Religion is good because it gives the believer an objective and absolute standard of morality

[Vivacia]

(This idea was introduced in another thread, but it felt like an unfair tangent for that thread to be taking in my humble opinion, but one I'd be interested in discussing).

Firstly, I absolutely disagree with the statement.

Secondly, I feel as an atheist I have an objective morality, if not an absolute one.

Just because something existed in Biblical times does not mean God approved of it so your god is not omnipotent?

The whole story of Moses is about the Israelites being freed from Egyptian slavery. Yes, and this god killing all of those babies in order to do so.

It is also estimated that there are over 27 million people in the world today subjected to slavery of all descriptions if a god existed you think they'd do something about this.

...and it is Christians who are at the forefront of trying to fight this. I'm sure people of all faiths and none are against (the permitted in the bible) slavery.

Seriously,do you think this world would be a better place if we were all automatons controlled by God. I personally think it would be a bit pointless. Someone suggested in a previous thread that God should cause anyone about to do something awful to have a heart attack and die but where do you draw the line? I imagine there would be uproar if God intervened in the lives of anyone taking part in pre/extra marital sex. Does he just have to stop people doing the things that YOU personally think are wrong or is He allowed to have free reign in making us all perfect examples of how humans should live?

Well I believe that people do have a choice, because there are no gods. I think we'd have even more capacity for good if there was no religion.

Does such a person exist?

Er, yes, that's why I started this thread.....If she wanted to discuss what she said I think she'd be here joining in this discussion.

Vivacia, no such person exists. Your OP title is a misrepresentation of something another poster said (see upthread) combined with the sentiment of the poster you are unwilling to name. IMHO that is poor form.

Perhaps the reason that she is not
discussing it on this thread is because she expanded on it in the original thread.

I appreciate there's a risk of that accusation, and it may be true, although not my intention. I'll take the slur rather than drag someone into the thread.

Besides, I doubt I'm the only one finding it easy to believe that people out there believe the bible is the final word on right and wrong.

Could I, in anyway whatsoever, be considered "good" if I sat and watched a child being tortured and murdered without intervening?

Who, in their right mind, would consider me "good" for behaviour like that?

But, according to Christians their "good" god not only does that every single day (multiple times) he actually planned it all in advance...or at the very least knew it would happen.

Oddest thing about Christians, aside from their truly ridiculous beliefs, is that they worship a monster and are bizarrely proud of themselves for it.

vdb

Sorry, but all of your post is total nonsense.

The Bible DOES condone slavery, very clearly (along with racism, sexism, homophobia, genocide, rape and murder). An odd thing to do in a book designed to serve as a moral guideline for us all.

And what earthly difference does it make if it wasn't based on "race". So what? How does that make it better?

Slavery, for any reason, is one of the most despicable things ever invented by human beings. And your god is absolutely fine with it. "Look, everyone, feel free to smack them up a bit (they do belong to you, after all) but they'd better still be alive after three days or they'll be trouble".

How embarrassing and shameful that you have to justify SLAVERY to make sense of your incoherent babble of a holy book.

Has it never occurred to you, even momentarily, that it might actually be precisely what it looks like - the mythical fantasies of extremely primitive people who thought the moon was a light and the earth had corners?

And your remark about Christians being at the forefront of abolishing slavery is fatuous, deceptive and only slightly historically accurate.

Who, precisely, do you think was fighting for the right to keep slaves? CHRISTIANS. And their justification? The Bible.

Yes, it was OTHER Christians who fought to abolish it. Not altogether a surprise in a country where pretty much everyone was a Christian.

And by the way...please point out the EXACT passage in the Bible that the abolitionists used to support their Christian movement? If their actions were because they were Christians, it must have had some support in the Bible, surely?

Let me save you some time....it doesn't. They could never quote the Bible to condemn slavery, because the Bible only condones it. It never, ever even comes close to condemning it.

I do love the way you are demanding evidence, though. Got any that this god of yours is anything other than a figment of your imagination? Let's start there shall we. Shouldn't be too hard given that you are confidently explaining what he thinks to everyone.

It's like me coming along and saying here I think unicorns are real. I wrote a book about them with my mates. They give me messages about how to live my life and I do not need to provide you with any proof of their existence. I have faith in them. And my faith in them justifies years nay eons of injustice on others. Now you prove to me that I'm wrong!
It's ridiculous. Just because there is a mass delusion doesn't make it less of a delusion.
I'm the one making the crazy claims, I should have to back them up!!

I think that's why religion's bad!

Quite, Farely. It's not hard at all to show up the intrinsic stupidity of religious beliefs.

Imagine if I announced that by chanting in Latin over a cream cracker I could turn it into the actual flesh of the dead Marilyn Monroe and then proceeded to eat it?

To put it mildly, my GP would be concerned.

But swap Marilyn for Jesus and a cream cracker for a bit of rice paper, and suddenly it's all terribly solemn and something we must, just must, "respect".

It's inane and insane.

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

That's God speaking by the way. However you look at it your God thinks it is okay for people to hit people who work for them, as long as they don't die straight away.

How anyone can call someone who is not convinced by the claims of their religion arrogant is hilarious! Do you think it arrogant of me to question the Quran and the actions of Allah detailed therein? No, I didn't think so.

Arrogance is thinking you know better than others without evidence to suggest such is the case. Just sayin'.

Who are you posing that question to Head?

I am not calling anyone arrogant for not believing what I do.....people are free to believe what they like. What I am saying is that when you are telling Christians how stupid they are for believing what they believe, you need to try and see that they view the situation very differently to you. When you are trying to belittle Christianity, you trawl through the Bible finding anything you can try and use to prove that God is malicious(and yet you don't believe He even exists, so you don't really think he is malicious) A Christian has an altogether different view of God and thus would find it arrogant to question what he does. He is God after all and we are mere mortals.
I have already stated that the Bible can be used to justify slavery and to condemn it. If you research the verses quoted above you will find out that if people had slaves they were encouraged to treat them well and if they had been beaten,it would be because they had committed a crime, hence the master only to be punished if he murdered them. In some ways this verse proves to me that God did NOT approve of the sentiment that slaves were possessions as how could a master be punished for killing a possession.It is important to not only read the Bible in context but to read it as a whole. Here is a paper telling you what bits of the Bible abolitionists used(if you are genuinely interested in what the Bible says)

archive.churchsociety.org/crossway/documents/Cway_105_SlaveryAbolitionism.pdf

One of the early Christians was a converted slave and Paul wrote to his owner and asked him to release him and treat him as an equal brother in Christ. That to me shows how early Christians viewed slavery.
When I talked of Christians being at the forefront of the fight against slavery, I was actually talking about today and modern day slavery.

I do understand that you think what I believe is madness but I do struggle with how rude you think you can be when discussing our different opinions.

vdb. Many Christians no longer post on these threads because of the insults they receive for their beliefs. Please don t take it personally - most of us have been on the receiving end. Remember 1 Peter 4 :14.

When I look at dd (10yrs old), and I believe she is intrinsically good and kind since birth, I've often thought along the lines of this Op. Where did she get her morality from? It is not taught, she's doesn't have a religious upbringing although she goes to church occasionally and is christened at the Local church. I don't lecture her a home about values and morality, I 'm fairly fuzzy in my thinking about all this and am conscious of passing any bias to her.

What am I trying to say? So, I guess I 'm thinking as a child, even without religion, she somehow has an instinct for right and wrong, although I accept that there are likely to be subtle cultural influences....but then, there are a lot of bad cultural influences around as well (the news, violence etc), but she seems to be able to filter the good from bad, right from wrong.

I think it is taught Queen - if only by your example? I think it's nurture rather than nature. Mind you I would have thought that about language at one point.

I guess it must help that you haven't gone on about Original Sin.

vbd is just been thinking what a good discussion it was, with good points on both sides.

I think it's fair enough for people to show flaws in others arguments though.

No, haven't gone on about original sin at all at home. It's not the language or terms of reference we use, even though we loosely call ourselves Christians and I do mean very loosely, verging on agnostic, if we have to call ourselves anything at all e.g. Filling in forms. You think morality is taught/nurtured....interesting, because I seriously don't really talk about values in an explicit way. I think they become corrupted as they grow up, some more susceptible to others depending on their moral compass I suppose. Or are you saying the moral compass is taught?

I think the model that makes the most sense and has the most evidence is that norms and values are taught. Indeed it is this whole conundrum of nature/nurture that sees sociologists poring over cases of feral children because it can help to show what is/isn't instinct. I'm not sure the idea of something gradually being corrupted is workable for me because of the sheer weight of evidence showing that we learn from the interactions around us how to be part of a society.

Furthermore how does this complete set of intact morals stand up to what we know about child development and how children learn? And about the tiny number of children who appear to have grave difficulty learning the rules and often go on to be diagnosed with sociopathic personalities in later life and so on?

But it is a fascinating topic, I love programmes about the morality within the animal kingdom too, can't watch the killing stuff so much though.

so....when a small child again and again and again goes to do something that you have told them not to, sometimes even giving you a look before they do it which shows you they are very clear that this is naughty and pushing boundaries....where did they learn that from?

I am not calling anyone arrogant for not believing what I do

It saddens me that you, and anyone would consider themselves arrogant for questioning the actions of anything, be it a human or a god. You have this situation where god wanted you to use this ability to weigh up actions to become a Christian yes? As in you read that Jesus fed the 5000 and so on yes, which you liked the sound of because he was doing nice things which helped you think that he was god yes? But you now feel that you are not allowed to use those thinking skills now that you are a Christian, and if you read anything in the Bible that initially seems abhorrent then you have to quickly do a mix up of 'Although it makes god look horrible it's actually somehow the actions of a loving god' and 'I am not to question his choices', although he expected you to, to become a Christian. Do you get what I am saying?

When I was dating my husband he seemed really good and loving and caring. Luckily 13 years later he is still a really great guy. If I find out that he used to be involved in the slave trade before we met I would not just ignore that information because we are now in a relationship. Being married to him does not mean I don't get to make a judgement about his behaviour. And if you say 'but we're talking about god' then again god needed you to use your morals to become a Christian, but now expects you to ignore those internal feelings of disgust?

Norms and values are taught by parents and these are culturally relative. The boundaries that are accepted by societies are different so in Roman times it was ok to expose an unwanted child and leave them to die.These days we find that a horrifying practice.

What the study of ethics seeks to do is dig beneath those cultural norms and ask why do we teach not to lie or steal or kill?

Christians can look to the resources of their tradition which includes the Bible. Atheists don't have that resource. The vast majority of people never bother to think about this and are probably assuming that cultural norms and a bit of inherited vaguely remembered ten commandments will do the job. But if you are absolutely determined that Christianity has no worth then you have to work much harder to say why you teach the morals that you teach your children.

where did they learn that from?

To push boundaries? Well it's how they learn, through repetition, like how they enjoy the same book again and again or knocking over a stack of bricks. It's important to remember that children appear to bring a personality type with them as well, so some are much more compliant than others (wouldn't that be nice!), and will not push boundaries as often as say a child with a more headstrong demeanour will. It's also important to note the part the adult is playing in the interactions because as care givers we are very much part of the exchange.