Does Atheism Lead to Immoral Behavior?

[Polymath257]

That is not marriage .. that is selfish nonsense.

Yes, it is true even in a marriage that forcing someone to have sex against their will is rape.

A husband that forces his wife to have sex against her will is the selfish one.

A man has a duty to his wife and a wife has a duty to her husband.

Yes, and among the duties of the husband is to not force his wife into having sex.

Adultery is out of the question.

How is that relevant? We are talking about monogamous marriage. If the husband forces his wife to have sex, that is rape. And yes, if he does that, he should be prosecuted as part of the divorce proceedings.

 

[F1fan]

Yeah, and it is unnatural to have faith in gods, right?
As for the bold, that is psychology and that is not natural science.

It is natural to have faith in gods and other superstition if unskilled as a thinker.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It is natural to have faith in gods and other superstition if unskilled as a thinker.

Well, there is no objective standard as with say e.g. gravity for in the end how to cope as a human. So for a trained thinker like me I checked the books and found that a belief in a certain type of god can be used as a way of coping and that works for me. I accept that it in all likelihood would work for you, but I get that.

 

[F1fan]

Well, there is no objective standard as with say e.g. gravity for in the end how to cope as a human.

What the hell does this mean? What does a real phenomenon like gravity have to do with humans coping? Human psychology is not a consistent phenomenon like gravity, some humans are more resilient than others. Some learn better coping skills in life than others. Some folks struggle with mental handicaps.

So for a trained thinker like me I checked the books and found that a belief in a certain type of god can be used as a way of coping and that works for me.

And some find that smoking pot helps them. Every individual case makes their choices based on their needs. Could it be there is a better option than belief in a god for you to better cope? Maybe. It's like using aluminum crutches over wood crutches, and you haven't heard about carbon fiber crutches yet. Many don't need crutches at all, but we can discuss better options for those who do have a need, and even offer ways to move passed the dependency alltogether.

I accept that it in all likelihood would work for you, but I get that.

We aren't clones. We don't have the same needs. But we all have the same options. Some options seem good superficially, but not good long term.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What the hell does this mean? What does a real phenomenon like gravity have to do with humans coping? Human psychology is not a consistent phenomenon like gravity, some humans are more resilient than others. Some learn better coping skills in life than others. Some folks struggle with mental handicaps.

And some find that smoking pot helps them. Every individual case makes their choices based on their needs. Could it be there is a better option than belief in a god for you to better cope? Maybe. It's like using aluminum crutches over wood crutches, and you haven't heard about carbon fiber crutches yet. Many don't need crutches at all, but we can discuss better options for those who do have a need, and even offer ways to move passed the dependency alltogether.

We aren't clones. We don't have the same needs. But we all have the same options. Some options seem good superficially, but not good long term.

So what is your certified education in that?

 

[muhammad_isa]

No it isn't.

Irrelevant to the question which is about individual rights, namely a woman having the right to bodily autonomy. A marriage contract does not mean individual rights are set aside and authority given one party over another.

Who says what a marriage contract should be .. you?
I would rather trust G-d.

More waffling to avoid saying what any decent person from a first wolrd nation would be ashamed of.

I'm not ashamed of Islam.
I feel sorry for you, that you do not understand its wisdom.

Why can't you just say that women have the right to refuse sex from their husband? What's the problem?

It is a stupid thing to say from an Islamic point of view.
I have already explained why. The marriage contract obliges each partner to fulfil their duties to each other.
..and THAT is the rights that are important in a marriage.

A woman should not be forced to live with their husband if they don't want to.
..and that is their right.

 

[muhammad_isa]

You were asked, "do married women have the right to refuse sex if their husband demands it?" Your answer is either yes or no

It's a stupid question!
Of course they have the right to say no .. it is not a legal matter.
If they do not wish to have sex with their husband, then why are they still married to him???

 

[SkepticThinker]

Who says what a marriage contract should be .. you?
I would rather trust G-d.

How about the people involved in the marriage??

I'm not ashamed of Islam.
I feel sorry for you, that you do not understand its wisdom.

I'm ashamed of Islam, as you have represented it here. You have presented an archaic and barbaric view of marriage, in my opinion. I don't see any wisdom. Instead I see someone trying to justify evil actions against another person.

It is a stupid thing to say from an Islamic point of view.
I have already explained why. The marriage contract obliges each partner to fulfil their duties to each other.
..and THAT is the rights that are important in a marriage.

Thank you once again, for demonstrating that scripture can be, and is, used to justify evil actions.

A woman should not be forced to live with their husband if they don't want to.
..and that is their right.

Unless he wants sex. Then she has no choice, right?

 

[SkepticThinker]

It's a stupid question!
Of course they have the right to say no .. it is not a legal matter.
If they do not wish to have sex with their husband, then why are they still married to him???

Ever heard of just not being in the mood?
Geesh.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..if he does that, he should be prosecuted as part of the divorce proceedings.

Unless it is ABH or GBH and can be proved, there is no point.
A woman is entitled to a no-fault divorce in Islam.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Ever heard of just not being in the mood?

Another stupid question.
I assume that a loving wife might forgive their husband on an occasion.
If he continually violates her, then I assume there is no marriage left.

I have 6 daughters .. do you think that I would like to see them unhappy?
Of course not.
The fact that the media portrays Islamic practices as evil, is evil itself.
Marriage is going out of fashion in the West [unless you are gay .. hmm]
Society is in the process of disintegrating.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Another stupid question.
I assume that a loving wife might forgive their husband on an occasion.
If he continually violates her, then I assume there is no marriage left.

Another "stupid" question that apparently has never occurred to you. Sometimes people just aren't in the mood to have sex at a particular moment in time. Maybe they don't feel well. That's their right. Nobody has a right to force sex on another person - even if they're married to them.

I don't know what you're going on about with the forgiveness stuff.

If a husband continually rapes his wife, he should go to jail, like any other rapist.

I have 6 daughters .. do you think that I would like to see them unhappy?
Of course not.

Of course not. I hope you don't push this stuff on them.

The fact that the media portrays Islamic practices as evil, is evil itself.

I'm not going by what the media has portrayed. I'm going by what YOU are portraying on this thread.

Marriage is going out of fashion in the West [unless you are gay .. hmm]

So what?

Society is in the process of disintegrating.

Disagree. I find your moral beliefs on this subject appalling and abhorrent. The more we move away from that, the better for everyone.

 

[nPeace]

Atheist are those that do not believe in a God.

Conscientiously.

Most do not actively state that there is no God.

Most? How do you know this? You surveyed all the atheists?

No. That is a strong atheist.

Still an atheist.

Absolutely it is. No child believes in God before they are taught to believe that way.

No child is an atheist, before conscientiously making a decision.
Why atheist? Why not agnostic? It doesn't follow.

You claim it is from a lack of understanding. But, in reality, it is from a position of understanding very well.

So you believe.
I offered a rebuttal... which is the point.

And the theist says nothing new.

True.

And the theist never acknowledges the arguments for a deity are poor.

The arguments for belief in evolution are poor, but you would not admit that.
Maybe we all see circumstantial evidence in light of our understanding. So we have our opinions, which doesn't always agree.

Because they are slightly more reasonable and far less dangerous.

In your opinion.

No, you made claims. But you didn't justify those claims.

So you say.
That's not what is evident. You know this. Why are you denying it?
Tell me one time when I have not justified any claims. Just give me the link to the post.

I would say that most theists are here with a mission as well: to justify their beliefs.

Justify their beliefs? What do you mean... and why would a theist need to justify their beliefs on a forum?

Which are often denied, but seldom refuted.

LOL.

Well, maybe you are open to the possibility you might be wrong and that they actually have something worthwhile to say. Maybe you look at your own side and ask if it is really justified. Ultimately, most atheists would *love* to see a religious position that was actually justified. At the very least, it would be additional knowledge. But the positions that religion takes are so weak and easily demolished that the hope for such is minimal.

Not from what I have seem.
I've seen atheists run away when confronted with data. You don't hear from them.
Then they turn up in another thread, singing the same tune.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If a husband continually rapes his wife, he should go to jail, like any other rapist.

Perhaps you should put yourself in the position of the police,
and consider what you are saying.

What are they supposed to do to convict him .. take a sample of his DNA?

Disagree. I find your moral beliefs on this subject appalling and abhorrent..

..and I find the opinion of most in this thread i.e. the West, to be unenlightened and simplistic.

 

[nPeace]

Yes, but they're not plain athists. They're a special kind, with added baggage.

LOL.

...But stop short of claiming God does not exist. They deny a belief that God exists. Plain, ordinary atheists make no claim that God is ontologically non-existent.

That's not a "plain" atheist.
That's a modernized atheist.
You know how we have Christians today as being understood to be anyone claiming to believe in Jesus Christ, just by merely mentioning Jesus. Whereas, that was not how a Christian was defined in the past.
It is the same way with atheism.

How is that not accurate, unless you claim atheism as a belief or doctrine of some kind?
Infants are a-leprechaunists, a-unicornists and a-theists. Atheism in infants may be a useless distinction, from a practical sense, but it's consistent with the definitive "lack."

Explain please, why aren't they agnostic?

preconceived idea? There's an idea?

Yes. The preconceived idea, that you understand the Bble.

Wrong, or unsupported?
You presuppose these divine commands.

I wasn't even aware that God was communicating his word to us.
Are you aware that people who formerly were very skeptical and even vehemently opposed to the Bible, came to accept it as divine?
Please explain how that is presupposed?

Said, or implied? There are things that follow from a premise that don't need to be stated explicitly.

They are things which are not implied which "are hard to understand, and these things the ignorant and unstable are twisting, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:16)

Questioned premise. You need to support it if this line of reasoning is to continue.

Pardon me? I think I got lost in your breaking up the post into such tiny bits.

If I claim leprechauns state facts, would you not question my premise before accepting conclusions derived from it?

Yes.

What claim? Was a burden of proof assumed with a positive claim?

The claim that the Bible says A, when it doesn't... for example.

Could you reïterate the error you're referring to?

One example, is assuming that they understood the text, when they didn't consider the context.
When that is brought to their attention, they move on to something else, and do not acknowledge their mistake.

We rarely need our own arguments. Usually we need only refute yours, inasmuch as you're the one with the burden of proof.

No please.
If you claim the Bible has mistakes, the burden of proof is on you. Say What!

"You can't change people's minds by utterly refuting their beliefs" -- Johnathan Haidt.
-- at least those minds invested more in the beliefs than in their veracity.

Yup.

 

[nPeace]

Were you thinking that "over many generations" referred to individuals, like myself? That's not how evolution works! It's a gradual, accumulated change in populations. Individuals don't evolve.

Your statement is not accurate then.
"One gains a conscience and moral judgement like one gains any other physical or psychological trait: by natural selection of adaptive traits over many generations."

You cannot gain a physical trait if you are dead.
It would have been more accurate for you to have said, you are born with a conscience and moral judgement, which was passed down to you from your ancestors.

So, you think we are born with moral judgment?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Perhaps you should put yourself in the position of the police,
and consider what you are saying.

What are they supposed to do to convict him .. take a sample of his DNA?

Signs of abuse? Marks on her body? A history of violence? There is more than just DNA to go on.

Are you suggesting that since it may be difficult to prove a crime has been committed (as in most rapes, I'd venture to say) that we should just overlook it and throw our hands up?

..and I find the opinion of most in this thread i.e. the West, to be unenlightened and simplistic.

If you think your view of marriage is enlightened, you are seriously misguided. What you have presented is an archaic and barbaric view of marriage where the wife is basically just a piece of property.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Perhaps you should put yourself in the position of the police,
and consider what you are saying.

What are they supposed to do to convict him .. take a sample of his DNA?

Same way they would investigate any rape. Take interviews and look for signs of assault.

If she scratches the **** out of her would be assailant as he tries to force her onto the bed, all the better.

..and I find the opinion of most in this thread i.e. the West, to be unenlightened and simplistic.

Thankfully marital rape being illegal is not confined to "the West."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

..except that I never said that it was..

Yes, you did. You just tried to say that it isn't rape.

All you are doing here, is trying deflect away from the main issue.

A society where sex before marriage is acceptable leads to more sexual crimes being committed against women,
that are difficult to prosecute.

Nonsense.

 

[nPeace]

I'll probably have to talk to all the atheists in the world. I'm not sure they all agree.

If you think that those who do not believe but have no opinion are essentially the same as those who believe that gods don't exist, then why are you trying to segregate them and exclude the bulk from the category of atheist?

I didn't say that.
Some people do not believe in God. They are unbelievers, but they do not say there is no God.
There are differences. I don't believe labelling a person as atheist, simply because he doesn't believe in God, is accurate.
Where does agnostic fit then?

Why do you mind calling children old enough to believe in a god but do not atheists?

Did I do that? No, I didn't.

Are you a theist that likes to see the fraction of unbelievers underreported to make that demographic appear more marginalized than it actually is? A popular definition of atheist is anyone lacking a god belief. By that reckoning, some people would call infants atheists. Some would call dogs atheists. Some would call rocks atheists. I don't find much value in counting the number of infants, pets, and rocks lacking a god belief, since it's all of them, and they're irrelevant to any meaningful discussion of the fraction of believers to unbelievers.

This is not about numbers, but yes, it is about the popularized view.

A definition that the theist might like better is that an atheist is anybody who answers, "No" to the question of whether he holds a god belief.

I don't agree. I don't hold that view.

I know what hyperbole is. If you have anything to say about it that you think is relevant to this discussion, make your claim and I'll address it.

Okay. Later, I will address each point.

You misunderstand what people like me are doing and what motivates us. I just like discussions like this. I haven't ridiculed you despite rejecting faith as a path to truth. I have no interest in subverting your faith even were that possible. You probably depend on it now to order your life and give it meaning, and it would be cruel to pull that rug out from under you. If these discussions threaten your faith and you don't like that, you probably ought to try to view these discussions differently or avoid them.

Ha Ha. I love how you guys twist things.

It is literally true that if my neighbor wants to dance around a tree in his back yard at midnight baying at the full moon while shaking a stick with a bloody chicken claw nailed to it in order to center himself and give his like meaning, that's fine with me as long as he keeps the noise down and isn't violently insane or sacrificing animals.

Sorry that you feel that way, but I see comments like about once a week now - theists interpreting critical analysis of their opinions as a mean-spirited attack. This has been prominent in a few long-lived, Baha'i-centered threads in the last few months.

This is something you don't see in reverse. Critical thinkers don't see debate as a fight, but rather, as a means of resolving differences of opinion, and therefore don't have emotional reactions to being disagreed with or challenged. If they get frustrated, it's due to what they consider bad-faith disputation and intellectual dishonesty - not being disagreed with.

The same thing I do every day on these threads. I'm not expecting to penetrate a faith-based confirmation bias, so my purpose for doing this must be something else. You might think that it's to troll believers, but if I were interested in that, I'd be trolling the political conservatives. I disagree with you - a faith-based thinker - intellectually, but unlike the MAGA conservatives, I don't consider you immoral. They generate an emotional response from me, which your posting does not elicit, and unlike you, I don't mind how my comments affect them emotionally.

I really am not on about challenging ones faith, but if you want to make it about that, that's up to you.
I'm more focussed on the fact that if one fails to listen, acknowledge, and consider a view, they are on a mission, and nothing else matters.
This is what I see in most atheists here.
Maybe they are blind to this fact, and certainly that's possible. The heart is treacherous.