Is it possible to get moral values without God?

Is it possible to get moral values without God?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=ERou_Q5l9Gw
youtu.be/3ComVemZhwY
academia.edu/3620724/Chinese_Lack_of_Empathy_in_Development
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Of course not.

Let's ask democrats...

Nope, looks like you can't have morals without God.

is that a crescent moon in a red flag tattoo on that broad?

Bump

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No because "god" is the personification and embodiment of the ideal human being with perfect morality, and all other forms of morality are simply appeals to his authority.

Sorry if that sounds a bit too new-age. I'm a secular atheist who fully supports religion. My peers hate me lol.

Yes, but set out methods are unreliable.

Its better to teach them of god, christ, and the bible. And give them religious freedom after.

Yes, you can have the concept of good and evil without believing in a deity.

I feel a huge difference between one atheist that just minds his own business, and a second kind that pretty much just spergs out when they see an athlete thanking God in public, for example. I've seen plenty of communists exhibiting this rabid anti-religious behavior, a will to extirpate religion from others if you will. Those militant atheists are something else entirely, they're in fact dogmatic materialists/secularists.

They're far beyond just not believing in God, they want to actively shut down and public manifestation of any religion, they want some kind of atheist State business going on, where public religious manifestations, like wearing a cross necklace in public to be banned. This is also what goes on in communist China, Cuba or North Korea. You can get jailed in commie China if you're smuggling a Bible.

where do you get it from then? genes?

Yes; but you'd need to study ethical philosophy and actually understand it.

is that statue topless?
is there moar

>what is natural law

yes u can retard, i dont do nice things because god told me, i do it cuz i cant how retarded is that question?

pretty accurate.

But you're an atheist who believes in god (as described), which is retarded.
Atheists should just rebrand themselves as pantheists or similar, they'd be 100x more tolerable.

If you haven't already, I recommend taking a bunch of acid. Anyone who wants to talk about religion should have a true religious experience first, and acid is the most reliable way of inducing one.

No. Look at the French for example

Fuck your Jewish demon god
You talk about your morals and your god, then go fap to dick rate threads on Sup Forums
Bunch of fucking losers

Go get married and have a family, stop LARPing

but from where did you get the idea that doing X is wrong? Maybe you have been affected by something like Christian morality without even knowing it

The laws of modern nation states are also influenced by things such as the Ten Commandments

Fpbp

Even if you don't believe in God; acting as if God exists is the best for you and those around you.

Well, I'm not particularly interested in the spiritual aspect of religion, because I do not personally believe in the concept of an afterlife as a place that you go after you die.

Religion is a useful tool for propagating beneficial social memes.

Try mescaline it's better. Just go to Home Depot and by some San Pedros, 2 feet is good. Trim off any brown stuff and spine it. I cube mine then, food processor than into a pot with water. Simmer for hours and strain, collecting the liquid. Repeat this 2 more times. Reduce total liquid, add lemon and honey. Drink and get experianced

Not acid. Take a psychoactive plant to see what they saw

And from where did this philosophy draw it's roots, hmm?

Yes. Some animals are hyper aggressive and will attack humans, they'll kill their mates routinely, cannibalize/kill the weakest of their litter, violently rape the opposite sex of their species and sometimes even other species entirely. Some other animals are naturally noble and tame, they aren't normally aggressive, they only attack things in defense of themselves and their group. This isn't because horses read the bible and chimps don't, it's just their genetic instincts informing their apparent "morals"

Yes.
Unless you're a nigger

Animals are driven by instinct, you can't apply notions of morality to them. Animals can't really steal for example, they don't have a conscience.

you know a funny thing, indulging in drug usages was commonplace in pagan rituals, also satanic worship, claiming you could achieve a higher conscience via hallucinations and shit, maybe become as gods

Many atheists hide the fact they're into occult worship by claiming they're above this king of thing by being atheists.

Morals cannot exist in an absolute state, there is no such thing as a universal taboo, only what a culture deems 'permissible' and 'not permissible'

Even taking into account for a non-deist being (god) that would instruct Mankind on what is 'permissible', would not create a moral system (defined as a particular system of values and principles of conduct), as a 'god' would not hold any universal rules.

Each moral choice should be done on a case by case basis, one could argue that it's permissible to kill in one circumstance, and deem it forbidden in another.

Since there are an infinite set of circumstances that change infinitely, no universal moral system can remain stable.

Besides, morality as a whole is completely subjective, whether you're religious or not, the individual will still have different interpretations of the 'rules'.

That's not to say you can have/enforce a moral system, just that your moral system will always fall short of reality.

Are all cultures equally valuable in your worldview?

No.

>Be a Christian
>Post Pagan classical art of a Pagan Goddess
Dumb subhuman monkey

...

obviously
sure they do. youtube "animals stealing" and you'll see tons of evidence of it.
animals are much cleverer than humans give them credit for
some birds can solve simple puzzles
some octopuses have a reasoning high enough to get crabs out of a shut jar.

and of course, there's us.

>Animals can't really steal for example, they don't have a conscience.
That's bullshit, have you even seen chimps at a zoo? Orangutans have the natural instinct to share their food, they always break what they are given in half and return half to whoever gave them the food. Chimps don't have this instinct, they are naturally selfish and will prefer to fight over food and try to steal food from other chimps. It doesn't matter if the animals themselves have no concept of morality, their instincts still produce behaviors that we can classify as moral or immoral and the bible has absolutely nothing to do with their behaviors.

The same rule applies to humans, different groups have different instincts that manifest as either moral or immoral behavior. Yes humans are smart enough to comprehend the notion of morality but that doesn't change our instincts. If the bible was such a surefire way of instilling morals in someone then why is it that every single violent nigger in america who ends up in the news for doing barbaric chimp-like shit b goin 2 church n shieeet, gettin they lyf on trak?

Yes.

“If you govern the people legalistically and control them by punishment, they will avoid crime, but have no personal sense of shame. If you govern them by means of virtue and control them with propriety, they will gain their own sense of shame, and thus correct themselves.” - Confucius

If you believe in hellfire, and you're afraid of hell, and you're told to love god, then you're learning to be moral only at the benefit of the self.

It's like trade. You consciously give something to get something better in return; you're consciously trained to put your benefit above others.

Now, if this were a loved family member, you wouldn't trade them; you would give something to them generously, and not consciously expect something in return. The recipient, meanwhile knows it's bad manners to not give something in return, so he's consumed by inner shame and guilt if he shows he is ungrateful.

What kind of god tells me he's going to punish me unless I love him. Wouldn't it make sense for a moral god to give me his love, not expect anything in return, and genuinely not get pissed that I don't give anything?

He's like a dead beat father who leaves your mother, leaving her to fend for herself to feed you and your brothers and sisters. You're expected to love him, even though he showers you with pain, sickness, and misery. To make things worse, he even tests people's faith by making them even more miserable.

He gave me a life worth not living. I'm unhappy. I don't choose to be unhappy; it's predetermined in my brain. I want to lead a moral life, and I have a good idea what real morals are; they are NOT what you get in a book or a law. Laws absolve the need for people to be moral; because with law and soldiers, obedience is the only thing expected.

David Wood has explained this in light of islamic sources with plenty of citations, how Mohammed carefully planned the subjugation of other religious groups, it's a great video
youtube.com/watch?v=ERou_Q5l9Gw

>claiming you could achieve a higher conscience via hallucinations and shit, maybe become as gods
hmmm who was the first person to ever say this?

Animals don't subscribe to the notion of ownership, they lack a conscience, the very notion of property is alien to a brain of an animal, they just see food, and if they can get it without harming themselves, as in "I can easily get this kill from those predators smaller than me".

Sharing food can be seen as strengthening their own numbers, they need strong groups in wildlife, as there's strength in numbers, especially to fight against other chimp troops. Predators like a leopard would also make quick work of a weakened chimpanzee troop. So it's not exactly altruism, it's a refined way of self preservation for animals that need social circles to survive, hunt cooperatively and so on.

The snake (Satan) in Genesis.

cool. also, fuck muhammad.

Christian threads are some of the most pathetic and funniest things on this website
Yes goy just pay the church and the magic sky man will solve everything, lmao

you don't have to go to church or pay anyone to be a Christian

Just suck baby dicks and pray to a bleeding jew nailed to a cross? IM IN

Probably not in the long run desu senpai

>morals

No shit sherlock.

wrong again. you don't need notions, definitions and terminology to understand the concept of ownership.
obviously animals don't have complicated languages like humans, but the emotions, actions and reactions are all the same with "stealing" and even "murder"

monkeys, lions, etc. have repeatedly shown that they do "understand" stealing and that what having food stolen sucks.

but anyway, you can argue the same with humans. humans have much higher levels of reasoning, but the end result is the same as animals
we want to survive. that's it.

the only difference between humans and animals is that we have sophisticated language
language complex enough to come up with terms like "ownership". but in the end, ownership and "stealing" exists in the animal kingdom.

the feelings in reference to stealing exist outside of humans.

i assume you're referring to circumcision. you don't have to be circumcised or circumcise anyone to be a Christian either. you do have to pray to a once bleeding jew nailed to a cross though.

>it's a refined way of self preservation for animals that need social circles to survive, hunt cooperatively and so on.
Yeah, that's my point, that is morality in general and that is how it applies to humans too. Different groups have our different survival strategies, and just like chimps vs orangutans our different strategies can be interpreted as either more or less ethical.

What process do you use to determine?
Honest question, I'm curious

...

FACT: God doesn't exist.

FACT: People have morals. (Though some have to cling to fairy tales to be moral.)

Oh by the way, orangutans like to feed other animals too, not just other orangutans.

youtu.be/3ComVemZhwY

What animal feelings? Animals don't exactly have any thoughts when it comes to getting food from other animals, or the whole concept of property, thus you see bears invading homes, alligators basking near your home and shit like that.

A dog will always take the food it finds around unless you educate it, ie you exert control over the dog so it doesn't behave like a little piece of shit, so you teach it where to pee/shit, not to take food from your table, to avoid jumping on visits.

Dogs are pretty good to learn how animals as a whole work, you need to reprehend them right at the moment they do something you don't want them to do, or else it doesn't work, for example.

Humans, unlike animals, can do things that go against their own survival instincts to save their fellow kin, something an animal wouldn't do, taking a bullet for someone else or to starve rather than to steal food/money. Comparing humans to animals when it comes to notions of morality doesn't really go far.

are those flower pasties on that statues nips?

>FACT: God doesn't exist.
I'm afraid you're going to have to prove this claim.

Yes and even if you're a retarded moral nihilist you do make value judgements. Only a mapping of all possible thought, intent, and actions onto the whole spectrum of human emotion instead of the discrete categories of virtuous and sinful. Moral systems are just a way of making these value judgements objective, which is prerequisite for any civilization. Emotions are more high-resolution but not communicable and extremely subjective. Nihilists are just suggesting we return to living like animals, guided by pure instinct.

You can construct a logically consistent moral system even starting with our ethical instincts. It's pretty fucking standard and is why beauty is often considered a virtue. Moral systems not only make ethics objective, they also provide a sufficiently low-resolution abstraction of it to be practically useful and easily communicable.
Animals are driven by instinct, yes, but this also includes an ethical instinct. They do not endlessly indulge. It's been observed in rats that when they play by wrestling the dominant rat will let the smaller once win quite often, despite clearly enjoying victory over losing. Even fucking rats have some sense of a proper way to act which supersedes mindless indulgence. They do have a conscience, just not consciousness. They have ethics in their instincts, they don't have ethical systems because they're not thinking creatures.

Any moral system is objective, that's the entire point. The problem is it's not universal, the choice of moral system is pretty damn arbitrary. Which is why an omniscient being that sees all and judges all by the same consistent standard is so damn important. Even a nihilist, has he any sense, will see the need for and objectivity of moral systems. He'll just have difficulty justifying the choice of any one of them, and that's where God enters the picture.

Of course. The classical world had morality without God or gods. But Ayn Rand is probably the most famous advocate of secular ethics.

>Is it possible to get moral values without God?
the bible you mean?

you don't get your values from a piece of paper, you get them form your family so yes.

lol that video never gets old
almost looks like the chimp's thinking "i totally fucking owned them"
while he was raising the ak
another valuable point: animals have emotions too.
it's not really "instinctive", either.
people who have pets understand this
dogs, cats, birds, etc. get annoyed, confused, happy, etc. just like humans
i have 2 birds and they always show emotions
that's because "homes" aren't in nature. they don't know what those things are. and they don't really give a shit either.
again, they have feelings. go watch some youtube videos about hyenas stealing food from lions or something
animals have emotions and understand concepts like "stealing" and loss- even when their relatives die.
I don't know how many more times i have to say it. if you're a pet owner, you would know that it's not pure instinct. there is some intellect there.

and where did your family get them from?

Yes, through empathy. I want to believe empathy is intrinsic/genetic, but it can be destroyed through bad upbringings, experiences and culture. I also believe that, if empathy is genetic, some races are more predisposed to it than others. Whites seem to have high levels of empathy while asians (Chinese in particular) don't understand the concept very well which manifests in a society that's high in corruption, low in trust and governed more being shamed by others than by personal guilt.

See: academia.edu/3620724/Chinese_Lack_of_Empathy_in_Development

from their life experiences?

>implying that modern Christians follow the moral code set forth in the bible.

you guys never even read the bible if you think Christians get their morals from that book.

Explain criminals and psychopaths, then, do you really think human beings are inherently good? You think it's some kind of genetic shit, like we take Ted Bundy's son, give him to the most righteous family around for adoption, and he'll still be a psycho when he grows up?

so they did a murder and a theft here and there, and then decided what was good from the bad? You're just saying "I got them from someone else", without addressing the question of from where exactly is the primary source of it.

Yes, of course. Most religious people have terrible morals because of God. There has been no force in this world that has caused more suffering and torment then those acting under God.

>can do things that go against their own survival instincts to save their fellow kin, something an animal wouldn't do
Complete and utter fucking bullshit once again. You don't spend much time studying the natural world apparently, this is actually extremely common. Cats will try fighting bears to save their kittens, mice will try fighting cats to save their litter, small birds will try attacking humans to save their nests, a wildebeest bull might try goring a lioness to save the herd. Sometimes domesticated animals will even throw themselves in the line of danger to save a completely different species, their owners. The more you look at it, the more "moral" behavior appears to be a perfectly normal thing among animals.

>Sharing food can be seen as strengthening their own numbers, they need strong groups in wildlife, as there's strength in numbers, especially to fight against other chimp troops. Predators like a leopard would also make quick work of a weakened chimpanzee troop. So it's not exactly altruism, it's a refined way of self preservation for animals that need social circles to survive, hunt cooperatively and so on.
How smart do you think they are? Do you think they painstakingly reasoned that out, chose to codify it into a set of values which they then teach to their entire species, establish an undetectable radio station that teaches it even to members of their species they've had to previous contact with?

It's much, much more likely that they just happen to have some form of ethical instinct. So much so it's even plausible.

Communists in the 20th century proved you wrong, easily over 100 million dead thanks to its organized atheism.

the chimp simultaneously ironically and unironically pwnt them. this is why that video will never go away.

Yeah, it's possible. Empathy like anything else is a manifestation of genetics, brain structure, psychology and environment. Some people might be more or less predisposed to it. Some people obviously lack it entirely (serial killers, murderers, rapists, con artists, criminals of all sorts that prey on others).

Society can't function without a basic level of cooperation. Cooperation requires trust between individuals to complete tasks, whether it's building a house or the infrastructure of a city. People without empathy are more likely to abuse the trust of others and fail to cooperate and create advanced, successful societies. You could point out the Chinese and say they're successful despite showing poor levels of empathy, but again their society is more based on the perception of shame rather than personal guilt. A Chinese dude will lie, cheat and steal to get ahead as long as no one finds out. If someone finds out, they'll shame him and he'll stop, but he doesn't stop because he feels PERSONAL guilt. Obviously this also applies to individual whites and individuals of other races that have a deficit in empathy.

Black plague killed that many back when that was about a quarter of the Earth's population.

Of course the mom of kittens will defend its young, she spent a lot of energy and effort raising the next generation, again it's not exactly altruism at all. It's just the instinct of perpetuating the species. Some species don't have it because they just breed like fucking mad and it's a quantity over quality as seen in fish, some like mammals and birds have parental effort to ensure the young animals won't get picked apart.

Totally agree, that is a very important factor and the more intelligent an animal is, the more nuanced its feelings/emotions are. If you spend a lot of time with animals you'd have to be blind to not notice their individuality, their emotions and dare I say "Personality"

Not really. You need something/someone above man, or else, if every man is "equal", who;s to really say what is what?

>comparing a disease to communist dictators who went out of their way to use starvation as a weapon, and ended up doing massive genocides so they could stay in power

I drove out to take a swim in a little woodland lake early morning last week. Drove past a small group of cranes, two big ones and two smaller. On the way back they were walking on the road. They got off the road when I started getting close, all but one of them. One of the big ones started running down the road, flapping his wings but not taking off, pretending he was injured. Lead me on a goose-chase. Only when I was some 100m past the rest of them did he get off the road and run into the woods, to safety.

Get it through your skull, animals are not entirely self-serving nor indulgent. They have ethical instincts just like you.

>hurr durr
>check privilege
>that's racist

If you blame atheism for communism you can blame Christians for murdering all the demonic kitty's. And that's just one example of when religious nuts nearly killed everyone. We have Crusades, jihad, sacrificing children, witch hunts. The Church has gone out off it's way to starve citizens to stay in power for as long as its existed. You're going to need something better than "b-b-but there are bad atheists too".

Yes, but you must have a mind of your own. You must come to atheism ether through lack of contact with religion or through YOUR rationality. If you disbelieve because of nihilism, or another's words. You are doomed to be nihilistic and amoral.
I came to it through rationality and stayed moral and ethical, my friend was raised without religion, but with firm moral and ethical beliefs instilled (stealing is wrong, killing is wrong, etc) and we both are moral and ethical. Though he would prefer only the term ethical, he never was raised Christian and so has a bit of dislike for religious vocabulary.
I think the problem today with atheists, especially in America, is that they do it as a rebellion against the society. I wish to do so as well, but it is to create a better society, not to tear it down.

exactly. animals and humans have some level of understanding when it comes to morality
but obviously humans' understanding is much deeper and more complex because our brains are bigger and more complicated
then humans are the same according to all that
i don't even know why we keep arguing. you seem to be agreeing but it's like you don't want to link morals with animals, only humans. kind of a waste of time at this point, and everyone's replying to everyone else, so i'm just gonna leave right now
yeah, animals for sure have personalities.
might be simple personalities, but it's still there.

>Society can't function without a basic level of cooperation.
a person with ill intentions could argue a single murder here or there, so he could grab all the victim's money, is not exactly a big issue in the grand scheme of things

You could also argue the chinese's problem of empathy came at the tail end of decades of communism, a series of ruthless dictators who tried as hard as possible to extirpate traditional values from the people. The famines Mao created caused deep wounds in the chinese people, when they meet up, one of the common things said to this day between the chinese is "have you eaten today?", this is a cultural scar of how bad things were.

the primary source are the instincts the species we evolved from had.

>Of course the mom of kittens will defend its young, she spent a lot of energy and effort raising the next generation
So the cat can rationalize how much time and effort it spent into raising its young and get angry over the prospect of wasted effort but it can't feel genuinely protective and selfless when its litter faces imminent danger. Okay pal.

people are going to autistically screech at this but here goes:

morality is not concerned with utility as an end. in other words no you can't get morality without religion because all non religious people say what is best based on utility.

there are non religious ways to think of morality that aren't based on utility: like Kant, something along the lines of duty... but everyone knows that is impossible to define which is why religion was the best method to describe this duty/best way to be.

>it's JUST the instinct
Have you ever felt that something is just wrong? That it's disgusting, not proper, it should not exist or be done? Or that it's right, beautiful, something to strive for?
What the fuck do you think that is?

Wait a minute, are we blaming Islamic Jihad on Christians too? Also yes, you blame everything on religious people, even diseases so why wouldn't I blame 100million+ killed on atheism when perpetrated by openly atheist leaders?

Atheism has no grounds for the value of human life, it's logical to go from "without God, there's no inherent value to human life" to "those are enemies of the State, let's purge all of them". Atheists with their moral relativism create a warped wicked moral code of their own, and proceed to murder in the name of their new moral code, it's the humane thing to do to kill all those people, you see.

i think this is interesting. have you ever found in religion an ethical argument that you failed to consider on your own?

Without God, you are doomed to fail.

what you're talking about is socialization.

>what did muhammad say to the crusader?
stand back or i'll jizya

It makes sense the cat will protect its young, when a finding a mate, gestation and all that was a lot of effort. Then the kittens are vulnerable, more than a baby snake for example. I guess that gets us to the egg or the chicken coming first situation, so there's that.

Not for a country.

>a person with ill intentions could argue a single murder here or there, so he could grab all the victim's money, is not exactly a big issue in the grand scheme of things

Yes, and this is true in reality, but if every individual had a psychological makeup like this, devoid of empathy and guilt, society as we know it would cease to function. That's why for every one douchebag there are hundreds of normal, well adjusted people.

I don't know enough about Chinese history to speculate if that's the cause of their lack of empathy, I can only observe the present. Their penchant for extreme forms of animal torture seems unrelated to a history of famine. They will literally skin cats and dogs alive, then submerge them (still alive) in boiling water. They deliberately avoid killing them first and minimizing suffering. A history of famine doesn't necessitate this level of cruelty. Only a complete lack of empathy, disregard or failure to compute the suffering of another living creature causes this behaviour. There is no guilt there. They don't lose any sleep over it.

Acid drops your IQ through the floor and then through the bedrock. Shrooms is what you want to do if you are trying to learn things. I'm doing acid tomorrow and I can't wait to get dumb

This. How many offerings did you burn this week, how many people did you stone, and how many camels for your daughter?

(replied to the wrong person my bad)
>a person with ill intentions could argue a single murder here or there, so he could grab all the victim's money, is not exactly a big issue in the grand scheme of things

Yes, and this is true in reality, but if every individual had a psychological makeup like this, devoid of empathy and guilt, society as we know it would cease to function. That's why for every one douchebag there are hundreds of normal, well adjusted people.

I don't know enough about Chinese history to speculate if that's the cause of their lack of empathy, I can only observe the present. Their penchant for extreme forms of animal torture seems unrelated to a history of famine. They will literally skin cats and dogs alive, then submerge them (still alive) in boiling water. They deliberately avoid killing them first and minimizing suffering. A history of famine doesn't necessitate this level of cruelty. Only a complete lack of empathy, disregard or failure to compute the suffering of another living creature causes this behaviour. There is no guilt there. They don't lose any sleep over it.

You're going in circles. I'm not blaming Christians for jihad, I'm blaming people who believe in God. And you do realise Christians caused the black plague, right? What I'm saying is even if you blame 100+ million dead on atheist communism, this still laughably little compared to how many people have been killed in the name of God.

>Atheism has no grounds for the value for the human life
I'm atheist and I have a deep love for people. I have philosophical values. You're thinking of nihilists. Sure, some atheists are retarded, that doesn't mean you CANNOT have values and be and be atheist. Some Catholics rape children, doesn't mean all religious people are pedophiles, only most.

how many people did marx and mao kill?

No. The term lacks definition in absence of god.