Does theism lead to immoral behaviour?

[shunyadragon]

You confuse religion with politics..

In Islam religion and politics are the same. I do not buy into the assertion that Theism causes immorality, but you are neglectiting the elephant in the room . . .

You cannot dodge the problem that Islam has become an oppressive, violent ancient tribal religion that imposes an ancient Shiria code on their people in many countries., and also oppresses minority religions in many countries.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Honestly, honestly, honestly, you atheists just make me regret taking any of you seriously.

Likewise. So you're not going to address the fact that all you've made in that post were logical fallacies? You're just going to pretend like you didn't, and blame me for your errors in logic? Is that it?

I wish that you could think, let alone sound and critically, for if you could you would at least understand half of what I said?

I've done just that in response to your posts. That's how I was able to point out your obvious logical fallacies.
And you have nothing to say about it, except some attempt at psychological projection. Really?

No one flippin' said that the majority's views are correct.

You heavily implied it:

"You come back with idiotic replies about comparing the landslide majority of people who have ever lived on the planet having worshipped something, with that of the belief in Santa Claus. Where in the world did 90% of the human inhabitants on this earth acquire such a propensity, how did protoplasm and stardust endow man with such a spiritual dimension to his constitution?

Billions of dollars spent on religious edifices, religious education, literature, debates, degrees, sermons,. missionary efforts, martyrdoms, asceticism, dissertations on virtue and morality - you don't believe that man is a spiritual creature?"

But, rather, that the majority's views expose an element within their cognizance and constitution - a spiritual endowment that no other creature has.

...I just wasted my time again, didn't I?

So you did argue that the majority view is correct.

 

[shunyadragon]

..and not their own will?
Have they no mind of their own? [rhetorical question]

People believe all sorts of things .. doesn't make them true.

Of course, this is true of all beliefs including Islam itself, but you are sidestepping the facts of history concerning Islam

 

[shunyadragon]

People who love Jesus have, and still do commit atrocities in his name. People who use the Bible to justify it.

The problem is the ancient tribal text of the Bible can be used and is used to justify tribal violence against those who do not believe.

Theism cannot be relied on for a consistent basis for moral guidance, because of variable inconsistent text of the Bible and other ancient tribal texts.on many moral issues facing the contemporary world. Nonetheless Theism cannot in an of itself does not cause immorality.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Good for you, you've avoided that pitfall.
Whereas 90% of all the humans that have ever lived, in one way or another, have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a religious education. Wrote academic papers and literature on the subject, taught as professors in schools, debated, fought, made countless hours of prayers, spent countless days in Church or other religious edifice, caused familial divisions, etc.. all in the name of religion.
And your best assessment of this most prevalent and predominant phenomenon, is that it's just a type 2 cognition error.

Unflippin' believable, like really.

It really is unbelievable, I agree.

Instead of addressing the point, you just doubled down on your logical fallacy.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You know . . . Wars between nations and Civil Wars kill millions.

Considering ancient mythology like the Noah flood as part of an argument that 'Theism leads to immorality is a 'Red Herring.'

The root 'moral(?) issue of religious conflicts is tribal regardless of whether different religious beliefs are involved or not.

The basis of ancient religions is indeed the natural human behavior of tribal identity.

Yes, there is a problem pf believers clinging to ancient religions and cultural identifies that do contribute to the tribal conflicts.

You missed my point.

 

[F1fan]

Like I said, evil people will find any excuse.

Even good people.

Sure, but without rules and enforcement, all of those ethics and morality are flexible and can be corrupted.

Do religions do any better than secualr governments? Look at the occassions when Muslim girls are stond to death for being with a boy their father doesn't approve of. Some girls still seek liberty and autonomy, and take the risk.

That's a problem.

Then if religions are started by God, or God's human middlemen, why doesn't it work more consistently? Why so many different religions, and sects of religions? God is herding cats trying to get humans to follow His rules/laws.

No one is above the law.

The Muslims behind the 9-11 hijackers WERE the law in their area of control and they acted to extend their law onto targets in the USA. Theocratic rule is the law, as is ISIS, as is the Taliban, as is any theocratic rule that rules with threats of death. The same happened with Christians as they targeted people for witchcraft, or infidelity to God. Look at the religious motives behind Americas far right wing, and how they are imposing their brand of "religious law" onto Americans through legislation and the courts. Much of this goes against the majority of citizens.

That's a rather large generalization.

Can you give examples of a church teaching introspection and thinking for themselves? I certainly witnessed none of that in my church experiences, but perhaps there is a church that does. And we have the many theists who demonstrate poor thinking skills, and over emotional replies in these discussions, and they could have benefitted from learning better, whether school or church.

Yeah, it makes it easier to be good.

How does being a follower make it easier to be good? It that circumstances when the pastor is good, and tells his followers to be good? That is just the luck of the draw, your chaos and randomness at work. Where is the consistency of goodness in religion? We only look at the Catholic preists abusing children and their massive coverup to see how religion can be a highly corrupt system.

It CAN be a problem.

So when religion can be a problem why it is still relied on as if it is reliable as an influence? No douby some people just lack the cognitive ability to think for themselves, so need to be guided. But given their lack of capacity how will they know if they are following good versus following evil? We can't give religion the benefit of the doubt, religion has to earn trust.

God is probably helping in ways that are not obvious and apparent. But, chaos and evil are still needed to maintain the material world. Chaos isnt always bad, of course. That's where biodiversity comes from. There's a lot of benefit and stability there. Evil just needs to be ignored. Not evil people, they need to be contained. But those evil impulses, need to be ignored.

Almost as if a God doesn't exist, or is just useless, and we are on our own.

Sure, but we still need rules and enforcement.

And that falls on us, whether it is ISIS beheading a Western journalist or a kid caught shoplifting a candy bar.

Logic can be corrupted. Anyone can prove anything to themselves with faux-logic.

Only faulty thinking is corrupt. The rules of logic are quite reliable when used properly. I see many form a bad conclusion and they call it logic, but in reality they are mamin hidden assumptions that are not part of the system. That is where critical thinking skill comes in handy, as it includes the ability to self reflect on the self's motives and bias.

Taming the monkey mind sounds like what most religions teach. It's just not formatted in a way that you will easily recognize.

My experience in Christianity is: here is the rule, obey it. It never taught a way for me to manage the temptations of why I want to break any given rule. "Taming the monkey mind" is a Buddhist phrase that refers to teaching about how the mind works, and how emotions can boil up into fervor, and learning to recognize these reactions and understand why we are feeling it. This tends to be the more troublesome emotions like fear, anger, greed, etc.

I heard an African American comedian interviewed and he has a joke where he says that he doesn't support bans on the Confederate flag because how else can he know who the dangerous white people are. That's funny, but I was thinking about the truth in it, how we humans have symbols of who we are. Does openly showing a Confederate flag suggest it is a person who understand what it means, and how it makes others feel? These will most likely be some sort of conservative Christian given my experiences and observations.

It applies because, check points work, but checkpoints aren't everywhere. If a person believes it's immoral and God will punish them, that's a checkpoint everywhere.

If the person decides what is immoral, and decides if God will punish them, then what use is God? It's just humans gambling on their own decisions, and that;s because even under religion many moral views are murky. Look at abortion, superficially it looks like a no-brainer, but if you consider how some pregancies develop problems then an abortion is a necessity.

They do teach that.

Really, religions teach how to resist primal urges? Can you point out these lessons and methods? And note I don't consider prohibitions as a lesson to resis temptation.

It depends on the religion, of course. It sounds like athiesm isn't teaching it either.

Atheism is just non-theism. It isn't an ideology that has tenets or lessons. But religions claim to be a source for morality, and they have mixed results. Chaos and randomness at work.

 

[F1fan]

How do you know that .. did you personly know them?

We know that because that is what Bin Laden stated. They were his soldiers.

I understand that they were seen drinking beer in a public place..

Hey, that's ok because they were getting ready to muder thousands of innocent people, doing God's will. God let them get away with a few beers, and thousands of murders. That's how religion works.

Were they following "God's commands" then, or are you saying it was all part of the conspiracy?

It was a criminal conspiracy to secular law. To these Muslims it was their sacred duty. That's religion at work.

You have adopted some Muslim views, but not these extremists views, why not? What stops you from adopting more extremist views while your fellow Muslims do adopt them?

 

[muhammad_isa]

You have adopted some Muslim views, but not these extremists views, why not?

I am fortunate enough not to be in the middle of a war zone..
G-d knows what bad thoughts I would have if I was, and my family had been killed etc.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Do not blame Jesus for those who misunderstood everything that he said and stood for

Assuming that Jesus actually lived and said the things attributed to him, it's would be Jesus' fault when none of it is comprehensible to those to whom you refer?

I knew that you were going to make me regret taking you seriously.

Me, too. I didn't expect you to like those scriptures.

But, thanks for quoting the Scriptural verses, despite the intent - it's nice to hear words of actual wisdom among such a rebellious and secular crowd.

No problem. It's one of the services skeptics perform on the Internet. Don't you think people should know about those scriptures and what that Bible teaches? It can help them identify where their atheophobic opinions arose even if they never went there themselves to read it. Who else is going to put all of those scriptures together in one place, summarize them like that, and disseminate it on the Internet? Not the church. Not the adherents.

The opportunities are seemingly endless:

Jesus, the man, and nothing but a man, was the perfect image of God.

Jesus without the magic and miracles was a mundane human being living a mundane life.

I just wasted my time again, didn't I?

Probably. What was your purpose? If it wasn't to insult people, then yes, you did.

made countless hours of prayers, spent countless days in Church or other religious edifice, caused familial divisions, etc.. all in the name of religion.
And your best assessment of this most prevalent and predominant phenomenon, is that it's just a type 2 cognition error.

No, not just a type 2 cognition error. That's the ground up aspect of religion - people trying to control their circumstances by appeasing these imagined agents with ritual and sacrifice.

The genius comes in when somebody monetizes it - the top down aspect of religion. That's where all your religious edifices and collection plates come from. It's a business. There's a church on every corner along with a bank, a gas station, and a fast food restaurant, and they're all there for the same reason. The marketing begins at the point of a sword with Roman legions, crusaders, and conquistadores and continues to this day with free Bibles in every hotel room and now Superbowl ads for Jesus.

Even today, being clergy is a great gig. No manual labor or hot sun. No education or training necessary if you want to open your own church. No government oversight. No expensive equipment needed. People bring you money every week to do nothing except tell them how to live. Instant respect and social status, although not so much as before.

No type 2 cognition error there in the top down part, just humans exploiting other humans, which is a great motivator for many.

 

[dybmh]

This is just false and a case of head-in-sand.
I have personally known several guys back in the day before they turned islamist terrorist by joining ISIS in Syria.

I can honestly tell you that they weren't "evil people".
Their radical religious beliefs made them "evil people".

To say that radical religion had nothing to do with that, is to just be in serious denial.

yes, but, radical religion is the outlier. And without details on what they were actually taught, it could be that what they were taught was more a political ideology than a religion.

Also, did you speak to them after the bombing? Are there any interviews? Is there any real information about what transpired in their mind when they were radicalized? It could have been the religion, it could have been the drugs that made them more susceptible to manipulation. It could have been something happened in their person life that contributed. A failed romantic relationship, leading to nihilism and suicidal ideation. It could have been that the potential for evil was always dormant in them, they had the predispostion.

All of this indicates that they may not have been an evil person, but they commited an evil act. They are just someone in the middle of two extremes. Not in the middle of the middle. But a person who would have benefited from having a strict code of conduct prohibiting harming others unless those others are actively engaged in harming them. A code of conduct which is enforced by an ever-watching-god.

 

[F1fan]

I am fortunate enough not to be in the middle of a war zone..

Is that the reason you aren't an extremist? Would you be an extremist if you were in a war zone?

G-d knows what bad thoughts I would have if I was, and my family had been killed etc.

Revenge and more violence would be a good response? That would feel good, but what would it solve?

 

[dybmh]

Sure, a perfect pizza, a perfect kiss, a perfect ending to a movie, etc.

Human biology certainly isn't perfect. Nor are any of the Gods humans claim exist. We can do better in our God design, but we are limited by what exists in reality, like birth defects and cancers, flesh eating bacteria (God wasn't thinking of us when he designed that), mosquitos, etc.

That's basically what I'm doing. Well, to be clear, I'm bringing together various theological concepts, finding a coherent god concept which matches the Hebrew bible, and renders a perfect God. And that's the God I believe in.

And that sums us religious explanations, human creativity, not facts. the only facts are actual facts, like birth defects. If a human claims a creator God caused all things the human needs to explain birth defects and cancers, and that will inevitably color how we view that God. I's a daunting task that I am happy I don't have to do, reconciling an indifferent universe to ideas that a loving God exists.

I'm not asking YOU to do anything. You asked a question, and most who ask that question in that manner are assuming it cannot be answered without compromising on the god concept. Yes, birth defects are a product of the chaotic nature of the material world. And that chaos is required.

A little closer to 99%. A lot of heavy assumptions need to be made for any religious scenario to make sense, and even then, it doesn't make sense.

LOL. You don't know if it makes sense. It's actually not that many assumptions. Strict monothiesm asserts that God is infinite, eternal and was solitary before creation. That's 3 assumptions.

Then assume that God is tri-omni, that's 3 more.

That's all I need.

In the end how many of we fallible mortals would design a universe that includes cancers? I sure as hell would NOT!!!! But I must be missing the benefit of brest cancer killing a 38 year old mother of three.

It's counter-intuitive. The breast cancer itself is not a benefit. The capability to be inspired by those who are battling breast cancer is the benefit which overwhelms the required harm brought by chaos.

Magic is all we have in the religious world view. But I don't carry that sort of baggage. I prefer a simpler, more Occam's Razor assumption of matter/energy always existing in one form or another.

Your preference is noted. But that doesn't mean that the question you asked cannot be answered. Althoug it is complicated, and if you don't like complicated, then you won't be satisfied by the answer. None the less the answer exists.

But your God is still the creator, and in the end the buck stops there. Morality can't be any more absolute if your God can't manage chaos and randomness. Why believe at all?

If chaos and randomness were managed, it would not be chaos and randomness. Managment is mutually exclusive from random.

Unless you are a 38 year old mother of three whose breast cancer is so aggressive no doctors can cure it. So your claim here isn't true on personal levels, and only in a broad sense.

My claim is, the question can be answered: it's required for a material world to exist, people have the capability to be inspired by it, people also unite when confronted with tragedy, tragedy is rare on a global scale, the innocent are rewarded greatly, the wicked are punished greatly.

So how does God intervene, as you claim?

Things could be much worse. If everything is completely random, over the course of millions of years, law of averages should produce 50/50 good/bad. But it's closer to 80/20. I estimate this on 10% world hunger, an 10% disease and deformity.

Why allow cancers at all if you are a loving God that can intervene? I can see a person struggling with serious mental illness being allowed to die of cancer, but a mom of three? If there's any time for God to intervene that is it, wouldn't you agree?

The material world requires the element of chaos to exist in order for it to exist seperate from God, and for each individual to exist seperate from each other.

Right, it has to be since we can't detect any evidence of any gods existing. Of course the lack of evidence isn't helpful to believers who claim their version of God exists. How can they even know their version is correct versus some other version? They can't.

Knowing is virtually impossible if the goal is knowing an infinite formless being. That's why it's accurate to call us believers.

So in other words, heavy doses of interpretation of vague verses. To my mind if the Bible isn't clear about any particular idea the fallible mortals doing the interpretation had better be careful not to play God an add content that isn't there. Isn't that a wise approach?

Not so vague. Just double meanings. The thing is, the idea that evil and chaos and all the other negative qualities which are opposite of God are required, and somehow can be converted into good, is a dangerous idea. People could misunderstand that, and use it to justify doing horrible things. And this notion that there is a flipped warped 2d reflection of God that is embedded on the physical world, embedded in everything, including the concept people call Satan, can be a bit disturbing. So, yeah, it's not out in the open.

 

[Copernicus]

Several people have argued in this thread that theism or religion per se does not lead to immoral behavior. Either the cause is something else--politics or Satan or both maybe--or they aren't true believers acting out of religious motivation. I think it's fair to turn the tables on them and ask whether they think that theism or religion ever leads to moral behavior. It seems to me that you can't reject religious motivation for evil deeds without also rejecting it for good deeds. Is it possible that people of faith who do good things are actually just good people who use religion as an excuse for their behavior?

 

[muhammad_isa]

Revenge and more violence would be a good response? That would feel good, but what would it solve?

Did it solve anything when US attacked Afghanistan?
Maybe not .. but it was understandable.

 

[dybmh]

Even good people.

No, I disagree. Good people will not find any excuse to do harm, if that's what you meant. Good people can justify doing harm, but they wont find ANY excuse. Good people have lines which they won't cross.

Do religions do any better than secualr governments? Look at the occassions when Muslim girls are stond to death for being with a boy their father doesn't approve of. Some girls still seek liberty and autonomy, and take the risk.

I think the problem is, you are generalizing all religions based on the worst actions of religious people.

Then if religions are started by God, or God's human middlemen, why doesn't it work more consistently?

Because, there's a part of all living things that strike up and strike out. It's ambition, or hubiris, ar it's one of the primary motivating forces in both contructive or destructive actions. It's one of the underlying causes of evil acts. But it's necessary in multiple ways. People haven't figured out how to balance that yet, both in a religious context, nor in a secular context. Not consistently. Some people do, both rleigious people, and non-religious people. But not everyone, and a few bad people can do a lot of damage.

Why so many different religions, and sects of religions? God is herding cats trying to get humans to follow His rules/laws.

Chaos. Evil. Hubiris. And beleive it or not, forebearance.

The Muslims behind the 9-11 hijackers WERE the law in their area of control and they acted to extend their law onto targets in the USA. Theocratic rule is the law, as is ISIS, as is the Taliban, as is any theocratic rule that rules with threats of death. The same happened with Christians as they targeted people for witchcraft, or infidelity to God. Look at the religious motives behind Americas far right wing, and how they are imposing their brand of "religious law" onto Americans through legislation and the courts. Much of this goes against the majority of citizens.

And God judges them, and punishes the perps and rewards the victims.

Can you give examples of a church teaching introspection and thinking for themselves? I certainly witnessed none of that in my church experiences, but perhaps there is a church that does. And we have the many theists who demonstrate poor thinking skills, and over emotional replies in these discussions, and they could have benefitted from learning better, whether school or church.

The group I associate with teaches those things. We are taught about the difference between the animal soul, and the holy soul that exists in each person, and how those interact, how they depend on each other, but the animal aspect should be subservient to the holy aspect. And there's an idea that's taught about head over heart, that the rational mind is connected to the emotional, and each contribute in different ways. And that different people are built differently. Some more rational, some more emotional. And there's tecniques for avoiding folly for all sorts of individuals. But we don't encourage rebellion. Not for the sake of being oppositional. But we are encouraged to strike out against tyranny, else we are complicit.

Yeah, Christianity at large doesn't seem to do a good job at this. But they do good in other ways.

How does being a follower make it easier to be good?

If a person has a crisis of faith, their rule following nature will continue to avoid harming others and themself.

It that circumstances when the pastor is good, and tells his followers to be good? That is just the luck of the draw, your chaos and randomness at work.

Could be, but the reason for including chaos and and randomness is so that order and reliability can be invested in the physical world. That's how it is with all the positive attributes that exist. If God wants to share those qualities with the mutiplicity of a material world ( omnibelenvolence, one of the 6 assumptions ), then it needs borders to create shells, capsules if you will, for those good qualities to reside. Those capsules of otherness need to be constantly connected to God in order to remain in existence. But they cannot be connected in a straight-forward manner otherwise they would revert back into God. So, these shells are created so that they rise up and strike at God, making the connection and drawing the vitality into themself. It's how they were created. This is opposite to the flow of vitality that invests all the good qualities into the shells.

And that's how material "things" are made. There's three things happening, there's a general otherness created, there's individual others that are created, then each individual is invested with the good qualities.

If God is tri-omni, then this general otherness, and the individual others ( the shells ), contain the potential for the anti-thesis for tri-omni with one exception. None of these others, the general nor the specific can lie in any way. And that's where the temptation comes from to connect to these other tri-omni-malevolent motivations. These motives can do a lot. A lot of harm. And because of forbearance, a person can feed on those malevolent motivational forces. And those forces will tell you honestly ( not literally ), I can feed you, and we can do great things together. This won't kill you. And that's true. But there's always a price that's greater than the reward.

Where is the consistency of goodness in religion? We only look at the Catholic preists abusing children and their massive coverup to see how religion can be a highly corrupt system.

It's not consistently good. But it has more potential for good than non-belief. My critisism of the Catholic priesthood is that they are forbidden to have a healthy outlet for the sexual desire. And Christianity seems to deny that these malevolent motivation forces exist in a person accepts Christ as their savior, or if they don't deny it, they deny any consequences for harmful acts.

That's not the fault of "religion". Those are the malevolent motives whispering, it's OK, it won't kill you, you won't get caught. And yes God created those shells, created them for the specific purpose of striking up and out of their bounds, and drawing sustenance. This sustenance then feeds the person and fills them. But the sustenance recieved from this method was intended for the shell, for the otherness, and this is ordained to push itself away from God.

The net effect is the shell becomes constricted, more and more, as the person feeds on the sustenance that was intended for the shells, the otherness. And the holy pure and benevolent vitality that is flowing in the conventional manner has less room in the shell to be collected and experienced by the person. They lose their ability to receive properly from their benevolent source. So they keep seeking from the other and each time it occludes and constricts more and more. It's a vicious cycle.

And that's how we end up with a child molestation crisis in an institution. People commit the crime, and each time they do it, it makes them want to do it more. And if it is permitted, the people who are complicit, each time they turn a blind eye, it makes it easier to do that again more and more. And each time both the guilty and the complicit do what they do, they are not only getting fed by molevolent motivational forces, but it becomes harder and harder for them to dig themsleves out of that hole. Eventually, the entire institution is full of either complicit or guilty people who don't know how to change.

So when religion can be a problem why it is still relied on as if it is reliable as an influence? No douby some people just lack the cognitive ability to think for themselves, so need to be guided. But given their lack of capacity how will they know if they are following good versus following evil? We can't give religion the benefit of the doubt, religion has to earn trust.

The followers aren't the problem. It's the people who are tempted by that whispering of malevolent motivational forces. And that's a totally different animal. That's not religion, that's everywhere. Secular institutions are not immune to this. The solution, long term, is understanding what these motivational forces are, where the come from, what is their purpose, what happens when they are indulged in harmful ways, how to channel them into productive ventures when possible, contain them when that's not possible, identify people who are unable to do either of these things, and lock them up.

Those understandings can come from religion, and I don't think secular materialism has the tools to accomplish it. Not in the scope needed to render a world where evil actions and suffering is minimized to the greatest degree.

Almost as if a God doesn't exist, or is just useless, and we are on our own.

Well, again, I expect things would be much worse if that was true. And negative attributes are required, and people have been given the capability to conquer them.

And that falls on us, whether it is ISIS beheading a Western journalist or a kid caught shoplifting a candy bar.

Sure. And it's merciful to punish the wicked here on earth, even by a a death penalty. Thats better than divine retribution.

Only faulty thinking is corrupt. The rules of logic are quite reliable when used properly. I see many form a bad conclusion and they call it logic, but in reality they are mamin hidden assumptions that are not part of the system. That is where critical thinking skill comes in handy, as it includes the ability to self reflect on the self's motives and bias.

But even critical thinking can be corrupted. "How do you know it is harmful? How do you know that you'll get caught? How do you know there's a god who will punish you? How do you know there's an after life? You only live once... take it. How do you know she Doesn't want those physical advances? How do you know she doesn't want it?"

 

[dybmh]

My experience in Christianity is: here is the rule, obey it. It never taught a way for me to manage the temptations of why I want to break any given rule. "Taming the monkey mind" is a Buddhist phrase that refers to teaching about how the mind works, and how emotions can boil up into fervor, and learning to recognize these reactions and understand why we are feeling it. This tends to be the more troublesome emotions like fear, anger, greed, etc.

Your experience in Christianity does not reflect accurately on all of religions. In Judaism it's taught that all emotions, and virtually anything can be formd into good or formed into evil. And so we are taught to recognize how everythign has two sides, and to turn towards the good in everything we do. but Judaism has a rather steep learning curve, and unless a person is born into a highly orthodox community, those lessons dont often get taught. Sadly.

I heard an African American comedian interviewed and he has a joke where he says that he doesn't support bans on the Confederate flag because how else can he know who the dangerous white people are. That's funny, but I was thinking about the truth in it, how we humans have symbols of who we are. Does openly showing a Confederate flag suggest it is a person who understand what it means, and how it makes others feel? These will most likely be some sort of conservative Christian given my experiences and observations.

Chritians are overwhelmingly good people. And so are conservatives.

If the person decides what is immoral, and decides if God will punish them, then what use is God? It's just humans gambling on their own decisions, and that;s because even under religion many moral views are murky. Look at abortion, superficially it looks like a no-brainer, but if you consider how some pregancies develop problems then an abortion is a necessity.

I agree, and most people do too. But politics twists people.

Really, religions teach how to resist primal urges? Can you point out these lessons and methods? And note I don't consider prohibitions as a lesson to resis temptation.

Anger is equated with idolatry, Judaism. The story in Numbers where Moses is angry, it's taught he lost knowledge. For lust, a person is supposed to immerse themselves in study. And each and every person is supposed to have a spouse so that those urges have a proper outlet. Accepting your lot in life is taught. Also lessons about good things happening to bad people, and bad things happening to good people.

A lot of this is in mussar literature.

Atheism is just non-theism. It isn't an ideology that has tenets or lessons. But religions claim to be a source for morality, and they have mixed results. Chaos and randomness at work.

Right, athiesn doesn't have any tools to address these problems. It is a lack. Lacking rules, lacking oversight, lacking enforcement....

 

[shunyadragon]

You missed my point.

Not at all the facts of history are clear: Theism in and of the nature of the beliefs do not cause immorality. The tribal nature and the nature of humanity determines the morals/immorality, and this is not only not caused by Theism, but morals are are natural outcomes over timem and variable and subjective over time and a poor measure of any generalization of what causes immorality.

Very bad wording of your argument against Theism based an unfortunate atheist/agnostic agenda. Theism is not the scapegoat for human immorality. Ancient Religions essentially fail to provide an adequate contemporary standard of morality that deals woth the diversity of evolving human cultures.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Not at all the facts of history are clear: Theism in and of the nature of the beliefs do not cause immorality. The tribal nature and the nature of humanity determines the morals/immorality, and this is not only not caused by Theism, but morals are are natural outcomes over timem and variable and subjective over time and a poor measure of any generalization of what causes immorality.

Very bad wording of your argument against Theism based an unfortunate atheist/agnostic agenda. Theism is not the scapegoat for human immorality. Ancient Religions essentially fail to provide an adequate contemporary standard of morality that deals woth the diversity of evolving human cultures.

It seems strange to me that you can't be bothered to read the posts you reply to, but then put so much effort into writing long replies.

 

[F1fan]

Did it solve anything when US attacked Afghanistan?
Maybe not .. but it was understandable.

Nice deflection from how bad religion can be for other humans. Remember, you are a conservative Muslim who is happier in a secular Western nation than a Muslim theocracy.

You are asking me if I agree with a bad decision from an unfit republican president that I did not vote for, either time. I understand their intention, but they should have learned from the Russians how bad an idea it was. Remember, your prime minister was part of that coalition, so ask yourself this question as if you "gotcha" too.