Atheistic morality

[BoganGod]

Decided upon and followed through.

So the attempted drowning of an infant is just a celestial insurance policy(assuming you are following the right religion, and not heading to hell)

[jonesthecurl]

And I ask again, "Where did your god's morals come from?"

[shickingbrits]

Jones

Do you think there are morals in E=mc^2? Or in a rock? These are some aspects of God. The universe being God does not confer morals on to the universe, but the people living within it.

[notyou2]

Jones

Do you think there are morals in E=mc^2? Or in a rock? These are some aspects of God. The universe being God does not confer morals on to the universe, but the people living within it.

Why must you insist this is god? Why can't it simply be nature? Why are you insisting something that was created naturally must have a creator? What is your resoning that there is a master creator behind it all and it's not simply natural? Why must you insist on sullying it so?

Oh I get it, so some can have power over others. I see your charade, and I reject it. I will take my morals from life and nature, not from some guy that says it is all god but meanwhile is diddling little kids in the back room.

[jonesthecurl]

Jones

Do you think there are morals in E=mc^2? Or in a rock? These are some aspects of God. The universe being God does not confer morals on to the universe, but the people living within it.

Morals are human. Yes.

[Lootifer]

Lootifer,

A homosexual should be approached just as heterosexual is. Do onto others as you would have them do o to you. I certainly wouldn't want anyone hating on me because I love women.

Would I call a homosexual gay or fag? Sure, if they were calling me that. Which is actually quite common. Would I call a non-homosexual gay or fag? If they were representing the non-homosexual meanings of the term.

I once called Arron Brookes brother n***a. I didn't mean it in the negative sense, but as friend, amigo, and that's how he took it. He could have taken it any way he wanted, but that would have been taking it not as it was meant.

You miss the point my question.

Assuming you live in a god approved society (that is a society where the moral compass is dictated by god) how should that society deal with homosexuals? A society's rules generally reflect the society's morals.

Most people can inherently work out that murder is wrong, therefore collectively we have decided to make murder (in most circumstances) illegal. I am asking if you were in charge how would you deal with homosexuals?

I am not starting a debate on the right or wrong of homosexuality, its just a useful example of making moral decisions in different time frame contexts (infinity vs. here and now).

[2dimes]

He explained how he "deals" with homosexuals in the first sentence. Other people's sexuality is like their preference in sandwiches. If you're not eating my sandwich it's pretty inconsequential. Sure I could have an emotional defense of the best sandwich but in the end it likely does not rate in terms of an on the spot wrongful act.

Murder and theft do. If a person was murdered they most likely were not a willing participant.

[degaston]

Jones

Do you think there are morals in E=mc^2? Or in a rock? These are some aspects of God. The universe being God does not confer morals on to the universe, but the people living within it.

Morals are human. Yes.

Or maybe the basis for morals evolved in the brains of our pre-human ancestors over the course of millions of years as a part of becoming a successful social animal. There's plenty of information out there for anyone who's interested.
(CNN) Morality: It's not just for humans
BRAINTRUST: WHAT NEUROSCIENCE TELLS US ABOUT MORALITY
(Wikipedia) Evolution of morality
(Wikipedia) Science of morality

Claiming that God provides the basis for morality is a joke. God, as described in the Old Testament, is an immoral monster who committed and condoned many atrocities. Jesus may have been a more moral character, but he supported the Old Testament and did not condemn slavery, so I don't really buy his "Holier than thou" act.

In the absence of effective or just government law enforcement, religion was useful for enforcing morals which led to more successful societies, but the moral values (other than those added solely for the purpose of maintaining religion's authority) were already a part of society. Our morals have continued to evolve since then, which is why the Old Testament (and God, and Religion in general) is becoming less and less relevant to anyone's life.

[shickingbrits]

What do you mean "how would you deal with homosexuals"? I don't want to be in charge, I want to be a part of a species that took their gift and the knowledge that came with it and make a home for man with it. How I would like that society to "deal with" homosexuals is to not feel they need to "deal with" them. Why fix something that isn't broken?

If I am treating all others the way I want to be treated and society derives it laws from same, then there is nothing to deal with as it becomes an equal but different aspect of society. I don't need laws preventing or promoting any individual aspect.

To "deal with" them assumes that I in my understanding of sex am somehow better than others with a different understanding of sex. It also assumes that I can or should use my ability to "deal with" them, which I neither want nor do I think anyone should have.

Why must you insist that the trillions of bits coming together to bring you life isn't your creator? Is a rose by another name not the same? Indeed here denying the rose its name is to enable yourself to decide what you are doing is right based on your own gratification. When everyone follows this idea, we are left with a scrambling, trouncing society which doesn't make real progress. I don't think there is one "right" society but potentially thousands of right societies based on differences that exist. But until we allow for these societies to emerge and reflect their basic principles through policy, we will not have any. And as long as we deny the outcomes of our existing societies and instead cling to the rosy propaganda we will not make any progress. It is the insistence that we are right and others are wrong and we have the power to make them wrong that is destroying the world. This is done so that one may tower over the other.

When a society is based on treating others as you wish to be treated, the ability to tower over others is based on your willingness to serve the greater good. Being great is treating others well.

[tzor]

why do you guys keep humoring shickingbrits?

I don't know.

I'll get back to you on that.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

why do you guys keep humoring shickingbrits?

he's a troll, just let him baste in his own trollery

Either he's a troll and it's amusing to watch him troll (he's pretty good at it), or he's genuine and it's amusing to watch him squirm around. The creationists are a bit like contortionists with their arguments and I enjoy their struggle to fit into a small area.

-TG

[shickingbrits]

I enjoy how people don't actual argue valid points but just go straight to conclusions:

"The creationists are a bit like contortionists with their arguments and I enjoy their struggle to fit into a small area."

-TG

See the way logic works is first you must display some, for example you take a point or example in which I did such an act and then you get to come to the conclusion. But it would seem that atheist struggle with a line of reasoning, detecting a jump in logic and reaching valid conclusions. i.e. I haven't been squirming and yet I'm genuine.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

I enjoy how people don't actual argue valid points but just go straight to conclusions:

"The creationists are a bit like contortionists with their arguments and I enjoy their struggle to fit into a small area."

-TG

See the way logic works is first you must display some, for example you take a point or example in which I did such an act and then you get to come to the conclusion. But it would seem that atheist struggle with a line of reasoning, detecting a jump in logic and reaching valid conclusions. i.e. I haven't been squirming and yet I'm genuine.

It wasn't an argument. It's an observation from years of arguing with creationists and IDers. I've argued on this board for years in most of the relevant threads, and to a lesser extent irl (only if somebody actually wants to discuss it, I'm not one of those militants who goes around telling people they're wrong), and without fail they squirm around and try to connect pieces that don't mesh.

If you want a specific example, I would say just read any of your posts in response to evidence-based claims for evolution, but seeing as how you wrote them (if in genuine fashion), then I doubt you'll acknowledge it. Or read uc or any of the others. Beyond that, I don't enjoy the squirming so much that I'll drag up years' worth of quotes just to watch more squirming. Too much work for too little payoff.

-TG

[shickingbrits]

I have never claimed anything is wrong with the evidence for evolution, I claimed that the evidence for evolution is evidence towards God, being that God is everything and therefore anything which is discovered is an aspect of God. What I do deny is that evolution in any way deters from God, it is just the manifestation of his plan.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

That's fair, I suppose. I mis-characterized you as similar to uc and jay, among others.

-TG

[degaston]

I enjoy how people don't actual argue valid points but just go straight to conclusions:

See the way logic works is first you must display some, for example you take a point or example in which I did such an act and then you get to come to the conclusion. But it would seem that atheist struggle with a line of reasoning, detecting a jump in logic and reaching valid conclusions. i.e. I haven't been squirming and yet I'm genuine.

I have never claimed anything is wrong with the evidence for evolution, I claimed that the evidence for evolution is evidence towards God, being that God is everything and therefore anything which is discovered is an aspect of God. What I do deny is that evolution in any way deters from God, it is just the manifestation of his plan.

And I enjoy how you try to explain how logic works, and then use a logical fallacy to justify your views.

Here, let me try:

God is nothing, therefore nothing which is discovered is an aspect of God.

Sounds just as reasonable as your statement, doesn't it?

I'm not saying that evolution disproves God, but it does disprove the Bible as an inerrant source of literal truth. (Actually, the Bible disproves itself through its own numerous self-contradictions.) I suppose that it could still be the literal word of God, but in that case, God was lying, and why anyone would want to follow a God who lies is beyond me. But I think the more reasonable conclusion is that it is just a collection of stories made up and passed down by ordinary, fallible humans who may have had good intentions about creating a well-ordered society, but did not know a thing about science.

And if the Old Testament cannot be believed, and there was no Adam and Eve or original sin, then Jesus (if he was an actual person) was teaching a lie, and there was no meaning to his death, and the entire story is exposed as a big fairy tale designed to keep people in line. This does not disprove the possibility that there could be a God out there who started the whole universe, but if there is one, then it appears that he* does not care about how he is portrayed, or the accuracy of the words attributed to him, and so it seems unlikely that he would care one bit about whether we believe in him or not.

* Male pronouns used for convenience only.

[shickingbrits]

Degaston,

Should I foe you or will me ignoring your posts be enough for you to stop writing to me?

Let me humour you though (and by that I mean use you as an excuse to humour myself).

God is everything and as such, it would be impossible to encompass him in any form of portrayal. On the other hand, any form of portrayal would have him in it, even if it was attempting to disavow him. i.e. your post has God in it. If scientists do find the god particle and say eureka! that doesn't mean much. Though it would be discovering the thing which is in everything, it gives an isolated understanding of the thing. Again if we can discover all the potential outcomes that the god particle may produce, it doesn't mean much. It is merely knowledge without direction.

Direction comes from how we make use of the knowledge and that is where the prophets come in. Was Mohammed a messenger of God? By my definition of God, he has to be. Some people take their understanding of everything from Mohammed's teachings. I'm not one of those people for the same reason I don't believe in the use of a secular science. The direction is not the one most suited to the best possible human outcomes.

Was Moses a prophet? Without question, but his direction leads to negative outcomes. Because of this, I take the meaning of Jesus to be the fulfillment of the commands. Moses splashed some paint on a canvas and Jesus turned it into art. Now you can keep saying that Moses made his red paint out of crushed beetles and ignore the masterpiece if you wish, but I think you'd be missing the point.

Jesus gave a simple command, one known to many societies and reoccurring in many doctrines, of the golden rule. But he coupled it with a few important structural caveats: eternal life and a ultimate creator. The idea that we were all created equally insists we treat each other as such or act in ignorance. The fact that our acts are eternal suggest we take each act with care. It's a simple guide to taking everything and living through it productively. If everyone follows it, then no negative outcomes occur. If a single person follows it, he will be mistreated by the rest. It's a social bargain, not a sacrifice for an eternal afterlife, but a bargain that says I want to make the eternity I know, live and breath into the best one I can.

Science does not attempt to provide such a guide and many try to claim that it displaces God. But in displacing God, you've really displaced equality and reason to comply to the social bargain: if everything is random and turns to dust, then any act I do has no significance or consequences.

Can the same level of morality be achieved if someone followed the golden rule without eternity or equality intrinsic to the decision? I think wanting the golden rule without equality and eternality of act suggests that they would not follow it very well.

But, Degaston I would so like to engage in further discussion with you, but until you answer the first question I asked you, I feel I am making you look bad by being more forthcoming than you. And I don't wish to make you look bad. So when you give me the basic unit of climate change, warming per measure of CO2, I'll reply to your further posts.

[Metsfanmax]

So when you give me the basic unit of climate change, warming per measure of CO2, I'll reply to your further posts.

About 2-3 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2. We've known that since about 1900. What's next?

[tzor]

I'm not saying that evolution disproves God, but it does disprove the Bible as an inerrant source of literal truth. (Actually, the Bible disproves itself through its own numerous self-contradictions.) I suppose that it could still be the literal word of God, but in that case, God was lying, and why anyone would want to follow a God who lies is beyond me. But I think the more reasonable conclusion is that it is just a collection of stories made up and passed down by ordinary, fallible humans who may have had good intentions about creating a well-ordered society, but did not know a thing about science.

First of all, and this is very important, the religious arguments against a literal word for word interpretation for Genesis is not something you are going to see around here. I would be more than happy to make it, again and again. The best quote I know comes from a cardinal at the time of Galileo, "The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." The Book of Genesis is not an oral dictation from God. From a historical perspective there are very few new stories in Genesis, most of them are adapted and modified from stories told by the various nations in the general region.

Let's take Noah's story ...

The earliest written flood myth is found in the Mesopotamian Epic of Atrahasis and Epic of Gilgamesh texts. Many scholars believe that Noah and the Biblical Flood story are derived from the Mesopotamian version, predominantly because Biblical mythology that is today found in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mandeanism shares overlapping consistency with far older written ancient Mesopotamian story of The Great Flood, and that the early Hebrews were known to have lived in Mesopotamia. The Encyclopedia Judaica adds that there is a strong suggestion that

an intermediate agent was active. The people most likely to have fulfilled this role are the Hurrians, whose territory included the city of Haran, where the Patriarch Abraham had his roots. The Hurrians inherited the Flood story from Babylonia.

So in order to see the "value added" in the stories you have to know how they are different in terms of the stories they were copied from. These differences are sometimes subtle and sometimes drastic.

So the science of Genesis was the general understanding of science at that time. The stories in Genesis were generally the stories being told at the time, but with differences that indicate a unity of the heavenly hosts to the God of Abraham as opposed to the normal notion of all troubles coming from the conflicts among the gods themselves, as well as (depending on which set of later editors are adding their words to the documents) references to various aspects of the law that would be developed after Sinai.

[tzor]

About 2-3 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2. We've known that since about 1900. What's next?

"Doubling?" Oh I do like this one. Those words left unspoken (or unwritten). You mean the doubling of the man made emissions of CO2, right?

Because we have never doubled the CO2 content in the atmosphere. And we are currently in no position to do so.

Ice cores show that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have remained between 180 and 300 parts per million for the past half-a-million years. In recent centuries, however, CO2 levels have risen sharply, to at least 380 ppm.

So unless you take the lowest point in all of known history, it's not a doubling and certainly not a doubling since the recent centuries.

And it's not even a doubling ... after doubling ...

Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era ...

[Metsfanmax]

About 2-3 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2. We've known that since about 1900. What's next?

"Doubling?" Oh I do like this one. Those words left unspoken (or unwritten). You mean the doubling of the man made emissions of CO2, right?

No, I mean doubling of the total concentration of carbon dioxide. The atmosphere basically doesn't care whether the CO2 is anthropogenic or not: it has the same greenhouse effect. So the relevant metric is the total concentration.

Because we have never doubled the CO2 content in the atmosphere. And we are currently in no position to do so.

Ice cores show that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have remained between 180 and 300 parts per million for the past half-a-million years. In recent centuries, however, CO2 levels have risen sharply, to at least 380 ppm.

So unless you take the lowest point in all of known history, it's not a doubling and certainly not a doubling since the recent centuries.

We are absolutely in a position to double the CO2 content of the atmosphere. The pre-industrial concentration was about 280 ppm. The current concentration is about 400 ppm, a 40% increase. A typical 'worst-case' scenario -- where significant action on climate change is not taken by the global community -- involves the concentration reaching something like 1000 ppm by the end of the century, which is more than tripling the concentration.

[tzor]

About 2-3 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2. We've known that since about 1900. What's next?

We are absolutely in a position to double the CO2 content of the atmosphere. The pre-industrial concentration was about 280 ppm. The current concentration is about 400 ppm, a 40% increase. A typical 'worst-case' scenario -- where significant action on climate change is not taken by the global community -- involves the concentration reaching something like 1000 ppm by the end of the century, which is more than tripling the concentration.

OK you started saying "per doubling." Now if you cherry pick the numbers (you take 280 but it's been as high as 300 in the pre-industrial age) and you look at the current 400 you see a rate of 1.429. If you take a "worst case scenario" ... oh yea those oversimplified computer models that can't predict shit ...

[Metsfanmax]

About 2-3 degrees Celsius per doubling of CO2. We've known that since about 1900. What's next?

We are absolutely in a position to double the CO2 content of the atmosphere. The pre-industrial concentration was about 280 ppm. The current concentration is about 400 ppm, a 40% increase. A typical 'worst-case' scenario -- where significant action on climate change is not taken by the global community -- involves the concentration reaching something like 1000 ppm by the end of the century, which is more than tripling the concentration.

OK you started saying "per doubling." Now if you cherry pick the numbers (you take 280 but it's been as high as 300 in the pre-industrial age) and you look at the current 400 you see a rate of 1.429. If you take a "worst case scenario" ... oh yea those oversimplified computer models that can't predict shit ...

You're misunderstanding the point. I was not saying anything about the actual increase of carbon dioxide that we have observed. shickingbrits asked for the following information, essentially: if we were to double the concentration of CO2, how much would the temperature rise as a result? I was giving him the answer to that question, without saying that the concentration has risen by that much.

So if you then ask, how do we know what that number is if the concentration hasn't doubled? Then you're asking the wrong question. The amount "per doubling" is just a convenient yardstick we use. It didn't have to be "per doubling." It could have been "per increase by a factor of 1.429." You can imagine why the scientific community might have picked the easier number to remember. The relevant physics here can be expressed in simple algebraic terms and has been known since the time of Arrhenius in the late 1800s. It really has nothing to do with computer models*. It's a simple exponential relationship: the warming effect increases exponentially in response to a linear increase in carbon dioxide. Therefore it doesn't matter what exponential factor you use: you can scale it appropriately for any increase over the baseline CO2.

*What the computer models try to do is capture all the fancy effects that the simple equations don't capture: the complicated feedbacks like what happens to clouds and ice. And that's important to know. But it doesn't change the simple exponential relationship between the greenhouse effect and the greenhouse gas concentration that you find when you hold everything else equal.

Finally, once we know how the climate responds to a given increase in carbon dioxide concentration, we want to ask: well, just how much is the concentration going to increase? Well, we do that essentially by projecting how much fossil fuels we're going to burn over the next 100 years. That tells us directly how much CO2 we're putting into the atmosphere. That's an economics problem, not a climate problem, but it's one where it's not hard to get simple estimates of how much we're going to burn.

[BigBallinStalin]

Degaston,

[degaston]

Live long and prosper, BBS.