It's not a "necessary condition," merely an "extremely helpful and socially useful method of imbuing moral reasoning and ethical action." It's called "education." Children learn morality and ethics from being educated in them. Where children grow up without any moral or ethical education they become amoral unethical adults. Religion is (or can be) useful in teaching children morals and ethics because, when the parents are religious they are much, much more likely to subject their children to the same moral and ethical training they received. Now it is true that this can be for better or for worse, as in the distinction between the moral training of Islam versus the moral training of Christianity, but the systems in place for moral training of children provided by religion are ubiquitous, effective and of long historical standing.Brian Peacock wrote:I dont find your argument very suasive :heheSeth wrote:Unlikely. Atheism offers nothing by way of moral suasion or advice, especially no moral prohibitions on killing other people. Atheism is the essence of nihilism and provides exactly zero moral suasion or emotional control to anyone. The fact is that atheism has killed more people than Christianity and Islam and every other religion in the history of mankind, and it did so in the last hundred years or so. Atheism and it's utter lack of moral message has killed more than 100 million people, usually en masse.Crumple wrote:Islam and Christianity. Someone should have introduced him to atheism....he and lot more would still be alive.
The notion that Atheism is morally superior to anything is complete idiocy.
You imply that religious indoctrination imbues moral normitivity without explaining how or why subscribing or adhering to a religion's moral code is a neccesary condition of moral reasoning or ethical action, nor how an absence of god belief necessarily leads to emotionism and moral turpitude and ethical laxity?
There is no reason therefore to disrupt those systems or deny children the valuable lessons in morality that religion can teach for no better reason than that some Atheist fuckwits think that the theistic claims made in conjunction with such training might be false. What does it matter if God exists or not if the force of religion in people's moral and ethical lives is a positive one that causes them to be better people, better citizens and live in peace with one another? The Atheist conceit that "rationality" is somehow superior to what they claim is the "delusion" of religion is an entirely unfounded and unsupported claim. There is absolutely no evidence that being an Atheist imbues one with reason, rationality, morality or ethics.
You fail to provide a shred of evidence why ATHEISM is a "necessary condition" for moral and ethical behavior, and more importantly you don't provide any evidence whatsoever that Atheism does not lead to "emotionism and moral turpitude and ethical laxity." Historical evidence on the other hand demonstrates quite clearly that atheism is an essential component in the warped psyches of the worst mass murdering dictators in human history, including Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and others.
Therefore we can empirically state that a lack of religious belief and the moral and ethical training that being raised in a religion provides, or even the rejection of such religious teaching as an adult, provides fertile ground for nihilistic, narcissistic behaviors that are detrimental to others and society as a whole. The evidence shows that where the individual (think Stalin or Kim Jong Un) has no belief that he is constrained by any moral code other than his own, narcissism and megalomania are commonplace pathologies that lead such people into antisocial, immoral and unethical behavior. Where such people gain power, people die by the tens of millions.
Most major religions use the carrot and stick method to persuade and entice people into rejecting their baser instincts and psychological pathologies by claiming that some higher power will judge them for their acts eventually. This is as true of Islam as it is Christianity and Buddhism. All propose some sort of advancement or advantage to good conduct ("good" being defined within the context of the particular belief/practice system only) to be received at some future time, and generally some sort of disadvantage or punishment for bad behavior.
That is in fact one of the reasons that religion, and particularly theism, evolved and persist in human society. Whether true or not, the "fear of God" and the threat of punishment for violating God's commandments is a strong and persuasive force for obedience. Where that obedience is socially useful and beneficial to the populace there is absolutely no reason to favor atheism, which is to say the rejection of that moral code and strictures and systems of control, over religion.
Atheists have hurt hundreds of millions of people and continue to do so by trying to force their fundamentally amoral philosophy on others both through abuse of the law and by interfering with the free exercise of religion by others. And they do so without offering anything at all in the place of religion that's in the least bit useful or beneficial to society.Did an atheist hurt you very badly? Youre among friends now. Share your pain.
I have yet to see an Atheist, from Richard Dawkins right down the line to you folks here, explain why it is that you believe Atheism is inherently morally, ethically or sociologically superior to other forms of religious belief. Not once.
You all simply blather on about how bad "religion" is, evidently because you don't believe and you don't like it that other people do believe and because they do they democratically impose on you conditions of behavior you don't like (which is a sign of narcissistic personality disorder), but you never, ever, ever explain why a "lack of belief in god or gods" is a better way to think or produces better, more socially useful behavior.
And that, my friend, is the very essence of irrationality and unreason, and it's precisely why your beliefs and practices are just as much a "religion" as any Catholic's or Muslim's. You simply take it on faith that a "lack of belief in god or gods" is inherently superior to a theistic belief, and you do so without even a shred of evidence that this is true, much less any argument as to why its true. You just believe it is. And then you criticize others for a differing set of unproven religious beliefs and practices.
The difference is that all other major religions have thousands of years of historical value and benefit to human culture and society, to one degree or another, whereas Atheism has no record of accomplishments or benefit to humanity at all. Zero.
So when I criticize Atheism I'm being the rational one, and it has nothing to do with being "hurt by atheists" at all, it has to do with reason, logic and rationality, which I'm exercising and you all are not. The opportunity to espouse actual reason, logic and rationality in the face of rabid, religious unreason, illogic and irrationality in a forum that touts itself as being interested in rationality is what keeps me coming back here. Exposing the gross hypocrisy of the Atheist religious agenda is a pleasurable pastime for me, you see. It makes me feel good to be in the right when debating with those who are pretty much always in the wrong.
it can't be "all [mass shootings were prevented]" as there's been a fuckload of mass shootings that weren't prevented.
