Religion didn't spread morality, oh wait, yes it did.

Incidentally, read my earlier post. Religion can not give rise to morality.

Also here the non-religious alternatives to religious moral theory:
1) Virtue Ethics - dates back to Aristotle (i.e. before Christianity and the rise of monotheistic religions). This claims that morality resides within the question of 'what sort of person ought I to be?' rather than 'what ought I to do?'
2) Social Contact - Hobbesian theory that goes to the core of the purpose of morality itself.
3) Deontology - a priori moral theory following absolute rules (categorical imperatives). The father is recognised to be Immanuel Kant.
4) Utilitarianism - consequentialist theory that states doing moral good is in maximising pleasure for the most people. Developed by Bentham and Mill.
5) Emotivism - what is right is what is felt to be right emotionally. Initially a Humean theory developed by Charles Hawethorn (I think).
6) Existential Moral Theory - Sartre. The Creation of morality and the necessity of choice in a world of absolute freedom.

The list could go on...

As to where the incentive to act morally comes from:

For Hume is was emotion that made people act morally.
For Aristotle is was the aim for eudaimonic happiness.
For Hobbes it was to ease social interaction.

Hope that helps,
Alexander

 

Umm, it doesn't matter if an IQ test measures that or not... and I'm guessing the IQ test you took was some POS internet one. Yes I suppose you could boost your IQ results on a test if you studied them... but in all honesty who the heck does that? Even if a few people do that still has no bearing... you're making really strange points. It's just a correlation, and all you're doing is pointing out potential outliars... yes there's always outliars to any trend but that doesn't make it invalid.

 

You're talking about people who talk about morality. Everyone has their own system of morality, and most of them managed to construct it without ever referring to a philosopher or preacher.

 

I've read this thread and come out with a question...
Since many atheists here said that the theists cannot prove the existence of God.
Can the atheists prove that there are no God??
While we're at it, can you prove that you exist and everything around exist and you are not just a brain in a glass jar with wires running in and out? Or maybe you can prove that you are not a computer program inside someone computer??

 

Its not about who does it, its what it shows, that for the most part these things are mental aerobics.
Times have changed incredibly over the past 50 years or so. I can't speak for all countries, but its quite clear were I live that religion has declined considerably. Is that because people got more 'intelligent' or just broadened their minds with more information. Yep there has been a trend, involving many factors.

Don't know if its the same thing as you claim these tests 'prove'

I'd like to see if you did a test this year, using random samples of people from both groups, repeated. I wouldn't like to bet on the outcome. Results may vary country to country. Education and knowledge are major factors. I think the type of intelligence you are alluding to is not the real issue - just a smokescreen to the real story to this. For me its much more about 'condition' than 'intelligence'. To me it is obvious that the typr of knowledge/information you are exposed to will change the way you think - but does knowledge/information give you a higher IQ?

If you want to make judgements based on those tests thats up to you, I think I'll reserve mine for now.

 

You're missing the point. Theists have faith. Faith is, by definition, belief in something that is beyond proof. They don't need proof. Athiests say that because God/Brahman/Diety X is beyond proof, they don't believe.

Many philosophers have tried, and some have had greater success than others. It depends on whether or not you agree with the proof. Many people here seem to like arguing about minutae more than actually exploring ideas in a more civilized way.

 

The only things that can be absolutely proved, are mathematics.
With everything else, anything is technically possible but mostly unlikely.

With the case of God, people only have their own experiences to base their faith on. Athiests have no such experience, or attribute their experiences to different things.
There's a fair bit of faith no matter which beliefs are chosen (even if it's just faith in the fact that "only things scientifically proved exist") and because there's no real universal evidence in either direction, there's no real right or wrong, just opinions.

 

Strafio,

opinions about right and wrong - yes I agree for the most part. Is there really any right or wrong - in that which we have made up (on 1 level) -words. Definative right and wrong is hard/impossible to pin down (In majority of things). This is proven by the way rhetoric is applied.

On another level can any one explain to me why a dolphin for example will help a human that was being attacked by a shark or in trouble (been known to happen)Does a dolphin know then that that it is wrong for it not to help?
If so, how? I'm sure they don't understand words, so didn't read the bible either

It's all about the design Our world can only exist one way, and that includes everything in it. All the parameters and ingrediants for life are in accordance with universal properties.

And I would disagree about there being no universal evidence, but I guess you know that already

I wonder if dolphins have a higher IQ than some humans

 

It seems that our one disagreement is the one thing we like to talk about.
I seem to agree with Christians with almost everything apart from this universal standard of moral right and wrong and that there's a judgement afterlife.
You even tend to kind of agree with my "karma" thing, agreeing that "turning from God" causes people to fall victim to their own suffering through confusion and the like, the difference being that I think that IS the judgement that the Bible talked about and you think it's there AS WELL as the Revlation style judgement.
But more of that in another topic.

(you see people, even we agree that there's a God, we still won't be able to agree on what/who's God he is! )

Another thing to watch out for is that just because there might be a God, it doesn't mean that the Bible necessarily knows anything about a him/her/it. Even if you believe in God, doesn't mean you think that Christians/Muslims/etc have a proper measure of them, but I expect all believers in a God would use the same arguments so support evidence of A God, even if they can't agree on who's God it is!

Some say that the world is so specific in the values of physical constants (like gravity) in order for the world to have formed in a life supporting way, so they say it's evidence that someone (eg. God) had to specifically design it that way.
There's so many reasons for people seeing the world they do.
It's great that people have such varied views on the world, but it's a shame when some get arrogant to accuse people who see things differently to be simpletons. I've seen a few atheists on this board accusing believers of a lack of reasoning/logic/scientific knowledge, which comes across as fairly ignorant in itself.

 

I agree entirely. I did not claim to the contrary. I was just pointing out that religion does not provide a practical basis for morality by listing major alternatives to religious based morality. I think people do construct their own system but frequently their opinions can be assigned to some of the categories I mentioned.

 

Read post 157 on this thread (by me!). If a claim is made in which it is impossible for a falsifying factor to concievably occur then... well, you work it out.

Just so as you are aware, I am not agnostic for the reason that I am no hypocrite - or perhaps my principles and beliefs are, to the best of my knowledge (please point out if this is wrong), consistent with one another. The agnostic, if their beliefs are consistent, must acknowledge the possibility of anything being true in which it inconcievable for there to occur a falsifying factor - Father Christmas, that their toys come to life when there is no one there to percieve them etc... And in a way they are right that we can never truely know what is going on in this universe. But can't we be justified in making certain assumptions, based entirely on pragmatic reasoning:

1) As to the question of whether I exist then yes, I can justify this with the statement 'cogito, ergo sum'. As to what my nature is - whether I am a computer program that has been written and is controlled externally - I cannot vouch for that. BUT by the very fact that I am thinking I must exist.

2) The external world is not able to be justified. But I think we can say, 'so what'? After all, it is pretty certain that all of our knowledge is derived from experiance. This source is the external world. Solipsism is a rational possibility but just try and doubt, seriously doubt, that the external world is not in existence - that the source of all your knowledge is false. Generally people cannot - Schopenhaur said that Solipsism, although a rational possibility, is really, as a serious belief, confined to the madhouse. Anyway, although it is possible does it make a difference to our lives if it is true? If we are a brain in a jar can we do anything about it? Nope. It is natural to assume that the external world exists as it is the source of all our knowledge. Unless some pretty heavy evidence occurs for doubting it then I'm going to go with what is natural for people to assume.

 

now that ia great to see you are able to back it up. i mean yeah, its pretty common place, i mean blind faith in anything would be a measure of your intelligence, but organized religion just takes the cake. good to hear it. beat them with the facts.

 

Hey man, I'm doing no such thing. I make no judgements on the intelligence of believers. I just think that there is no way for them to justify their belief, that they should, unless this is false (which requires the production of a water-tight argument laid out for all to see), admit this and then what they do from there does not concern me. If they continue to believe then fine, if not, then fine. I really don't care, as long as belief remains personal and is admitted to be faith. When someone claims they can prove the existence of a god (wrongly) that annoys me, and I want to speak out against it.

If there is conclusive evidence for a god is presented I will renounce my Atheism. If not, then screw that.

I expect all rational people to do the same; IF conclusive evidence is produced contrary to their belief then they should renounce their belief, be it Atheism or Theism.

 

"The devil is in the detail." is a saying that seems to fit well in this context

 

Alexander, you will never see a Theist renounce their belief, its their blanket of bliss.
conclusive evidence or not, they will find a way to tell us "its the wrong context"
or that "you're going to hell" or something of the nuature of being redundant in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, some people are just so blind they are beyond help, but i hope when the day comes {and it will} that atleast a few people will accept it.

 

True. But I do not wish them to. As long as Theists do not openly proclaim that theirs is truth on the basis on invalid arguments I have no problem with their beliefs. They are beliefs - articles of faith who power derives from their absurdity.

I think the Dalai Lama (not sure - but heard from a friend) stated, when asked what he would do if conclusive evidence was produced that his faith was wrong, that he would renounce his religion. Many people were shocked but those who thought about it laughed as well, saying "What else would a sane person do?"

The clue to this is in the word conclusive. If there is still agnostic style possibility there is room for absurd belief - faith. If there is conclusive evidence it seems that no rational person could believe to the contrary. I have never heard of a person who actively denies their own existence in any shape or form - the evidence for personal existence appears to be water-tight, regardless of the nature of self.

 

What made you think I was talking about you?
Is someone a little egocentric here?
I didn't have anybody in mind, but I did read some people making out that to believe in God or have faith in anything like that then you had to give up logic and reasoning. That's what I was talking about.

Yeah, although I don't let it annoy me. If someone's ignorant, it's their problem. I try and read it though, just to see if I can work out where they've "gone wrong" (I mean, I've yet to read a "proof" of God, or a proof against God, that genuinely stood up).

Ofcourse, if there was any conclusive evidence for either side then there would be no discussion. As it happens, there is no such thing (and I don't think that there can be) so it's all down to personal beliefs.
So when people come on here with weird and wacky beliefs, it's one thing to question it but another to look down upon it.

It always makes me cringe when someone claims to know THE TRUTH! :rollseyes:

 

Damn psin, I was gonna come in with 'God is in the detail'

 

Arrogance

Mate, if you know me you'd know ego-centric is an understatement!