Can someone explain the difference between God and conscience?

[chocolatequeen]

In my life, I make decisions from a human (ie conscience) point of view, rather than because of religion/faith. Yet the outcome is the same, in most situations.

Can someone put in simple terms the difference?

We believe in an intelligent being that brought life into the world. He gave us guidelines to follow that read like a manual book on common sense. Although some of those guidelines are disputed by today's society.

Conscience is the way you have been brought up by your parents to know the difference between right and wrong.

So atheists have a conscience and us religious folk back it up with God.

with a god there is consequences outside the morals of what any given society dictates - see the abortion row.

its fine by law. its not by religeon.

religeon and faith are different - one a culture & believe system one is just a believe system - if thats got anything to do with the price of fish!

or what she just said!

A conscience is real....god isn't.

Me and Richard Dawkins - we're best buddies.

(seeker falls to the floor smoking.)

Conscience is completely internal. God is essentially external. A [erson could conceivably act against their conscience but according to what they believe to be god's command.

,Richar Dawkins rushes in with fire extinguisher, sprays seeker's smoking corpse with foam, and they both disappear in a puff of logic>

God isn't external. Conscience and God = same thing. God is All That Is.

And Dawkins can go piss up a flagpole.

seeker was just resurrected!
Proof of God if ever there was one!

Religion and God don't have much to do with each other. Religion is humanity's take on God. not God's take on God. They can't all be right can they! Havid said that, none of them are all wrong either.. just barking up the wrong tree a little. Some more than others.

Hang on - Richard Dawkins can do WHAT? I've never heard that expression before!

What if (harking back to a thread earlier today) your interpretation of god's command is to refuse to dispense the morning after pill, but your conscience as a pharmacist is to look after the patient?

God is internal if you choose to believe so.

Piss up a flagpole. Or stick his head up his jacksie and swallow. Either is fine!

God doesn't "command" people. He doesn't have any such requirements of us. People just interpret Him/Her that way. He actually doesn't have any requirements of us. The God of requirement was made up by religions.

ok well there is an argument for saying that God is the term applied to ensure that everyone's "conscience" in a particular says the same thing, in order to control their behaviour in convenient ways, with the threat of eternal damnation for the failure to comply.
conscience is a cultural construct, and so is our idea of god. in this respect one might say that God is a synonym for social control.
in fact much of what contemporary Christianity calls Right and Wrong or Morality has got zip all to do with what is actually written in the Bible.

in a particular society

Alternatively, much of what is what is written in the Bible has zip all to do with "the word of God." Those are words of human beings, and extremely old fashioned ones at that.

yes I would try to agree with that if I could get with the "word of God" as a concept

And hasn't the bible been very heavily edited by a bunch of men who were looking out for their own best interests?
?

Believe in god/universe/whatever, but don't think the bible is All That

yes it's the tippexthat gives it away
and the different coloured biros.

Does that mean then that atheists (ie living by conscience) are doing an action purely because it is good/right without expecting a positive consequence, whereas believers are doing it only because they are following instructions/getting rewarded/being watched?

ChocolateQueen - essentially, yes.

If you believe in God, you believe that there is an external and universal moral keeper. If you keep to God's law, you will go to Heaven when you die and if you don't you will go to Hell.

If you don't believe in God, you live according to your own conscience (which will have been heavily shaped by childhood influences, ie parents, school, Church etc) and believe that your reward for doing the right thing is peace of mind during your own lifetime, because there is no after life.

Think of concience as what stops you from hitting someone whenever you feel like it. For those who believe in god, he is the concience that stops you hitting them, and the law and judge and jury rolled into one too.

...and if you don't believe in God, empathy will inform your conscience and you won't hit someone because (a) you will cause them pain (b) you will lose dignity.

Much, much more powerful to live by conscience than by God .