3 ms·

What's stopping you? In theory nothing but in practice many things. Atheists still have to live in the real world. The real world doesn't run on people fearing

What's stopping you? In theory nothing but in practice many things. Atheists still have to live in the real world. The real world doesn't run on people fearing god it runs on, among other things, laws and reputation. Most people wont steal from you because they don't want to go to jail not because god is watching. Most people don't screw over every person they meet because then they'll get a reputation as a person to not work with. Say you decide to play the long game and "pretend" to be good until you get your chance to betray everyone for your payday. Some might say that's just good old fashioned capitalist business, a system atheists and the god fearing alike participate in.

yters 9y ago
If I didn't believe in right and wrong, I would definitely try to get away with much more. Death and punishment are not a problem. As long as death is quick, there is nothing to fear. There are plenty of instances in our society where godlessness turns into immoral anarchy, such as the inner cities or the upper echelons of Wall Street.
- nugi 9y ago
  Go preach somewgere else. Your arguments make no logical sense without taking your whole odd beliefs as cannon. You literally have nothing to say buy assert your favorite religion started everything good. At least back your conclusions up with logic post-fact.
  - yters 9y ago
    Well, let's look at an atheistic country, say the Soviet Union. They certainly had no moral qualms about mass human experimentation and genocide when it suited their purpose. On the other hand, even Islam, the most violent of the big religions, still teaches from the Koran that every person has something divine in them that gives them value. Islam has not conducted killings at the same scale as the atheistic regimes have.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      The Soviet Union may have been atheistic, but whatever problems it had don't stem from your complaint upthread about atheistic persons not having a belief in right and wrong; Leninism is no less an exclusive, total ideology of right and wrong than those associated with theistic systems.
      - yters 9y ago
        Exactly. He had a view of right and wrong derived from his atheism, but it was certainly not the correct view. Hence gulags, human experimentation, etc. I know of no atheistic derivation of ethics that is actually moral. They all undermine morality because the human being is nothing special, merely a tool for the ubermensch.

yters 9y ago

If I didn't believe in right and wrong, I would definitely try to get away with much more. Death and punishment are not a problem. As long as death is quick, there is nothing to fear. There are plenty of instances in our society where godlessness turns into immoral anarchy, such as the inner cities or the upper echelons of Wall Street.

nugi 9y ago
Go preach somewgere else. Your arguments make no logical sense without taking your whole odd beliefs as cannon. You literally have nothing to say buy assert your favorite religion started everything good. At least back your conclusions up with logic post-fact.
- yters 9y ago
  Well, let's look at an atheistic country, say the Soviet Union. They certainly had no moral qualms about mass human experimentation and genocide when it suited their purpose. On the other hand, even Islam, the most violent of the big religions, still teaches from the Koran that every person has something divine in them that gives them value. Islam has not conducted killings at the same scale as the atheistic regimes have.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    The Soviet Union may have been atheistic, but whatever problems it had don't stem from your complaint upthread about atheistic persons not having a belief in right and wrong; Leninism is no less an exclusive, total ideology of right and wrong than those associated with theistic systems.
    - yters 9y ago
      Exactly. He had a view of right and wrong derived from his atheism, but it was certainly not the correct view. Hence gulags, human experimentation, etc. I know of no atheistic derivation of ethics that is actually moral. They all undermine morality because the human being is nothing special, merely a tool for the ubermensch.