When you see pictures of Jesus praying...

Though I'm sure true for some, many of us do not find the idea of nothingness particularly disturbing.

Come now, Ghoti, no need to put it quite so brutally. What do you want to do, frighten the poor things ? It's a hard thing for them to face at first, before they see its meaning more clearly.

Very easy to misunderstand, and maybe even get frightened. For most its best to dismiss it as meaningless or crazy, rather than consider so apparently ludicrous a possibility. You can't blame them.

Mmmm... I love the smell of condescension in the morning.

I believe that everyone has the right to believe in whatever they choose.
I believe in a higher power.
I believe in an afterlife.
I believe in heaven and hell.
I believe Taco bell is way better then Taco Johns.

I dont believe in homosexuals, the "british" or santa claus

This has always worked well for me. Keeps the Jehovahs away.

I have a question for people that don't believe in a higher power. How then, do you define your morality?

People that believe in a divine force of any matter, whether it be a God, or a natural force derive their morality from what they will reap in the after life. That if they do good here and now, they will be rewarded there and then.

As Atheist, or non-believers, I am not saying your are Immoral, but i am asking what motiviates you to do good? To follow societal norms? In my mind, perhaps a very narrow and ignorant view - morals were depicted by churches. Various churches in various lands all came to a conclusion that some stuff was inherently bad (killing for gain) and some stuff was inherently good (offering a helping hand) ..

When I say, I cant kill for gain - i cant because it is wrong. It is wrong because my faith tells me it is.

Why cant you kill?

It is fair to say - that You wont kill because it is illegal - why is it illegal to hurt others?

I am not Christian. But i have this basic understanding that we all believe in the same power. How that power manifests in our culture is a construction.

I dont believe God is all the answers, but I think it is important to have faith, something to believe in, rather than living a life of nothing for nothing.

I was raised Catholic. Church every Sunday. Catholic school. The works.

My SO is the kindest, most moral and least judgemental person I have ever met, either inside the church or outside. He is fair, even-tempered, and is easily the best example of a human being I've ever met. And he's never stepped inside a church.

He's a far better example of a good person than I am, that's for sure.

You don't need a God to tell you what to do. The ten commandments are all common sense. The Golden Rule even more so. You're a good person because it makes you feel good and it benefits society as a whole if you are - why do YOU need the threat of eternal hellfire to shape your act up?

You're right. I can not expect anyone to see things the way my ego does. Just as I can never hope to see things from the exact perspective of their ego. Afterall, we are all here in time and space, experiencing our surroundings with the "Little I". It's not condescending. I'm not putting anyone down for their beliefs (not in this series of posts, anyway), whether those beliefs be placed in the cold, hard analysis provided by science, an anthropomorphized sky-dwelling entity, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

-Ghoti

Way to Personally attack people on a forum. *I* dont need the threat of a hellfire to shape my act up, because I dont believe in Hell.

And I never said I am a good person because I believe in God or whatever. My basic question was about morality. Which, thank you for you input. And to further, do YOU think the 10 commandments and the golden rule would exist if religion never existed?

or are they Common Sense - because we've heard them all our lives. and therefore appear to be common sense? What if they never were.. would the sense be so common?

Oh for god's sake, if you can't follow a rhetorical line of questioning, lay off the caffeine.

And yes, those basic tenants (except for the "I am the Lord your God, thou shalt have no other gods before me" ones) are crucial for a basic, functioning civilization to grow and prosper. That's why you see them repeated in so many religions! Their necessity fueled religion, not the other way around.

That didnt appear very rhetorical - it looked like you were asking ME..

either way.. im not going to get into a spat with you on a forum. I asked a question , and will continue looking at replies. Thank you for your input.

Right on. My apologies if I seemed too harsh. I'm still in the Recovering Catholic 12 step program.

In my way of seeing it, I follow the Golden Rule... or a modified version thereof:

Instead of:

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Its:

"As you do unto others, so you do unto yourself."

-Ghoti

My response was directed at Artemis's comment that "It's better to have a false belief of hope, then a true belief of hopelessness." If you're aware, or even suspect that it's a false belief, I can't see how that's better.



It isn't an either/or thing, Billy. To me, pinning all of your hope on something outside of yourself, over which you have no control, which can't be known with verifiable certainty to exist... that seems (again, to me personally) the surest path to hopelessness. To have faith in the future, in myself, and in my ability to take whatever comes, I have to be able to stand on my own two feet... alone... no support, no love, no forknowledge, and no god. If I can do that (and I have) then I can have faith in the future, because no matter what happens I can never sink lower than that, and it can't be taken away from me.

I want to know that the good things I've done in my life I did for their own sake and not out of desire for a reward or fear of punishment. To my ears that carrot and stick spoils everything else Christianity has to say, because it's at the root of it all and every action that stems from it, no matter how loving or altruistic, has a selfish motive attached. If it turns out there is a God and he'd torture me for eternity for having that point of view, was he worth serving in the first place? I'd say no.



The one with hope that sprang from genuine self-reliance and faith in one's ability to overcome. The one that fully treasured this life as if it was the only one we get. If people spent as much time building faith in themselves and each other as they do on their knees praying for a divine hand, think of what the world could be like. None of us will ever see heaven until we build it here on earth.

Let me put it another way... if I stopped eating and instead just prayed for god to sustain me, I would starve to death. I don't think that applies only to food. I think the same can be said of faith, love, hope, strength, peace, and all the rest of it. Those are things we must each endeavor to leave the world richer in than when we got here. If I believed in god and a heavenly reward why would I bother to bail water from the sinking ship? I'd already have my place on the lifeboat. My efforts would be directed at making sure I didn't lose it rather than on trying to prevent the ship from sinking in the first place.

"And it's true, that Science doesn't really have a perfect theory for this. But that doesn't mean we never will either, we just don't have the technology, science, and right minds to understand this now."

Ditto with religion. We just don't have the technology, science, and right minds to understand this now. We also are at an odd point in human history where people have the idea that science and religion are two separate things.

coco

P.S. And then funny thing is, when we do finally know enough to "find God," the atheists are all gonna say, "See, we told you it was science!" and the believers are all gonna say, "See, we told you there was a God!"

Something I'd like to interject in the whole evolution debate:

The whole thing - all the fighting over how religion and science can't possibly agree with one another - could go away over the basis of the definition of a single word.

Consider the following passage from Genesis in the King James version:

Ge: 1:5

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

If we go to the Hebrew version (the "official" original" we find that the word used for "day" is Yowm, pronounced "yome". Now here's the thing: It's a word used for a lot of different temporal descriptions!

1. day, time, year
a. day (as opposed to night)
b. day (24 hour period)
c. a working day, a day's journey
d. days, lifetime (pl.)
e. time, period (general)
f. year
g. temporal references
1. today
2. yesterday
3. tomorrow

To put it bluntly, the fundamentalist Christian's insistence on reading the literal word of the Bible and deciding that it rules out all the huge moutains of evidence for evolution and the age of the Earth is based on a rather shaky interpretation of a very ancient text.

Decide differently on how to interpret this single word and the contradictions go flying out the window!

That is until you get to the bible's second creation story which contradicts the first

From Genesis 1.5: [5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

To me "the morning and the evening were the first day" seems to indicate a 24 hour period.

Please keep in mind that with "huge mountains of evidence" for evolution there are also a few mountain ranges of contrary information. All of this has been well documented. Much like the arguments for and against creation.

Which one are you referring to, Chip? I've had this explanation handy from a debate with my parents' old minister for a long time, but it's been ages since I read anything from the Old Testament.

First, I'm kinda shocked that you even have to ask that question. It implies that because I'm an athiest, I'm unable to make a distinction between 'right' and 'wrong'.

Also, remember, morality is relative - something that you may consider immoral, I might not.

Beyond that, I must thank my parents for providing the foundation for my morals. They taught me to treat others as I would wish to be treated and to mind my own business, unless it is directly affecting me or causing harm to others. If you were to talk to any of my RL friends, they would tell you that I am a very trustworthy, loyal, and caring friend who holds fairness and respect for all in high regard. Those might be morals taught in church, but that's not where I picked them up.

For the same reason everyone want cleopatra to look black. LOL for god sakes the woman was greek!

But christianity is meant to be confusing, I think. Even the instruction manual doesn't tell you everything. I mean I looked and looked and I can't find where the bible says rock music is the tool of the devil. And nowhere does it say I should not play D and D. I t should say the NY yankees are the spawn of the great beast in revelation, but it lacks that tidbit too.

All right, we'll just stick to the age debate. "Evolution" is such a broad category which incites trouble all by itself by being so vague. There are, of course, disputes over how accurately carbon dating and uranium decay and other tested methods can predict the age of an object. However, there's a big difference between one result coming back "4.3 billion years", another coming back "3.9 billion years", and one that says "according to this guy that added up all the generations since Adam, it's 6000 years max."

What I'm saying is you can stop listening to that guy without throwing out the Bible at all.

I wouldn't call that a personal attack, Rice, it was a legitimate question directed to you in response to your question that was posed to athiests.

I have no doubt that we would be just as nice and happy as we are today without the 10 commandments or the golden rule. Look around the planet and witness other animals caring for each other, feeding and grooming each other, and yes, occassionally killing each other - remind you of anyone? Those animals didnt need the 10 commandments or the golden rule to learn that it is beneficial for all to treat each other kindly and with respect, so why did we need it?

"Morning and the evening were the first day" is the English translation. I believe you'll find the meaning of the original words used to be much less rigid than a 24-hour time period, as someone was kind and educated enough to post just that on the previous page.


I would also LOVE to see your cites for the "well-documented" contrary information against evolution and any well-documented scientific arguements for Creationism.

Yes that kind and educated person did post that. Have you looked into it yourself?

When I looked into all of this I actually read books from a library due to the fact the internet was s few years off at that time.

I think you are educated enough to look for this information on your own. I had to do my own work why are you any different?