Originally posted by gaychessplayer
If there is no God, why should I "respect others?" I should do whatever makes me happy as long as I can get away with it. There are no ultimate consequences for my actions, so as long as I die happy, that's fine! If I get my kicks from killing innocent people and can get away with it, why not do it?

If there is no God, who's to say what a "goo ...[text shortened]... no point or purpose to anything. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die."

But you can't get away with it. You'll get caught. A life in harmony with society is better than one as a fugitive.

Do you get your kicks from killing innocent people? Not many people do. Some do.

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
All moral claims made by atheists are totally subjective. There are no "good" or "bad" rules in any ultimate sense. They simply exist. The only reason in a Godless world to respect others is so that others will respect me. Ultimately, though, in a Godless universe it's just a matter of what I can get away with. In a Godless universe, there is no moral difference between Hitler and Mother Theresa.

There's no good or bad in any ultimate sense anyway. In Christianity you simply have one more opinion out there. Unfortunately it belongs to an infinitely powerful person.

Originally posted by agryson
Well, you seem not to have understood that it was an alternative to Pascals' Wager in that any of the three options are potentially possible (though option 3 is infinitely, yes, infinitely, more likely). Consequently, as you have to find a way to get the best of all worlds, the only option is to be a humnastic atheist.
As for me needing a God for morality, ...[text shortened]... ust be rolling their eyes at you wondering what's taking so long before you get the point?

No, I don't believe that any group has a "monopoly" on morality. An atheist can behave just as morally as a theist. The difference is that the atheist's morality is subjective and the theist's morality is objective. The atheist who murders babies is morally equal to the atheist who feeds babies. The theist who murders babies is doing something that is objectively wrong, while the theist who feeds babies is doing something that is objectively right.

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
I agree, if there is no God then morality is subjective. Hence my claim that in a Godless universe, Hitler and Mother Theresa are morally identical. The U. S. imposes laws respecting a free press and the Nazi's imposed laws taking all rights away from Jews, whom they consequently slaughered. Neither one deserves moral praise nor moral condemnation in a Godless universe.

Funnily enough, your second example is based on religious intolerance and who tends to be the most religiously intolerant? Ironically the religious. If anything, a lack of religion gives one more opportunity to be a good person.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
But you can't get away with it. You'll get caught. A life in harmony with society is better than one as a fugitive.

Do you get your kicks from killing innocent people? Not many people do. Some do.

Yes. A non-theistic morality is totally pragmatic. If it suits society to kill Jews for some reason, then it is morally permissible. If it's legal, then it's moral.

Originally posted by agryson
Funnily enough, your second example is based on religious intolerance and who tends to be the most religiously intolerant? Ironically the religious. If anything, a lack of religion gives one more opportunity to be a good person.

The most secular century in history was the twentieth century, and it was also by far the bloodiest century. Virtually all of the mass-murderers (Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin) were atheists.

Originally posted by agryson
Funnily enough, your second example is based on religious intolerance and who tends to be the most religiously intolerant? Ironically the religious. If anything, a lack of religion gives one more opportunity to be a good person.

The best anidote to religious intolerance is to adopt a Christian morality. Our founding fathers based their religious tolerance on the view that "We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
No, I don't believe that any group has a "monopoly" on morality. An atheist can behave just as morally as a theist. The difference is that the atheist's morality is subjective and the theist's morality is objective. The atheist who murders babies is morally equal to the atheist who feeds babies. The theist who murders babies is doing something th ...[text shortened]... vely wrong, while the theist who feeds babies is doing something that is objectively right.

While morality in a philosophical sense tends to be considered subjective, there is a great deal of evidence showing that in practice there is an objective human morality which forbids murder for example in many cases. Further to this, even if you continue to claim that morality is subjective, that does not put people who do bad things and people who do good things on the same moral level by virtue of the fact that you are able to choose examples which everyone in this thread, religious or not can recognise as morally repugnant.
Morality can and does exist without the necessity of a God. Once more, if the source of morality is a fear of retribution or a longing for reward, we're little more than puppies being toilet trained. If the source is simply knowing what is best for society, and ergo, the individual who is a part of that society, then the need for a God for such reasons no longer exists.

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
The best anidote to religious intolerance is to adopt a Christian morality. Our founding fathers based their religious tolerance on the view that "We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

And there's the rub. Why a christian morality as opposed to a pagan one (pagan celts were the first to form democracies and judicial systems, even going so far as to grant suffrage). If a pagan morality can do the same job despite such religions generally giving absolutely no reward for doing good, then why not an atheistic morality? Your claims that the twentieth century was the bloodiest and also the most atheistic is not a valid hypothesis, it's merely inductive reasoning which like God himself is a hypothesis which does not lend itself to being able to be disproved, as any good hypothesis should according to Popperism.

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
Thank you for responding to my post with a carefully crafted, well-thought-out argument.

You're welcome. I try to respond in kind.

Do you really think your "no absolute morality without a god" argument is carefully crafted, or well-thought-out?

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
All moral claims made by atheists are totally subjective. There are no "good" or "bad" rules in any ultimate sense. They simply exist. The only reason in a Godless world to respect others is so that others will respect me. Ultimately, though, in a Godless universe it's just a matter of what I can get away with. In a Godless universe, there is no moral difference between Hitler and Mother Theresa.

Let’s suppose for the moment that you are wrong: it turns out that, like it or not, there is no God.

If you were to discover that, are you saying that you see no moral difference between the acts of a Hitler and those of a Mother Theresa? Or, that you have no sense of the matter, absent a God who declares one set of actions to be moral and the other not?

Probably any human behavior is subject to statistical distribution, whatever its width or shape. People who obtain their happiness from inflicting capricious pain and suffering on others—e.g., rape. torture, your “killing of innocents”—are more generally judged to be insane, rather than simply immoral. It’s quite possible that eons of evolution as social animals has “wired” some moral sensibilities into the human consciousness—again, that can likely be seen in a statistical distribution across cultures and religions. That’s only one hypothesis, of course.

In any event, a common moral feature seems to be that one needs a justifying reason for harming another. People and cultures may disagree about what constitutes a sufficient justifying reason, and under what conditions, but it seems to be such a common feature that people who deny such a need are likely to be judged, not just morally, but mentally deficient. And this seems to hold regardless of religion, which religion or no religion. The justifying reasons themselves also do not seem to be at such variance across cultures and religions (though of course there is some).

Discussions of whether such a phenomenon points to the evolution of our consciousness, simple cultural conditioning for the good of the group, or the existence of some divine agent who made it so, or—whatever—the fact remains that moral sensibility, whatever the theory behind it, seems broadly enough distributed across the human race as to belie any notion of “godlessness” leading to moral nihilism.

Maybe I’m a bit too sanguine about the matter: my personal “happiness complex” does not include any desire to inflict harm on others just for the “happiness” of it, so not doing so does not represent any sacrifice. And again, for those (statistically few) whose happiness complex includes such a desire, I suspect they are not merely in thrall to a mistaken moral theory, but insane.

If your happiness complex includes such things, and you are simply sacrificing your happiness in this existence for the sake of eternal life, then I hope you continue to do so. I doubt that that is the case, since I have yet to encounter anyone who claimed that it was. The claim is generally that there are other people for whom this is the case, and that they would be unleashed, so to speak, if they stopped believing in God—but I suspect that an insane mind can find its way around that...

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
No, I don't believe that any group has a "monopoly" on morality. An atheist can behave just as morally as a theist. The difference is that the atheist's morality is subjective and the theist's morality is objective. The atheist who murders babies is morally equal to the atheist who feeds babies. The theist who murders babies is doing something th ...[text shortened]... vely wrong, while the theist who feeds babies is doing something that is objectively right.

Morality is imposed by society, above the morality of the Bible. Lot's of "moral" things in the bible simply aren't followed (even by believers) because they don't make sense nowadays. The bible is obsolete.
I don't understand how u can say it's morally equal to kill/feed babies for atheists or anyone. You must have some misconception or we must be talking about different things. I guess you simply have to feel that your moral is superior to everyone else who doesn't believe in the bible. Religion is always about you being right and righteous...

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
If there is no God, why should I "respect others?" I should do whatever makes me happy as long as I can get away with it. There are no ultimate consequences for my actions, so as long as I die happy, that's fine! If I get my kicks from killing innocent people and can get away with it, why not do it?

If there is no God, who's to say what a "goo ...[text shortened]... no point or purpose to anything. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die."

Of course there are consequences.
We have laws and rules in all societies.

This notion that without religioun we have no moral basis is quite ridiculous. The rule 'do unto others as you would have done unto you' is a pretty handy rule of thumb whether you're a christian or an atheist or anything else.

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
The most secular century in history was the twentieth century, and it was also by far the bloodiest century. Virtually all of the mass-murderers (Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin) were atheists.

hahaha
Hitler was a christian, simply all christians deny it because no one wants hitler on his team.
How about all mighty USA, protected and blessed by God Allmighty, how many have they killed for profit?
Maybe you would prefer to live in the 15-16th century with inquisitions and crusades, in the most religious of times.
for 1500 years humanity STOPPED evolving exclusively for religion fault, forbidding and oppressing everyone with free thinking. Fortunately now the religious boys aren't allowed to make decisions and we have plasma TVs and online chess.

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
Yes. A non-theistic morality is totally pragmatic. If it suits society to kill Jews for some reason, then it is morally permissible. If it's legal, then it's moral.

Morality is not determined by the needs of society. It's a judgement an individual makes - an opinion.