John Adams and our societal immorality

[Jludo]

Where is it written that it must be written? Where's it written that only what's written is true? I'll stop here before getting too silly, but writing is only an expression of a preconceived thought.

I agree with your second sentence. What we decide is moral is not necessarily so. Morality transcends us. We can discover it, not create it.

It's a shame God gave us morality in the form of and endless puzzle we're tasked with solving. Also a shame how much suffering he'd allow in our pursuit of its solution. But then again the show wouldn't be so entertaining would it? And that's the end goal, a good story.

 

[Kdf101]

Pretty deep stuff here, I will only add that while I am religious; in the sense that I believe I a god, I think morality and religion are independent of each other. There are plenty of examples of immoral religions and of moral non religious people.

 

[BugI02]

It's a shame God gave us morality in the form of and endless puzzle we're tasked with solving. Also a shame how much suffering he'd allow in our pursuit of its solution. But then again the show wouldn't be so entertaining would it? And that's the end goal, a good story.

Only ten things to remember, and it's an endless puzzle? You are lamenting that you were given free will. All the rest are the works of man, not God

 

[NKBJ]

Without free will you wouldn't be on the hook for deciding who you were going to follow.
Without rules being provided you couldn't qualify what that meant.
So it's pretty simple. You gots rights, rules, choices and forty-leven people every day dedicated to telling you bozo tales to confuse the matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MzyBv4yOPU

 

[jamil]

Might argue it's more admirable to be moral while not believing you'll be punished/rewarded for eternity.

Said another way, “the test of a man’s character is what he does when no one’s looking.”

 

[jamil]

While it appears to be a contradiction at face value, I believe that one can moral and atheist. Natural law supports that we're all intelligently wired to be moral. It is a necessity for natural harmony. The paradox in the moral atheist though is that his atheism undermines the very basis for his conviction of morality. If we're just a concoction of chemicals with no intelligent design for morality and natural order, our decisions and actions become random or at best relative. In that case, morality becomes either relative or nothing at all.

Morals must be objective, but the atheist has no objective source for them.

I think you need to read more about evolutionary biology and psychology. Morality doesn’t need a designer. To the extent that it’s objectively universal, the “wiring” is more like pre-wired instinct collected over time.

To say what you’re saying, you’re neglecting an entire side of it. I don’t think it’s intentional. I think, like everyone, you’re more reluctant to be as critical of your own worldview and more eager to be critical of the alternatives. I’m not asking you to believe what I believe. But you’re arguing the point you’re arguing. Maybe you should understand the opposing argument as well as your own to argue more effectively.

 

[jamil]

Very astute of your, sir. The founders were enlightenment thinkers and/or protestants. The former did not believe in natural law, and the latter believed in the bondage of will. How can a people self-govern if individuals are inherently destined to be wrong?

What? That’s not even true. Many enlightenment thinkers wrote supporting the idea of natural law, for some foundational. Not all Protestants are/were Calvinists. Since your premise is wrong, so is the conclusion.

 

[NKBJ]

He told you what to do.
What's the big deal?

 

[jamil]

He told you what to do.
What's the big deal?

What? Who told who what?

 

[Jludo]

What? Who told who what?

Dave did.Well God told Dave and Dave passed it along, just take his word for it.

 

[jamil]

Why?

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot...

130,000,000 deaths in the 20th century alone, resulting from atheistic/humanistic ideologies.

That's why.

If you’re going to put the deaths on people who don’t believe in god, then it’s fair to put all the murders committed by Christians on Christianity. Instead, I believe it’s more accurate to say both are the fault of humans acting out their nature. Some evil people created an ideology or religion through which they could control and oppress people.

 

[INPatriot]

I read every comment, coming from individuals that believe in God, the laws of nature or no God at all. We all seem to have one thing in common. We believe in the virtue of self government and we agree the only way to maintain that liberty and the freedom and the dignity of the individual is through the ability to defend ourselves.

You may scoff and roll your eyes at the obvious, but it's the six pages in this thread that give me hope for the American experiment. This conversation is being had, in some way, shape or form, in other gun forums as well. It's taking place on social media and across the blogosphere. I can't promise that each conversation has the same talking points and I couldn't direct you specifically to any other conversation to which I've alluded but I know they are there.

I know they are there because they were there two and a half centuries earlier. These are the conversations that were taking place in each of the colonies by subjects that yearned to be citizens. I'm not even 100% confident they understood such magnitude.

Could any of the Sons of Liberty have been certain what the men following Francis Marion were discussing in the Carolinas? Information did not travel then like it does now. Culturally, think about the difference between the gentlemen planters of the Virginia tidewater and the abrasive nature of the frontiersmen that were trying to tame the Applachians. Quakers in Pennsylvania had to agree with the hellfire and brimstone manner of the New England Protestants.

Threads like this strengthen my confidence in the Republic. It will carry on, despite itself because of men like you and me. We don't have to agree to the nth degree on moral or religious semantics. But we do have to agree that what we have is worth preserving, fighting and even dying for. That a God-fearing man and a man that believes in no God can agree on the virtue of limited government and its vitality is the 21st Century fulfillment of lives, fortunes and sacred honor.

 

[chipbennett]

If you’re going to put the deaths on people who don’t believe in god, then it’s fair to put all the murders committed by Christians on Christianity. Instead, I believe it’s more accurate to say both are the fault of humans acting out their nature. Some evil people created an ideology or religion through which they could control and oppress people.

I'm putting those deaths not on [all] people who don't believe in God; rather, I'm putting them on the implementation of ideologies based on a lack of existence of God.

That said, even by your criterion, there really is no comparison. Across all of history, the death toll attributable to Christianity is an order of magnitude less than what happened in the 20th century.

 

[jamil]

I'm putting those deaths not on [all] people who don't believe in God; rather, I'm putting them on the implementation of ideologies based on a lack of existence of God.

Wait a minute. This distills to you putting it on the lack of belief in God. That's really not any different. But anyway....

That said, even by your criterion, there really is no comparison. Across all of history, the death toll attributable to Christianity is an order of magnitude less than what happened in the 20th century.

Has it occurred to you that in arguing that the one group killed way more than the other because of their disbelief in God you're still admitting that the people who believe in God were also willing to kill people? Does it then matter who killed more? Were the atheists just more efficient for some reason? Their lack of belief in God somehow made them better at finding dissenters and killing them? Or could it be that advancing societies/technology made finding dissenters and mass killing more efficient? It's very clear that dark age christianity were quite willing to find dissenters and kill them. Burning dissenters at the stake certainly demonstrates the will. It's a matter of efficiency from there. Not likely that one was more efficient than the other because of belief or non belief in God.

That's the first part. The whole argument fails because you're inaccurately identifying the root cause. In neither system is belief in god or non-belief the cause. People are hackable regardless. This is something that I often argue with Atheists about; the rabid ones are quite insistent that religion kills. No. Power-thirsty people use "belief", whether it's religious belief or ideological belief to get what they want, or to gain and stay in power. People are very susceptible to be manipulated into doing all kinds of unthinkable, cruel things to other people. Christianity itself killed zero people. Atheism itself killed zero people. People kill people.

Another thing worth mentioning, Christianity solved the problem it had with the ideology of Christianity through the reformation, and through a mixing of enlightenment thinking. The outcome was a Christianity that was what I would call a purer Christianity. Something far closer to what is written in the New Testament than dark-age Christianity was. The implementations of Marxism hasn't solved that, likely because Marxism is a collectivist ideology, which doesn't have the individual morality that Christianity/enlightenment thinking has. Marxism requires force to maintain itself when scaled, and thus attracts tyrants at the top. It seems clear that individuals in collectivist based societies are more hackable than the more individualist based societies. But, again, it's neither a belief in god or lack of belief that make those things so.

So anyway, we're back to what I said. Laying those deaths at either the hands of atheists or Christians is a losing argument. You can blame the ideologies themselves if you want. The ideology of Christianity was closely controlled by the religious leaders, who wanted to maintain power. Obviously the collectivist ideology of Marxism makes people very hackable. But logically, it's neither belief nor disbelief in god that makes one more violent than the other. People in both systems as they existed at the time, were easily hacked by manipulative, power hungry people. Probably better to blame it on them.

 

[abnk]

If you’re going to put the deaths on people who don’t believe in god, then it’s fair to put all the murders committed by Christians on Christianity. Instead, I believe it’s more accurate to say both are the fault of humans acting out their nature. Some evil people created an ideology or religion through which they could control and oppress people.

I was to reply to your other posts until I read this.

 

[chipbennett]

Wait a minute. This distills to you putting it on the lack of belief in God. That's really not any different. But anyway....

My theory is that ideologies based on lack of a belief in a higher power inherently robs humanity of sanctity of life. As such, humans become expendable based on utility and pragmatism.

Has it occurred to you that in arguing that the one group killed way more than the other because of their disbelief in God you're still admitting that the people who believe in God were also willing to kill people?

In fact, that is rather axiomatic. Christians have killed out of a belief that they are carrying out Christian ideology. I don't recall arguing otherwise.

Does it then matter who killed more? Were the atheists just more efficient for some reason?

Clearly. Humanistic ideologies in the 20th century alone killed more humans, by an order of magnitude, than all Judeo-Christian ideology across several millennia.

Their lack of belief in God somehow made them better at finding dissenters and killing them? Or could it be that advancing societies/technology made finding dissenters and mass killing more efficient? It's very clear that dark age christianity were quite willing to find dissenters and kill them. Burning dissenters at the stake certainly demonstrates the will. It's a matter of efficiency from there. Not likely that one was more efficient than the other because of belief or non belief in God.

Or perhaps, one ideology has led to more wholesale taking of human life, because human life has no more intrinsic value than any other life under that ideology.

That's the first part. The whole argument fails because you're inaccurately identifying the root cause.

One ideology leads to certain inevitable conclusions, and the other leads to other inevitable conclusions. It is not merely the belief in the existence or non-existence of God; rather, it is the conclusions about truth, morality, and the intrinsic value and sanctity of human life that are derived from each ideology.

 

[jamil]

My theory is that ideologies based on lack of a belief in a higher power inherently robs humanity of sanctity of life. As such, humans become expendable based on utility and pragmatism.



In fact, that is rather axiomatic. Christians have killed out of a belief that they are carrying out Christian ideology. I don't recall arguing otherwise.



Clearly. Humanistic ideologies in the 20th century alone killed more humans, by an order of magnitude, than all Judeo-Christian ideology across several millennia.



Or perhaps, one ideology has led to more wholesale taking of human life, because human life has no more intrinsic value than any other life under that ideology.



One ideology leads to certain inevitable conclusions, and the other leads to other inevitable conclusions. It is not merely the belief in the existence or non-existence of God; rather, it is the conclusions about truth, morality, and the intrinsic value and sanctity of human life that are derived from each ideology.

You're still not identifying the root cause. I don't see much evidence that there was any concern about sanctity of life in the dark ages. Those who had power pretty much treated those without it as expendable. It's the same today. When we have such a thing as collective power, it attracts people who crave power. And then they use whatever tools are available to manipulate it.

I think I have a more human-nature approach. I'm not really blaming it on ideology/religion as much as I'm blaming it on the people who manipulated belief to gain and retain power. I do agree that certain ideologies have inevitable outcomes, but not for the reasons you think. Everyone believes. Ideology isn't really much different from religion. It's all belief. Belief can be manipulated. The thing that I think has the greatest impact on the inevitability of the kinds of outcomes we're talking about is collectivism vs individualism. Neither are intrinsically tied to a need for god.

And about this discussion. As I said in the other thread, I'd rather talk about ideas than debate god/not god. But, you claim things like, there's no morality without god, that's just dogma. I'm gonna point that out. And you claim that atheism has murdered more people than Christianity. Well, that's just your theory. You shouldn't state it as if it were a fact. The basis for your theory isn't all that evident either. History shows that politics, and manipulation, more than merely ideology, impacted the loss of life in both the Dark Ages and the first half of the 20th century. Popes and Kings had to gain and maintain power. Communist dictators had to gain and maintain power. Rulers have used belief to control people for a lot longer than that.

 

[jamil]

I was to reply to your other posts until I read this.

"Some evil people created an ideology or religion through which they could control and oppress people."

I need to proof my posts more. I don't think religion was "created" to oppress and control people. I don't think religion was "created" at all, at least conceptually. Humans make up the rules, and sometimes the rules always favor the people in power. What I should have said was some evil people manipulated ideology or religion (essentially belief) through which they could control and oppress people.

 

[Liberty Sanders]

I don't have a belief in a higher power. Don't have a lack of one either. I'm an agnostic. I don't know if there IS a higher power nor do I have any way of ever knowing. Lacking religion, I base both my social and political life on the premise that I should treat every other person the way that I would expect to be treated if our roles were reversed. Why anyone would need any other belief to be counted among the civilized I can't imagine.

As to the death rate from the various religions, I was educated in the catholic school/prison system, manned by nuns who were indistinguishable from the Dementors in the Harry Potter books. They even dress the same.

If the Church of Pedophilia had it within their power to go back to burning heretics, they would do it, and in a New York minute.

 

[NKBJ]

Any way of knowing?
Had that conversation about "Are You really there (here)?"
That was about 1981-82. I got shown. And I'm still being shown. Sometimes it's being awestruck and sometimes it's a quiet smile with the better 2/3's with the "there He goes again" kind of reaction.