And unfortunately, not that uncommon in the Bible Belt.

Excuse me????

He means since Atheism isn't an organized religion, it doesn't have a doctrine that states the morality its er...believers should follow. i.e. Ten Commandments. Though I figure you're probably being sarcastic with this post...didn't want to have Mort OVER compleximafy it. ;

Then he should have said SHARED or something. And no, it wasn't sarcasm. He pissed me off.

But what central moral code would atheists follow?

Uh, he DID say in his post "(not that Atheists don't have morals)" ...I think you need to learn how to read.

I think you need to learn how to shut up.

Someone's bitter about being told.

Except us atheist commie Ruskies didn't even KNOW what the heck your "pledge of alliance" is. Or was. Noone really cared. Or knew about it, for that matter. But I'm getting repetative.

While it is true that "atheists don't have a centrialized moral code" in that wed on't allg et together and have a meeting about it, it would be jsut as easy to say "religious people don't have a central moral code" because all reliegions don't share the same morals! Just as tehre are many religions, there are many types of atheists. but within each group we adhere to the same code.

I know the objectivist code is even stricter then christian codes, at least to the extent it is followed. In a chrsitian viewpoint, any sin can be accepted by "Saying you're sorry". Objectivism doesn't allow this. You atone for breaking the moral code. Any breach of the code requires you to make up for it piece by piece. You are not forgiven until you've proven youself worthy.

And tons of christian's don't follow all the commandments very closely at all. How many christians here go to church every weekend? hmm? I know, because i used to be one,a nd i know i was the only one of everyone i knew that went every week. How many truly love thier nieghbor as themselves? How many of you give all your possesions away? Is it not said "If you want to follow me, go home and give away all your possetions. Only then can you truly follow me." Jesus said that to a rich son who asked him. I'm sorry if i can't be spared to find the passage now, its 3 AM. if anyone doesn't believe me i'll go and find it if you ask. and "it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of the needle then a rich man tog et through the gates of heaven." Bit of backstory tehre, the "eye of the needle' was actually a gate in one of the cities, jsut tny enough so that an unladen camel could get through. a person would have to remove all items from thier camel to get it in (made it that much easier to deter invasion). the same principle applies. How many of you would be willing to say "I believe in YHWH" and die for it?

Objecitism does not allow this. and i'm rather sure many aetheist moral codes are based on a similar set of codes as objectivism. Morals do not come from god, they come from reason. that is all

[edit]



it wasn't meant to reach the 'ruskies', it was jsut propoganda for the US to procalaim that we were on the 'right' side, as someone already mentioned

Obi is actually closer to being correct than most of the responses to him.

Atheists don't necessarily have morals. They aren't required to. They can do, sure, but they don't have to (whereas Christians, and pretty much all other theists do)


Atheism is one statement - There is no God. That is all. That is the only thing atheism 'is'. This has no bearing on an afterlife, no bearing on any other supernatural concepts, and no bearing on morals.
An atheist can be a moral relativist, a materialist, a Satanist, or perhaps even a Jew.

You lost me there.

Lewis Black?

Maybe he meant genetically?

That's rediculous to say. It isn't absolutely necessary to belong to a religion, either. Being an 'aetheist' is too broad a statement. like i said, Objectivists have an extreamly strict set of morals. Many otehr philosophies do. Sure, i'm not required to follow it, as such, i won't be hunted down and killed by the ayn rand institute if i don't, but if I didn't I wouldn't be an objectivist. Same thing with religion. They are no absolutly required to follow the moral code. But if they didn't they wouldn't be of that religion (though, like i said, christians get to stretch that a lot).




Well, being a theist is also only one statement : There is a God. Depending on what type of theist you are, tehre is an afterlife, or ressurection, or nothing at all. And an aetheist can not be a satinist or jew. they are mutuall exclusive

But he's not talking about objectivists or any organized lifestyle crap, he's just talking about people who believe their is no god.

[QUOTE=Raoul Duke]But he's not talking about objectivists or any organized lifestyle crap, he's just talking about people who believe their is no god.[/QUOTE]

to say that tehre are lots oif people around with only the thought 'there is no god' and absolutly nothing beyond that is incredibly stupid. I'm sure tehre are a handful of that sort of people around, but tehre are jsut as many people who devoutly believe god and kill people. The belief that atheists have no morals is a complete fiction.

Oh, adn its not 'Organizied Lifestyle crap', its called philosophy

But nobody's saying atheists have no morals.

But he said that Aetheists don't need morals, and theists do. this isn't true, theists don't need morals either. but, like insanity said, if you don't adhere to the philosophy or religion, you stop beign a part of it. its the same for both atheisits and theists. Every aetheist i know confirms to a certain philosophy, jsut as most theists confirm a certain religion. Sure, tehre are a few atheisits around that don't, butt erhe are also theists around who don't.

[QUOTE=Noble Outlaw]But he said that Aetheists don't need morals, and theists do. this isn't true, theists don't need morals either. but, like insanity said, if you don't adhere to the philosophy or religion, you stop beign a part of it. its the same for both atheisits and theists. Every aetheist i know confirms to a certain philosophy, jsut as most theists confirm a certain religion. Sure, tehre are a few atheisits around that don't, butt erhe are also theists around who don't.[/QUOTE]
That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying that, due to lack of an organized religion with a guide to moral beliefs, atheists are free to make their own decisions on what they constitute right and wrong. They are not bound to abide by the ten commandants or what have you, even though those are pretty solid moral believes. Sure, a theist can not abide by a moral code but they are supposed to. That's the whole point.

And IncenityDescends, why do you think everyone has to belong to some organized philosophy? Whats the point in confirming to a philosphy like objectivist? Why not make your own damn philosophy? You need someone else to tell you how to live? Obviously most atheists have believes that go beyond "there is no god" but that is the basic premise. Atheists, as a general whole, are free from any kind of centralized moral code. They choose their own moral code.

[QUOTE=Raoul Duke]That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying that, due to lack of an organized religion with a guide to moral beliefs, atheists are free to make their own decisions on what they constitute right and wrong. They are not bound to abide by the ten commandants or what have you, even though those are pretty solid moral believes. Sure, a theist can not abide by a moral code but they are supposed to. That's the whole point.[/quote]

Yes, we are free to make up our own minds. but that doesn't mean our judgements are baseless! i think grounding decisions on firm logic, reason, and reality is a hell of a lot better then becuase "The man upstairs said so". i will admit that the ten commandments are a good moral standing, at least the second half, but that's because they are equaly valid from a reasoning point of view.



msot atheists i know base ethics in reason. in reality. that is the basis of Objectivism, though you probably don't care. And why not make our own philosophy? well, i suppose you could indeed say we each make up out own, in that we use our own judgement on things. but it is based on logic and reason from the msot part, and coming from the same point end tends to end up with similar answers using that.

i think may people confirm to a cental philosophy because all of those i know do. i could be wrong, i don't know everyone, but can you really say you know many atheists without some form of code of ethics? Any many people subscribe to cental philisophies for a simple reason- they make sence. that's why i am an objectivist, because all the arguments for it make sence to me. Ok, i'll agree that in being an atheist, you do not have the possibility of divine retribution at every turn. but that does not mean we have reason to be immoral.

[QUOTE=Kieran Horn]Why is this important? Why does anyone care? Don't these people have anything important to worry about?[/QUOTE]

For once, I and Kieran are completelly identical in opinion. In fact, this is literally what I was going to post before I read it under Kieran's name. Almost word for word.

You really don't understand what I'm saying at all. Yes, atheists base their decisions on logic and reasoning. That's what I meant by "make your own philosophy". What I mean is this - What is the point of being a self declared objectivist or whatever? Just live the way you want to live and the way you think is ethical and moral. You seem to think it's impossible to be a good person without some kind of "program" set into place for you to follow. Why do people have such a desire to cluster into little cliques and label themselves?

WOOOHOOOO!

ANARCHY!

YAH!

ANGST!!!

Wooo!!!


Man, after I finish this Linkin Park cd, I'm going to go shop at hot topic.

i thought san diego, in german, means a whale's vagina.

[QUOTE=Raoul Duke]You really don't understand what I'm saying at all. Yes, atheists base their decisions on logic and reasoning. That's what I meant by "make your own philosophy". What I mean is this - What is the point of being a self declared objectivist or whatever? Just live the way you want to live and the way you think is ethical and moral. You seem to think it's impossible to be a good person without some kind of "program" set into place for you to follow. Why do people have such a desire to cluster into little cliques and label themselves?[/QUOTE]

i am not saying it is impossible to be moral without that. quite the opposite. but unless a atheist subscribes to a philosophy, theists have basically free reign to say that they have no morals. And i subscribe to objectivism because it prefectly describes the code of eithics that i believe to be correct and jsut. to me, tehre's no reason not to be an objectivist, if you get what i mean. And we have this desire because it is good to assosiate with people who share your views. I belong to an objecivist club at my college and i can say some of the best discussions i ahve are with those people. hell, its fun.

[quote=Me, me, me, me! It was meeeee! I said this!]...does not mean they don't have morals.[/quote]

I tend to end my sentences with periods, not spaces.



Hindus have the SMRTI and SRUTI.

Jews have the TANAK.

Muslims have the Koran.

Christians have the Bible.

Buddhists have the Tripitaka.

Taoists have the Tao te Ching.

Confucianism has the Analects of Confucius.

What do atheists have? No central moral code. As Mort has said, the only central thing shared by all atheists is a denial of the existence of any god(s) or supreme being(s).



And they would be wrong.

Ok, i went back and read the actual post, so, yeah, freelancer threw me off with hisbad quoting skills there. i'm sorry for any undue mental stress i caused you, though had someone ahd the sence to go back and quote the real thing to prove lancer wrong it would have saved a lot of time. However, i do still stand by my point that atheists simply base thier judgments on reason instead of god. This leads to much similar formation of ethics. So, no, we do not have a central list somewhere like the ten commandments. but that doesn't mean the majority of us don't agree on basic priciples of right and wrong (and this happens with any theist group, too. example: i'm sure there are pro-choice christians, just not a ton.)




but again, what is shared though all of those groups? some basic ethics, like not to kill, and the belief in a god. Sure, the groups are all perhaps more solid then atheism, but there are still alrge differenes between them.




i, obviously, agree. but tehre are still people who would do it

I thought scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago?..

I believe this is called human secularism.



Do you mean pro-choice?



Sorry; when I said "theists have a central moral code," I was implying that Hindus have their centralized code, Jews theirs, etc., not that all religions share a central code.



Then those who are in error should be corrected. Simply because an atheist doesn't say "I'm a follower of [philosophy]" doesn't mean that anyone has free reign to say they're without morals.

Not sure exactly what you mean by that. you may be right, i jsut haven't heard the term before and google was rather vauge.




yes i did, sorry. its been changed.



Well, see,t hat's what i've beens aying the whole time! Different secs of atheists have a central code, jsut as differnt religions do. its just that they aren't as close-nit or easily recognised.



Again, i agree completely. i'm not sure if we're arguing or not over this topic...

Sorry; I thought your original post was saying that an atheist should subscribe to a philosophy to avoid the label of being moral-less.

Haha, no, not at all. I can see how it would be misunderstood, though, so no harm done. After all, i messed up what you said in your post, so i suppose we're even

[edit] i jsut checked over what i said, too, and it was a tad confusing. basically, i meant that some theists would take it to say that an atheist has no base for thier code of ethics unles they have a contralized philosophy to point to (and sometimes, even if they do). i am sorry for the confusion, i'm doing this and physics, so i guess my arguments haven't been the most error-free as of late.

BULL****!!!!

um... lancer, you jsut switched from attacking him because he said aetheists have no moral code (which is not what he said) to saying bull**** when he's defending the fact that they have a woral code..... whaaa?

Uh, no, he said that theists must have a moral code, which is bull****. That's so hypocritical to say that atheists don't tnecessarily have them, but theists MUST have them.

Well, then, check which statement you're quoting, because the one you did quote ahd absolutely nothing to do with what you jsut said

[quote=Looks like I'm having to quote myself again]Hindus have the SMRTI and SRUTI.

Jews have the TANAK.

Muslims have the Koran.

Christians have the Bible.

Buddhists have the Tripitaka.

Taoists have the Tao te Ching.

Confucianism has the Analects of Confucius.

What do atheists have?[/quote]

In addition, nowhere did I say that atheists are without moral codes.

Your counterarguments thus far have been well thought-out, extensive, and shockingly convincing. Each time, you've demonstrated your ability to read all of what I have to say and analyze it corectly. I look forward to your next argument.

Given that God exists, then God also has a will, or a desire, or an opinion. Those that believe in God must therefore consider the will or desire of God when acting. What precisely this will or desire actually consists of is the primary difference between religions, but they all recognise the desire of God as the ultimate desire - the will of God is the absolute good. It is "God's opinion" that decides the moral code.

No. Theist means you believe god exists. Theists have just as high a chance of having **** for morals as atheists do. And no, theists don't have to consider the will of god at all.