5 ms·

> our choices would lack any consequence consequences doesn't have to cause suffering. You can live in one country or another - meeting different people, eperi

by ajuc 10y ago

> our choices would lack any consequence consequences doesn't have to cause suffering. You can live in one country or another - meeting different people, eperiencing different thigs, learning different cultures. How is it less of a consequence than developing a cancer? The rest of your argument is taking a mataphor literally, and asserting it's less true thanks to the existence of evil. Why? How would the life be worse if there were no diseases and wars? > How do you derive this from your beliefs? I'm not special. Other people have their lives too, and by being a dick I decrease their enjoyment of their short lives. I don't have any reasons to value my enjoyement over theirs (or vice versa). I have counter-question BTW - would you go around murdering people and stealing from them if there was no hell and no police? That's what your argument boils down to - "without a stick and a carrot why bother with morality"?

genegc2 10y ago
There are more consequences than just hell and jail - and a faith or belief system purely motivated on hell and/or jail is an immature one. My argument boils down to Natural Law, and it sounds to me like yours does too. When you say "I don't have any reasons to value my enjoyment over theirs" - I would totally agree, but I still don't understand how you arrive at that without a belief in Natural Law. An argument that doesn't rely on Natural Law goes something like this: We have evolved into highly social beings, so our internal physiology naturally rewards us for socially constructive behavior, so we choose to not be a dick because being a dick feels bad. It's a purely selfish motivation because that is what is purely rational. My limited understanding of Natural Law comes from CS Lewis and Thomas Aquinas, but I did a quick search before writing this reply and I see that it has some backing in atheistic thought. Is that where your coming from?
- ajuc 10y ago
  > I still don't understand how you arrive at that without a belief in Natural Law I don't believe in things that seem unlikely and have no proofs. The theory that my feelings are more valuable than that of other people seems unlikely (why my out of all people) and I have no evidence supporting it. Therefore I assume it's false and act accordingly. Why would you need some external law for that train of thought? All you need is logic and probability theory.
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    I get the impression that religious people actually have no internal moral compass of their own so therefore need a set of external rules in order to not be dickish. Because of this necessity, they can't understand how other people can have morals without a set of rules, even self-contradictory, ambiguous rules passed down from a supernatural being via the mysterious hallucinations of desert people thousands of years ago.
    - ajuc 10y ago
      > I get the impression that religious people actually have no internal moral compass I'm quite certain that's not true. At least it wasn't true for me when I was religious, and it's not true for most of the religious people I know (and I live in 95% Catholic country, at least in theory). For one example - I've spoken with many Catolics who thought it's "not fair" that a serial murderer can escape eternal punishment with last minute atonement, but a women that was in a marriage with abusive husband and then met her "other half" - has to sacrifice her love till death because of 1 unintentional mistake in the past. If people actually believed morality comes from God only - they wouldn't think twice about this. God says so and that's it. On the other hand it's hard to distinguish external and internal motivation when you have it constantly mixed by the religion, rituals, etc. And people like to find explanations fo why they (and you) need religion - external morality seems to be a popular excuse.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - brokenmachine 10y ago
        > For one example - I've spoken with many Catolics who thought it's "not fair" that a serial murderer can escape eternal punishment with last minute atonement, but a women that was in a marriage with abusive husband and then met her "other half" - has to sacrifice her love till death because of 1 unintentional mistake in the past. I find it very difficult to discuss these things without saying things that religious people might find offensive (questioning too much seems to be frowned upon for some reason), but I'll try: So they think it's "not fair", yet they still identify with a religion where this is announced to be the case. So are you saying they think it's not fair but still believe unfortunately that's the way it is, or are you saying that they think that it's actually not true and won't happen? Or are you saying that they have an internal moral compass that says that such eternal damnation is immoral, but set it aside because of the rules of the religion? I guess the difference is that they think it's "not fair", and I think it's not true, and clearly nothing but a fairy tale manufactured to pressure people to keep going to church out of fear. If someone is already doomed with eternal damnation, then why not keep doing bad stuff? I'm being flippant, but actually with the massive loophole of last minute atonement, why not just do bad stuff all the time, until the last minute? Hopefully you will get time to spit out a quick "sorry" at the end. Is this what all the pedophile priests and their co-conspirators are planning to do? > it's hard to distinguish external and internal motivation when you have it constantly mixed by the religion, rituals, etc. True. I think the peer pressure when your community identifies with a particular religion is a large factor as well. If there wasn't so much peer pressure and the threat of shunning and excommunication, there would probably be many less outwardly religious people around. I cringe when I hear sports stars thanking god, as if with all the misery and suffering in the world, god still puts it as a priority to be personally interested in whether a millionaire manages to win a sports event or not.

by ajuc 10y ago

genegc2 10y ago

There are more consequences than just hell and jail - and a faith or belief system purely motivated on hell and/or jail is an immature one. My argument boils down to Natural Law, and it sounds to me like yours does too. When you say "I don't have any reasons to value my enjoyment over theirs" - I would totally agree, but I still don't understand how you arrive at that without a belief in Natural Law. An argument that doesn't rely on Natural Law goes something like this: We have evolved into highly social beings, so our internal physiology naturally rewards us for socially constructive behavior, so we choose to not be a dick because being a dick feels bad. It's a purely selfish motivation because that is what is purely rational. My limited understanding of Natural Law comes from CS Lewis and Thomas Aquinas, but I did a quick search before writing this reply and I see that it has some backing in atheistic thought. Is that where your coming from?

ajuc 10y ago
> I still don't understand how you arrive at that without a belief in Natural Law I don't believe in things that seem unlikely and have no proofs. The theory that my feelings are more valuable than that of other people seems unlikely (why my out of all people) and I have no evidence supporting it. Therefore I assume it's false and act accordingly. Why would you need some external law for that train of thought? All you need is logic and probability theory.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  I get the impression that religious people actually have no internal moral compass of their own so therefore need a set of external rules in order to not be dickish. Because of this necessity, they can't understand how other people can have morals without a set of rules, even self-contradictory, ambiguous rules passed down from a supernatural being via the mysterious hallucinations of desert people thousands of years ago.
  - ajuc 10y ago
    > I get the impression that religious people actually have no internal moral compass I'm quite certain that's not true. At least it wasn't true for me when I was religious, and it's not true for most of the religious people I know (and I live in 95% Catholic country, at least in theory). For one example - I've spoken with many Catolics who thought it's "not fair" that a serial murderer can escape eternal punishment with last minute atonement, but a women that was in a marriage with abusive husband and then met her "other half" - has to sacrifice her love till death because of 1 unintentional mistake in the past. If people actually believed morality comes from God only - they wouldn't think twice about this. God says so and that's it. On the other hand it's hard to distinguish external and internal motivation when you have it constantly mixed by the religion, rituals, etc. And people like to find explanations fo why they (and you) need religion - external morality seems to be a popular excuse.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - brokenmachine 10y ago
      > For one example - I've spoken with many Catolics who thought it's "not fair" that a serial murderer can escape eternal punishment with last minute atonement, but a women that was in a marriage with abusive husband and then met her "other half" - has to sacrifice her love till death because of 1 unintentional mistake in the past. I find it very difficult to discuss these things without saying things that religious people might find offensive (questioning too much seems to be frowned upon for some reason), but I'll try: So they think it's "not fair", yet they still identify with a religion where this is announced to be the case. So are you saying they think it's not fair but still believe unfortunately that's the way it is, or are you saying that they think that it's actually not true and won't happen? Or are you saying that they have an internal moral compass that says that such eternal damnation is immoral, but set it aside because of the rules of the religion? I guess the difference is that they think it's "not fair", and I think it's not true, and clearly nothing but a fairy tale manufactured to pressure people to keep going to church out of fear. If someone is already doomed with eternal damnation, then why not keep doing bad stuff? I'm being flippant, but actually with the massive loophole of last minute atonement, why not just do bad stuff all the time, until the last minute? Hopefully you will get time to spit out a quick "sorry" at the end. Is this what all the pedophile priests and their co-conspirators are planning to do? > it's hard to distinguish external and internal motivation when you have it constantly mixed by the religion, rituals, etc. True. I think the peer pressure when your community identifies with a particular religion is a large factor as well. If there wasn't so much peer pressure and the threat of shunning and excommunication, there would probably be many less outwardly religious people around. I cringe when I hear sports stars thanking god, as if with all the misery and suffering in the world, god still puts it as a priority to be personally interested in whether a millionaire manages to win a sports event or not.