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98 Comments
- novenator, on 04/07/2009, -0/+43I have found the morality hypocrisy from Christians (the dominant religious group of my homeland) from an early age. They would break all the rules (which was not usually that big of a deal to me) but to top it off, treated other people horribly. Then they would go to church and, woosh, all sins forgiven. It was either guilt or fear of an eternity in a fiery pit that guided their actions, nothing that came from inside. As a born-again atheist, I had to discover and sculpt my own ethical code, but it is something that I take very seriously and wear as a source of pride and strength.
FTA - "The religious adherent who posits that only for fear of wrath from a ‘mighty’ god or eternal damnation should humans choose to be ‘moral’, does not reason his behavior, does not contemplate the implications of his actions upon others, he justifies an absolute list of prohibitions solely with an eternal wager that may or may not prove true in the end." - inactive, on 04/07/2009, -2/+41I've never understood that argument about atheism. After all, if, for example you argue that laws against murder are an example of the goodness of religion, you're making a statement that is based on the inherent "goodness" of laws about murder. Why else would I care that religion has rules against murder if I did not already think that murder is a bad thing? And because the goodness of those laws is inherent, religion is unnecessary.
- GMH24, on 04/08/2009, -3/+23I believe in God, but I don't think that being atheist in any way makes you immoral, or a bad person. Good people are good people, independent of what they believe. And I am sure that many of you atheist may very well live a more moral life than I do. People's actions determine whether they are immoral or not, not their system of belief. Cant' we just praise good people independent of what they believe? I firmly believe that a moral atheist will fare better than an immoral "believer" in the after life. Remember, as the Bible says, "Faith, without works is dead".
- inajeep, on 04/08/2009, -3/+22Getting morals from any religion with maybe the exception of buddism is morally wrong. I haven't come across any other text filled with so much genocide, murder, incest, mistreatment of humans and sometimes animals.
- charlie6969, on 04/07/2009, -1/+20It cracks me up that I was raised Quaker yet one of my favorite blogs is logic-based.
ah, the human brain and heart.
Yes, I still consider myself a Quaker. - elliotys, on 04/08/2009, -1/+12I like this "logic" stuff.
- draculthemad, on 04/08/2009, -2/+12To paraphrase Dawkins:
"If the only reason you have not to do something evil, is because someone will punish you if you do... thats pretty despicable isn't it?"
Doing the right thing out of fear of consequences is regarded as the lowest form of morality in philosophy. Its considered the level of children.
A mature adult is expected to behave according to their principals because they value them, not because 'mommy/god/society will spank me if I don't!' - radiohead315, on 04/08/2009, -1/+11Let the age of reason begin.
- reiggin, on 04/08/2009, -2/+10Not sure the specifics, but I'd guess it was a 4chan'er.
- pman201, on 04/08/2009, -4/+11Who was the idiot who said it was fun to rape little kids?
- snowdenn, on 04/08/2009, -1/+8this article (and above comments) seems to be attacking a straw man about theism. the theist argument is not saying that atheists are morally inferior to theists. yes that type of argument has been picked up by some religious people and has been responded to by some atheists. but its a straw man in the sense that its a poorly reasoned distortion of the original argument.
the original argument asserts that on an atheist scheme, it is an impossibility for objective morals to exist. as a result, atheist ethics are based on preference or group consensus (or both).
there are some implications about this that atheists may find difficult to accept. heres two:
1. some evil action, like rape, isnt actually wrong in any objective sense. it is merely not preferable. but if we should ever find ourselves in a situation in which rape is either preferable or supported by a majority of society, then rape is a good thing. as far fetched as that might sound, if the atheist account is true, it would seem that survival value is the ultimate motivation for ethics.
thus if the worlds population were nearly wiped out by some terrible event, and only three people survived, at least one of each sex, then if two of the three agreed to it, rape would be a good thing since it 1) was preferred, 2) had greater group support, and 3) promoted survival of the species (if only for a little bit).
2. if atheism is true, then atheist ethics are not intrinsically superior to theistic ethics since both sets of ethics are created by their respective people groups. this gets at the heart of bghs article. he might say that his atheist ethics are more logically sound than theistic ethics (something i dont concede), but even this wouldnt be enough to make it preferable. no ethical code could be said to be superior, unless one could give an objective criteria for what constitutes superiority. on the atheist scheme, the only objective criteria possible would be that of species survival. thus if some crazy religion established a set of ethics that promoted species survival better than any other ethical code, but it required a belief in a ridiculous deity in order to make its ethical system coherent or acceptable, then it would be more rational for the atheist to adopt said religious ethics of the crazy religion. hardly an appealing circumstance.
these two implications do not prove atheism false. they are merely logical implications of ethics on an atheist scheme. - inactive, on 04/08/2009, -0/+7Yeah, lets derive our morals and ethics from someone who drowned his children and ordered others to sacrifice theirs. great idea.
- gpsea, on 04/08/2009, -1/+8Christians are human beings, too, i think that is one thing we've come to forget all this time. every human being is capable of breaking rules or at least has the tendency to break rules. Christianity never taught people to repent because the fires of hell is waiting to consume them. repentance is not only a heart broken for sin, but also from sin. like, we must forsake what we would have God forgive. in true repentance, there is conviction, contrition, and conversion as one turns from his sin to Christ for salvation. and, like macweirdo42, i've never understood that argument about atheism.
- gpsea, on 04/08/2009, -0/+7agreed.
- wpyh, on 04/08/2009, -1/+7@waluum:
The statement that "religion is man-made" is an assumption. However, "at its core it is the ways of God handed down to man" is also an assumption. That is, assuming that what the particular holy book about that religion writes.
At least, we know for sure that some religions are man-made:
1. Scientology: It was created by an American. We know because it didn't exist before the 20th century.
2. Buddhism: It was created by an Indian. We know because the history books say so. Well, there was this prince who went to the mountains and meditated, and he became Buddha. Or something like that.
Also, some religions are not based on "God", but on "Gods". For example Hinduism: there are multiple "Gods" in that religion.
Reading your comment, I feel that you are making the assumption that the Christian Bible is "God's Word". Well, that in itself is an assumption. It is something some people believe, but it's not universally recognized as the truth.
Sorry, but I have to bury your comment because I feel that you yourself made some assumptions while at the same time denouncing other assumptions. From a neutral point of view (I was a Christian but later became an atheist), your assumptions seem to be backed only by the Christian Bible -- it's not scientific, and it's not something that is universally accepted. - shanealeslie, on 04/08/2009, -0/+6It was a Christian attacking non-Christians.
- SpykerSpeed, on 04/08/2009, -2/+8There's a great book about this by Stefan Molyneux that you can download here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/1270751
Ethics for atheists! Everything flows from reason, rather than superstition. It's really a breath of fresh air, and it takes the moral ambiguity out of some situations. - kaelyiesta, on 04/08/2009, -2/+7While I agree with the intended argument of this article, I get annoyed by the following misuse of the idea of selfishness:
"But the premise is flawed, humans are social animals and as participants in the ‘pack’ dynamic if we act in a wholly selfish manner we run the risk of being ostracized from the group which can have dire consequences."
This may be semantic nit picking, but many people actually believe this idea without thinking it through and so I'd like to point out that it is still selfish if we abstain from acting in a way that runs the risk of being ostracized because we are still looking out for our interests(we care what harm others do to us in retaliation as well as the harm we do to our own minds through immoral actions). The only difference is that the later behavior would be 'rational self interest' instead of 'irrational self interest'. So, acting 'wholly selfishly' is not necessarily ignoring the concerns of other people. - DivisibleByZero, on 04/08/2009, -1/+6I'm not sure this guy's counter about pack mentality is the best argument here. Pack mentality doesn't mean doing what's right; it means doing what the rest of the pack will enjoy. A religious person could easily argue that the pack is only moral if it's filled with religious zealots, making sure the pack as a whole moves the way God wants it to.
- inactive, on 04/08/2009, -1/+6The vast majority of people in western countries are christian. You might as well say that the vast majority of criminals have two eyes and a nose.
- gramathy, on 04/08/2009, -0/+5That is, assuming that religion is not man-made.
- yerdaddy, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4(atheists) "are implying there is a universal value by which something is good or bad, and that is impossible in an atheistic rational worldview."
I think you're so badly wrong that I didn't bother reading the rest. It's a common misconception among the religious (not that you're religious) that the atheists bother themselves for one second about the "universal value by which something is good or bad". They instead are certain that everyone can and usually does decide about it for themselves. WHY does that short circuit the religious (and a few other people) to the extent that they must deny it? - yerdaddy, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4I have noticed on a couple occasions Christians who are devoid of understanding how offensive they are because their actions aren't strictly forbidden by the church they've been attending. I'm not just talking about coughing without covering up, I mean being hard of second guessing themselves much at all and blissfully screwing people over. Older people, too! On average I see it coming out as a total wash. Their religion may save them from something but you can't bet it will save anyone else anything. After a while you notice that just about anybody who's learned from their mistakes as a kid could be a better person as an adult than the average Christian. There's something to be said for gaining your own morality. At least that way you might have a better shot at noticing when it goes missing.
- jivatmanx, on 04/08/2009, -1/+5I believe in god too, but I don't adhere to any specific religion although I love the Tao Te Ching and Bhagavad Gita.
I think that faith in god is a rather weak virtue - in any case, the Abrahamic "faith" is not faith but just of hell regardless of how it's justified. Rigid adherence to any code of ethics is bad for developing your own sense of morality because it becomes harder to feel empathy.
After all, Jesus (A man perhaps inspired by god, and many are) said that love for others is the only commandment worthwhile. Love is the savior, I believe that was his attempted lesson.
My only advice for those who would care, is, Meditate, on love and/or the silence of oneness, and you can see and feel things more clearly. If your mind desires morality to grasp follow the negative golden rule (Do NOT unto others...) - JohnFlux, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4cook13, I don't know why you are being modded down, since that's exactly what it says.
No matter what your personal feelings are, the bible is very clear that you cannot enter heaven without believing in Jesus. - VincentThomas, on 04/08/2009, -1/+5This particular blog seems to be resurfacing frequently. Here is the authors final statement, and I'm assuming his point: "I find subjective ethics infinitely more ‘morally’ sound than rigid, ancient accepted norms." Fair enough, but this completely does not speak at the heart of the matter, and is certainly a witty dodge from the point that the objector whom he quoted was trying to make. While he may feel that subjective morality seems more sound than rigidly accepted norms, what the objector was trying to point out is that without an objective moral standard there truly is no morality to begin with. The author chooses to turn a metaphysical discussion about moral truths into a rant about outdated social norms. Surely everyone can see how silly this is. The objector's point, and my point, is that the atheist lacks an objective basis for moral value that encompasses all of humanity. If morality is a human invention, than whatever a man considers good is in fact good, despite the opinion of others. This simply makes horrendous acts by pedophiles and torturers morally acceptable, because if "goodness" and "badness" are human inventions, rather than metaphysical properties, the concept would be an arbitrary social phenomena, and nothing would be inherently bad or good. Does this catch? On the author's apparent view, raping babies is only "bad" because people decided it wasn't preferable. Well, what if the pope rapes a child? The atheist can not realistically criticize such an act, seeing as how a naturalist account of morals makes that rape acceptable, on the grounds that he (pope) thought it was ok. The author concludes that any set of ethics that isn't relativist (subjective ethics) is in fact immoral, because it leads you to do immoral things in extenuating circumstances. However, what the author completely misses is that, if there were in fact an objective morality, following it would always be good, whether or not you felt like it! I agree with some of his viewpoints, in that he sees circumstances of denied assisted suicide as immoral and merciless, but that is not grounds to conclude that a rigid morality does not exist, only that the rigid morality in question is not being followed, for such a morality (were it to exist) would take such circumstances into consideration. His argument is a dodge, he confuses social norms with moral truths, and then derives a slanted conclusion from an invalid argument. This article is rather sad.
- waluum, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4Survival is not moral or immoral. All seek to be preserved, to whatever is most dear to them - whether themselves and their own interests and pleasures, or higher selfless interests which they count higher than their own well being, from the well-being and betterment of their family to the will of God. Pleasure is relative, though. Some, for example, find more pleasure satisfying their heart and spirit to serve the purpose of God, whereas they once counted it a greater pleasure to satisfy their own selves above all other things, whether it be their flesh or their minds or their bank accounts, etc.
Self-entitlement is a matter of perception. If you see yourself as a man whose ancestors were apes who randomly evolved and eventually brought you into this world as a product of their ability to stay alive in a hostile and unforgiving environment, whether by chance or skill, then it is only natural to consider yourself entitled to reap what chance has sown (take that however you will). However, one who believes that God put their spirits into their bodies, which he created or facilitated the formulation of, for a specific purpose, which is to deny their own self-interest and humbly obey the perfect will and ways of their creator, which he created them to follow, then the idea of self-entitlement takes a back seat (if it even has a place) to what God by his grace would will for a man to have and to do. Just some food for thought for you.
No offense, but in the latter part of your comment you sound like an animal rights advocate who seeks the preservation of the grocery store for their meat but curses the butcher who makes it possible for it to be neatly shrink-wrapped on the shelves in the first place. The ethical system that you mention, which is undoubtedly present, has a source and a foundation, and it was not born of random chance. It is the partial expression of the ways of God, which he made his creation subject to. But when his creation rebelled against him in favor of their self-interest they watered-down his ways, which yielded the imperfect ethical system that we now recognize. A/The "Higher Power" is absolutely necessary to maintain the sanctity and order of that ethical system, so that those who he intended be subject to it do not confuse their own faulty and wavering ways with his perfect and absolute ways.
You can deny God and still live in relative order (though certainly without the promise that it will be maintained), but to aspire to God is to seek our the most perfect and ideal form of that order. Should that not be every man's focus? - shanealeslie, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4Yer my kinda Believer, you judge the persons actions, not their professed beliefs - that is moral and good in my eyes.
- edgarreyes, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4I like hookers. They come and go when you want them to, and you can afford one according to your income bracket, just like a real girlfriend. They cost about the same too.
- gramathy, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4If I had to guess, probably some religious type trying to pin the thought on an atheist perspective.
- jj101, on 04/08/2009, -0/+4Morality is a product of natural selection. All animals that are social (ie live in groups) have concepts of morality. WIthout the evolution of such concepts group living would not be favourable over living individually. Society would therefore no more break down without religion then it did before religion existed. End of story.
- waluum, on 04/08/2009, -0/+3Yes, you are right, treating other people horribly is a hypocritical act on the part of a follower of Christ. As Christ said, the second most important law of God, which fulfills all of the laws and the words of the prophets, which we are to follow if we genuinely love our Savior (see John 14:23-24), is "whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them" (see Matthew 7:12). But I would advise you to be careful about what you consider horrible treatment. If they spit on others, or denied them help, or condemned them without forgiving them, etc, then I would agree that they were hypocrites. However, if, for example, they brought up their trangressions against God to them (which it does not please most to hear) and offered them a hand in order to lead them away from them, then I would consider that one of the greatest acts of love, that they would leave their own place of comfort and security to help their brothers and sisters to see the hole that they have dug themselves into and offered them a hand in order to climb out of it.
But you can be sure that where there is a genuinely repentant heart there is also forgiveness from God waiting for the one who humbles his or herself. Many Christians regularly struggle and suffer in their waywardness, some more than others, but redemption awaits them in the hands of God. That promise of salvation from the nature of sin and the deadly nature that comes with it applies to all who accept him for who he is: our Creator, our Lord, and our Redeemer. That is his promise to all mankind, through his son Jesus, the Christ.
I cannot speak for the Christians that you encountered on this matter, but what draws a man to God in the first place is a separation from his sinful nature and the oppression of the heart and mind that is inherent to it, and to be united with God and reconciled with his perfect and ideal nature - unyielding and unconditional love, complete genuine peace, and spotless truth. What is later born of the relationship between man and his creator is deliberate, willful and humble obedience to God's will and ways, and a reflection of that to all mankind.
God is the full expression of the greatest ideals that man recognizes. It is only natural that we should seek him if we place the utmost value in those ideals, as indeed it is his will to reveal himself, as the embodiment of the most perfect ideals (those which we already know, and those which we do not yet know), as much as we seek to make them/(God's ways) our ways. - JohnFlux, on 04/08/2009, -1/+4Waluum, technically, to deny it is to deny what the bible says. There are many possible Gods from many religions.
- cook13, on 04/08/2009, -0/+3I would agree that most Christians today are hypocrites, I would go even so far as to say that most of them are just as condemned as any atheist. "Jesus therefore said to those of the Jews who had now believed in Him, "As for you, if you hold fast to my teaching, then you are truly my disciples;" John 8:31
Don't chop down an apple tree because some of the apples have worms. I would challenge you to watch this video and see what it actually means to be a Christian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7X24_vOWwU - elliam, on 04/08/2009, -1/+4My two bits:
I don't consider it to be an act of faith (which I think is the term befitting what you refer to as 'belief') to think that there are no higher powers. I actually cannot grasp the idea that people _do_ honestly and to their core believe that there are Gods or a God. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't consider my opinion to be dogmatic, as I would change my mind given sufficient proof.
Note the liberal use of "I". I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself. - laubscher, on 04/08/2009, -0/+3Too late: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Reason :-)
- eluusive, on 04/08/2009, -0/+3What?
I've heard that argument before and I say it is a shill. Show me a man who has an easy time following in the footsteps of Jesus and I'll show you a liar.
Also, show me where Jesus details out an absolute moral code of some sort. In fact, his morals are constantly contrasted to those moral codes of the Pharisees and Sadducee of his time. - RobotBuddha, on 04/08/2009, -0/+3Personally, I'd say it depends on the school of buddhism. Some more recent ones are fundamentalist in that they stick to the absolute fundamentals and ditch most of the religious texts. Others have what I feel is the primary cause of moral lapses in christianity, too many loopholes. If you've got around twenty firm rules of morality, it's easy to keep them in mind at all times, even in fits of anger. When you've got 20,000 rules, it's hard to remember any of them and easy to assume you've got a loophole in there that'll excuse anything from stealing to murder.
- Kosh, on 04/08/2009, -0/+3Well if the badness of murder is inherent, that does ask the question why? Is morality something akin to scientific facts, where the morality of actions must be discovered, or is it just an arbitrary social construct?
- carbonetc, on 04/08/2009, -1/+3The next time a theist tells you that there's no reason not to steal, rape, and murder if there's no God, ask him if he would start stealing, raping, and murdering if he somehow, hypothetically, discovered beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no God.
If he says 'no', your point that ethics aren't dependent on God is demonstrated.
If he says 'yes', don't go near this person ever again. - shanealeslie, on 04/08/2009, -0/+2I judge a religion by the observed attributes of its adherents, just like I judge a sandwich on how good it tastes, a band on how good it sounds, or a story on how well it reads. A religion IS its followers, not the books, not the buildings, not the symbols, the people.
- elliam, on 04/08/2009, -1/+3What you're missing is that if God* doesn't exist then religion is just a codification of the feelings of a group at a particular time. Everyone subsequently chooses or is forced to conform to those feelings, lest they face punishment or ostracizing. It is all conformism in the end.
And no, there is no reason to condemn Adolf Hitler's actions, except as they violate your personal values. He just happens to have caused things to happen that violate an incredibly large number of peoples' values.
While the universe may be uncaring, your fellow humans do indeed care. If you would like to survive among them then you adapt the general moral code of the ones who hold the most sway over your survival.
Note: You're not arguing effectively. You're really not even arguing coherently.
* choosing singular for ease of writing - Kosh, on 04/08/2009, -0/+2Don't worry, dragulthemad, Christians agree with you. Contrition out of fear of Hell is called imperfect contrition while contrition out of love of God is called perfect contrition. The latter is by far preferred.
- GMH24, on 04/08/2009, -1/+3That's very true, but you must remember that he that sins against the greater light (ie knowledge) receives the greater condemnation. Those who sin in their belief and knowledge of God are worse off than those who sin in ignorance.
-“to him that knoweth to do right, and doeth it not, to him it is accounted sin” - bman1984, on 04/08/2009, -0/+2Your mistake is assuming that values can only be based on information learned externally. Many people are able to build morals based on internal, sometimes intuitive, principles which are not locally based.
- Stevethegreat, on 04/08/2009, -0/+2Diogenes of Sinope, Epictetus, most cynics of the Galilee which Jesus emulated, even Socrates the Athenian. The ignorance of the culture of that era and place is astonishing, your precious Jesus would be much less impressive if you see him as the product of the Hellenistic Mediterranean of 2000 years ago. In the way he's portrayed, he's virtually indistinguishable from the other cynic teachers of which the Galilee (of that time) was famous for. They would travel with few students, no possessions, teach about the moral life being the highest goal one can have in life, they would also shun sexual relationships and drunkenness.
The only difference with Jesus was that he was a bit more extreme in his ideas, all the while he incorporated the Jewish law (or rather transmuted it to fit to the Hellenistic ideals of the virtuous life). He was a rather observing Rabbi, most possibly well read, or at least a good student of the mainstream philosophical trends of the era who happened to challenge the Roman empire by gaining a rather big following. The romans were known to disband such groups as they had already had numerous rebellions, most known of which the one created by Spartacus which brought the Roman Empire to its knees.
Anatolia was always a brewing kettle of rebellion and Romans made it -almost- a custom to disband any group which may pose a threat to it's empire. One of those groups were formed by a young Rabbi who would aggressively combine the mainstream culture with a nationalistic background (remember, for Jews, their mythology was indistinguishable from their history, in their minds it WAS their history), all the while gaining a massive following. The Romans captured hiμ and killed him, like they would always do with such people the Pharisees on the other hand were against any rebellion because they were the privilege cast of the Romans in the area, going against the Pharisees, Jesus was going against the Roman empire as well.
We was a mix of political leader, a philosopher and a religious leader and most possibly of the most charismatic figures in history, he was one of the few true menaces of the Roman Empire (which was the loathed establishment of the time), he symbolized freedom from this world's woes, that's why he gained such massive following in the coming centuries; but most of all he had Paul of Tarsus turning his mostly political to -at times- apocryphal teachings to a rigid way of life far more overbearing that the ones offered by the Hellenistic schools of philosophy. Without Paul, Jesus would be remember as a failed Spartacus, but with Paul he was ascended into heaven and became God, a charismatic figure who's fame was not let to fade away (as it happened with many others in history), due to tricks of rhetoric employed by Paul, Jesus' words remained as alive as if he was still alive and, guess what, 3 centuries years after the death of that guy his memory was as alive as ever, making the church which was created after him to say that he literally never died, but ascended into heaven, that he's a true god immortal, not man who became god (like Martian would teach), but "true god and true human". (First Christians never thought Jesus as God, but a prophet).
Long story and I'm sorry for that, but you need to know what happened back then, you're a Christian (I assume) due to those very incidents , otherwise you would still be a pagan... - PlanckTime, on 04/08/2009, -0/+2I think you malign people who go to church a little much with your statement. Everyone has their own moral code that they follow. Whether it is from the Bible, the Koran, the Buddha's teaching, karma, or your own inner compass or a passing whim, everyone chooses for themselves.
Those who subscribe to a particular religion are not monolithic. There are many opinions not only as to which rules *must* be followed, but also what those rules mean. Also, your statement presupposes a lessening of someone's ability to make a moral decision simply because it agrees with something they believe in. Is an atheist opposed to murder more moral because he does not also believe that decree comes from God?
I would say no. His belief comes from somewhere. He believes it to be wrong for whatever reason. So does the Christian. Since both believe murder to be wrong, then one cannot say that the one is more moral or has greater responsibility than the other.
To follow your reasoning, one must assume then that all atheists are monolithic in their beliefs of right and wrong and why. This is patently not true, yet you make free to level that accusation at those who have religious beliefs. I would submit that you examine your statements and the feelings behind them and see if you are not unintentionally maligning an entire group of people who do not deserve it. - Stevethegreat, on 04/08/2009, -1/+3It's funny EVERY time this topic comes up for one reason or another and that's because advanced laws of ethics (those that do not *just* make use of retaliation -eye for an eye- rule), were mostly product of the Hellenistic secular philosophy and especially (of) the stoics. In a good part Christian ethics (as we know them today) are a plagiarism of stoicism (a secular philosophical school) which is why most of the times they run counter to the vindictive god that the Jews ACTUALLY had. So -no- (at least in the West) historically advanced moral laws almost NEVER came from religionists, but rather by adaptation of secular ethics to (the much more primitive) religious ethics. Even most of the moral codes of the old testament that make sense come almost directly by the code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian king/lawmaker. The reason why I stopped calling myself (a) Christian when I was a teen, was exactly that, it never let me to be moral enough; morality rooted on higher authority is NEVER good morality, it's inflexible and ultimately wrong.
For those doubting what I wrote, just read Epictetus and see how many of his words are eventually being incorporated on the Christian doctrine. Historically, Christianity is: Jewish Mythology, Neo-Platonic metaphysics and Stoic (with a slight twist to cynicism) ethics, it's a pastiche of the cults/pop culture of the Mediterranean of the 1st to 3rd AD; historically it makes no sense to give this mess any credence at all, yet a lot of people do, I'm telling them (to) just read (about) Epictetus, Plotinus and Origen; seeing -now- that your religion is nothing more than a historic accident (it) is bound to make you wonder what is that that you believe eventually... - bitORlogic, on 04/08/2009, -0/+2I've nothing against agnostics (except that they're all bastard wishy-washy fence-sitters ;) ), but I have to disagree with the idea that a belief is, in itself, dogmatic. No belief, or lack of belief, is dogmatic. Dogmatism is about holding a belief without regard to evidence or rational thought. Somebody could certainly be a dogmatic atheist (although I don't personally know of any) and there are definitely some dogmatic theists in the world. They're dogmatic not because they believe in god, but because they believe in god largely because they've been told to and haven't given it a lot of thought since. (This is not true of all theists. Presumably, most clergy have given it a great deal of thought.)
Oh, and ...
/passes beer - charlie6969, on 04/22/2009, -0/+2Make your own stinkin' oatmeal, Stank.
-
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