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Are atheism and morality compatible?
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*This post has been modified by a Debating Society Moderator (Mr.Walrus) so it's more impartial. The initial text written by Hinduman has been posted in the comments section so his statements aren't deleted.*
Question: Is atheism compatible with moral codes, can it declare anything good/evil, or right/wrong? Specific examples are mentioned such as bestiality, pedophilia, or murder.
bontanel, if you don't have anything to add then you're free to troll in your atheist groups and "free" debate community.
It's pretty funny that religious people claim there is objective morality when every single one of them has a different idea of right and wrong.
"every single one of them has a different idea of right and wrong."
That's atheists for you.
Yes.
Because all theists are in complete consensus of what is totally right.
Religion has a specific set of morals, atheism doesn't. If you can't understand that, go back to your communism group and HEIL HITLER!
Atheism is just "I don't believe in god.".
What the **** does it have to do with morality?
That's another different subject.
And maybe I will go back to my communism group.
HEIL HITLER!
>Communism
>heil hitler
>Nazism is the ultimate enemy of Communism
Don't you have Jews to be hating against mr. Aryan race?
>not a nazi
>am a communist
NAZI ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
lol he calls himself a communist with pride.
He has a hard on for Hitler.
I did nazi that coming!
I want hitler to **** me in the ***.
Explains a lot.
λpone is unfortunately mentally disturbed. You should see his communist group where's he's got a fetish over Stalin's mustache. Funny how he condemns religion for its crimes but supports Stalin who was responsible for an even bigger genocide than Hitler.
Such is the irrationality of atheists though.
bontanel, seeing as you're just intent on trolling, I take it that you understand that your atheism means there's no such thing as real morality since you fail to produce an argument.
This is the debate group okay. If I want to argue about a point about atheism then I will since these topics are banned in their respective groups. You're free along with the rest of your censoring atheist friends to stay in the "free" debate group if you don't like this.
Christopher Hitchens in his debate with William Lane Craig was asked to condemn bestiality twice, each time time he refused.
It's funny that these atheists go on about being "morally good without God" but many of their prominent spokesmen that they listen to as gospel truth all refuse to condemn practices such as these. Perhaps because they think these things such as bestiality are "okay" or perhaps because they know that without a god who has produced a moral system, there is no such thing as morality and therefore no basis for atheism to condemn anything as "evil" since evil can't exist in an atheist perspective.
Without God, there is no such thing as morality and no atheist has ever successfully argued against this statement (although I've no doubt we'll have some amusing comments here from our sociopathic atheist pals on this matter but it'll just be the typical atheist nonsense we've all heard multiple times by now).
You know how atheists get when you attack their ideology (or lack-thereof as they try to dress it up as).
Debates on religion are banned in the debate group.
Because we don't want atheists being rude to us, spamming us with their typical offensive ********, we should remove this controversial image and give in to their censorship.
Go ahead HinduMan you fundamentalist religious nut, how dare you even upload this! It's only fine to attack religion and debate about religion, not atheism because an atheist is brain dead and has no views/beliefs/opinions whatsoever!
No where does it say in the Bible for Christians to go off starting conflicts.
We are peacemakers and peacekeepers. When the attack comes to us, we will deal with it, when the storm comes our way, we will face it by the grace of God.
Do not dare affiliate Christianity with this incident.
Have a wonderful day.
Who mentioned Christianity? lol
You bringing God and religion into it kinda includes Christianity...
Yeah God is only a Christian concept.
I'm just saying theism kinda includes Christianity.
You have a severe case of anal retentiveness apone.
Looks like HinduMan has every topic completely mixed with everything else. Well, perhaps you should read something about Nacism and Communism (but rather some paper source, since you obviously use internet the bad way).
Back to the morality topic, someone said "don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you". Doesn't matter who that was, but it makes a good philosophy of what is good and what wrong. See? You can get this set of right/wrong without any god commanding it to you.
So good and evil exist without a god?
As history is testament too, morality without a god can be defined by the cultural standards at the time. Look at the communists for that, they thought they were good whereas all religions would have saw their killings as being as simple as murders and therefore evil.
As for comparing Nazism and communism, we're just mocking Apone since he likes trolling in the Islam group. We know saying that Nazism is like communism winds the idiot up since it's a sensitive subject to him like atheism.
I said right and wrong, not good and evil - I'm not sure if it means the same thing. Because evil sounds ultimate for me, while no man ever wanted to be ultimately bad.
Communists and their killing is kinda another very rich topic. First of all, they took power by force and had to kill all those who supported emperor to keep themselves in power. That's logical move typical for every revolution (except the Czech famous one, which turned to be not much of change). Perhaps you mentioned it because it was like first big slaughter justified by something else than religion?
Well, this is debating society, not trolling society. Solve your problem with him somewhere else.
"Perhaps you mentioned it because it was like first big slaughter justified by something else than religion?"
CommanderDef, seems you need to do some research on history, perhaps from actual history sites/textbooks rather than atheist books written by Richard Dawkins?
Most of the biggest wars in history (including the ancient world) have always been about land and politics, not religion. Rome, for example, fell because of politics not religion. The following dark ages that were filled with bloodshed were because of barbarian tribes which roamed most of Europe slaughtering people for loot.
And no one is trolling here, retard Apone/CureOptimism wanted to act the idiot so we treated him as one. It was in fact him who I originally argued about morality and atheism with in some other group before he said he didn't want to continue with it there anymore because it was spamming the group, so I brought the debate here to the debate group.
Hindu, you seem you need to do some research about reading comments. I said justified by religion, not caused by it. Of course it's easier for your poor peasants to kill an infidel, or heretic, instead of believer who deserves at least some treating. That's what I'm talking about.
Weren't communists the first who couldn't use religion for motivation of troops? They used nationalism instead, works also well.
Atheist books? What?
Edit: to the other thing, thieves and killers from devout society were often judged according to some law. Not with all the brutality people seem to show towards heretics and infidels.
Who cares if some random crackpot tries to justify a war by using religion? I could start justifying the Vietnam war by religion, doesn't change the fact of why people went there to war and why it happened: politics.
Next you'll tell me the Hundred Years' War was religiously motivated because a couple of random peasantry soldiers went screaming into battle praising God.
By atheist books, I was referring to books written by atheists such as Dawkins.
Actually, survival, on both the individual* and collective** level, can be a decent basis for morality. This can be done without needing a religion.
It's not that hard really.
Even in economics (i.e. the one discipline that everyone, including economists themselves, likes to hate on), people are better off with a rule of law and everyone following it, and that's pretty much morality without religion.
*ex: I should not kill the other person because if I do, what would stop others from killing me?
**We should not kill & eat children since that would leave no one to take care of us in our old age.
"Actually, survival, on both the individual* and collective** level, can be a decent basis for morality."
In certain situations this includes killing, robbery and other crimes objective morality would always condemn. In your logic, if survival is the purpose then all things that we consider wrong now can become "right" by this reasoning if the world's situation changes.
I think that's the point here, that without a god, there is no such thing as good or evil, morality is simply decided here by the cultural standards of the time in this worldview.
For thousands of years there were killers, thieves, rapists and other scum, while they were believers. Having morals prescribed by god doesn't mean you are moral being at all.
While according to my first definition those things you listed are wrong.
"For thousands of years there were killers, thieves, rapists and other scum, while they were believers."
Were they? We've already established you know little about history on the last page due to your horrible history of wars and the middle ages.
The biggest massacres in history were by atheist tyrants but we're not arguing about whether someone with no god can be good (because they can obviously). We're arguing that good and evil doesn't exist if there is no god.
Which I pointed out that yes it is possible to have right or wrong without a deity. Perhaps different from what religious people are used to in terms of rationalization or explanation but the basic concept exists as such.
Whether or not anyone actually listens to said right or wrong is another matter altogether. That's a matter/issue of human nature.
"it is possible to have right or wrong without a deity"
Right and wrong is subjective by human standards. Again, different societies throughout history is testament to that. In which case, what makes your definition of right and wrong correct over another person's?
It doesn't, and there's nothing wrong with having subjective values that change with societies as they evolves (except to time travelers but a temporal time travel agency should deal with most of those kinds of issues). What's right or wrong has always been part of what the majority of a particular society deemed as such. Deities & religions doesn't really change that.
Heck even deities sometimes flip flop on major issues, such as the exemptions to most of the Old Testament laws in the New Testament, because reasons. And let's not even get to the Ancient Greek gods and how arbitrary they could be at times.
Here is Hinduman's original statement posted in the image description:
"I was having an argument with CureOptimism about atheism's system of "morality" and how by it not accepting a moral source, is unable to declare anything as being good or evil, right or wrong such as bestiality.
How can an atheist argue that bestiality, pedophilia or a murder is morally wrong when the atheist world-view teaches that morality is subjective by human standards?
CureOptimism explained subjective morality "means that we all have our own particular brand of morality" meaning that you basically decide what's right and what's wrong without true objective morality showing how this is contradictory, without a true source of morality, how can an atheist really argue something is "evil" if someone else is arguing something is good for their society?
By his own logic, he's argued that an atheist can make anything morally right or wrong. In this atheist worldview then, morality isn't a real concept just values a person assigns to something that can easily change in "subjective morality" whilst "objective morality" is constant. Simple fact is that without a moral authority figure, "right and wrong" doesn't exist, it's just a human deciding what's right and wrong based on their beliefs. I'm sure Hitler thought he was a good person.
No I'm not arguing for bestiality or any of the other things here, I just find it amusing how an atheist can take a moral high ground against anything when a true morality system doesn't exist in atheism shown by their differing standards and views of what's "right" and "wrong" showing that they decide based on their beliefs. In this system, if a society deems pedophilia morally right, then without objective morality and a source for morality (moral authority figure such as a god), it cannot be considered evil along with everything else. Without a source for morality, there is no such thing as good or evil."
The post was edited to make it more impartial and to prevent provoking a flame-war. If anyone disagrees with my judgement in editing this image, please comment below or send me a PM.
"Without a source for morality, there is no such thing as good or evil."
And why is there a need for good and evil to exist? When all we need is the philosophy/concept of right and wrong. Using the concepts as right or wrong, we obligate ourselves to become better than we are and stand by our modern interpretation of these. Which by the way, in most if not all nations, does NOT morally support pedophilia and such.
No offense to anyone, but the word "evil" seems like a word that is most used when people fail to understand something. That said, I use the word myself at times but while I might completely detest what someones does and think what they are doing is wrong, labeling them as evil without any knowledge of them beyond their actions is definitely not being morally correct.
From my perspective, the terms good and evil merely unfairly labels people. Perhaps motsly in case of the latter. FX, some known instances of rape of children as been done by mentally ill people, some with adult bodies yet the mind of a six year old, causing an inner mental and biological conflict they themselves are incapable of understanding.
Are they evil? No. Was what they did wrong? Yes.
Right and wrong can be subjective. Many humans justify killing animals even though it puts the animal through suffering. The "concept of right and wrong" deciding by your society differentiates throughout time, society once found it morally acceptable to cut the hands of thieves and kill people for little crimes.
Governments think they're doing "right" when they oppress their people and make laws that religion and morality condemn.
You might say "what's wrong is what makes a person suffer" so back to the case of bestiality, if the animal initiates the sex with the human and doesn't suffer, your worldview cannot condemn this act and then the same can be applied to something as sickening as pedophilia (and has by paedophile-apologists who are incidentally atheists who have no concept of morality).
Subjective morality is shown to be flawed by this and again, without a god, "right and wrong" are simply artificial concepts decided by the society of the time. No one knows what is inherently good, we see that with little kids in Africa or the Middle East taking up guns and killing people because their people told them they're doing "good" by doing these things so they think they're morally right.
I didn't say they couldn't be subjective.
It does differentiate through time, and as we can see, mostly for the better. You mention we once cut off hands of thiefs and killed people for petty crimes, since we don't anymore I think we can safely claim that progression has happened in terms of morality.
Statistically, few modern governments do. Oppression is not as easy today as was centuries ago. A time when religious figureheads was the dominant source of morality btw.
I am not even gonna try and compare bestiality and pedophilia. But in the case of pedophilia it is a matter of maturity of mind. It has been scientifically proved that children introduced to sex, willingly or not, tend to, if not almost always, develop psychological disorders. Its not a matter of consent or lack of suffering during the act. It is about ensuring, the current and future wellfare of the individual. That, is the objective reasoning behind why it is wrong. It is in no way subjective morality.
You say without a god, right and wrong may fall prey to the changes to society. Yes you are right, but belief in a god(s) isn't foolproof either.
Relying on a god to dictate right and wrong or "good and evil", in the end still depends on what god people decides to believe in. In the past people have worshiped all kinds of gods, even other people whom they truly believed to be gods.
You're right, subjective morality is very flawed. After all, like most things its SUBJECTIVE, and has a large root in culture. As for kids taking up guns, I would say the above reasoning applies again. The same objective morality would condemn this because of a childs underdeveloped mind (In this case depends on its parents to provide guidance in life), just as it would condemn a pedophile.
One last note, I have Never... heard of a pedophile apologist. If you mistook my comments as apologizing for them, you misunderstand my meaning. I was arguing against the terms "good" and "Evil" as relevant terms in regard to morality.