion, seeing as most religious folk believe in genocide, war, hanging, stoning, etc...

There isn't any reason.
1. I don't want to go to jail.
2. I don't need religion to have compassion. Those that do are the real monsters.
3. Society is better for everyone including me when there's order. Compassion and the golden rule enforce that order.

Christianity not necessary.

>Define what he are he rewards you get that some greedy pig that obeys all he laws but is still an unapologetic asshole does not

>concepts like love, hate, kindness, make no sense in an atheistic world

That's bullshit. There's nothing about those terms that is inherently related to God. Love is just strong attachment between familiar beings. Kindness is doing what you can to make another person happier, generally on a small scale, but not always and generally to somebody who maybe doesn't expect you to make any effort to benefit them.

>as soon as the criminal who killed your parents is let free by the judge, I'm going to be crying out for justice

Right, I'm going to be upset, my emotions are going to compel me to want the perpetrator incarcerated or executed, etc. I need not appeal to any object values here, it's a perfectly comprehensible desire for a violent offense to be punished. And I won't be the only one who feels this way. You don't have to lose your own parents to be upset when a parent killer goes free. If it happened to me, I would have the support of everybody who feels that way.

>there is value in stuff, intrinsically
Value doesn't make sense "intrinsically", value is always value TO SOMEBODY. And generally FOR SOME PURPOSE.

>we are all just chunks of matter and DNA
Yes, chunks of matter and DNA that have ideas and emotions. This DNA in fact influences us to live in a harmonious social order. Part of that is expecting things from each other, like nonviolence and honesty, and when those expectations aren't met, we experience emotional upset.

I've already seen the debate between William lane Craig and Sam Harris. I'm not a fan of Sam Harris' moral ideology, but regardless I was not at all impressed with WLC either. Ravi zacharias is just an idiot, no respect for him whatsoever

>religion is tolerant
>OH FUCK YOU GOY YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN SKY DADDY? HAVE FUN BURNING IN ETERNAL HELLFIRE FOR THE REST OF YOUR SPIRITUAL EXISTENT

so tolerant.

>You have a fundamental lack of understanding of the word atheism
‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

>Even with god, morals are subjective.
Then it's not God. The whole reason morals are objective with God, is because God is unchanging in his nature which is defined by him being God. Humans on the other hand, are not perfect and change their opinions, which is why we are not all alike.

You're still missing the point, you keep arguing about moral semantics, but I'm arguing about moral ontology. I'm not trying to figure out whether stealing is actually wrong, but rather on what basis does either one of us think the way we do about stealing.

>Morals are a social construct
I disagree

>there is no agreement on a subject like stealing
I seriously doubt that

>As for who is correct, that is a subjective question
Exactly my point, this is the conclusion that YOU have to come to. Since I believe in God, my answer would be simple "You are correct in saying stealing is wrong, because that is what God said".

Now notice, I didn't say Atheists are thieves, in fact most of them probably think stealing is wrong, but if you ask them to ground it objectively, they can't do so, it must be subjective, which is exactly the conclusion you came to as well.

Dude your argument was BTFO many many years ago in the euthyphro

>stealing is wrong, because thats what God said
Why is God right? Is it merely because he is God? He could've said anything and that would've been what's right? If so then why would you want to be right? Then you're just a bootlicker.

If it's right because God always chooses what is independently right, then you don't need God to tell you. If you couldn't see for yourself that his commands are indeed right, then you'd be back in the above situation where you have no reason to follow him.

Are god's commandments right because God commanded them? Or does God command them because they are right?

Humans have to rely on our own moral intuitions, which are derived from our emotions and social expectations, there is no way to escape the fundamentally subjective nature of moral values

You have no morals. Atheists are actually closest to true believers in terms of closeness to what you think is god. My house is a house of prayer, but you have turned it to a den of theives. Fucking hypocrite christian fag mega churches--even older churches have been infected with jewry. Finance courses to teach the flock how to be good goy when banking and lending for profit is an act against god. I swear, fucking kill yourself demon, you false man with no soul. Not all atheists are good, but the ones that adhere to my word are far better, far more godly than the inbred, low energy failures posting on pol. It is coming, your day of reckoning will be absolute. If you have to ask questions like this, you are clearly either a jew or demon.

this argument has been blown out for decades now. for a society to function, the members of it must be cooperative with eachother. nobody wants to be an outcast, and they conform to the moral standard of the place they inhabit. im a christian, but thinking that humans are just mindless hedonists that would do horrible things without the threat of hellfire to keep them in line is infantile reasoning at its finest.

Because morals make me different from the savages.

The Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma. Here it is for those who are not familiar:

“Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?”

The answer is simply that "Morally good acts are good because God is good". They are neither arbitrary, nor external to God, they flow from his very nature in the form of laws and commandments for us.

>Why is God right?
Because God is the paradigm for good, he is the source of all goodness, all existence, all life. If you could conceive of any entity greater than God, that would be God, philosophically speaking. God cannot be wrong, it's part of the definition of what God is.

Here are some videos you can watch regarding the Euthyphro dilemma, Dr. Craig has dealt with this many times:
youtube.com/watch?v=zrQBqPothQ8
youtube.com/watch?v=me21or9T7vI
youtube.com/watch?v=m-dpcJSTsKs

You can accept most cristian values as an athiest and they are expected of people in western civilisation, plus do acid or go on some spiritual soul searching you will develop some fairly similar morals granted you arent completly braindead or are completly caught up in consumerisim.

That definition is very poorly worded. Atheism is the lack of belief in any deity. It really isn't anything more than that. Atheism isn't a term that encompasses morals at all.

>Then it's not God.
So god isn't any denomination of any major religion like christianity? If that's the case the list of the morals of god is empty, because nobody actually knows what they are. Every single denomination of any religion is subjective by virtue of all the others. What is the point of arguing about morals you can't even define? Morals are by definition subjective. If you claim to know what the objective morals of god are, you're just a looney.

If you honestly want to discover why our morals are the way they are, I can't humour you much more than recommending that you explore human behavior through science. Our beliefs are influenced by both nature and nurture. Of course, the overwheming inluence is nurture, such as the community you grow up in. People born into mormonism tend to start out there.

Morals are a social construct wether or not you agree.

>I seriously doubt that
That was YOUR premise dude.

true morality is derived from biological will to survive and reproduce.

artificial morality proclaims fiction and unnatural ideals, which sometimes may support true morality without realizing it, but mostly goes against it.

prime example is third world aid. you effectively make it harder to survive, prosper and raise children by depriving resources and allocating them to others without getting anything in return. This is madness and a crime against the moral instincts. But this altruism is seen as the pinnacle of morality and humanity through the spectacles of religion, empathy, ideology, law,... whatever someone subscribes to.

the same goes for pacifism, raising someone else's child, opening the borders of your territory to outsiders, not making a distinction between your own in-group and the out-group,...

the Jewish religious law of prohibiting racemixing is an example of artificial morality that supports the natural morality, though it explains this with religious nonsense.


Like chimpansees or wolves, humans are not solitary animals. we have a family, a tribe, consisting of people who share enough of the same genes.
Within this in-group it is not good to kill, steal, or sow discord, because we have grown through natural selection to live in groups where we rely on each other for survival. In this group solidarity, common defense and peaceful mating are good things. In other words, we have a tribe, an “in-group”

toward the outgroup however, all things go. There is no such thing as compassion or altruism in nature. Even within the in-group these are seen as a mutual benefit, not as an ethical ideal

I'd die for Muh NAP faggots

and Aristotelian classical virtue ethics.

and a basic sentiment of common decency

>That definition is very poorly worded.
No it's not, it's perfectly worded. It's not a lack of belief, that's something the New Atheists started saying but is historically inaccurate.

It literally means "Without God" from the Greek "a-theos", see picture.

Atheism is a claim to knowledge as much as Theism, but Agnostics are the ones who admit ignorance so they have no burden of proof.

>So god isn't any denomination of any major religion like christianity? If that's the case the list of the morals of god is empty, etc....
God is who God is, I'm arguing for a generic Monotheist God here, although I personally adhere to the Judeo-Christian worldview, it doesn't affect our discussion about God as a transcendent cause of the universe and the source of all moral values.

God doesn't have a list of morals, God is who he is, and our moral values flow out of his nature in the form of commandments. God is love, therefore you must love, God is kind, therefore you must be kind, God is merciful, therefore you must be merciful, etc...

>If you honestly want to discover why our morals are the way they are, I can't humour you much more than recommending that you explore human behavior through science.
Science has nothing to do with the realm of morality or feelings. You can't put "love" in a test tube. You're guilty of treating science like a religion, and assuming that science can account for all things, which is blatantly false.

>That was YOUR premise dude.
No it wasn't, I never said there is no agreement on stealing. I'm pretty confident that the vast majority of people think stealing is wrong.

You're still missing the point. We can both believe stealing is wrong, but you cannot ground that objectively in reality, while I can.

>Exactly my point, this is the conclusion that YOU have to come to. Since I believe in God, my answer would be simple "You are correct in saying stealing is wrong, because that is what God said".

Just because your answer is simple doesn't mean it is right.

>Now notice, I didn't say Atheists are thieves, in fact most of them probably think stealing is wrong, but if you ask them to ground it objectively, they can't do so, it must be subjective, which is exactly the conclusion you came to as well.

I didn't argue about atheists. You show your complete lack of understanding about atheism once again. Atheism is not a group of people that share qualities besides lack of belief in deities, it's not a label you can use to describe a group of people. I confronted your own premise and explained to you what morals are. That you choose to ignore that is because you're not really arguing to find out the truth. You want to reaffirm the position that your god's morals are objective and by extention your own are fundamentally superior to others. They aren't. Everyone's morals are subjective, as a group or as an individual.

In a hypothetical world with only a single person, that person has no morals, because that person's behavior is not contrasted to any other people. This is proof that morality is subjective and a social construct. If that person chooses a stance on some issue, that is not morality, but personal belief, or personal morality.

>morally good acts are good because God is good

This is circular, you are stating that what makes an act is good is that a good God commands them, but what makes God good? You have simply defined God as being good to try to avoid the issue, but that doesn't help you. Why should a person want to be good if good has no inherent justification? it's been defined as "what God is and what God wants", so we are still stuck in the euthyphro dilemma but the question is now about the concept of good

>God is the paradigm for good

Again if you're just defining God as good, then good no longer has any inherent justification. we were supposed to derive our understanding of good from God, but now we have no reason to follow God if the only reason you can give is that he's good.

Morality is not given from religion. Sympathy, empathy and the ability to separate right from wrong is an instinct we are all born with. It is also drilled into our minds during our upbringing from our parents to make sure we don´t turn into full Stirnerian cunts.

WLC not giving a very good showing here, that garbage was embarassing

>Just because your answer is simple doesn't mean it is right.
Well obviously not, the point was to show how I can ground my moral values in an objective manner.

>I didn't argue about atheists.
Sigh, fine, non-Theists then, whatever the case may be. The point is that without God, who is an unchanging, personal, moral agent, can be the only source for unchanging and objective moral values. Can we stop with the word games now?

I'm not talking about superior or inferior morals, but simply objective moral values, moral statements that are true regardless of what you or I think.

I disagree that our morals are subjective. I doubt you will ever meet a person who when asked "Is rape OK?", will say "Hmm, it depends". It will almost unanimously be "No".

The question isn't whether the answer should be "Yes" or "No", but rather, whichever it was, why? Where does this sort of thing come from?

If we're talking about evolutionary survival, in many cases rape and stealing actually make sense, so what makes them so wrong? Also, if you rewind the tape of evolution, we might come up with a completely different set of moral values.

Subjective morality is false. It's easy to give lip service to it as I've said before, but when the rubber hits the road, nobody is going to affirm that morals are actually subjective.

>In a hypothetical world with only a single person, that person has no morals, because that person's behavior is not contrasted to any other people.
In an Atheistic world, yeah, that's right. And if there was another person with you, who had a nice cocount you really wanted, just kill him and take it, you didn't do anything wrong according to your own opinion, right? :)

You hit an interesting point though, for those interested in the concept of the Trinity, I think it makes a lot of sense for God because otherwise if God was not three persons in one, whom would he love or be kind to before we existed? Food for thought!

>Atheism is a claim to knowledge as much as Theism, but Agnostics are the ones who admit ignorance so they have no burden of proof.
You are legitimately retarded.

>God is who God is, I'm arguing for a generic Monotheist God here
So you have absolutely no idea of what you're even arguing about, as I said. You're not even making an argument, you're just repeating that god exists, that means your morals are objectively superior. You are not having a discussion, because you dismiss everything with your mantra.

>Science has nothing to do with the realm of morality or feelings. You can't put "love" in a test tube. You're guilty of treating science like a religion, and assuming that science can account for all things, which is blatantly false.

I am not treating science as a religion. If you actually wanted to find out about our morals and our feelings you would have to use it, even if you don't call it science because you're attributing beliefs onto a system of logic. You know, the thing you're accusing me of doing.

You can understand morals and feelings when you explore the social advantages of them. We already understand love on a deeper level than your appeal to god.

>No it wasn't,
>Let's assume we are the last 2 people alive on earth, you say "Stealing is wrong", and I say "Stealing is right".

>I'm pretty confident that the vast majority of people think stealing is wrong.
I am too. We understand that there is a social advantage to want fairness.

>but you cannot ground that objectively in reality, while I can.
False. I can make a compelling argument of the social advantages while you can only appeal to a fictional god.

>This is circular, you are stating that what makes an act is good is that a good God commands them, but what makes God good?
No, what I'm saying is that God commands things, these things are good, because God is good.

God is the very paradigm of goodness. In other words God = good. As the Bible says "God IS love", in other words, the very idea of love is rooted in the nature of God.

To be honest I just searched Youtube for WLC refuting the Euthyphro dilemma, but from what I remember from some of his debates he dealt with it quite nicely. I'm sure he does here too.

That was not embarrassing garbage at all, you most likely just misunderstood him. If there's any expert in the world in these topics, it would be Dr. Craig.

They're "morality" is taught to them by pawns like Sam Harris, and is based on self-refuting notions of naturalistic evolution. They believe we have naturally evolved to discern "morality." The problem is, if their ability to conceive of truth exists only because it has naturally evolved to be as it is, and nature selects only for traits that help us survive, and knowledge of truth isn't necessary for survival, then there's no reason any of their conceptions of truth should be correct and they shouldn't believe anything they think, including anything about morality.

>disagree morals are subjective, doubt you will meet a person who says "it depends" when asked "is rape okay?"

That's not what subjective means. Subjective means that each person can only base their answer on their own emotional and intuitive inclinations

So most people will say "no, it's not okay to rape", because most people have an emotional repulsion to rape, and other traumatic suffering in general. We evolved empathy to care about the emotional and physical well being of fellow humans, this made our society more likely to survive because it was more likely to be harmonious and peaceful than otherwise.

>whichever the answe was, why? Where does this sort of thing come from?

Humans naturally have emotional responses to each other's behavior, it's part of the biological system that regulates our behavior and keeps our society running smoothly

>if we're talking about evolutionary survival, rape and stealing actually make sense

In some cases, that's why these things exist at all. But it also makes sense that primitive human populations would be destroyed by infighting if this was the norm all the time. Humans survive by living together in large groups, we are ineffective solo or in tiny groups, therefore we evolved emotional tendencies to support social welfare

>people don't want to affirm that morals are subjective

People don't want to believe lots of uncomfortable things, but this one is actually caused by people like you spreading misunderstandings about subjectivity. People like you imply that having a subjective belief means you can't possibly expect others to adhere to that belief. But we do this every day all the time. There's nothing wrong with it. Its how society works, we express our subjective feelings and beliefs and convince each other to act as we wish, in the grand scale it's called politics