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Does morality exist without God?
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SithDoughnut
The Agnostic, Ignostic, Apatheistic Atheist
To call the Christian Church a foundation of anything is to ignore the fact that Christianity itself is heavily influenced by earlier ideas. The moral "foundation" that Christianity provides is actually a mix of various other influences on society and the church. The modern Christian moral ideal is not the same as the Christian moral ideal during the early church.
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Eudaimonist
I believe in life before death!
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I will when you convince me that he is correct.
My judgment is that it was pro-reason ideas, especially Aristotle's, from Hellenistic philosophy and culture that are actually responsible for the prosperity and freedom in the West.
Fortunately, some of the works of Aristotle were preserved and studied by the Muslims, leading to their prosperous Golden Age (later exchanged for religious extremism, leading to their downfall), and then adopted by the Christians, leading to their Renaissance.
The Bible had little to do with it.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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dcyates
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LOL! I taught ancient history at the college level, so I'm at least somewhat aware of these other civilizations. Nowhere did I say that the Judeo-Christian ethic antedates all others.
So as not to be redundant, I humbly refer you to my initial post on this thread. It's post #354, dated 4 Nov. 2011.
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- Jul 7, 2010
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I BELIEVE the bible has no errors ...
if it appears that it is so, THEN GOD HAS ERR too??
if it appears that it is so, THEN GOD HAS ERR too??
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RoadWarrior
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The two aren't related. If God wanted us to have a Bible that was perfect, why did he choose such an imperfect tool to write and edit it? How many revisions has the Bible been through over the centuries?
If God wanted to provide us a perfect reference, he could have easily written it in the stars or on the face of the Moon for all to see and where there would be no dispute nor anyway for barbarians to hide it from believers. That didn't happen, so why not? Atheists would say it's because God doesn't exist, but I'm inclined to believe it is along the lines of a good parent letting their child do their own homework and learn some things on their own. The Bible provides guidance. If God wanted perfect little robots to do his bidding, we wouldn't have been given free will. There is more than meets the eye at work here.
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GrowingSmaller
Muslm Humanist
Thats an interesting outlook, thanks. Would you say that reason has to be popular (as in part of pop culture) or is it enough that it is developed at university by a class of students and professors and branching out from there? I ask because I dont see much reason in pop culture, so maybe this is a bad sign. But then again we enjoy some of the fruits of reason i.e. science and technology.
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Eudaimonist
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Yes, precisely.
It's a good thing that moderns have looked to the world for knowledge, and haven't simply focused on their Bibles, or taken Augustine's advice to heart regarding the avoidance of the lust of the eyes.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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Dave Ellis
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Of course morality can exist without God. There's plenty of cultures around the world who have little to no knowledge of the Christian God, who exhibit regular moral behavior in general.
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Tucansam93
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Read the book "The Reason for God" by Timothy Keller. There is a whole chapter that talks about this topic.
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- May 10, 2011
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It seems that the larger the group of people that attempt to live together, the more morals become important. If I think about the most isolated small tribes becoming cannabals. As people come together they realize, "hey, we probably shouldn't eat each other, and while we're at it, we seem to not kill each other so much when we don't steal from each other." As minds meet, the best and the brightest ideas come forward and are agreed upon. People in their own self interest would rather not live with violence so we begin to instate "laws" to promote peaceful coexistance. SOme cultures are raiders such as people from the Steppes of Asia where food is more scarce. It was better for them to steal for food the Khan's and the Hun's etc. as a profesion but within the tribe there was peace at home. The further out and more scarce things got, the more extreme the behavior gets. Back to cannabalism etc. So all these cultures worship GOds, the cannabals God gets a head after the hunt. The civilized nation's God gets a tithe.
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I believe the staement that we can not prove Gods existance to a non-believer, it's something only God can do. I know non-Christians who have excellent moral values.
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Eudaimonist
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Redac
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Just for future reference, when one has a cannibalistic society, the only real form of endocannibalism (cannibalism within one's own society) that appears is the consumption of those than have already died, usually as a form of respect or as a spiritual thing. The instances where they deliberately kill someone were exocannibalistic (outside the tribe, usually some sort of ritual warfare).
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