Does theism lead to immoral behaviour?

[SkepticThinker]

Read my last post again .. the answer is there.

So, just assertions.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If someone claims "such and such is wrong" then the burden of proof is on them.
If someone claims "I don't believe the Bible stories are all accurate" then they hold no burden of proof.

The little green men who hang out at the end of rainbows with gold and treasures.

Why?

I think perhaps you can grasp the point I'm getting at here though? That we don't just believe in everything claimed to exist, until someone shows it's wrong, right? If we did it that way, we'd be stuck believing in all sorts of things that aren't true, simply because someone didn't show it to be false. That's not the pathway to take for people who are interested in believing in as many true things as possible while not believing in as many false things as possible.

Yeah, I get you. But the joke about everything is in principle open to process of being falsified, is that truth is not yet falsified. Go figure.

 

[Audie]

Only if you believe so. I think atheists should not be so gullible, they should be as critical about everything else as about the Bible.

Interesting combo of false equivalence,
tu quogue, and psychological projection led off
by a total falsehood / nonsense.

Nothing of a factual nature is true "only if"
And, living things do evolve, whether or not all of the
TOE is accurate. Provable that the evolve.

Gullible is in ignorant belief- exactly your situation-
in a story you choose to believe, long afte its proven
false. Actually a stronger word than "gullible" may be
needed.

But you got a small parr of one idea right.
Of course atheists should ne skeptical.
So should buthers bakers and candlestick makers.
Skeptical toward everything, as in, don't just do
faith but as RONALDS MAGNUS put it, " trust,
( where appropriate) but verify.
A few Christians might want to try it, tho most
seem to feel skepticism is akin to plutonium.

App,I'd skepticism shows-
Everything in ToE can be verified.
Nothing about God, and only pieces of the bible
can be. Like, "Egypt' or "Sun".

Nothing supernatural has a trace of verifiability.

That's left for the gullible to believe.

Meanwhile they reject and deny the wonders,
like evolution, that would have to be the
works of the God that his nominal worshippers
claim to respect.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

Nothing if a factual nature is true "only if"
And, things do evolve, whether or not all of the
TOE is accurate.

...

Only if the factual nature is true. That is the big one. There is a Nobel prize in that one, if you can show that.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No one has demonstrated it to be wrong.

Dude... geology was born as a science upon that falsification.
Christians set out to find evidence of the flood.

They found the opposite and kickstarted geology as a scientific field in the process.

The geological refutation of the biblical flood is, in other words, as old as geology itself.

 

[Audie]

That's not true. If you want to get into this more, we can. Do you?

In any case, it seems like you've cleared things up for me: the reasons you consider the Bible reliable aren't anything that I would consider compelling.

Emotions can be quite compelling.
Just not as rhetoric.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Whilst we have a conscience, and have a built in grasp of morality, we are not smart enough
to keep from evil without G-d's guidance.

Not all of us, actually.
Sociopaths and psychopaths don't.
And for the rest of us, many of our moral values are culturally determined.

What most of us have in common, is a psychological basis to act socially as opposed to act anti-socially. Which isn't surprising for a social species.
That's where morality is built upon, it seems to me.

Having said that, it also seems to me that the "morality" that most religions / theists propose, isn't actually morality (or moral) at all...
It rather is mere obedience to perceived authority and the sacrificing of one's own moral compass.

 

[Audie]

Dude... geology was born as a science upon that falsification.
Christians set out to find evidence of the flood.

They found the opposite and kickstarted geology as a scientific field in the process.

The geological refutation of the biblical flood is, in other words, as old as geology itself.

I doubt that gets mentioned in any religion- controlled setting.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I doubt that gets mentioned in any religion- controlled setting.

Well, it does get mentioned in at least one religion, so learn to check your ideas.

 

[Copernicus]

It seems to me that the main characteristic of religious moral code is that it is guided and reinforced by some kind of moral authority--usually a combination of scripture, doctrine, and guidance from clergy. Our very first understanding of morality comes from our parents and community. Children seem to be innately programmed to obey authority, but becoming mature is a process of gradually becoming independent of parental guidance and transferring the authority to community and/or religious doctrine. Hence, atheists, who reject obedience to god (supreme moral authority), appear to have no authority in which to anchor their behavior and are suspected by people of religious faith as prone to immoral behavior. Religious morality is a natural outgrowth of childhood experience.

As an atheist, I would maintain that the source of morality is still largely the same for everyone regardless of how we rationalize it. Atheists tend to rationalize moral behavior as grounded in philosophical principles such as utilitarianism, but social pressure to adhere to norms is pretty much the same for everyone. Killing, stealing, and lying can appear just as immoral to atheists as to believers in a religious creed.

The weakness I see in religion-based rationalizations is that authority can be arbitrary. The bond that people feel with religious authority can be used to guide and manipulate them more easily than a rationalization based on abstractions like the golden rule or consequentialism. Religious cults can be particularly dangerous in this respect, but political dogma can be just as destabilizing as religious dogma. For example, Communist regimes have been known to engage in utterly evil and immoral behavior, even though they are at least nominally atheistic.

My overall conclusion is that neither theism nor its lack leads to immoral or moral behavior, but authority-based rationalization can more easily be used to corrupt one's sense of right and wrong than principle-based rationalization.

 

[1213]

Dude... geology was born as a science upon that falsification.
Christians set out to find evidence of the flood.

They found the opposite and kickstarted geology as a scientific field in the process.

I think they misinterpreted the findings.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think they misinterpreted the findings.

And with them, every geologist since then?



And you, off course, know better then just about all of them, I bet?

It takes a special kind of mind to think things like that.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I think they misinterpreted the findings.

Because .... ?
You don't like them?
All of the geologists have got it wrong and you've got it right because .... ?

 

[Audie]

I think they misinterpreted the findings.

You have ZERO idea of what they found
or how it was interpreted.

 

[Audie]

Because .... ?
You don't like them?
All of the geologists have got it wrong and you've got it right because .... ?

Because like all creationists he thinks
he knows more than any scientist on earth.

Aka delusion.

 

[Heyo]

And with them, every geologist since then?



And you, off course, know better then just about all of them, I bet?

It takes a special kind of mind to think things like that.

And I'm one of them (and you probably also). There are more people who believe in magic and magical beings than people like us. So an argumentum ad populum should be used with caution (even though you are right in this case).

 

[1213]

Because .... ?
You don't like them?
All of the geologists have got it wrong and you've got it right because .... ?

I think it is not possible to give general answer to this. If you want an answer, please give one example of finding, then I can explain the point.

 

[Heyo]

I think it is not possible to give general answer to this. If you want an answer, please give one example of finding, then I can explain the point.

Geology is not a thing I have studied very in depth. I mainly trust the scientific method they are beholden to. But if you know more, what about you giving an example of a geological principle or finding that isn't scientific and escaped peer review and repetition?

 

[Audie]

I think it is not possible to give general answer to this. If you want an answer, please give one example of finding, then I can explain the point.

You are so sure it's all wrong but
have not one specific.
The history of it though was geologists
in Scotland examining landforms in the
assumptio it was flood- formed found out
it was glaciers.
Others findings incl that there would be
a " flood layer" distinct in the earths strata
around the world. No such thing exists.

And of course glaciers predate any
" flood".
How is it that you can actually believe
you know more geology than any geologist on earth?

 

[Audie]

I think it is not possible to give general answer to this. If you want an answer, please give one example of finding, then I can explain the point.

Try this general answer:

I do know more science than any scientist

Or

I know next to nothing about science