Difference in moral thought between atheists and believers

[IndigoChild5559]

Correct

Oy veh.

 

[stevecanuck]

Believers can’t have empathy also?

Is the strawman your only method of response?

 

[stevecanuck]

Good then you know that religious text is not about the endorsement of violence which was my point.

Oh no you di'int. Gird your loins. I went through the Qur'an and summarized the verses that call for that which you absurdly just denied. As stated below, these are quotes minus context. I have that in another file and will happily discuss any verse in detail. Enjoy:

These are commands to commit violence taken from the Qur'an minus context. Most are explicit, but some do require context to understand that violence is the topic at hand, so I've added minimal explanation in square braces not shown in italics. Comments in parentheses and italics are comments added by the original interpreters found in The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Word by Word Grammar, Syntax and Morphology of the Holy Quran. The purpose of this list is to prove that the Qur'an contains many verses that call for Muslims to kill unbelievers.

- 2:190 "Fight in the cause of Allah".
- 2:191 "And slay them ... slay them".
- 2:193 "Fight with them".
- 2:216 "Fighting is prescribed for you".
- 2:218 "those who ... fought (and strove and struggled) in the path of Allah".
- 2:286 "give us victory over the disbelieving people".
- 8:12 "Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them".
- 8:17 "And you did not kill them, but it was Allah who killed them".
- 8:39 "fight them".
- 8:65 "O Prophet! rouse the Believers to the fight".
- 3:143 "And certainly you desired death [martyrdom in battle]".
- 3:145 "in their fight for the cause of God".
- 3:146 "grant us victory over the unbelievers".
- 3:152 "when you slew them by His permission".
- 3:157 "And if you are slain in the way of Allah or you die, certainly forgiveness comes from Allah".
- 3:167 "Come now, fight in the way of God".
- 3:169 "Think not of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead".
- 33:16 "Flight will not avail you if ye flee from death or killing".
- 33:18 "Allah knows those among you who do not come to the fight".
- 33:20 "They [Hypocrites] would not fight except for a little".
- 33:26 "some you [Mohamed] killed"
- 33:61 "wherever they are found they shall be seized and murdered, a (horrible) murdering".

not done yet ......

 

[stevecanuck]

Good then you know that religious text is not about the endorsement of violence which was my point.

- 4:71 "Believers, march [to battle] in small groups or all together".
- 4:74 "Those who want to buy the life hereafter with this life should fight for the cause of God".
- 4:75 "And what is wrong with you that you fight not in the Cause of Allah".
- 4:76 "Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of Satan. Fight therefore against the friends of Satan".
- 4:77 "when the fighting was ordained for them ... they say: 'Our Lord! Why have you ordained fighting for us?'"
- 4:84 "Then fight in Allah's cause ... and rouse the believers".
- 4:89 "seize them and slay them wherever ye find them".
- 4:91 "seize them and slay them".
- 4:94 "go forth [to fight] in the cause of Allah".
- 4:95 "Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) ... to those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah".
" Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight".
"Those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home)".
- 4:110 "Forsake your home in the cause of Allah".
- 4:104 "Relent not in pursuit of the enemy".
- 47:4 "So when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle], strike their necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them ...".
"God could have taken vengeance upon them, but (He ordered armed struggle) to test some of you ...".
"Those who are killed in the cause of Allah - never will He waste their deeds".
- 47:20 through 47:23 "when a precise surah is revealed and fighting is mentioned therein, you see those in whose hearts is hypocrisy looking at you with a look of one overcome by death... when the matter (preparation for Jihad) is resolved, then if they had been true to Allah [by fighting], it would have been better for them".
- 47:31 "We will surely test you until We make evident those who strive [wage jihad]".
- 47:35 "So do not weaken and call for peace while you are superior".
- 22:58 "Those who emigrated for the cause of Allah and then were killed or died - Allah will surely provide for them a good provision".
- 49:15 "The believers ... strive with their properties and their lives in the cause of Allah".
- 66:9 "O Prophet! Strive hard against the Unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them".
- 61:4 "Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure".
- 61:10 through 61:13 "Shall I lead you to a bargain that will save you from a grievous Penalty? You shall believe in Allah and His Messenger, and struggle hard in Allah's way with your property and your lives. He will admit you to Gardens. and other things you love, help from God and a nigh victory".
- 48:16 "You shall be called against a people possessed of great might to fight them".
- 48:29 "Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; and those who are with him are strong against Unbelievers".
- 5:33 "The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified".
- 5:35 - "O ye who believe! ... strive in His way".
- 5:54 "mighty against the unbelievers, they shall strive hard in Allah's way".
- 9;5, "kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush".
- 9:13 "Will you not fight a people who have violated their oaths and intended to expel the Messenger, while they did attack you first".
- 9:14 "Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands".
- 9:16 "Do you think that you will be left (as you are) while Allah has not yet made evident those among you who strive (for His cause)".
- 9:19 "strives in the cause of Allah".
- 9:20 "The ones who have believed, emigrated and striven in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives".
- 9:29 "Fight against those who have been given the Scripture [Jews and Christians]".
- 9:30 "The Christians say the Messiah is the son of Allah ... May Allah destroy them".
- 9:36 "Fight against the disbelievers".
- 9:38 "What is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth?".
- 9:39 "If you do not go forth, He will punish you".
- 9:41 "Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah".
- 9:44 "Those who believe in God and the Day of Judgment do not ask you whether they should fight for the cause of God".
- 9:45 "It is only those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and whose hearts are in doubt that ask your leave (to be exempted from Jihad)" [clarification added by Mohsin Khan translation].
- 9:52 "Can you expect for us (any fate) other than one of two glorious things- (Martyrdom or victory)?".
- 9:73 "O Prophet, fight against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh upon them".
- 9:81 "they hated to strive and fight with their properties and their lives in the Cause of Allah''.
- 9:86 "Believe in Allah and strive hard along with His Messenger".
- 9:88 "But the messenger and those who believe with him strive with their wealth and their lives".
- 9:93 "The blameworthy ones are those who ask for exemption [from fighting] despite their ability".
- 9:111 "Surely Allah has bought from the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have the garden; they fight in Allah's way, so they slay and are slain".
- 9:123 "Fight those of the disbelievers who are close to you"

 

[stevecanuck]

Good then you know that religious text is not about the endorsement of violence which was my point.

You may have noticed that 'strive' rather than 'fight' is used in some of these translations. That's because the Arabic root word used is 'jihad' rather than 'qatl', and we all know that 'jihad' means 'struggle/strive'. Many try to float the lie that the struggle referred to is the inner (greater) struggle, instead of a physical (lesser) struggle against unbelievers. However, I have yet another file that shows 'jihad' and 'qatl' being used interchangeably, and all in the context of shedding the blood of unbelievers. Let me know how deeply you want to get into this, and I will be happy to oblige.

 

[Heyo]

Morals don’t apply to God

Do morals apply to fictional characters? Is Voldemort "evil"?

Morals apply to humans, and humans who get their morals from characters of fiction can be judged.
More precisely, human actions can be judged. People are not "good" or "evil", only actions are, at least in moral philosophy.

 

[stevecanuck]

Ehhh, yes but change still happens - albeit, much more slowly in the case of religious dogma. The march of time continually moves forward, and religions that don't follow risk irrelevancy. That said, there are many that dig their heels in as much as they can get away with before reluctantly moving forward

The problem with Islam is that it is designed to NOT move forward. Verse 5:3 contains the phrase "This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion." It couldn't be more clear.

 

[ChristineM]

Morals don’t apply to God

Figures, as hypocritical as any god belief can be, a perfect role model eh?

 

[joelr]

Well morality does not actually exist in the world, neither do ethics or values.

They are defined by society but remove society and you have nothing.

You have the nervous system developed over billions of years. This governs behavior.

For instance, if there are only two people in the world and one says, “I am going to kill you”, and the other says, “ you can’t because it’s wrong”, what is he basing that off of?

He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to always be watching his back, he wants friends, companionship. Brain chemicals push behavior.

There is no society with laws saying he cannot be killed, there is nothing written in the cosmos saying it’s wrong….nothing.

Yet we survived 200,000 years living in small tribes. As do all other animals. And you don't think basic morals would develop in a dynamic system that evolves geared toward survival?
Those who truly didn't care, murdered at whim, were killed. Not much different from taming wild species. The violent species were not bred.

Atheists inherently have nothing to follow until they make it up. This is why we see their morality fluctuate all the time.

And it's why we don't follow OT laws about slavery, plunder of war, stoning children, killing all living things in 6 cities because their religion might corrupt you. Women may speak in church, graven images are no big deal, freedom of religion is ok, you can take an oath, we do not turn the other cheek on ISIS or Pearl Harbor or any terrorism, ever.
We all lie sometimes. Do whatever on Sunday. Don't condemn gay people. That is all made up. What we no longer consider ethical we discard.

Now if you are Christian then you believe almost 2/3 of all religious people ALSO make up morals. Hindu, Islam and so on.

The wisdom tradition in the OT, why is it so similar to all Mesopotamian wisdom, including using an Egyptian text in one of Proverbs?
Because these are the basic morals humans make up based on the best way to survive as a social animal?
Why did Hindu come up with similar basic morals without Yahweh telling them? Same with all religions. Why did the ancient Greeks come up with excellent morals, ethics and philosophy on their own? They made it up (or claimed Zeus gave it to them).

This is what is needed for animals who are culturally living in groups. A sense of morality needs to evolve with other senses.

Book of Proverbs - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The third unit, 22:17–24:22, is headed "bend your ear and hear the words of the wise". A large part of this section is a recasting of a second-millennium BCE Egyptian work, the Instruction of Amenemope, and may have reached the Hebrew author(s) through an Aramaic translation.
The "wisdom" genre was widespread throughout the ancient Near East, and reading Proverbs alongside the examples recovered from Egypt and Mesopotamia reveals the common ground shared by international wisdom

Believers have inherent morality which is consistent because it comes from God.

Yet it changes. It was once ok to buy slaves from the heathen around you, own them as property and also their children? No, it was never ok. People just hadn't learned it yet.

Jesus said to not even speak to non-believers. We no longer think this is a good idea.

"Believers" also includes Islam, Hinduism, Bahai......


Then you have to demonstrate anything comes from god. Yet the wisdom isn't new, the myths are rewrites of older myth. It looks exactly like a syncretic myth. With zero information that would demonstrate it was far ahead of its time and could not be written by a human.

They could have been told, wash your hands, there are tiny organisms that cause illness. Everything is made of atoms. The earth is round and orbits the sun, in a galaxy of billions of suns. There are billions of other galaxies. Light is a wave and particle.
Instead early Yahweh is off fighting Leviathan in the sea, same as his counterparts in other Near Eastern religions.
Israelite kings returned from Exile in Mesopotamia and then suddenly write myths for Israel that rework the same stories they heard? Then they take on Persian ideas and later Greek.
No chance whatsoever this is anything but stories, myth mixed with some history. Like the 10,000 other national myths.

 

[Bear Wild]

I think that until we had the MRI studies, it could only be considered a hypothesis. Now we know it for a fact.

I actually do agree. There is nothing like a picture to convince you. Well except when it is AI generated.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Atheists inherently have nothing to follow until they make it up. This is why we see their morality fluctuate all the time.

I think atheists morality fluctuates due to new ideas and evidence that warrants a change many times. Nothing wrong with morals changing if we are trying to make our morality better.

Believers have inherent morality which is consistent because it comes from God.

I don't see this as true since all religious based morality is interpreted from some ideas or books. For instance there are Christians that are pro choice and some are pro life, they both point at the bible as their source. Same for same sex marriage.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

I don’t steal because God forbids it, non-believers don’t steal because they’ve decided there would be a punishment for it. My morals will never change but a non-believer’s could if society changes their view.

As an atheist I don't steal because I don't want people stealing from me and society would be less stable if we allowed theft. Punishment is not the main reason behind my moral belief against stealing.

If you have never changing morals, what do you do when your inherent morals conflict? Like the classic situation of lying to save someone's life. Situational ethics or morality can address these issues better than inherent morality.

 

[Bear Wild]

You have the nervous system developed over billions of years. This governs behavior.

Exactly. We have a nervous system intimately connected with and shaped by the world around. It formed and followed natural law with the morals of nature. As mammal nervous symptoms progressed they developed the ability to sense pain and suffering and mirror neurons that could sense suffering in others. This ancient inheritance gives us what we translate into moral behavior.

 

[Bear Wild]

You are missing the point.

A believer has morals, values, and ethics dictated to them by their God, whoever that may be.

Non-believers have nothing dictating morals to them until they get into a group and decide what the rules are.

I don’t steal because God forbids it, non-believers don’t steal because they’ve decided there would be a punishment for it. My morals will never change but a non-believer’s could if society changes their view.

So if god tells you to steal then would you? If a god tells you to kill then would you? I definitely do not believe in a god like yours and my moral behavior is not based on punishment but rather sympathy, a mirror neuron gift of the goddess that shaped us.

 

[joelr]

Exactly. We have a nervous system intimately connected with and shaped by the world around. It formed and followed natural law with the morals of nature. As mammal nervous symptoms progressed they developed the ability to sense pain and suffering and mirror neurons that could sense suffering in others. This ancient inheritance gives us what we translate into moral behavior.

Yes I agree. I would call it the morals of survival. Nature as a whole doesn't seem to do morals, it just is. A pandemic or asteroid could wipe us out and leave survivors to a bad death.
But for animals to survive we need empathy, a range of emotions, bonds, a sense of what is good and bad. And we have had time to develop these complex ideas.

 

[Tinkerpeach]

As an atheist I don't steal because I don't want people stealing from me and society would be less stable if we allowed theft. Punishment is not the main reason behind my moral belief against stealing.

If you have never changing morals, what do you do when your inherent morals conflict? Like the classic situation of lying to save someone's life. Situational ethics or morality can address these issues better than inherent morality.

Does God permit lying to save someone’s life?

 

[F1fan]

You are missing the point.

A believer has morals, values, and ethics dictated to them by their God, whoever that may be.

That was my point, if you are correct here then the 9-11 hijackers (who are religious people claiming to follow the moral dictates of their God) were just and correct in their actions.

Do you want to adjust your statement?

Non-believers have nothing dictating morals to them until they get into a group and decide what the rules are.

Non-bleievers have themselves to account to, not what they learned from social conditioning. Non-believers have to think for themselves and consider what is right. Believers just have to blindly follow orders from their religious hieracrchy. That's how Lutherans and Catholics in 1940's germany committed the holocaust. Do you consider the Holocaust a moral act by Christians? Your previous statemenst say YES.

I don’t steal because God forbids it,

Yet many of your fellow believers do steal. How did that happen?

non-believers don’t steal because they’ve decided there would be a punishment for it.

Much like the punishment that believers fear if they go against their God.

My morals will never change but a non-believer’s could if society changes their view.

Why can't you think for yourself? Your morals are whatever your human "middleman to God" says. Non-believers have to use their moral sense and do the right thing.

 

[F1fan]

Does God permit lying to save someone’s life?

Who knows what sort of "middleman to God" some believer follows, so I would rather trust an atheist like @Clizby Wampuscat to make a moral decision than some arbitrary person who "follows a God". I say that because atheists are using their own moral sense to make moral judgments, not following some ideology that was created by flawed humans for some idealistic agenda.

I would lie to save someones life. It's an easy moral decision.

 

[McBell]

Does God permit lying to save someone’s life?

Yes.
I mean it isn't as though he can stop me.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Yes I agree. I would call it the morals of survival. Nature as a whole doesn't seem to do morals,

Quite true. Human morality has compassion on the sick, the weak, the old... Nature wants them dead.