Roots of Human Morality

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
441

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]Oleena wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

There are no atheist tenets.

[/quote]

Except for that one?
[/quote]

Yes, except for a disbelief in god.
Which is it’s definition…
[/quote]

Well, it’s lack of any tenets. Not just the disbelief in god.
[/quote]
It is not a requirement of Atheism for one to hold no tenets, only to not believe in god.

Many Atheists have tenets, but it is not solely a symptom of their Atheism, it’s a result of other systems of thought and rationalization, their society, their family, and even a symptom of their own atheistic religion system i.e Buddhist and Humanist Tenets.
So, though an Atheist can be religious, it is not required of atheists to be, therefore it cannot be a religion.

There are Atheist religions.
But simply being atheist does not make one part of a religion any more than being monotheist makes one Christian, Jewish, etc.

[/quote]

And what tenets (or, kind of) separate the religious atheist from the non? This is not a leading question. Just seeing where you’re at. [/quote]

Primarily the belief in the importance of man and his role in the universe, and the advancement of peace, science, and open-mindedness.
Hence most religious atheists will not belittle non-atheists.

Unless, I suppose…
You could say that most Atheists these days are leaning more towards Anarchistic beliefs, ie the belief that everything is permissible and that there are no rules because there is no god. Unfortunately this could sum up a lot of Atheists…
A lot of dumb folks, too lazy to assign their own meaning to life.
Parasites.

Focusing on the masses is never healthy though, so lets ignore them.
Lets focus on the wonderful potential that Atheism has for human compassion and advancement, religions such as Buddhism and Humanism are amazing institutions that breed wonderful human beings for the most part.

So I suppose, the key tenets for most Atheistic religions, is that there is meaning without god.
[/quote]

  1. I’ve never met an atheist who thinks everything in permissible. Where did you meet one?

  2. You seem to have so much hate for the atheist population. Why? What have your experiences with actual atheists been like?
    [/quote]

  3. I’m in college now, recently out of high-school, you’d be amazed at how many I have met.

  4. I do not hate Atheists at all, really. I would never generalize a group of people like that. I don’t know how I put forth this vibe, but I’m sorry if that’s what you got from my posts.

Edit: I’d also like to omit the word “most” in my original post and replace with the majority of young people I’ve met personally, an admittedly shallow reference.[/quote]

I’m sorry, I think I completely misunderstood your post. I will say I haven’t met any atheists who literally do whatever they want because they don’t believe there’s a god. I have met many who don’t do enough for others because they don’t understand the connection and I’ve also met a lot of religious folk who bend their religion’s teaching to suit their desires. All of this leads me to believe that there’s far more to morals than religion or belief in a god-force.

442

[quote]Oleena wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]Oleena wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

There are no atheist tenets.

[/quote]

Except for that one?
[/quote]

Yes, except for a disbelief in god.
Which is it’s definition…
[/quote]

Well, it’s lack of any tenets. Not just the disbelief in god.
[/quote]
It is not a requirement of Atheism for one to hold no tenets, only to not believe in god.

Many Atheists have tenets, but it is not solely a symptom of their Atheism, it’s a result of other systems of thought and rationalization, their society, their family, and even a symptom of their own atheistic religion system i.e Buddhist and Humanist Tenets.
So, though an Atheist can be religious, it is not required of atheists to be, therefore it cannot be a religion.

There are Atheist religions.
But simply being atheist does not make one part of a religion any more than being monotheist makes one Christian, Jewish, etc.

[/quote]

And what tenets (or, kind of) separate the religious atheist from the non? This is not a leading question. Just seeing where you’re at. [/quote]

Primarily the belief in the importance of man and his role in the universe, and the advancement of peace, science, and open-mindedness.
Hence most religious atheists will not belittle non-atheists.

Unless, I suppose…
You could say that most Atheists these days are leaning more towards Anarchistic beliefs, ie the belief that everything is permissible and that there are no rules because there is no god. Unfortunately this could sum up a lot of Atheists…
A lot of dumb folks, too lazy to assign their own meaning to life.
Parasites.

Focusing on the masses is never healthy though, so lets ignore them.
Lets focus on the wonderful potential that Atheism has for human compassion and advancement, religions such as Buddhism and Humanism are amazing institutions that breed wonderful human beings for the most part.

So I suppose, the key tenets for most Atheistic religions, is that there is meaning without god.
[/quote]

  1. I’ve never met an atheist who thinks everything in permissible. Where did you meet one?

  2. You seem to have so much hate for the atheist population. Why? What have your experiences with actual atheists been like?
    [/quote]

  3. I’m in college now, recently out of high-school, you’d be amazed at how many I have met.

  4. I do not hate Atheists at all, really. I would never generalize a group of people like that. I don’t know how I put forth this vibe, but I’m sorry if that’s what you got from my posts.

Edit: I’d also like to omit the word “most” in my original post and replace with the majority of young people I’ve met personally, an admittedly shallow reference.[/quote]

I’m sorry, I think I completely misunderstood your post. I will say I haven’t met any atheists who literally do whatever they want because they don’t believe there’s a god. I have met many who don’t do enough for others because they don’t understand the connection and I’ve also met a lot of religious folk who bend their religion’s teaching to suit their desires. All of this leads me to believe that there’s far more to morals than religion or belief in a god-force.[/quote]

Very much so.
Choice is the infinite variable in this great equation that is human nature.

A man with the knowledge of every faith and religion in the entire world, with family and loved ones, can be a monster.
Concurrently, a man, born in poverty, uneducated, persecuted, and beaten down, can be a saint.
Humanity is fascinating.

443

[quote]Oleena wrote:

[quote]sufiandy wrote:
I don’t have too much experience with these types of people because they are idiots and I avoid them. But I don’t think Anarchists have really put much thought into God’s existence. They are really more Anti Christian and don’t believe in God only because Christians do believe. Sloth would probably disagree with me.[/quote]

Have you ever really met one?[/quote]

Yes a few but not recently. I doubt I’ve met anyone who is on the extreme side of it, there are different degrees.

444

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

…Lets focus on the wonderful potential that Atheism has for human compassion and advancement, religions such as Buddhism and Humanism are amazing institutions that breed wonderful human beings for the most part…

[/quote]

Gonna pull a Makavali and LOL.[/quote]

Atheism in and of itself has no potential for human compassion and advancement. Being an atheist is no guarantee of compassion or intelligence. And Buddhism is not a form of atheism. If you think that, you know nothing of actual Buddhism.

So to reiterate what Push just said - LOL.

446

[quote]Makavali wrote:

And Buddhism is not a form of atheism. If you think that, you know nothing of actual Buddhism.
[/quote]

You’re wrong.

In Some forms of Buddhism they don’t believe Buddha to be a god. So yes, you can be a buddhist and an atheist.

447

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

And Buddhism is not a form of atheism. If you think that, you know nothing of actual Buddhism.
[/quote]

You’re wrong.

In Some forms of Buddhism they don’t believe Buddha to be a god. So yes, you can be a buddhist and an atheist.[/quote]

One could say the same for Hinduism.

Buddhism in theory has an emphasis on no God, Buddhism in practice is something else entirely.

448

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
This Voodoo feller is turning out to be quite the preacher.[/quote]

Have I offended you?
I’m sorry for any negative impact I may have had on your day.
[/quote]

Yeah, I’m crushed. Simply crushed.

Cannot for the life of me believe someone (actually just another atheist college student yayhoo) would preach the gospel of atheism here on PWI. It’s the first time this has ever happened. Thanks for the mea culpa, sport.[/quote]

Rather than writing off atheists for being young, you should be taking note of the cultural revolution taking place in front of you. It’s no coincidence that this jump in youth atheism happened at the same time as the digital revolution.

If anything, we should be writing you off seeing as you formed your ideas under much more archaic circumstances. It would still be a logical fallacy, but the rationale behind this fallacy is at least logical in appearance.

449

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

And Buddhism is not a form of atheism. If you think that, you know nothing of actual Buddhism.
[/quote]

You’re wrong.

In Some forms of Buddhism they don’t believe Buddha to be a god. So yes, you can be a buddhist and an atheist.[/quote]

One could say the same for Hinduism.

Buddhism in theory has an emphasis on no God, Buddhism in practice is something else entirely.[/quote]

While Theravada Buddhists view the Buddha as a human being who attained nirvana or Buddhahood, through human efforts,[13] some Mahayana Buddhists consider him an embodiment of the cosmic Dharmakaya, born for the benefit of others, and not merely a human being.[14] In addition, some Mahayana Buddhists worship their chief Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara[15] and hope to embody him.[16]

So based on that description Theravada Buddhists are atheists and Mahayana Buddhists are not.

450

Makavali, I’m not well versed on Buddhism, so if you want to further explain your position about Buddhism not being a form of atheism go ahead.

But from the definition I’ve seen, I think some of them fall into the atheist category since they do not think the Buddha is a deity.

451

[quote]TigerTime wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
I didn’t actually render an opinion on it. I just said that if God were to do something like that, there would be a damn good reason, it would not be just willy-nilly and random. [/quote]

God has commanded killing before. Since you’re still a Catholic, it’s safe to assume that you are of the opinion that God’s justifications for killing are adequate. Am I wrong?
Consider the justifications God uses for this scenario to be just as adequate to you.

[/quote]
What do you know about that? Where has he done that?

It’s a question we’ll all have answered one day.

How about knocking off the ridiculous hypotheticals? God commands us not to kill, he does not tell us to kill.
Reading a few excerpts of poorly mined biblical data from an atheist web site hardly counts as biblical research. I don’t feel particularly compelled to answer these ridiculous what-if’s about God asking us to do things he currently asks us not to do…“Like, what if, like, God, like, told you to, like, fuck a baby, would you do it???” Get the fuck out of here with this garbage. I don’t mind discussing theology, I have a short leash for non-believers. I don’t need to handle bullshit. If you got a real question I’ll answer it, but I am not going to indulge stupid hypotheticals that have nothing to do with anything.

This is like a “What if ‘dog’ really meant ‘cat’?” kind of simpleton philosophy.

452

[quote]TigerTime wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Quit leading, what is it you really want to know? I think we have been more than accommodating with our answers so long as the questions are easy and don’t pose the risk of revealing any contradictions in my philosophy.[/quote]

Fixed.[/quote]

You can’t poke holes in my shit… You don’t know what I believe or know. You will lose.

453

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:
There is no such thing as a good atheist.
[/quote]

You said it…I don’t believe that though. I do believe there are well meaning atheists how ever close minded they choose to be.

454

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]iVoodoo wrote:

…Lets focus on the wonderful potential that Atheism has for human compassion and advancement, religions such as Buddhism and Humanism are amazing institutions that breed wonderful human beings for the most part…

[/quote]

Gonna pull a Makavali and LOL.[/quote]

Atheism in and of itself has no potential for human compassion and advancement. Being an atheist is no guarantee of compassion or intelligence. And Buddhism is not a form of atheism. If you think that, you know nothing of actual Buddhism.

So to reiterate what Push just said - LOL.[/quote]

Correct.

455

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

And Buddhism is not a form of atheism. If you think that, you know nothing of actual Buddhism.
[/quote]

You’re wrong.

In Some forms of Buddhism they don’t believe Buddha to be a god. So yes, you can be a buddhist and an atheist.[/quote]

One could say the same for Hinduism.

Buddhism in theory has an emphasis on no God, Buddhism in practice is something else entirely.[/quote]

While Theravada Buddhists view the Buddha as a human being who attained nirvana or Buddhahood, through human efforts,[13] some Mahayana Buddhists consider him an embodiment of the cosmic Dharmakaya, born for the benefit of others, and not merely a human being.[14] In addition, some Mahayana Buddhists worship their chief Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara[15] and hope to embody him.[16]

So based on that description Theravada Buddhists are atheists and Mahayana Buddhists are not.[/quote]
Buddhism isn’t necessarily theistic either. They intrinsically acknowledge and tap into said force greater than themselves and understands it’s functions and bondings in the universe, but they stop short of reducing it further it to a singular, autonomous Necessary Being. It’s technically a lower level of spirituality in that it doesn’t seek the answers to all questions. It doesn’t care what the force is, where it comes from, or what it’s dependencies are, they are merely satisfied with it’s existence and feel no need to go beyond that. We westerners are not satisfied with stopping there.

456

[quote]therajraj wrote:
Makavali, I’m not well versed on Buddhism, so if you want to further explain your position about Buddhism not being a form of atheism go ahead.

But from the definition I’ve seen, I think some of them fall into the atheist category since they do not think the Buddha is a deity.[/quote]

Buddha a really smart dude who discovered these spiritual connections. They are technically agnostic, they simply do not ask the question. They aren’t interested in the answer. Being satisfied with what they do know is good enough. That in itself takes patience and exercise. Westerners are far less patient, and are never satisfied…BUT our philosophical explorations go further than theirs. Yeah, we know it’s all connected to, we know that metaphysics is a separate entity and is the realm of reality, yes we know the answers are beyond our senses, we want to know, what it is, where it comes from, how it came to be, etc. ‘Just is’ doesn’t work and will never work.

457

yep.
but it’s actually a good thing.

If they were good atheists, we would have to separate the wheat.
But since there is none, we can just burn up the chaff :slight_smile:

458

[quote]kamui wrote:

yep.
but it’s actually a good thing.

If they were good atheists, we would have to separate the wheat.
But since there is none, we can just burn up the chaff :)[/quote]

kamui!! Nice to see you. Hope all is well?

459

[quote]pat wrote:
How about knocking off the ridiculous hypotheticals? [/quote]

How about you stop being a coward. These aren’t hard questions. I haven’t even touched the hard questions and I think that’s what scares you. You don’t know where I’m going with this (you can claim you do if that makes you feel better) so act like you’re above discussing the fringe points of your morality to avoid the problem.

Oh? Then I guess this never happened >> Amalek - Wikipedia
Never mind, it totally did. You’re retarded.

Hell, not only did God command Saul to kill all the Amalekites, Saul lost his kingdom for NOT killing all livestock and Agag along with all the other men, women and children.

“16 And Samuel said, 'Why then do you ask me, since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy? 17 The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me, for the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, David. 18 Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day." (1 Sam 28)”

Strawman.

God is your supreme ruler, is he not? It’s absolutely reasonable for someone like me to want to gauge the level of homicide people like you are willing to stoop to in order to get into heaven. Would you stop at Hitler? I suppose if God himself commanded it, you would kill an entire people, men, women, children, nobles and livestock. That must be why you’re so opposed to answering. You try so hard to make your ideology not look insane, there’s just no way you can throw that all away now; Not for something as fleeting as honesty.

And if you can’t even answer such a simple question, don’t be surprised when you fail to convince anyone to join your team. I know I surely wouldn’t join a religion with such ambiguous stances on murder and genocide. Your religion is dying, Pat. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to lay your cards on the table.

I see you’ve decided to adhere to part 4 of the “Pushharder” method of debate.

460

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TigerTime wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Quit leading, what is it you really want to know? I think we have been more than accommodating with our answers so long as the questions are easy and don’t pose the risk of revealing any contradictions in my philosophy.[/quote]

Fixed.[/quote]

You can’t poke holes in my shit… You don’t know what I believe or know and you never will because I’m too much of a chicken-shit to even face the possibility that I’m wrong. You will lose because I will rage quite and that means I win.[/quote]

Fixed.