Does morality come from the scriptures ?

[Kerr]

I know that. However, I have come into a lot of non-Theists who do have a very "I don't like X therefore X is immoral mindset." It's not all of them. And most of the ones on this forum are not like that. But on another forums I participated in...a lot of the Non-Theists were very "I don't like X and therefore X is immoral." Then when you try to argue they'd say "Do you like X" I'd say "No, I don't" They'd respond "So how can you say that X is moral?"

It was ridiculous and it's part of the reason I left and came here. It's not all non-Theists, but you meet a lot of them who think the same way and you start to wonder.

Assuming you are right about these people, does it really matter? There are MANY forms of morality, from moral relativism to the belief in an objective morality... all of them exist within the moral spectrum where morality is not derived from an authority (I consider the Theistic morality you speak of to be a specific form of authority based morality). That there are places where people with similar moral values gather together is only natural, that does not mean you can draw conclusions about atheists as a group more then you can draw conclusions about theists as a group when all you have seen is one side. I hope that is put in a clear way.

 

[TheKnight]

Assuming you are right about these people, does it really matter? There are MANY forms of morality, from moral relativism to the belief in an objective morality... all of them exist within the moral spectrum where morality is not derived from an authority (I consider the Theistic morality you speak of to be a specific form of authority based morality). That there are places where people with similar moral values gather together is only natural, that does not mean you can draw conclusions about atheists as a group more then you can draw conclusions about theists as a group when all you have seen is one side. I hope that is put in a clear way.

It's clear. And I agree.

 

[Commoner]

It's clear. And I agree.

Are you getting a bit tired of this debate?

 

[MSizer]

I can't believe people are even debating this. There is rock solid evidence that is very quickly amounting that will piece together a very plausible theory for our sense of morality.

Here's Hauser (Cambridge) & Singer's (Princeton & Monash) expirments which conclude overwhelmingly that morality exists in people regardless of background or religious exposure:

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/recent/HauserSingerMoralRelig05.pdf

And here's Joshua Greene (formerly Cambridge, now Harvard) using MRI scans to show how moral decisions are made partially by emotion and partially by reason:

Tracking down the seat of moral reasoning | HarvardScience

Before anyone jumps in and says "see, it's obviously an endowment from god" - that's doens't help in any way. It may as well be like saying "it from that great source that nobody knows a thing about".

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I can't believe people are even debating this. There is rock solid evidence that is very quickly amounting that will piece together a very plausible theory for our sense of morality.

Now there's a sentence that deserves to be quoted and then forgotten ...

 

[Commoner]

Before anyone jumps in and says "see, it's obviously an endowment from god" - that's doens't help in any way. It may as well be like saying "it from that great source that nobody knows a thing about".

Clearly god skewed the results of the studies.

 

[MSizer]

Now there's a sentence that deserves to be quoted and then forgotten ...

Oh goodie, now it looks like I might have a second stalker. I'm so flattered.

 

[TheKnight]

Are you getting a bit tired of this debate?

Not at all. I'm simply answering honestly.