Does morality exist without God?

[zairsmith]

When you tell me to picture an apple, you are communicating with me. When I picture the apple in my head, I am imagining it. You say that in your conversations with your God, the audible communication part of this process is omitted. In that case, all that is left is your imagination.

First case:

1. You tell me to picture an apple. [communication]
2. I think of an apple. [imagination]

Second case:

1. … [silence]
2. You think your God told you something. [imagination]

Just because something is intangible to the senses doesn't mean it does not exists or it is imagination. For hundreds of years, atoms were intangible to the sense, yet people knew they existed...how is this so? or like emotions are intangible yet we both understand what it means to be happy, sad, embarrassed, etc?

 

[Upisoft]

Just because something is intangible to the senses doesn't mean it does not exists or it is imagination. For hundreds of years, atoms were intangible to the sense, yet people knew they existed...how is this so? or like emotions are intangible yet we both understand what it means to be happy, sad, embarrassed, etc?

They did not know that atoms existed.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Just because something is intangible to the senses doesn't mean it does not exists or it is imagination. For hundreds of years, atoms were intangible to the sense, yet people knew they existed...how is this so? or like emotions are intangible yet we both understand what it means to be happy, sad, embarrassed, etc?

But we know these things exist because of tangible phenomena - I know a person is happy because I have evolved instincts and 22 years of experience that identify the tell-tale signs of that emotion. We know atoms exist because we do have tangible phenomena attesting to their existence.

Where, then, is your tangible phenomena? Where is your evidence? Your claims may very well be true, but unless you present evidence supporting your claims, why should we believe it? Why do you believe it?

 

[3sigma]

Just because something is intangible to the senses doesn't mean it does not exists or it is imagination.

imagination : the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.

 

[razeontherock]

I find the militant atheism on display here to be both immoral, and w/o God.

 

[CaliforniaSun]

So the verses of the Bible support other verses...

In the Bible. So my copy of House of Leaves proves that it is a true story because different chapters support each other.

That book freaked me out. Seriously.

 

[sandwiches]

I find the militant atheism on display here to be both immoral, and w/o God.

You find atheism to be without God, huh? Nothing escapes you, I see.

 

[CaliforniaSun]

You find atheism to be without God, huh? Nothing escapes you, I see.

Next thing, he'll be claiming is that Christians follow Christ.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

You find atheism to be without God, huh? Nothing escapes you, I see.

Beat me to it I wonder if he thinks non-militant atheism is pro God...

 

[razeontherock]

You find atheism to be without God, huh? Nothing escapes you, I see.

Not what I said, and you fail to relate it to the thread title? Not exactly nothin but net ...

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Not what I said, and you fail to relate it to the thread title? Not exactly nothin but net ...

"I find the militant atheism on display here to be both immoral, and w/o God."

"I find the militant atheism on display here to be ... w/o God."

You couldn't have stated that tautology more explicitly.

 

[razeontherock]

Just forget about the rest of the phrase, eh?

 

[SonOfTheWest]

What the heck exactly IS "militant atheism" anyway?

 

[CaliforniaSun]

What the heck exactly IS "militant atheism" anyway?

 

[SonOfTheWest]

For shame take a razor to that man's chin!

 

[david_x]

When you tell me to picture an apple, you are communicating with me. When I picture the apple in my head, I am imagining it. You say that in your conversations with your God, the audible communication part of this process is omitted. In that case, all that is left is your imagination.

First case:

1. You tell me to picture an apple. [communication]
2. I think of an apple. [imagination]

Second case:

1. … [silence]
2. You think your God told you something. [imagination]

You are not imagining an apple, you have seen an apple before therefore you are envisioning an apple. As per your own definition of imagination...

imagination : the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.

Also, communication according to the Wikipedia definition is:

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information.​

The method of communication is hardly important, the important part is that I send the message and you understand the message.

 

[Awesome_Frog]

Could you elaborate on this?

Objective morality means that there is evidence to base a moral claim, Subjective reality is based on situation and evidence of an objective claim.

Example of an objective moral claim.

Stealing is bad. This is decreed by society.

Now this is how subjective morality plays in. Subjective morality would look at the situation of why did the person steal, and what quality of theft went on.

Stealing in its vague meaning is objectively wrong to society based objective principles of social norms.

Understand?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Just forget about the rest of the phrase, eh?

I quoted the entire post. Just what did I ignore? You said you found the militant atheism displayed in this thread to be both immoral and without God. There was nothing more in your post than those words

 

[3sigma]

You are not imagining an apple, you have seen an apple before therefore you are envisioning an apple. As per your own definition of imagination...
imagination : the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.

When I picture an apple in my mind then of course I’m imagining it. I’m forming a mental image of something not present to my senses. That apple isn’t real. It doesn’t actually exist. It is imaginary.

You appear confused about ‘or’ statements. An ‘or’ statement is true when any one of its conditions is true. So it is imagination whenever I form a mental image of something that is either not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality (or both, of course). In the case of your God, both of those conditions happen to be true.

The method of communication is hardly important, the important part is that I send the message and you understand the message.

In the case of your claimed daily conversations with your God, there is zero evidence that any message was ever actually sent, given that you say it is inaudible. All you have is your imagination that your God is communicating with you or that it even exists.

 

[Mling]

I love the phrase "militant atheism."

Militant: it comes from the word for military. It means somebody who's beliefs have taken on a violent and military-like tone. I knew somebody once who was a militant Christian. His religious group advocated violence, and his response to terrorism was to adopt the title "Head of Islamic Liasons," to try to forge bonds with like-minded people. His group had a history of robbing banks by bombing them, though I'm pretty sure that was before he joined. They called themselves the Church of the Sons of Yahweh and he taught that white people are the actual descendants of Israel--who were made by God and are genetically related to him-- and that modern Jews are impostors who were made by Satan and are genetically related to him.

Are there any comparable atheist groups? Not just militia groups who are violent and, perhaps, have atheist members, or don't profess religion, or don't care either way. Are there any groups of people that build comparable violence on the premise, "There is no god, therefore....[logic] therefore we should be violent"?

There just isn't. It isn't possible. The premise of there being no god simple isn't enough to justify this sort of behavior. At worst, it might allow for it: "I want to do X, and there's no god to judge me, so I can," but there's nothing to compel a person from "no god," to "bomb the bank," if they aren't already inclined.

There is logic to religious violence, though. You don't have to be mentally ill, or desire violence for its own sake. Personally, I'm an incredibly gentle, timid person, but if I lived in a world that was literally a battleground between the children of God and the children of the devil, and the devil-children were mostly in charge and ran the banks, and owned the stores, and had most people in the world under their thrall, I'd strap on an AK-47 in a heartbeat! Bring on the demons! Who cares if bombing the bank is violent--it's a demon-run bank and the people inside are mindless or downright evil.

That is not just a ridiculous belief--it's a logic response to a religious premise. Once you accept the religious belief, it actively compels youto take violent action.

This sort of compelling violence is possible when you introduce religion, in a way that just isn't possible with atheism. You have to be bad to be a bad atheist: you need to actively desire harm, or not know the difference between good and bad, or only care about yourself and not give a flying monkey about anybody else.

When you introduce religious beliefs like the one above, you can be a good person--desire the best for the world, know the difference between good and bad, be able to think clearly and logically-- and be compelled to commit horrific acts of evil because they actually are a reasonable response to the reality you've been taught exists.

Which is why, when we describe certain Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and members of every other religion as "militant," we're talking about guns, bombs, arson, beatings and hijacked airplanes; when atheists are described as "militant," we're talking about people who write annoying blogs and would probably defend your right to write a rebuttal if that right was in jeopardy.

Because actual militarized atheism simply doesn't exist.