No way, as Jesus very rightly pointed out, anyone who didn't think he was the messiah was a murderer and a rapist.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Please tell me you're joking. I hate to see someone so brainwashed

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I could be wrong, but I don't //think// Jesus actually said that. So yes, I am joking. Because this is one of those posts where a person makes up a misconception that barely anyone believes and denies it, acting like they're speaking out for the minority.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

yeah it seems like a joke now that I reread it, I feel like an idiot.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@Chez yeah, it's the same as those "Just because I'm from Atlantis doesn't mean I've had anal sex with a fish" it's annoying how people are so accepting of posts like that. It's sort of like when people start a comment with "and before anyone says [something which no one would have said]" and then go on to argue a point that no one was disputing for the sake of getting a popular comment. @Wats Apparently I'm the only person who'd think that was a joke, so don't worry about it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

This website isn't funny anymore. I've seen it slowly die as middle school children take it over. :'(

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@anon Instead of bitching about it maybe you could make some jokes, rather than being the 400,000th person to complain about it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

By Anthony! Have ye no faith in the land of Amirite? This is our land. Foreigners may take spots in our homepage, they can take our YYA's, but they will never TAKE OUR WEBPAGE! DUST YOURSELVES OFF, REMEMBER THE TRUE MEANING OF BEING AN AMIWRITER; TO ENJOY YOURSELF AND NOT CARE ABOUT SCORES OTHER GAIN. (but seriously, who gives a poop about people making one sided posts. This isn't a competition, so have fun champ. *messes up your hair and pats your head*)

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The question is not whether or not atheists are moral people. It's whether atheism itself can affirm absolute moral values, which it cannot. Therefore, under atheism, there are no good or bad people, nor good or bad actions.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes there is. An atheist can consider someone bad, I know loads of atheists who've done it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But then you're just programming people to believe the same thing, just like you'd do with robots. If you are not allowed to think freely of what you believe is good and bad you are not human, you're just a robot.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No...morals are the basis of the human conscious, and although they may vary from person to person, morals are the foundation for what every human believes to be right or wrong. In the Catholic Church, morals are called Cardinal Virtues and can be used by anyone, regardless of their religious belief. No matter what, everyone possesses these virtues, but it is up to that person to utilize them. These are the building blocks of Theological Virtues... Theological Virtues are only accessible to those who have a close, intimate relationship with God..."Faith, Hope, Charity (llove)

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@pantherfanatic I don't think you understand atheism very well. It's not a unitive thing like organized religion where everyone has the same beliefs and morals. We decide what we believe to be right and wrong (which is pure opinion) based on //personal// experiences. Obviously not everyone has the same personal experiences, so we have different morals. I believe there's good and bad people, but I base my opinion on my subjective morals, therefore someone I think is a bad person may not be so in someone else's eyes. The thing is, I notice atheists tend to be more tolerant toward people who don't share their opinion because of this. If you think it's okay to murder, personally I think that's a terrible thing, but I don't have a right to tell you you're absolutely wrong because for me there //are// no absolute morals.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@CherryBlossom No I was explaining to him that a) you can't say "under atheism" because the only qualification to be an atheist is the disbelief in a god or gods, nothing about morals. and b) he was saying that atheists don't believe in good or bad, which is wrong. We do believe in good or bad, just not an absolute good or bad.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@CherryBlossom I find it highly annoying when you dismiss the idea that maybe Atheists are more tolerant, as if you've met every Atheist online and in real life. I don't know who, as a group, is more tolerant of other beliefs. Because I've have not met every religious person in the world and I have definitely not met every Atheist. Something tells me, neither have you. So while you complain about others generalizing about the religious and etc, please note that you aren't doing any better. ....Sigh* And no.. i am not bashing your beliefs... I don't think Christianity is stupid...I'm not attacking you etc. etc. etc.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@Anon, I don't think she was attacking the whole group. I've seen a lot of Atheists who can be incredibly intolerant of people who believe in God but, likewise, I've met Christians who aren't very tolerant of people who don't. I don't think she meant "All Atheists hate Christians and will attack them." Just that some can and will. While it's maybe not the majority, there are a lot.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Hmm. You have a point; didn't think of that. It's just that from your previous comments on this site, you've had the attitude that most Atheists are assholes who, if they question your beliefs, must be shoving something down your throat. And how am I being intolerant?... Because I don't agree with you? That's a bit different than telling you that you shouldn't be stating your beliefs on this site...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@CherryBlossom If you tell me where I said I found it annoying that you don't give Atheists High status on this site, I will apologize. Otherwise, i'm gonna go on life questioning why you are bringing up something I never said...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@CherryBlossom Besides, this is Amirite. if you go onto Christian sites, which definitely number much more than any Atheist sites, it's the opposite of what you describe. So to make claims on different groups based on what just happens on this site, isn't really a good idea.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You know what sucks about this new way of commenting? The fact that I'm getting a notification for every single one of these comments.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If I saw an generalized comment on Christians? I honestly don't what I would do as I have not seen one, I don't think; I don't go on often And 99% of the times I read posts and not comments. I only know of your comments because i went through them on your page. And I've seen some debates where people questioned your beliefs and you went on the defensive and accused them of attacking your religion. And as for the whole tolerant/intolerant thing. That may have been my bad. I might have misread what you meant because like I said, judging form your former comments, you seem to think a lot of people attack your beliefs when they really weren't..

by Anonymous 12 years ago

By that logic, God cannot be good or bad.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

How do you figure?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

God lives by his own morals and requires us to live by his morals, according to most religions.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But His morals aren't subjective. They are part of his necessary nature.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No, they're subjective. If God were to command man to wear underwear on their heads, then you'd be saying that commanding man to wear underwear on their heads is part of his necessary nature.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Think of all the tragedies that have occurrd because of religion. Hitler killed millions of Jews because they didn't believe the same thing as him. The terrorists flew into The World Trade Centers because their religious teachings promoted it. I'm not trying to make generalizations because obviously the majority of religious people are not that extreme but the commonality is: when was the last time you saw an antheist kill thousands of people for not being atheist?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Hitler didn't kill millions of Jews for not believing the same thing as him. I'm not going to go on and on about why you're wrong, but he just blamed them for Germany's economic troubles and for being greedy blah blah blah...not necessarily because they're Jewish...he just determined that the majority of those people should be exterminated based on the impact they were having on Germany, not strictly on who they worshiped

by Anonymous 12 years ago

pretty much what you said. good job. proud of you cherry blossom.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Religion and morality are completely unconnected. Religion doesn't really offer moral guidance. For example, for Christianity, you can say it teaches loving your neighbour and not stealing, but it also teaches you to kill women are not virgins on their wedding day and those who work on Sundays. Why do people ignore the latter rules when, given that it's all in the Bible, it should all have equal value? Because they're basing their decisions on what they think is right anyway. They pay attention to the rules they agree with only because they already agree with them, and the same in reverse for rules they disagree with. Edit: note I'm not having a go at religious people here. Religion doesn't make you a horrible person either. It's GOOD that people don't indiscriminantly believe every word a holy scripture says.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Christians don't obey those laws because that was old law. Jesus even says that the old strict laws are not necessary.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So, you're saying the word of an omniscient, omnipresent God can be outdated? The old strict laws were not considered necessary because, by that point, general consensus was that they were immoral. It's the same reason people TODAY say "but that's the outdated parts". Funny how the timeless, unquestionable morals of God seem to follow behind the rest of morality anyway. Again, I apologise if this sounds harsh to religious people. Like I said, it's a good thing that people don't unquestioningly take everything in it at face-value. It's also good that people are willing to change their morals in light of new evidence/understanding of matters.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You could argue that religious people only do good things so that they can go to heaven

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@freddo Make that statement less absolute. A lot of people get annoyed when you say "Religious people" instead of "some religious people".

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@Logan Yeah, lots of religious people follow the virtues but mostly because their religion encourages good behavior for no reason other than not going to Hell.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

In my opinion, the morals espoused by the bible are quite obvious. It doesn't take a devout bible expert to understand concepts like "exercise self-control to avoid temptation" or "anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." Atheists and religious people alike can understand these concepts, and the bible is certainly not the only place you can get these messages. My point is, religious people don't have a leg up on anyone else when it comes to living by these simple morals. But morals are not always simple, and I think the bible oftentimes comes up short on moral complexities. For example in Revelation it says "All liars will have part in the second death, the lake of fire." Clearly the message is you shouldn't lie, the only problem is that it is virtually impossible to never tell a lie during a lifetime. The subject deserves more than just a blanket statement that "lying is bad", but you won't find a more complex treatment than that in the bible. A religious person is doing himself a disservice if he only gets his morals from the bible, and may indeed have weaker morals than other people if he does so.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I think there are only morals of circumstance. Even killing someone isn't qualified as immoral if it were in self defense and stealing food isn't wrong if you're starving to death.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I can't believe this sparked up such a debate..

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The word "religious" is in the post; what do you expect?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

True.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I posted this because a teacher I had this recent schoolyear loved to talk about what he would call a "moral dilemma." One of his examples was this:  You're a miner with one other person. The entrance to the surface collapses. You have enough oxygen to last one person 4 days, and enough for two people for two days. It will take 4 days for the rescuers to drill a tunnel/pipe to supply you oxygen. You also have a bag of supplies(that are useless to escape). In the bag are sleeping pills and a gun with a single bullet. Your partner takes a ton of sleeping pills to last him a while(presumably 4 days). He hands you the gun and says, "It's your choice," and then falls asleep. What do you do, kill him or yourself? If you do neither you will both die. See whenever any student would say they would the partner, he publicly said, "You must not be religious then." He had a lot of other similar scenarios. Everybody in my class seemed to think that a non-religious person would make the "morally wrong" choice. I, personally am not religious, and was hurt by this. I would have made the "right" choice, though. I know what's right and what's wrong.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I also live in an extremely religious community.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

what would they do to the partner? You've left me in suspense here wondering what the moral choice would be. This isn't sarcasm btw.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'd say that the amount of sleeping pills to put you under for four days would kill you regardless.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Like Neighbor said that amount if sleeping pills will kill him. So you could have his share of oxygen, problem solved.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Even if that amount of sleeping pills didn't kill him, he would be taking up much less oxygen while he sleeps, leaving enough oxygen for at least three days. If they both slept there wouldn't be a problem with the amount of oxygen.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The "morally correct" choice would be to shoot yourself.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

And abandon my friends and family? How is that moral?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Because you aren't killing yourself. It's not about your family or who you would affect by killing somebody except who is killed. Or the amount of sleeping pills that would kill you. The scenario isn't meant to be overthought. It's about killing yourself or killing somebody else.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

*Because you aren't killing somebody else

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Fuck that. I'd shoot him. And I'm guessing the majority of people who claim they'd spare their partner would too. By the way, your teacher is an asshole.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I wouldn't want to shoot anyone, but if I'm shut in with YeahIAm, or someone like him, that changes shit. I'm not saying you're immoral. His comment just made me realize, no matter how moral or religious or whatever your deal is, that in the face of death people would do anything to survive.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well how immoral could it be if 1) he isn't going to feel any pain and 2) he'd be completely and wholly okay if you decided to kill him?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

It's just assuming death is the worst thing that could happen.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That's one of the reasons I don't really agree with moral absolutes. If someone is in horrible pain and asks you to kill them to relieve them of misery, I don't consider that immoral although it technically is murdering an innocent person. In this situation I don't really know what I'd do, but I'd feel that I wouldn't be committing a crime if I chose to shoot him. I just think that moral absolutes are very hard to be well, absolute. What do you think, as a Christian?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Hmm, I don't really understand. You're saying humans cannot truly have moral absolutes, only God, right? But would God condone taking someone out of misery if they asked, or would He stick to His absolute of never murdering the innocent? Forgiveness isn't really a moral absolute, though, unless there are certain things that absolutely cannot be forgiven. I'm not trying to be offensive here but I really think there isn't such a thing as moral absolutism because the world isn't absolute. Yes, perhaps God is absolute but God isn't Christianity. His followers wouldn't be considered to have moral absolutes, because people can't have moral absolutes.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@cherryblossom I just want to point out, everything you are saying about religion and religious people is not true of all religions. In Judaism, heaven and hell are not mentioned at all. There's a judgement and then... Nothing. Also, in judaism it is taught that if somebody is in a situation where they can only save either the self or someone else, they should save themself. Just thought you might like to know.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

read all of the comments.. at least skim through them. It's about harming yourself or somebody else.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Provided this is true, how do religious people justify sending non-religious, good people to hell?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

For Christians it's justifiable because "God/ the Bible" says so. And they don't think of it as themselves doing the condeming, again, it's the God/the Bible. I think that's why they think that way.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Probably because no one cares for someone telling them they deserve to burn eternally no matter what that person believes.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

no shit

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Adding a lot to the topic meg

by Anonymous 12 years ago

clearly

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So profound. A real thinker

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I feel like the only people who actually still believe this are all from a much older generation. Thankfully most of us now realize this, so what's the point of this, then? Of course I could just be totally ignorant. Maybe there are still a lot of younger people with this mindset and I don't realize it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

was there a typo or something? you think only the older generation thinks non religious people have morals?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I have read all of these viewpoints at least 10 times on every other religion debate on here that sparks controversy. I know that you guys are probably sick of hearing the usual "As a coddled 14 year old living in a white suburb in America, I believe that the atheists are immoral people" likewise "As an atheist who doesn't believe in god, did I mention I was an atheist, I refuse to believe you, close-minded Christians, because atheists are better" and stuff like that. Allow me to provide a different viewpoint: What if there are no such thing as morals, and people just do good shit to feel better? For christians, its validation that you will receive eternal salvation. For atheists, its the fact that you are doing good shit even though christians say you cant?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Awww yeah. A post that mentions religion. Butthurt...butthurt everywhere.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The term atheism shouldn't even exist if you think about it; it refers to 'non-believers' an example of why it's pointless to use such a term would be golfers. if you don't golf, do you call yourself a non-golfer? do you organise meetings with other 'non-golfers' and talk about not golfing? In my opinion atheism isn't just defying the majority; in saying you don't believe in anything religious. the 'morals' that everyone talks about is only a very small portion of what religion is about, if you actually read any religious scripture front to back you will see both good and bad views. The same goes for atheists. You can't say that atheism or religion for that matter are right when it comes to what is good or bad. in a hundred years, what we find to be politically correct (just/unjust) might be perceived as polar opposites.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Nonreligious people //can// have good morals

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Obvious post is obvious.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Everybody has morals. Teenage mutant ninja turtles and outside of the box taught me more about morals than church did. Its true religion does have it printed out on what to do and what not to do but if you really need atheists to have a text of morals, then go buy then a manors book. Its not hard to be a good person at all, don't need any text to tell you how to be one.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Although i believe they can have morals, every one i meet with no religion seems more grumpy then every one else. Even people who are on the fence dont seem grumpy just people who have no religion just my 2 cents though.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well i can show you one right here:D

by Anonymous 12 years ago

^ Ha nice

by Anonymous 12 years ago