Where do you get your morals, if not from our/a Creator? Do you make them up and go by your own conscious and feelings already in place? If that's acceptable, who is to say someone else's morals are wrong or flawed? Are there some set morals that everyone should keep, and then differ...

-141 Where do you get your morals, if not from our/a Creator? Do you make them up and go by your own conscious and feelings already in place? If that's acceptable, who is to say someone else's morals are wrong or flawed? Are there some set morals that everyone should keep, and then differ on the smaller matters? Where do those set morals come from, some intrinsic moral coding? Serial killers, thieves, and child molesters, must have missed that day of development in the womb, amirite?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I get my morals straight from logic. I would like for another person not to kill me, rob me, cheat me, take advantage of me, etc. so I do not do those things to other people.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That's very admirable and I commend you for it, I must point out, the bible teaches this as well. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, so in theory we can speculate a Christian who actually followed Christ's teaching would indeed be a good person by default. Although this is YOUR logic, it may not be someone else's. Would you condone someone else's moral even when they directly conflicted with your own? Say as I mentioned in the case of murder, maybe a parent abuses a child for years and the child snaps and plans their murder, or say a spouse cheats on their significant other, or does some other really horrible thing, ruins someone's life somehow, maybe they find it morally justifiable to kill that person, or to beat the fuck out of them, or punish them in some other means you find morally unsound. Is it really, just because you think so? Or just because a majority of people think so? This is where the illogicality of made up morals for every person lies.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I must point out that the Bible also says the abuse of children and murder of unfaithful spouses is okay.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Then I'm also forced to point out most things like this taken from the bible, are taken out of context or quoted to misconstrue the meaning, because people are looking for bad things to find. Physical discipline is not abuse, as for your spouse reference, that's in the OT, and in the OT people were stoned to death and killed for all sorts of reasons. It was a harsh lesson that the penalty for all sin is death, thus the point of Christ taking that upon himself. It was not a lesson that we should kill unfaithful spouses, it was bigger than that, and now that Christ has taken upon himself all sin so that we may receive mercy for our sins, it is not acceptable to murder and we does not call for our murder for those things previous things.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No. In direct contex, it says it is okay to physically disfigure children who are out of line. And the OT is still part of the Bible. Part of what Christianity teaches is directly from God. Along with teaching that He is always right. So because Jesus came, God suddenly is wrong about what he had previously said?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No actually he said I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. We still obey, but the penalty for sin is no longer death. I love how you aren't giving me scripture. If you're so knowledgeable about the bible, cite some stuff. If not, stop talking about things you know nothing about. I'm positive what you are saying is taken out of context, or completely untrue.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't mean to intervene, but I find it very annoying when someone says, "oh, but that part of the Bible is often misinterpreted." The majority of the time where contradiction is found, that's the excuse. I just wanted to put that out there. Not to say the Bible doesn't have any good things in it, but I'd rather take advice from a more modern book on how to live my life.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

It's a fact, for example see above where someone says the bible condoned slavery. Technically, yes, but slavery during that time was considered a different kind of thing than the slavery in the past couple centuries, for example against African Americans. It was a voluntary social status. The bible even goes so far as to condemn race based, forced, slavery.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So you agree that the time period then was different than our time period? The book is obsolete.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Not at all. There are maaaany valuable lessons to learn from the bible, you should actually research things instead of ignorantly citing a quote with your biased assumptions to fuel your own personal agenda, with no real facts or information. Knowledge is power my friend, so is questioning everything, even your own point of view. This is how we learn and grow. Also, you're awful hateful. I think you need a hug.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I disagree that I've been hateful. My point is that if you agree that much of the Bible is subject to misinterpretation, why do you still choose it as a guide of morals and values? If everyone has a different interpretation of its content, why should we follow its rules and guidelines? The problem is that due to the sketchy and vague aspect of the Bible, there is a possibility of two different people reading the same text but getting two different meanings from it. This therefore subjects them to having different morals from one another which is the whole point of your post.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If someone writes a brilliant letter, and the reader doesn't understand it, who is at fault? Certainly not the writer, and certainly not the letter.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Look at some perspective. Men wrote the Bible, there's no doubt. where the doubt comes in is whether or not those words came from God. If they did, then they would be total truth. If I do not believe God exists, and therefore do not believe the Bible is the word of a supreme power, then clearly, I do not place any credibility on the bible. If I don't even believe in god, I sure as he'll won't be obeying a book that I believe was constructed by archaic men about outdated beliefs.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

*hell. And, I'd like to also point out that in the days of American slavery, People used the Bible to justify slavery, what with Cain's decedents being from Africa and whatnot. People also justified being against interracial marriage from their interpretations of the Bible. And today, you see people interpreting the gay marriage part differently. Today, slavery and racism are definitely not moral. However, tell that to the ardent Christians of the early 1900's and they'll tell you a different story, all of which were their interpretations of the Bible. If you read the same passage they read, would you both come to the same conclusions? The Bible's morals are subjective, because people are subjective. The only one who isn't subjective is God, and since we are not God, we cannot be perfectly objective.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

People will use ANYTHING as an excuse to support their own actions and prejudices. We should blame the book, instead of the people? Do you really think these type of things wouldn't happen if a single book wasn't around? Of course it would. Humanity is flawed, this is the problem, not their excuse.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Humanity //is// flawed, which is why we must learn from our mistakes and not repeat the past things like following the Bible. troll

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Trolllll lol.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm not sure how this is relevant to what I'm pointing out, which is not you should follow the bible because God says so. It is about the illogicality of morals being made for every person individually. If it doesn't come from a higher power, no one is in a spot to say their morals are higher than another's, leading one to the conclusion either morals come from a high power, or morals in general are a gray area. In conceding morals are a gray area, you have to realize murder or something equally as terrible to most people falls under that. The question comes down to, do you think murder can be a gray area? If not, but you still cannot agree a higher power decides morals, what makes your moral to not kill, or anyone else's, the right one?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Okay, then I agree with you. Murder is most certainly, in my belief, a gray area. For example, if you were in war and your fellow soldier got his legs blown off without medical treatment for miles, it is not morally wrong to put him out of his misery if he asks you to, in my opinion. It also doesn't make sense for morals to come from a higher power because we cannot just assume a higher power exists. You can tell me your morals are from God, but that means nothing to me anyway, and still, yet again, I will not believe your morals are higher than mine. Peoples' morals do not come from a higher power ever; they come from personal interpretation of a higher power that they believe exist. Even if you claimed they came from a higher power, it won't hold any ground with me or people outside your religion. It's meaningless, because the way I see it, your morals actually came from yourself. If morals truly did come from a higher power, then that's a different story, but just because you have faith in it doesn't mean it's true.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm not so much saying we should assume an existence of God, but that concerning morals it makes much more sense, to me at least, than making them up. So, of the two options, if you pick that morals in general are a gray area, well touche. That was one of the options I posed. I have a hard time, just as many people do I'm sure, admitting that rape, child molestation, and murder aren't necessarily wrong, I just don't like them personally. I think it makes sense that morals come from something higher than humanity, because to me, rape or child molestation (or murder) are absolute wrongs, I can find no way to justify them being in a gray area, yet I can also not say I am above any person, so a higher authority fits logically.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Having a religion does not automatically mean you are a moral person. Being an atheist does not automatically mean you are not a moral person. It's okay to be guided morally by a religion. Don't try to pretend that you are a superior human being because I don't follow your religion.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I never did, I am posing a question as to who has the right to judge someone's morals if they are made up by that person. What makes yours better than someone elses, say someone who justifies killing a spouse who cheated on them, or killing someone for killing a loved one, or gay marriage so many love to ostracize people and insult them for not supporting. I don't think Christians are automatically moral, and I don't think atheists are automatically not, I'm pointing out the flawed logic when it comes to morals coming from nowhere but ones own head.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Not to intervene, but you seem to be referring to biblical slavery as something more like indentured servitude. Would that be a more accurate thing to call it?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Consider the following: We are living creatures and social animals. Our brains need built in fail-safes and "moral codes" to keep us functioning as social animals. This is why we are protective of each other and aren't murdering each other left and right. This can be observed in nature. Animals, who aren't supposed to have morals, follow basic "moral codes". Some of the more intelligent animals even mourn their dead. Smaller morals, I believe, were set up by people trying to control others. I know that it would seem that these were just guidelines set up to try and make us better people, but I don't believe that. If you want to control people, you need them to be organized. For people to be organized, they can't be stealing from each other or fighting each other over everything. Personally, I believe organized religion as a whole was designed to control the masses. Obviously, the beliefs in all-powerful beings that created everything were originated in man's need for things to be explained. I think someone saw an opportunity to cash in on that, though, and decided they could influence society by saying "Hey, that all-powerful being said this stuff about how we should be."

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I completely disagree haha, but this discussion is more a debate on t the existence of God, which I can and do debate fervently, but probably isn't the place, and not really part of my particular point in this post. Morals among humanity are subjective. Conceding to this, leaves one of two options - either you are conceding that all actions are gray and relative, and there is no true wrong doing, or that in order to have true right and wrong morals, it would have to come from a higher power than humanity because we are equal in that respect. I personally have qualms with admitting murdering your spouse, or committing a sexual act on a child is a "gray" subjective area.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't believe in true right or wrong. I absolutely do not believe people are equal, either. There have been humans that are demigods in comparison to the average human.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Morals among humanity are subjective. Conceding to this, leaves one of two options - either you are conceding that all actions are gray and relative, and there is no true wrong doing, or that in order to have true right and wrong morals, it would have to come from a higher power than humanity because we are equal in that respect. I personally have qualms with admitting murdering your spouse, or committing a sexual act on a child is a "gray" subjective area.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Why couldn't you have just said "Morals among humanity are subjective, amirite?" instead of starting a whole religious debate?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Because it is. Morals being subjective is not the only option, either morals in general are subjective, or a higher power defines them because a higher power is the only thing over a human.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Self-centered much? What about puppies?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

sorry, OP, I Kant help you with that.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

can't*

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I Kant = Immanuel Kant http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

by Anonymous 12 years ago

by Anonymous 12 years ago

By that logic, god cannot be moral or immoral.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't know how you're coming to that conclusion. My point is that logically it makes more sense for a higher power to define morals, because he is higher, and greater than us, and is in that position being all-knowing, having created us, the world, and morals in general. He IS morals.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So, if humans are the highest power, we are morals?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If humans are the highest power, morals don't really exist. Not absolute ones.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Why not?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

OP's point is that morals without God are not objective since they can not be anchored to a standard. In Richard Dawkins's words "we are just dancing to our dna". Well, Richard. Tell the jews that Hitler was just dancing to his DNA.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Why was this voted down? For those that practice religion, morality is not seen as subjective to them because they don't decide their own values. For those without religion or some sort of central faith, morality and values and absolutely subjective. I'm not debating religion here,ust t agreeing that otherwise there is no objectivity. Subjectivity is not necessarily a bad thing in all instances, as people should never accept any "objective truth" without thinking it through themselves first.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I agree with you, that everything is subjective. However, the comment was mocking subjectivity, and that Hitler was not just doing what he thought was best (subjectivity) and instead doing evil for the hell of it. "Tell the Jews that Hitler was just dancing to his DNA". The poster obviously did not like the notion that Hitler was just being subjectively moral.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I hear what you're saying. I also hear what anon is saying. Without objectivity, one can claim that your subjective interpretation is no more valid than theirs. However, people have done some horrible things in the name of objective interpretations as well. It does just depend on context. In our current society, (Western world, and for example) we have generally collectively agreed to certain morals and values. These might change depending on the culture and global location. In medieval times, their contextual society collectively abided by certain horrible terms which makes me glad that that's not my time period.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

(!! This phone's auto correct! Strike " 'and' for example." Need mobile editing! )

by Anonymous 12 years ago

This is true, people have done horrible things in the name of objective interpretations, although, in relation to my faith, say for example people using the bible as an excuse to promote slavery, this was done in error because the bible does not support slavery, at least in the way they tried to make it, because slavery was a very different thing during that time. I think the term bondservant fits much better. So, to me, people have used it as an excuse to do what they wanted to, and without a particular excuse, people will just find another to fit.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes, because one of those options was true wrong, or, true evil. If you pick the side of a higher power, Hitler was absolutely wrong, he was an evil person. Not so hard to imagine.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

This I can agree with. I think it was down voted because what I pose leaves one with two options, either morals are relative, meaning things such as child molestation or rape are a gray area not necessarily an absolute wrong, or a higher power is a more logical answer. For people who do not subscribe to any high power, this leaves the first option, and I would imagine people don't like saying such things are not an absolute wrong.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But just because you have a grey area over child molestation does not mean many people are able to get off scott free, even in prison child molesters get hell from the other convicts. I dont need a God to tell me that raping a child is wrong, enough people agree with it that it is morally right, just like you find it morally right to preach your beliefs as fact upon people (on this thread, i dont know you in person so i cant make those assumptions) which i dont think is morally sound.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You're too stupid to realize I'm not preaching anything. I'm not saying one religion is right over another one, I never did. Reading skills.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm stupid and you're the one making lifestyle choices based off of an outdated fiction novel...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Do the atheist cause a favor and stop embarrassing them with your discrimination.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Wahh? Boohoo? Cry me a river.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Your insults don't even make sense lol.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Religion was created to control the ignorant, and now that we have furthered our knowledge as a species, religion's ignorance has metamorphosed into stupidity.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Go learn grammar before you call people stupid lol.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Notice I distinguished the difference between ignorance and stupidity, maybe I just have yet to be exposed to proper grammar lessons. You however, have likely taken many years of science classes and still fervently advocate for your favorite fiction novel.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes, because science has nothing to do with religion, neither disproves or even says anything of consequence about the other. I'm sorry you've been brainwashed to promote hate for people based on their personal convictions. It's truly sad.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Science has not disproved religion, i admit that, but both have a reason to explain the beginning of existence; and while one only has people's written accounts, Science has facts that are backed up and observable in the world.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Science for me is a means of explaining how God did something. It doesn't have to be some magical thing where God just popped everything into existence like a magician. A lot of Christians seem to feel that way, but that isn't true. The bible, or any religious text, does not have to be viewed as some silly fairy tale. There are good lessons, and just because you personally have not had a spiritual experience does not mean they do not exist. If you don't believe because you've never felt the touch of God on your heart, that's perfectly understandable. But please do not be so small-minded as to believe that just because you haven't felt it, it doesn't exist. You are drawing logical conclusions from what you feel, and everyone else is doing the same thing.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

THANK YOU. Maybe I was too wordy, so few seem to be getting my point.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

There goes all my fucking brain cells....

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@OP If God were to come to you and say, "MiffedMuffin, you are allowed to do whatever you want without any consequences. No matter what you do, I won't get angry, and you can still go to heaven," would you start killing, stealing, or commit any other crimes? If your answer is no, then this shows that you don't need religion in order to distinguish between good and bad behavior. This shows that you are getting your morals from something else. Where people get their morals from is very debatable, but here's my take on where morals come from. From an evolutionary standpoint, having morals would be more beneficial. For example, lets say there is a population of animals that don't have any morals. They kill each other, commit rape, and other heinous acts. This population of animals would quickly go extinct by causing their own destruction. Now lets say we have the same population of animals, except they have morals that killing and rape are wrong. (continued)

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Cultures have practiced absolutely horrid things...sacrificing children, rape, even today, say in the Middle East it's socially acceptable for a man to rape a woman, or to pour acid on her face because she turned him down. So your theory that morals exist because it's beneficial to us doesn't make sense, because these things have happened in the past, and still today in large numbers.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The middle east has an incredibly high rate of theism...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

What does that have to do with anything.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

They believe in a God, a creator, and still commit the atrocities you mention.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm not saying someone who believes in a creator will not commit horrendous acts. I don't know why you think I am, but I'll try to be more clear. I am saying in general, that there is no way that I have heard at least, to explain how true right and wrong can exist among humanity alone. Unless you think there is a human on this planet who has authority over everyone and is high enough to say this is right and wrong because I say so, and anyone who says differently is wrong, there is no higher power to set morals in stone. It will always be relative to every person and culture, meaning a gray area.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No one person is allowed to say that, What you just described however is fairly accurate to a position that of the Pope, with his word over christians. For the most part (aside from dictators and such) humans rally up and decide what is the moral thing through democracy and decide how that would affect us with how the world is going.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Right...they decide for themselves. Subjectivity. It's fine if they like that, but still moot to my point. There is no true right or wrong unless it comes from somewhere other than a human being.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Thus being no true right or wrong, because deities do not exist.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Because they don't focus their time on killing and making life miserable for their species, they are less likely to die out. This shows that the population of animals with morals is more favorable over the population of animals without morals. Most people are also able to experience empathy towards one another. Empathy is when you can experience the feelings of another person, and this would make someone less likely to purposely cause harm to someone. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex in our brain causes us to feel emotions such as empathy and guilt, and these two emotions play a large part in our morals. In your post, you mentioned how serial killers, thieves, and child molesters don't have the same obvious morals that most people have, that killing, stealing, and molesting is wrong. A lot of times people who commit crimes like these have mental disorders. For example, serial killers and child molesters may have Psychopathic Personality Disorder which is when you completely lack empathy and guilt. Also, people may steel because they are in a tough financial situation, and steeling is a way for them to get by.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

As I stated above, the argument that morals exist intrinsically for our own good does not make sense, because all throughout history and even today, cultures and people practice horrible things. If this is how things really work, we don't rape, steal, and kill each other for survival, apparently the Middle East missed the memo.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yeah there have been some "horrible" practices. I put horrible in quotations because that is how morals work NOW, back then it was OKAY to do that. And somehow humanity has seemed to live through all of the horrible practices such as human sacrifice (as mentioned earlier in the thread).

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't think you understand. Women are raped, people are stoned to death and murdered LEGALLY, and it is even common practice to mutilate a women's genitals so that sex is painful and she will not want to have sex as a means of avoiding infidelity. These things are happening TODAY, in areas of the Middle East. It isn't some pre-dated morality law that is void and null like you are insinuating. We haven't evolved morally as a species, if that's what you're trying to get at.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But in you saying that you are saying that your morals are right, and that yours matter more than theirs. Just because thats the way the majority of your country feels does not mean it is necessarily wrong, I'm by no means saying i support such doings, but you have to understand that morally, much of germany thought the Holocaust was okay, guess what inspired Hitler to rise to power. He stood up on the battle field in WWI and said that if he left unscathed that he was chosen by God.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

See my last response to you. I don't really want to type it again, but I am saying exactly what you are. I'm not claiming to be right, I'm only pointing out there are two options here, and in THAT pointing out a major inconsistency among atheists. You cannot assume a true right and wrong without assuming a creator of those that is higher than humanity. Whether it's a God or Aliens, or whatever.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Morals can also be influenced by society. For example, if you are raised in a society where incest is okay, then you are less likely to view it as morally wrong. In a society where incest is considered a taboo, you are more likely to agree with the popular opinion in order to fit in. tl;dr version: People don't always get their morals from their religion.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You're missing the point. Actually, you're kind of arguing my point for me haha. By saying morals are influenced by society, you are really saying they are subjective to humanity. Well now, if they are subjective and relative to every specific person and culture, who is to say a culture that sacrifices children is wrong in doing that? YOU probably think it's wrong, I'm sure a lot of people do, but is it really wrong just because you think so, and some people think so? If you're answer is yes, it's wrong to sacrifice children, then you are saying for some reason your morals are better than someone else's, who did the same thing you did...decided for themselves what their morals were, those decisions heavily influenced by their culture. You can't just say oh that's wrong because my society says it is. So, is sacrificing children a gray area? Not necessarily wrong, you just don't like it, or is there a set of morals defined by a Creator, who says murder is wrong? A higher being can by all means say "Yes, this is wrong" because he is above a mere human.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

mur·der /ˈmərdər/ Noun The unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. Murder in that period of time was much different than sacrifice, they were sacrificing BECAUSE of their theistic beliefs, . There have been thousands of religions in the history of man kind, and believers of each one have whole heartedly believed theirs was the right religion and that all the others were wrong, who's to say your belief system is 'righter' than someone else's? Just like your argument versus societal morals

by Anonymous 12 years ago

This deviates from the intent of this post, which is that people have two options. Either morals are a gray area, or there must be a higher power for set morals to exist. I do not claim to say one is right over the other, but that an acknowledgement of a creator in general is a must to believe in a true right and wrong.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

By no means is it necessary to believe in a creator to believe in a true right and wrong...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Riiight. Well reason that out in a way that makes sense maybe instead of mimicking most religious people who saying NUT UH! *no logical reasoning provided*

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I believe in no creator unless you consider the Big Bang as a creator, I accept that theory as truth because it has scientific backing. I believe in a definitive right that if someone unprovokenly kills someone, and is undoubtedly guilty, they should be killed as well, they a) broke a law and b) Robbed someone else of their life and have lost their privilege to their own life.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

All you're doing is explaining to me why your morals about murder are more right with no explanation as to how you are any better than another human being. You aren't above anyone else, therefore cannot say murder is wrong in this, this, and this instance. That's the point. YOU thinking something is wrong, doesn't make it wrong. Morals among humanity are subjective.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So much stupid in these comments.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Would you care to elaborate? I personally thought most of the opposing opinions even, were pretty well thought out.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I like to split morality into two sections.There are the intrinsic values that were selected by nature because they were beneficial at the time.Things like reciprocal altruism and kin selection.Some of them,like the evolution of empathy and a conscience still work just as well today as they did then.Others have become evolutionary misfirings now because we don't live in small tribes anymore but they still lie within us regardless.Then there's the morality that we,as sentient beings,construct ourselves through thought experiments, hypothetical scenarios, analysis of empirical data etc.The two types are not mutually exclusive.In fact,they often compliment each other and even inform each other.But in cases where they do,the second is still necessary to justify the first because declaring the way things are in nature is just a descriptive statement of what is and it makes no prescriptive statement about what ought be. Now the second part is where the structure to what you perceive to be completely arbitrary individual opinions lies.We can make preferences based on which things would cause the least amount of suffering,harm or even inconvenience to people and conduct ourselves in su...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

(part 2) ...such a manner.Contrary to popular belief,there are objective statements that can be made within a relativist framework. It's not all chaotic opinions that must be equally valid. By the way,invoking a creator doesn't fix any of the problems you seem to have with morality without one.I can see 3 problems straight away. 1.Ignoring the blindingly obvious fact that serial killers are often sociopathic so the reason they can kill is because they're ill-equipped to feel any empathy and realise that they shouldn't do it,there's no particular monopoly over someone's religious convictions and the likelihood of them killing anyone so having some sort of objective moral standard by a celestial lawgiver doesn't do anything. 2.Having a moral lawgiver tell you what is right and wrong does nothing to tell you WHY it is right and wrong.If we really do need a moral lawgiver,we should be given the ability and the means to comprehend WHY something is wrong and not just THAT it is wrong,no? Otherwise it's doing nothing that the law isn't already doing anyway and is unnecessary. 3.Objective moral standards cannot exist with a creator without them also existing without one,making it red...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

(part 3) ...redundant to invoke one.Does god command us to do moral things because they are moral or are they moral because god commands us to do them? Depending on how you answer that question,either objective moral standards exist without god so it was pointless invoking him,or morality is arbitrary with a god which is exactly the thing you were trying to get rid of by invoking god in the first place. Recommended reading: The Moral Animal by Robert Wright The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris Euthyphro by Plato

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well said.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If you like retarded rethoric that grabs at straws, I agree it is well said.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm sorry, could you explain your thought a bit more please?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If we get our morals from the bible, why do catholic priests molest little boys? They must have missed that day in Sunday school.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Cause they aren't inside their mothers' bellies.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Cherry picking the bible for its good morals are what idiots do. Use your logic, not a stupid book about a god that orders genocide on those who go against him yet asks his people to turn the other cheek. I'm a better person as an atheist than I ever was as a christian. Hail science, logic and reason!

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Marry me.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I don't have a set code of morals. I go situation by situation. In one situation, I may think it's okay to kill someone because they did this or that. In another, maybe stealing is okay as well. As a general rule, I do not support thievery or murder. But there are exceptions to every rule.

by Anonymous 12 years ago