What do you mean with that?
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Can Atheists/Non-religious Lead Completely Moral Lives?
- Thread starter Nakosis
- Start date
Yes, that is why I don't believe God was invented. I believe God announced Himself and that is why we have the Bible. And his words that are in the Bible and that things go as told in the Bible, is in my opinion evidence for the God.
If it is not living, it is dead.
How? Why do you think so? Why can't the same be seen in nature nowadays?
In that case the people nowadays called socialists are not really socialists, because they think other people should pay taxes. By your definition, people who work should get their whole wage, without government stealing half of it.
It is interesting that in capitalism there is limited company that can be owned also by the workers, which makes it truly possible that laborer owns also the tools. In communism it is actually the government that owns and usually in communism the government is the one leader of the nation. Interesting thing is, it seems workers don't commonly want to own shares of the company they are working, perhaps they should more often do so, if they want to be deciding also how the company acts and get the profit (getting wage is also a way to get part of the profit).
It is funny how the "capitalism" and "communism" are nowadays basically the same and not really what they are intended to be. Both in practice becomes the same capitalism becomes oligarchy and communism also is basically oligarchy in the end. To me the problem with communism ideal is that government owns everything and people have no freedom. In capitalism ideal people are free and can own means of production if they want, which is why I think it is better than communism.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
That idea is also found outside the Bible. And to believe in the idea doesn't require to believe in the Bible.
So I believe in the idea, but not the Bible.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
The Spandaus were huge in the UK in the early 80s. I would never have expected them to stand the test of time, but they have; probably because there is a timeless quality to their slightly soulful ballads. If that song has a message, btw, it's that truth is something the heart, not the head, recognises.
Anyway, I much I preferred this lady myself;
I like the song very well, but it and that band weren't part of my world. I grew up listening to the Beatles, Stones, Clapton, Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and Fleetwood Mac. I took up electric guitar with a vengeance beginning in the early seventies. The music I liked featured guitar improvisation, and could be danced to most of the time, but wasn't dance music.
Then came disco, which had a few songs I liked, especially by the Bee Gees (look at how Bristish my music was). The eighties continued to not be guitar music - this song, and several others were beautiful to me - Hungry Like the Wolf, Take on Me, Africa, Total Eclipse of The Heart, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Hold Me Now - but I was learning improvisational guitar, and these songs never got the attention songs like Layla and Rambling Man got with their beautiful guitar solos. And there was nothing for me in Madonna or Michael Jackson.
I've listened to Truth a half dozen times this week, the last time upon finding your reply this morning. Like I said, it's fine song, and an ear worm for me for a few days. Spandau Ballet wasn't on my radar at all, but I do remember being on an airplane once and hearing that song and the band's name in the nineties which I could no longer remember, so that's what I had to work with. I had a vague sense that it was a German band (I don't know why I thought that, but Spandau is a type of German weapon, and I think I conflated all of that with a nineties SNL bit about German hipsters called Sprockets who dressed in black and maybe spandex).
Then, as I said, the word Spandau came to me, I remembered Spandau Ballet from the airplane and found the song much to my surprise and delight.
According to Wiki:
"True" is a song by English pop band Spandau Ballet, released in April 1983 as the title track and third single from their third studio album. It was written by the band's lead guitarist and principal songwriter Gary Kemp to express his feelings for Altered Images lead singer Clare Grogan. Kemp was influenced musically by songs of Marvin Gaye and Al Green he was listening to at the time, and lyrically by Green and the Beatles."
From another source:
"Gary Kemp, the guitarist with Spandau Ballet and their chief songwriter, wrote the song as a way of expressing his feelings for Clare Grogan, who was then the lead singer with the Scottish group Altered Images. The song is about someone trying to make their feelings known to somebody, wanting their ‘true’ feelings – the truth of the matter – to be known and understood. But it is also a self-referential song: a love song about the difficulty of writing a ‘true’, authentic, and honest love song about (or to) someone."
Nice chatting with you. Music is a common language for humanity.
Are you familiar with Playing For Change? These are people who organize musicians the world over to come together for recordings of songs most people like. I love these recordings, and there are over a dozen. Here are two that will warm your soul, and are good examples of what I call spiritual experiences, which are warm feelings of connection:
Yes.
Hopefully. I still think its original source is the God.
Nice. So, do we agree it is objective?
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
No. What is objective to you?
AppieB
Active Member
So you refer to the Bible when it comes to objective morality. A book written by people based on what they believe. It is based on the idea of people: you do to others you want to be done to you. In your last sentence there is another want.
How is this objective morality if you derive it from what people want?
If your morality has its foundation in value, desire, preference, opinion etc. then it is not objective. It is subjective.
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AppieB
Active Member
The fact that you agree about a certain trait or foundation of morality doesn't mean it's objective.
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TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Your dodge is noted. Try and answer the question.
The question was not about evil etc. It was about your claim that god doesn't have any moral responsibility towards humans because "he made them" and therefor can do what he wants with it.
Right, because the only alternative to genocide and infanticide is "giving eternal life".
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
This is utterly false. And you know it.
LOL
Prohibiting kidnapping does not prohibit slavery.
Ancient Rome had laws against kidnapping also.
When slavery, and slave trade, is an accepted practice, then kidnapping free people to sell them as slaves becomes a lucrative business. And as a slavery-allowing society you are going to want to have some protection against that.
In effect, your verse, which you like to pretend is against slavery, is actually an acknowledgement of it being a legitimate practice....
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TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
The so-called "golden rule" is not at all original nor exclusive to abrahamic religion.
Just about every civilization / society in the history of humanity had something idea like it.
It's very much a common sense idea for any group of social animals that depend on cooperation to survive and thrive.
No gods at all required to come up with it.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
You are demonstrably incorrect as this idea shows up EVERYWHERE in human history. Including before the advent of abrahamic religion and / or in places where they never heard of it.
It is common sense. It is "objective" only in the sense that if we are going to care about having our social group survive and thrive, valuing the idea is going to make surviving and thriving a lot more successful / easier.
Pawpatrol
Active Member
Uh-huh, God has always existed so no humans have existed without God existing. And Abraham was not the first prophet sent to mankind. He wasn't even a messenger, he was a prophet, one of thousands.
God≠ Bible.
Bible≠ God
Bible is simply a book that is related to the revelation of God. That's all. The same person who sent the revelation created you with your ability to love and to know right from wrong. All that is from God. Even your ability to deny it (free will) is from God.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Even Hell and Satan are from God and free will is from God. God is everything including evil. So praise Hell and Satan, as they are from God.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
The person I'm responding to explicitly claimed the bible as being the source.
And regardless, in many - if not most - civilizations this idea shows up not in context of religion or "revelation" but simply as an idea of social organization.
No gods required. It's merely the articulation of an underlying trait which is pretty much inescapable / unavoidable in social setting. It's inherent to social behavior.
And.
It is objective by the idea that whatever right you take, you give also to others. There is no double standard, or someone who has more rights that other people have. Also it leads to the same conclusion from both sides. For example, no one wants something to be done to them, against their own will, therefore doing something against others will is objectively wrong, because everyone agrees with it.
That is true, it is not objective because I agree with it. It is objective because you can't argue against it.
How could anyone say God has moral responsibility? Have you moral responsibility? Who gives it to you? I can't demand anything from God. I can't demand anything even from you.
Yes, only alternative to death is eternal life.