my own concern of Athiesm

[soundgarden]

I have longed developed my views, but one concern that has always lingered in my mind which I have yet to resolve is summarized in this excerpt:

Even the staunchest atheist growing up in Western society cannot avoid having absorbed the basic tenets of Christian morality. Our societies are steeped in it: everything we have accomplished over the centuries, even science, developed either hand in hand with or in opposition to religion, but never separately. It is impossible to know what morality would look like without religion. It would require a visit to a human culture that is not now and never was religious. That such cultures do not exist should give us pause.

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/morals-without-god/

The last two sentences especially.  The moment humans developed self-awareness (technically pre-homo sapiens) was the very end of pure atheism, in the sense of "lack of belief."  Are our morals today, truly, that of a pure non-believer? Or the fact that we are living in a world saturated with Abrahamic morals, steeped in Eastern philosophies, providing modern athiests with a understanding perceived to be uniquely original.

Example:  Killing is wrong.  However, our ancestors, the only true athiests, turned an easy eye to it, similarly to primates today.  They would have no qualms to kill to fee their family, yet us modern athiests seem to believe morals are innate in nature.  I do believe so, but when looking at our primate cousins, these morals dissolve so quickly given certain circumstances.

As the author stated, there has never been a human culture without religion.  We can disregard religion and god, but one has to rethink where our modern morals really come from.

Has the fear of eternal damnation permeated the deepest parts of our minds that, even with the lack of god, the general "badness" of the thought lingers....

thoughts?

[Seventh Son]

You can argue that the "pure" atheists had no such morals because they didn't have the mental capacity for them. Only survival and nothing else.

Nowadays? I prefer to believe what my heart tells me is right. I think killing someone for the sake of killing them is an atrocious act because it takes the life of a living human who did nothing wrong to deserve that. Not because the bible says so.

[Sigz]

I'm not really sure where you get the idea that monkeys or whatever have absolutely no morals. Not killing each other and general compassion to others of your kind are part of the survival instinct. It's not beneficial to the survival of a species to just kill each other.

[soundgarden]

Nowadays? I prefer to believe what my heart tells me is right. I think killing someone for the sake of killing them is an atrocious act because it takes the life of a living human who did nothing wrong to deserve that.

Thats exactly my point.  Your "heart tells you" but how did your heart learn those feelings?  From your parents likely?  From your friends, who learned from their parents?

We make this argument all the time against religious folks, that they have "faith" in their beliefs.  Well I can argue that you have "faith" in your heart, but no explanation for where the feelings came from.  Was it just there?

edit...and furthermore why did your heart develop feelings different from a violent thief, for example.  Surely there are outside factors influencing the development.

I'm not really sure where you get the idea that monkeys or whatever have absolutely no morals. Not killing each other and general compassion to others of your kind are part of the survival instinct. It's not beneficial to the survival of a species to just kill each other.

I did not say that at all.  I totally agree with the existence of morals in nature.  But my point is the quickness that it is forgotten in times of survival.   Read the article I linked above, the guy is a primatologists and he notices the same as well.

[Adami]

I would say from logical conclusions or from gut reactions to societal groupings of past times.

For instance, we don't kill because we don't want to be killed. We don't steal because we don't want to be stolen from and so on and so forth. This is evolutionary logic, no faith involed.

As far as random other specific morals go, no gays, marriage, fidelity, blah blah blah. Those can be said to have their rootings in groups forming identities apart from their surrounding enemy groups. One group is barbaric and marries several people at the same time? Well to be "above" that they create monogomous marriage. One group has men sleeping with other men or women with other women? Well then the other group deems those immoral to seperate themselves out. M


Most of our morals can be logically traced back to either of those.

[Seventh Son]

Nowadays? I prefer to believe what my heart tells me is right. I think killing someone for the sake of killing them is an atrocious act because it takes the life of a living human who did nothing wrong to deserve that.

Thats exactly my point.  Your "heart tells you" but how did your heart learn those feelings?  From your parents likely?  From your friends, who learned from their parents?

We make this argument all the time against religious folks, that they have "faith" in their beliefs.  Well I can argue that you have "faith" in your heart, but no explanation for where the feelings came from.  Was it just there?

I'm not really sure where you get the idea that monkeys or whatever have absolutely no morals. Not killing each other and general compassion to others of your kind are part of the survival instinct. It's not beneficial to the survival of a species to just kill each other.

I did not say that at all.  I totally agree with the existence of morals in nature.  But my point is the quickness that it is forgotten in times of survival.   Read the article I linked above, the guy is a primatologists and he notices the same as well.

I have no issues having "faith" in my heart, if nothing else. I'm not one to use the faith argument against Christians, as I can't disprove faith, so I don't know what you're getting at there.

My beef with religion is that spirituality is a very personal thing for someone to decide for themselves and no one else.
Where those beliefs came from doesn't really matter to me. Sure, Christianity has a lot of influence in the world. So what? Its been like that for the past 2000 years. Are you suggesting that to share any sense of morality that a Christian might have automatically makes you a Christian? Because if so I think that's ridiculous.

[bosk1]

The quote in the OP gets to the root of why I believe that any argument about complete separation of chuch and state is just silly and impractical.  The Establishment Clause is meant simply to prevent the sanctioning of any government-sponsored church.  It is not meant to strip any and all government functions and facilities of any and all vestiges of religion whatsoever.  But to the point of this thread, even trying to do so is impractical and misses the point of where we devep our moral systems from in the first place.

[El Barto]

Howabout all of weird-ass tribes that are discovered in South America?  Guys running around with giant cock-gourds seem to be a helluva lot more ethical than the Christians who show up to "civilize" them  They have territorial disputes with neighboring tribes, and they're resolved by hanging out and getting stoned in a big social gathering.  They seem pretty morally developed, to me. 

[rumborak]

Just fyi, stating that primates are essentially moral-less killing machines when they feel like it, is a surprisingly ignorant statement. I only need to open a history book and look what human atrocities have been committed in the name of moral-decreeing deities, that it becomes hard to argue that a)  primates in any way have less morals than we do, or b)  that morals decreed by deities in any way makes people more moral.

A case in point, entertain yourself with what one group of Christians did to another group of Christians because they couldn't agree on how to interpret a book :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwedentrunk?wasRedirected=true
(Especially the last sentence of the article)

This stuff was run-of-the-mill during 1,800 years of pious society. The only thing that turned humanity for the better was the steady decline of religious permeation in society. Where people are the most religious in current times they still stone people and chop off their hands.
And don't kid yourself, the only thing that keeps some hick fucks in some parts of this country from making an example of their Muslim neighbor is the collection of secular laws we have in place. So instead they have to console themselves to burning Qurans, because the secular law of freedom of speech gives them that leeway.

rumborak

[j]

I'm not really sure where you get the idea that monkeys or whatever have absolutely no morals. Not killing each other and general compassion to others of your kind are part of the survival instinct. It's not beneficial to the survival of a species to just kill each other.

I did not say that at all.  I totally agree with the existence of morals in nature.  But my point is the quickness that it is forgotten in times of survival.   Read the article I linked above, the guy is a primatologists and he notices the same as well.

It's not forgotten in times of survival, individual survival merely takes priority to everything.  If it's necessary for me to kill for me or my family to survive, I'm likely to do it.  However, under normal circumstances, it behooves me to live peacefully and work with others of my species.

-J

[Odysseus]

Just fyi, stating that primates are essentially moral-less killing machines when they feel like it, is a surprisingly ignorant statement. I only need to open a history book and look what human atrocities have been committed in the name of moral-decreeing deities, that it becomes hard to argue that a)  primates in any way have less morals than we do, or b)  that morals decreed by deities in any way makes people more moral.

A case in point, entertain yourself with what one group of Christians did to another group of Christians because they couldn't agree on how to interpret a book :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwedentrunk?wasRedirected=true
(Especially the last sentence of the article)

This stuff was run-of-the-mill during 1,800 years of pious society. The only thing that turned humanity for the better was the steady decline of religious permeation in society. Where people are the most religious in current times they still stone people and chop off their hands.
And don't kid yourself, the only thing that keeps some hick fucks in some parts of this country from making an example of their Muslim neighbor is the collection of secular laws we have in place. So instead they have to console themselves to burning Qurans, because the secular law of freedom of speech gives them that leeway.

rumborak

Well said, sir!

As far as the OP goes, I would suggest that the idea that our society would be a anarchic free-for-all without Christianity is laughable.  Is anyone daft enough to suggest that pre-Christian societies were totally a-moral? Crap.  Many of the problems that religion has given our societies can be traced back to the arrival of monotheism.  Previously, during polytheistic times, it has been said that there was much more integration and sharing of ideas, rather than the monolithic "I'm right, you're wrong" attitude fostered by monotheism.  Let us not forget that Christianity is an accident of history - were it not for the work of St. Paul, and the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine many years later, followed by the establishment of Christianity as the official state religion by Theodocius in 380CE, then it is very likely that Christianity would have been one more lame-ass messianic cult that died on its ass.  What then?  Would morality in the world have been markedly different? I doubt it. Reciprocal altruism is what is needed to make populations successful in  a time where the city state grows.  Paganism and polytheism worked pretty well up to Constantine, and there is no reason to suggest that it wouldn't continue.  Maybe another monotheism would have arisen in Christianity's place. Let us not forget that the Jesus tradition borrowed exremely heavily from the cult of Mithras... the concept was not that original.  Maybe Judaism would have spread more, maybe Islam later... the moralities of each are largely similar, with many minor differences within the sects of those faiths and also without.

We would do well to remember that these theologies were established during the infancy of our species, a time when the winds of the desert were thought of as djinns or spirits, the earth was regarded by many as flat, the sky a glassy dome through which the waters of heaven flowed, with the stars hanging below.  We must be careful how much of this bronze age 'wisdom' we buy into.  Of course, a child needs to crawl before it can walk... but in the 21st century we really ought to be done crawling.....

[emindead]

Howabout all of weird-ass tribes that are discovered in South America?  Guys running around with giant cock-gourds seem to be a helluva lot more ethical than the Christians who show up to "civilize" them  They have territorial disputes with neighboring tribes, and they're resolved by hanging out and getting stoned in a big social gathering.  They seem pretty morally developed, to me. 

Oh, you should read The Journals of Christopher Colombus. You will really enjoy them.

[j]

Let us not forget that the Jesus tradition borrowed exremely heavily from the cult of Mithras

Even though the only thing we can really do in this thread is make pointless speculations about the way morality would have developed in the absence of Christianity, this is simply not true.  It could be said that Christianity "borrowed" from a number of religious myths, but Mithraism bears almost no commonality with it.

-J

[bosk1]

stuff

More likely scenario:

The earliest people alive understood and practiced monotheism entirely and worshipped the one true God, and over time as people rebelled and created their own systems of worship and non-worship, they incorporated a lot of those same beliefs into their own belief systems and changed/perverted/or simply forgot the origins.  Given that at at least two points in history (creation and flood) all living people believed in the one true God, and that Christ was foretold from the beginning, it is no small wonder that later religions (including the Mithras cult) borrowed heavily.  Don't believe everything your high school humanities teacher tells you.

[rumborak]

bosk, have you never found yourself considering your range of considerations somewhat short-changed? That is, in the realm of reasons that could be, you are forced to only consider as true the ones that agree with Christianity?
I always have the impression you're dragging that huge ball on a chain behind yourself in these discussions.

rumborak

[GuineaPig]

I'm unsure over whether Bosk's post is serious.  I'm halfway between that and thinking that it's an extreme rebuttal to Odysseyeus' post, something like a "Your post was so poorly constructed/reasoned, the theories you propose are in fact less realistic than this explanation based off a literal interpretation of the Bible."

[bosk1]

@rumborak:  To me, the wording you chose is a bit odd and unclear.  But if what you are asking is, am I predisposed to argue these types of things from a Christian perspective, and are my argumenst consequently biased to be consistent with my Christian beliefs, then yes, of course I am.  

But let's take this post as an example.  I was merely responding to the mistaken assertion that the Mithras cult likely influenced Christianity.  I believe that is highly unlikely, and a simple timeline illustrates why.  Again, various books foretell Christianity with varying degrees of specificity.  The books of Moses were most likely written sometime between 1445 and 1405 B.C.  And they record a monotheistic belief system and systems of worship that had been practiced and passed down from one generation to the next for thousands of years.  Other books containing relevant prophesies are written from about 1,000 to 400 B.C.  For the sake of argument, even denying that these books are truly prophetic, the timeline and the fact these books were very well-known by Christian writers and early Christians strongly suggests that these were the sources of the Christian belief system.

The Mithras cult, in contrast, is not known to have been firmly established until the first century A.D.  Even if it existed for centuries prior (which, if I am not mistaken, archaeology does not support), it was not widespread in the Roman empire, including Judea, until the first century A.D., making it a very unlikely source for influencing Christianity, which was already spreading and developing all on its own during this time period.  


@GP:  Yes, in a sense, it is an "extreme rebuttal" for the reasons you mentioned.  But at the same time, it was an entirely serious one.

[Perpetual Change]

Don't believe everything your high school humanities teacher tells you.

I actually like your post, and while I'm not sure I'd agree completely I'm not entirely compelled to disagree with it, so I'll leave it be for now. But this line bothers me only 'cause it's the 2nd time I've seen you say the same thing. I'll admit it's kinda funny and whatever, but it's also kinda silly to keep discounting people's views as "what their high school language arts teacher tells them." You may not think of it as offensive, but it's kinda like someone telling you "you shouldn't believe everything your parents tell you" as an argument for why they should become atheists.  

Unless you're just trying to give Odysseus a taste of his own snarky medicine or something. I don't know honestly, because tl:dr. If that's the case than nvm.

[bosk1]

P.C. you are absolutely correct.  Thank you for the reminder.  I do tend to get impatient and snarky.  (and even if I didn't, I couldn't really pass up an opportunity to use "snarky" in a post becuase it's such a fun word)  Sorry about that.

[GuineaPig]

And I thought that line was supposed to be satirical, by contrasting with the sentences preceding it.

[bosk1]

No, it was just snarky.  But based on real life experiences.  I had a high school humanities teacher say that.  I wasn't a Christian at the time, so I didn't really think anything of it.  Then years later, a college professor said the same thing.  Looking back with what I know now, I can say that although the guy (college professor) had a PhD and is highly respected in his field, he made a mistake and went out on a limb saying the Mithras cult influenced Christianity when that is likely not the case.

[rumborak]

 I wasn't a Christian at the time

You know, as much as I can see you wanting to see yourself in that light, i.e. having made the transition from non-Christian to fully Christian through a conscious choice, I frankly don't buy it. Had you ever been truly "non-Christian" I think you would have a much more relativized view of your religion, simply through the realization of how similarly convincing your previous stance was.

rumborak

[j]

 I wasn't a Christian at the time

You know, as much as I can see you wanting to see yourself in that light, i.e. having made the transition from non-Christian to fully Christian through a conscious choice, I frankly don't buy it. Had you ever been truly "non-Christian" I think you would have a much more relativized view of your religion, simply through the realization of how similarly convincing your previous stance was.

rumborak

Didn't you (bosk) say that you were raised Catholic?

While I understand a lot of radical ex-Catholics and other fringe Christians like to decree certain sects of the religion to "not really belong" based on theology (and vice versa), historically (at their origin) they cannot be divorced.  And in other ways, they are a lot more similar than either side might like to think.

-J

[bosk1]

@rumborak:  That's fine.  Don't take this the wrong way, but neither who I was nor who I am today depend on whether or not you buy it.  You are entitled to your opinion.  And you've seen me post for years now, so you've seen enough of my posts on the subject that if you feel like you are qualified to honestly come to that conclusion, that's fine with me.  I'll just respectfully disagree and leave it at that.  I've learned long ago that you are as opinionated as I am, and I can certainly respect that whether I agree with your conclusions or not.


@J:  Yes.  And I understand that from your perspective, the differences may seem a LOT less significant than I would consider them.  And that's fine.  I don't necessarily expect you to see it the way I do.  And I agree that there are superficially a lot more commonalities than differences. 
but for purposes of this thread, I think we would really be derailing the discussion by going off on that tangent.  (as if we're not already far afield)

[j]

 

-J

[rumborak]

Didn't you (bosk) say that you were raised Catholic?

To my knowledge, bosk was raised under one type of Christianity and then switched to another.
Knowing what it entails to rise against the social peer pressure of a Christian society to be actually non-Christian, I have very high doubts that bosk was at any time anything less than a latent Christian.

rumborak

[Perpetual Change]

Knowing what it entails to rise against the social peer pressure of a Christian society to be actually non-Christian, I have very high doubts that bosk was at any time anything less than a latent Christian.

rumborak

I don't know bosk's personal situation, but I have a hard time imagining you've ever talked to a born-again Christian before, especially given your opinion that people who've previously rejected Christianity and came to accept it again are somehow less certain about the likelihood of whether or not their religion is true. If anything, the opposite is more common. Born again people are often more sure of their beliefs than those who've simply held-on without ever given them a second thought.

[rumborak]

Yeah, but I don't think born-agains were ever actual non-Christians in their previous lives, despite what they might tell you (since in their new life,  the old one will look godless to them)
Look at someone like Neal Morse; he had his spiritual troubles, but he was always at least a latent Christian.

rumborak

[Perpetual Change]

Yeah, but I don't think born-agains were ever actual non-Christians in their previous lives

I'd say that's neither true nor false. Unless you mean previous lives like, "Hello Victoria, so glad to see you my friend..." 

[Nigerius Rex]

Why does it matter anyway? You will find a category of people that likely includes scientists and researchers who were raised agnostic or atheist and converted to Christianity and you will find those same people born to Christian families rejecting the philosophy and lifestyle to lead a life free of religion. Overall it says very little.

[rumborak]

There will always be exceptions, of course. My point here is mostly that I am somewhat weary of statements like bosk's since it looks much more like self-flattery of the spiritual journey taken than an actual reflection of reality.

rumborak

[Nigerius Rex]

It only sounds that way to me if you in assign some value to the idea that people raised from a non religious background generally reject religion which I would wager is false. Otherwise it is just a statement, not a boast.

[Perpetual Change]

There will always be exceptions, of course. My point here is mostly that I am somewhat weary of statements like bosk's since it looks much more like self-flattery of the spiritual journey taken than an actual reflection of reality.

rumborak

Rising against Catholicism and rising against Christianity in general are very different things, but both contain a degree of social pressure. You'd be surprised how much pressure simply "rising against" Catholicism can be, especially if that's not the kind of environment you were born into. You'd be a fool to discount either as "not being a real spiritual journey."

Personally, I publicly started denying Christianity when I was in high-school. There was a time when, though I didn't consider myself religious at all, I'd still defend Catholicism for having an actual "system" based on philosophical understanding rather than just "The Bible." But later, fairly recently I realized that what I was a person was still inherently Christian. And then I started realizing that a lot of the problems I thought I had with Christianity in-general were actually just problems with the Catholic church.

I don't know what bosk's story is. I am sure that if he is Christian now, then perhaps you are right in the sense that God has always been with him, in the sense his Christianity was really, as you said, "latent," just as mine was. Just as yours, rumborak, may even be without you realizing it

But it's a big mistake to discount that kind of experience as not being as valuable as the kind where you don't come back. Discounting others' experience because it disagrees with your value-system involves a greater amount of "self-flattery" as far as I'm concerned

[Seventh Son]

I wasn't even aware of the Cult of Mithras until now.

Oh well, to return to the topic at hand: Most of the entire western world is endowed with Christianity to some extent. That doesn't mean because you share certain morals with Christians makes you one yourself. You just happen to see eye-to-eye on one thing but disagree on the others!

[GuineaPig]

stuff

More likely scenario:

The earliest people alive understood and practiced monotheism entirely and worshipped the one true God, and over time as people rebelled and created their own systems of worship and non-worship, they incorporated a lot of those same beliefs into their own belief systems and changed/perverted/or simply forgot the origins.  Given that at at least two points in history (creation and flood) all living people believed in the one true God, and that Christ was foretold from the beginning, it is no small wonder that later religions (including the Mithras cult) borrowed heavily.  Don't believe everything your high school humanities teacher tells you.

Back (sort of) on topic, you do realize Bosk that this is not an acceptable argument in a historical debate.  I don't agree with much of Odysseyeus' post either, but it is at least based somewhat on historical events that can be justified/argued against.