"Because we're doing it for one another." (America, church, atheist)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I was listening to comedian Pete Holmes on NPR today. He grew up an evangelical Christian who is now practicing a more liberal form of the faith. He says that most of his friends are atheists now. Here is the link to the interview, and below that I've copied something that he learned from his atheist friends.
What do you think? Personally, I think it was beautifully stated.
Part of the process was seeing the rich and true morality of my atheist friends. ... I went from a lot of Christian friends to almost exclusively atheist friends. And I remember — this isn't that crazy of a story, but it was huge to me — I was on the road with a couple of comedians, one of them was T.J., and they were both atheists and we're in this hotel and it had one of those mini-marts ... but they're always unattended. And just said to them, "No one's here. If there's no God, why don't ... I just take these M&Ms?"
And T.J. was like, "Because we're doing it for one another. It's not to please some god somewhere else who's mad when you steal M&Ms; you're doing it so the woman who is not at the counter doesn't get fired when they count the M&Ms and count the cash."
I started to see that you didn't need a fear model to be beautifully compassionate and kind to one another.
I was listening to comedian Pete Holmes on NPR today. He grew up an evangelical Christian who is now practicing a more liberal form of the faith. He says that most of his friends are atheists now. Here is the link to the interview, and below that I've copied something that he learned from his atheist friends.
What do you think? Personally, I think it was beautifully stated.
[I/]
Part of the process was seeing the rich and true morality of my atheist friends. ... I went from a lot of Christian friends to almost exclusively atheist friends. And I remember — this isn't that crazy of a story, but it was huge to me — I was on the road with a couple of comedians, one of them was T.J., and they were both atheists and we're in this hotel and it had one of those mini-marts ... but they're always unattended. And just said to them, "No one's here. If there's no God, why don't ... I just take these M&Ms?"
And T.J. was like, "Because we're doing it for one another. It's not to please some god somewhere else who's mad when you steal M&Ms; you're doing it so the woman who is not at the counter doesn't get fired when they count the M&Ms and count the cash."
I started to see that you didn't need a fear model to be beautifully compassionate and kind to one another.
Some believers love to expound upon the assertion that absent divine direction, there can be no logical reason to behave in what we might call a moral fashion (I prefer 'ethical' to 'moral', but the general point holds). However, there exist abundant social and evolutionary advantages to behaving in ways that are respectful and considerate of others. This accounts for why non-believers can logically behave.
More to the point, we have concrete real-world examples of this. The aforementioned believers like to present this as a hypothetical - "Without God, people will steal/rape/murder/etc.!" - but in fact we can observe and compare how believers and non-believers behave in the world, and it does not jibe with that assertion.
Here's an example:
We can test that claim by examining different places with differing rates of belief. The notion that we need divine direction (inevitably, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God) to keep us from stealing and raping and killing should manifest itself in those crimes correlation with lower rates of belief. And yet which region of the United States has the highest violent crime rate? The South - the same region with the highest rates of church attendance and of professed belief. Canada compared to the United States? Less belief north of the border, less violent crime north of the border. Europe versus North America? Northern Europe versus southern Europe? Western Europe versus eastern Europe? The same dynamic holds in all cases. Now, I am not stating that cases where the opposite holds true do not exist. Surely, some do. Nor am I claiming here that belief leads to theft/rape/murder. But what I am claiming - and it's a demonstrable fact - is that rates of belief as a whole manifestly fail to correlate with more moral behavior as a whole.
These believers love to make theoretical claims. But they're not much for actually examining how reality plays out.
I was listening to comedian Pete Holmes on NPR today. He grew up an evangelical Christian who is now practicing a more liberal form of the faith. He says that most of his friends are atheists now. Here is the link to the interview, and below that I've copied something that he learned from his atheist friends.
What do you think? Personally, I think it was beautifully stated.
Part of the process was seeing the rich and true morality of my atheist friends. ... I went from a lot of Christian friends to almost exclusively atheist friends. And I remember — this isn't that crazy of a story, but it was huge to me — I was on the road with a couple of comedians, one of them was T.J., and they were both atheists and we're in this hotel and it had one of those mini-marts ... but they're always unattended. And just said to them, "No one's here. If there's no God, why don't ... I just take these M&Ms?"
And T.J. was like, "Because we're doing it for one another. It's not to please some god somewhere else who's mad when you steal M&Ms; you're doing it so the woman who is not at the counter doesn't get fired when they count the M&Ms and count the cash."
I started to see that you didn't need a fear model to be beautifully compassionate and kind to one another.
That was a fear model... a compassionate one. Perhaps, he meant you don't need an egotistical fear model.
More liberal faith? Faith can be political? Or tiered? A comedian is now an expert on faith?
I'll quote Mikhail Bulgakov and his immortal work - Master and Margarita.
In it, Voland, the Satan, visits Moscow. He has brief encounter with a buffet owner. He brings to his attention that on display, he noticed a smoked sturgeon of the "2nd freshness".
My dear, says Voland, freshness can be only one - FRESH!
My dear, faith can be only one - FAITH. Or, it's anything else, BUT faith.
I was listening to comedian Pete Holmes on NPR today. He grew up an evangelical Christian who is now practicing a more liberal form of the faith. He says that most of his friends are atheists now. Here is the link to the interview, and below that I've copied something that he learned from his atheist friends.
What do you think? Personally, I think it was beautifully stated.
Part of the process was seeing the rich and true morality of my atheist friends. ... I went from a lot of Christian friends to almost exclusively atheist friends. And I remember — this isn't that crazy of a story, but it was huge to me — I was on the road with a couple of comedians, one of them was T.J., and they were both atheists and we're in this hotel and it had one of those mini-marts ... but they're always unattended. And just said to them, "No one's here. If there's no God, why don't ... I just take these M&Ms?"
And T.J. was like, "Because we're doing it for one another. It's not to please some god somewhere else who's mad when you steal M&Ms; you're doing it so the woman who is not at the counter doesn't get fired when they count the M&Ms and count the cash."
I started to see that you didn't need a fear model to be beautifully compassionate and kind to one another.
I have as yet to be told by anyone how the atheist that "does it for one another" is any more moral in their worldview than the guy that rapes and pillages. What determines that judgement?
I have as yet to be told by anyone how the atheist that "does it for one another" is any more moral in their worldview than the guy that rapes and pillages. What determines that judgement?
That's been explained to you many times. I've seen it. You determine that judgement. I determine that judgement.
More importantly though, the existence or lack of existence of a god doesn't affect morality. It can't because there's no reason why any being just being an authority somehow makes things right or wrong. If a god says X is right and Y is wrong, that's still just the god's opinion. That's no more necessarily right or wrong than my opinions.
Now, it's my personal view that we should judge right or wrong by how much pleasure an action results in for life or how much suffering the action causes. People could definitely disagree with that view of what right and wrong is, but at least it's rooted in something that historically has had something to do with ethics. Generally speaking we say that suffering is bad and pleasure is good. We never say that just because an authority says something, that means it's good, except when it comes to a god as that authority.
Other people have made comments about evolutionary reasons for morality. We're a social species, so if I attack society society will attack me and then I won't be able to spread my genes. The idea is that our feelings of empathy were evolved to help our genetics to spread.
The type of morality you talk about seems grounded in nothing anyone has any reason to call morality, and it's unnecessary because the same things that keep you from doing jumping jacks after drinking nitroglycerin so as to blow yourself up also keep me from doing so.
Historically, we've seen abominable acts perpetrated by atheists and Christians and Muslims and everybody else, so there don't appear to be examples that show that lack of a belief in a god lead to behaviors that would show a lack of concern about ethics either. Nothing about the idea that there is no true right and wrong without a god makes any sense to me, unless we really twist the meaning of ethics away from anything it usually is described as being, or we say that there can be no true right and wrong with a god either.
That's been explained to you many times. I've seen it. You determine that judgement. I determine that judgement.
More importantly though, the existence or lack of existence of a god doesn't affect morality. It can't because there's no reason why any being just being an authority somehow makes things right or wrong. If a god says X is right and Y is wrong, that's still just the god's opinion. That's no more necessarily right or wrong than my opinions.
That would be true if said god were not the creator and author of all things. The same argument also points out that part of the creation itself cannot determine what morality is or is not for the same reason.
Quote:
Now, it's my personal view that we should judge right or wrong by how much pleasure an action results in for society or how much suffering the action causes. People could definitely disagree with that view of what right and wrong is, but at least it's rooted in something that historically has had something to do with morality. Generally speaking we say that suffering is bad and pleasure is good. We never say that just because an authority says something, that means it's good, except when it comes to a god as that authority.
Your personal view does not determine morality. You are presupposing the existence of morality and your ability to determine it. What I'm asking and have not seen yet is someone to explain how it moves from your opinion to fact.
I'm STILL waiting for you to explain how we determine what is and is not moral without a higher authority.
That would be true if said god were not the creator and author of all things. The same argument also points out that part of the creation itself cannot determine what morality is or is not for the same reason.
Your personal view does not determine morality. You are presupposing the existence of morality and your ability to determine it. What I'm asking and have not seen yet is someone to explain how it moves from your opinion to fact.
I'm STILL waiting for you to explain how we determine what is and is not moral without a higher authority.
There is no reason that I can think of why god having created all things makes god's ethics any more of a true form of ethics than a code of ethics thought up by myself.
I have as yet to be told by anyone how the atheist that "does it for one another" is any more moral in their worldview than the guy that rapes and pillages. What determines that judgement?
Truly, in your case, the blind leading the blind. Either you have not listened to what people have told you on this (hundreds (thousands?) of posts worth), or you are playing dumb.
For you to ask the question "How is it any more moral to treat people with respect than to rape and pillage?" shows just how little you think for yourself.
We all know that you would rape and pillage if it weren't for God, but the large majority of us have a moral compass outside of a dusty old book.
I'm STILL waiting for you to explain how we determine what is and is not moral without a higher authority.
People have explained it. Numerous times. I don't believe I have posted to you before, but I was also on a several year hiatus from posting. I was still reading though, and I have seen people explain this very simple thing to you over and over again, only for you to come into a new thread saying no one has ever done so.
Why is it that the religious on these boards seem incapable of moving on and learning?
I just think it is funny that you claim others can not have morals with your God, yet we prove you wrong all the time. You claim that your opinion (which is all your belief is by the way) is more valid, because it is indeed not your opinion, but the opinion of men long dead. It makes no sense.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
