Atheism , religion , ID etc
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Please visit http://www.atheists.org/ for answers to what we Atheists believe.
I thought atheists become atheists because they don't want to be lemmings and follow organized religion. :rolleyes:
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I thought atheists become atheists because they don't want to be lemmings and follow organized religion. :rolleyes:
I didn't say "all" answers. :)
espeir wrote:
I thought atheists become atheists because they don't want to be lemmings and follow organized religion.
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Daniel R Ferguson wrote:
superstition grows up to become religion.
Why? Why doesn't it grow up to be athiesm? "You get that which you tolerate"
Stan Shannon wrote:
Why doesn't it grow up to be athiesm?
It could grow up to atheism if the people start to throw out the beliefs that are not based on fact and reproduceable observation (aka science). That takes a lot of time and effort though. For example, imagine an early human who gets an infected by a 'bad spirit' that they try to cure with a 'magic potion'. Nowadays we realize that bacteria cause the infection the magic potion was a placebo so we throw it out. The early human who was faced with the "why am I here" question tried to cure it with 'god'. Nowadays we realize that we still don't have an answer to the question, but god was a placebo.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~Stephen Roberts
« eikonoklastes »
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Chris Losinger wrote:
christians are still committing crimes. how come that special morality hasn't stopped them ? if it's so superior to other moralities, shouldn't there be some, ya know, evidence ?
Because I'm not arguing that religion stops immorality. I'm saying that religion recognizes immorality. Moral relativism does not.
Chris Losinger wrote:
not that i want to go down this road... there are realtively few branches of christianity that have a "central authority" to interpret things for them. getting away from such a central authority was the root of the Protestant Reformation.
Most actually do have a central authority, including protestant religions. For example, the Southern Baptist church is unified under a somewhat democratic authority. However, I do agree that they are less organized than Catholicism. That's why I like the Catholic Church, because when you fragment a church, each will come up with its own interpretation conjured up by some backhills weirdo. In the Catholic Church, you have lifelong scholors with PhDs running the joint.
Chris Losinger wrote:
and while i'm not an islamic scholar, i believe within islam, "imam" and "ayatollah" are the people who do the central interpreting for the various sects.
Yes, but each interprets according to his own ends. There is no unifying religious belifs. It's still tribal in nature.
Chris Losinger wrote:
not really. but i'm asking you to go to your bible or your special superior morality and find the justification for killing 30,000 children in the blink of an eye. i don't think there is any valid reason. and i don't want any part of any "morality" that would try to justify such an action - and here i sit with my hollow and baseless morals. woe is me.
There is a valid reason. Because the only other option involved killing 300,000 children over. I never said there are never moral dilemmas that don't require and act of evil in lieu of a greater one. This is the real world, though.
Chris Losinger wrote:
i'm not arguing that those are good movies. i'm saying your superior morality should have put a stop to it by now. after all, America is a country where over 80% of the people claim to be christian, and less than 3% claim to be either atheist or agnostic.
espeir wrote:
I'm saying that religion recognizes immorality. Moral relativism does not.
that's flatly false. m.r. simply says that your notion of immorality is not necessarily the same as everyone else's. cannibals probably think we're immoral for wasting all that precious flesh when we kill a couple ten-thousand Iraqis - we could eat for years on that much meat ! you can also extend it to mean that there is no absolute morality, but even in that case, it's not saying there's no such thing as immorality, it's just saying there's no, ahem, controlling authority that gets to decide.
espeir wrote:
Yes, but each interprets according to his own ends. There is no unifying religious belifs. It's still tribal in nature.
by that standard, so is christianity.
espeir wrote:
Hollywood is controlled by atheists
:laugh: so atheists are this year's Jews ? one would think that 80%-christian bloc would avoid such anti-christian fare. they could start a movie studio or two of their own. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker -- modified at 16:31 Friday 7th April, 2006
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Mike Mullikin wrote:
Because the folks spreading the superstition see the power & control it enables and naturally grow it into a full blown religion.
Well, power and control are inhrent to any complex social order. So, yeah, I suppose that might well be part of the equation. Maybe that is why athiestic societies don't exist long enough to leave evidence of thier existence. ;P "You get that which you tolerate"
Stan Shannon wrote:
Maybe that is why athiestic societies don't exist long enough to leave evidence of thier existence.
:laugh: A likely scenario: Atheistic society living happily in the woods. They develop a couple nifty new tools for hunting - life is good. Over in the religious society a few feathers get ruffled cuz' the aethists are eating better. It's decided that the aethists must be demons and need to be slaughtered. The first "crusades" are born and reinforces "god's will". "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done." - Peter Ustinov
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I can see your point but I disagree. A human with the genes for sickle-cell anemia is still a human correct? If we could humanely do an experiment of people with the allele and could introduce them into a “normal” population, the offspring of that person would eventually be bred back in to a “normal” human. And I cannot see into the future but would this defect mutate us humans into another species or would we still be humans with a genetic defect? I do not know and neither of us are going to live long enough to find out. Brett A. Whittington Application Developer
bwhittington wrote:
And I cannot see into the future but would this defect mutate us humans into another species
Yes - if that mutation allowed the members of our species that possess it to live isolated in an environment long enough for other, unrelated, genetic mutations to accumulate over time between the two sub-populations. "You get that which you tolerate"
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Stan Shannon wrote:
which is why societies have all rejected it as a foundation for thier cultures
Er, China? Neither Buddhism or Taoism are theistic, they are religions as they make supernatural assumptions, but neither have a creator god at their core. Athiesm isn't suitable as a "core" for a society as it only exists in opposition to theism, it says nothing of morality on its own. Ryan
"Michael Moore and Mel Gibson are the same person, except for a few sit-ups. Moore thought his cheesy political blooper reel was going to tell people how to vote. Mel thought that his little gay SM movie about his imaginary friend was going to help him get to heaven." - Penn Jillette
Ryan Roberts wrote:
Neither Buddhism or Taoism are theistic
This is fascinating to me because I never though about Buddhism or Taoism that way before. How many wars did the Buddhists wage throughout history? Contrast that with any theistic religion. :cool:
Ryan Roberts wrote:
Athiesm isn't suitable as a "core" for a society as it only exists in opposition to theism
Untrue. If I say that the Invisible Purple Hippobird exists and you deny his existance, does that mean that your denial exists only as an opposition to my belief in the IPH? Sanity does not "only exist in opposition to insanity". If there were no insane people, sanity would still exist. Plus, the examples you've given of Buddhism and Taoism -- which exist as the "core" for a society -- demonstrate that atheism is a good basis for a society.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~Stephen Roberts
« eikonoklastes »
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Why doesn't it grow up to be athiesm?
It could grow up to atheism if the people start to throw out the beliefs that are not based on fact and reproduceable observation (aka science). That takes a lot of time and effort though. For example, imagine an early human who gets an infected by a 'bad spirit' that they try to cure with a 'magic potion'. Nowadays we realize that bacteria cause the infection the magic potion was a placebo so we throw it out. The early human who was faced with the "why am I here" question tried to cure it with 'god'. Nowadays we realize that we still don't have an answer to the question, but god was a placebo.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~Stephen Roberts
« eikonoklastes »
My only argument is that religion was a natural outgrowth of an underlieing instinct for morality. That instinct allowed us to live originally in complex tribal societies, with the evolution of religion occuring to allow for ever larger and more complex social organizations, villages, city states, nation states, etc. And, that athiesm was insufficient as an organizing principle for those paticualar environments. If athiesm now provides for a better organizing principle, than so be it. I have my doubts about that, but I would be happy to be proven wrong. "You get that which you tolerate"
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espeir wrote:
I'm saying that religion recognizes immorality. Moral relativism does not.
that's flatly false. m.r. simply says that your notion of immorality is not necessarily the same as everyone else's. cannibals probably think we're immoral for wasting all that precious flesh when we kill a couple ten-thousand Iraqis - we could eat for years on that much meat ! you can also extend it to mean that there is no absolute morality, but even in that case, it's not saying there's no such thing as immorality, it's just saying there's no, ahem, controlling authority that gets to decide.
espeir wrote:
Yes, but each interprets according to his own ends. There is no unifying religious belifs. It's still tribal in nature.
by that standard, so is christianity.
espeir wrote:
Hollywood is controlled by atheists
:laugh: so atheists are this year's Jews ? one would think that 80%-christian bloc would avoid such anti-christian fare. they could start a movie studio or two of their own. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker -- modified at 16:31 Friday 7th April, 2006
Chris Losinger wrote:
m.r. simply says that your notion of immorality is not necessarily the same as everyone else's.
That's the same as saying morality does not exist. If one person believes that it's moral to commit murder if someone insults him, there is no moral authority to tell him otherwise. If one defines his own morality, there is nothing to hold him to it.
Chris Losinger wrote:
so is christianity.
It's very different. Christian beliefs is composed of a consortium of scholars, albeit they are somewhat divided on the details. Islam relies on a small number of individuals who are not united in their beliefs and who apparently are more likely to abuse their power.
Chris Losinger wrote:
so atheists are this year's Jews?
Atheist Jews (and just plain atheists) to be precise. I doubt religious Jews probably would make movies like Saw.
Chris Losinger wrote:
one would think that 80%-christian bloc would avoid such anti-christian fare. they could start a movie studio or two of their own.
Actually isn't that what Mel Gibson is doing? I'm really looking forward to Apocolypto. I doubt Christians could successfully start a movie studio in this day and age as they're generally persecuted by the leftists in charge there. I can't remember her name (since she wasn't given any more parts) but some very attractive up-and-coming actress "came out of the closet" and admitted she was a Christian. She said it was very hard to do so because of the anti-Christian bias in Hollywood. That was the end of her career. -- modified at 16:31 Friday 7th April, 2006
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Maybe that is why athiestic societies don't exist long enough to leave evidence of thier existence.
:laugh: A likely scenario: Atheistic society living happily in the woods. They develop a couple nifty new tools for hunting - life is good. Over in the religious society a few feathers get ruffled cuz' the aethists are eating better. It's decided that the aethists must be demons and need to be slaughtered. The first "crusades" are born and reinforces "god's will". "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done." - Peter Ustinov
Mike Mullikin wrote:
Over in the religious society a few feathers get ruffled cuz' the aethists are eating better.
The very essence of evolution. :cool: "You get that which you tolerate"
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My only argument is that religion was a natural outgrowth of an underlieing instinct for morality. That instinct allowed us to live originally in complex tribal societies, with the evolution of religion occuring to allow for ever larger and more complex social organizations, villages, city states, nation states, etc. And, that athiesm was insufficient as an organizing principle for those paticualar environments. If athiesm now provides for a better organizing principle, than so be it. I have my doubts about that, but I would be happy to be proven wrong. "You get that which you tolerate"
Stan Shannon wrote:
My only argument is that religion was a natural outgrowth of an underlieing instinct for morality.
Stan Shannon wrote:
And, that athiesm was insufficient as an organizing principle for those paticualar environments.
I actually agree with this because it seems we need to have something to base our morality on. It seems like we can't say, "Do Good" without also providing an, "or else." Atheism provides no punishment like the all-knowing and all-seeing god can.
Stan Shannon wrote:
If athiesm now provides for a better organizing principle, than so be it. I have my doubts about that, but I would be happy to be proven wrong.
We now have police who provide the backup for the "or else" in our morality. They aren't all-seeing, but they have an impressive ability to figure out what happened. I don't think Religion will ever disappear (and perhaps that's good), but it seems to decline as the rule of law (and the trust in that rule of law) increases.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~Stephen Roberts
« eikonoklastes »
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Chris Losinger wrote:
i claimed that? where? i certainly don't think that. i have a perfectly fine framework - i just didn't get it from any religion and i don't need to have it maintained or bolstered or whatever by some ghost.
Earlier you defended the idea that Atheists can have a moral framework. However, you personally having a moral framework is not useful. For morality to be effective, it needs to be derived from a higher authority so that society agrees on what is moral and what is not. Otherwise, your neighbor could determine that murder is moral and whack you.
Chris Losinger wrote:
err... if religion was the solution to that stuff, no religious person would ever commit a crime. i never said people are good at choosing right from wrong in all circumstances. people decide what they want more: to be good, or to feel good. they often choose the latter. they always have, they always will.
That's not the case. Religion, recognizing a higher authority, compels people to condemn immorality. So if someone does commit a crime, moral sensibilities prompt society to punish that crime. I'm not saying the same is not true of secular morality, but secular morality is self-defined morality which results in moral relativism which results in immorality.
Chris Losinger wrote:
they use it as a punishment. we don't eat people for punishment, true. instead, we electrocute people, break their necks, blow them into fine red mist with bombs, incinerate them with napalm, perforate them with guns, poison them, torture them to death. we take pictures of this, put it on CD-Rs and give it to our friends. up until very recently, public executions were a huge crowd pleaser in this country. you could buy souveniers.
Every society has some concept of justice and punishment (which should be distinguished from war). However, your example only supports my claim that morality is not innate. If you believe that capital punishment is immoral because it kills a murderer and I believe that it is moral because justice is served, then we disagree at a very fundamental level. That demonstrates that morality does not come from within. It comes from the repsective surroundings we grew up in.
Chris Losinger wrote:
we killed, at a minimum, 100,000 people in one shot in Hiroshima. most of those people were civilians. tens of t
espeir wrote:
If you believe that capital punishment is immoral because it kills a murderer and I believe that it is moral because justice is served, then we disagree at a very fundamental level.
espeir wrote:
That act also saved an estimated million more.
Actually, if you believe that killing is moral as long as you're killing a murderer, or as long as you're saving lives, but not moral otherwise, that would be the very definition of moral relativism.
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Chris Losinger wrote:
i claimed that? where? i certainly don't think that. i have a perfectly fine framework - i just didn't get it from any religion and i don't need to have it maintained or bolstered or whatever by some ghost.
Earlier you defended the idea that Atheists can have a moral framework. However, you personally having a moral framework is not useful. For morality to be effective, it needs to be derived from a higher authority so that society agrees on what is moral and what is not. Otherwise, your neighbor could determine that murder is moral and whack you.
Chris Losinger wrote:
err... if religion was the solution to that stuff, no religious person would ever commit a crime. i never said people are good at choosing right from wrong in all circumstances. people decide what they want more: to be good, or to feel good. they often choose the latter. they always have, they always will.
That's not the case. Religion, recognizing a higher authority, compels people to condemn immorality. So if someone does commit a crime, moral sensibilities prompt society to punish that crime. I'm not saying the same is not true of secular morality, but secular morality is self-defined morality which results in moral relativism which results in immorality.
Chris Losinger wrote:
they use it as a punishment. we don't eat people for punishment, true. instead, we electrocute people, break their necks, blow them into fine red mist with bombs, incinerate them with napalm, perforate them with guns, poison them, torture them to death. we take pictures of this, put it on CD-Rs and give it to our friends. up until very recently, public executions were a huge crowd pleaser in this country. you could buy souveniers.
Every society has some concept of justice and punishment (which should be distinguished from war). However, your example only supports my claim that morality is not innate. If you believe that capital punishment is immoral because it kills a murderer and I believe that it is moral because justice is served, then we disagree at a very fundamental level. That demonstrates that morality does not come from within. It comes from the repsective surroundings we grew up in.
Chris Losinger wrote:
we killed, at a minimum, 100,000 people in one shot in Hiroshima. most of those people were civilians. tens of t
espeir wrote:
Compare movies today to movies 60 years ago when moral relativism had not yet taken hold.
Have you never read Shakespeare? Or any Greek playwrights? I think you'll pretty much find the breaking of every commandment presented as entertainment, often in the same play.
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Chris Losinger wrote:
m.r. simply says that your notion of immorality is not necessarily the same as everyone else's.
That's the same as saying morality does not exist. If one person believes that it's moral to commit murder if someone insults him, there is no moral authority to tell him otherwise. If one defines his own morality, there is nothing to hold him to it.
Chris Losinger wrote:
so is christianity.
It's very different. Christian beliefs is composed of a consortium of scholars, albeit they are somewhat divided on the details. Islam relies on a small number of individuals who are not united in their beliefs and who apparently are more likely to abuse their power.
Chris Losinger wrote:
so atheists are this year's Jews?
Atheist Jews (and just plain atheists) to be precise. I doubt religious Jews probably would make movies like Saw.
Chris Losinger wrote:
one would think that 80%-christian bloc would avoid such anti-christian fare. they could start a movie studio or two of their own.
Actually isn't that what Mel Gibson is doing? I'm really looking forward to Apocolypto. I doubt Christians could successfully start a movie studio in this day and age as they're generally persecuted by the leftists in charge there. I can't remember her name (since she wasn't given any more parts) but some very attractive up-and-coming actress "came out of the closet" and admitted she was a Christian. She said it was very hard to do so because of the anti-Christian bias in Hollywood. That was the end of her career. -- modified at 16:31 Friday 7th April, 2006
espeir wrote:
That's the same as saying morality does not exist.
no it isn't. and, it's trivially easy to find "morals" that one group of people adhere to feverishly which are simply amusing to another group. does that make either group immoral ? of course not. i think it's immoral to eat a dog. many people would say i'm silly for thinking that. many people think it's morally wrong to eat any animal. does that mean morality doesn't exist ?
espeir wrote:
If one defines his own morality, there is nothing to hold him to it.
his own morals and conscience hold him to it.
espeir wrote:
Atheist Jews (and just plain atheists) to be precise.
are they commies, too?
espeir wrote:
Actually isn't that what Mel Gibson is doing?
it's a start. 80% of the population should be able to do better than 1 guy.
espeir wrote:
I doubt Christians could successfully start a movie studio in this day and age as they're generally persecuted by the leftists in charge there.
ah the athesitic leftist Jew conspiracy to keep down the good christian actors :omg: :laugh: ya know, if you christians didn't like what hollywood puts out, you could, uh, just stop buying their products. 80% of the US population, remember. you could put them all out of business in a year. if you wanted to, of course. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker -- modified at 20:18 Friday 7th April, 2006
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Daniel R Ferguson wrote:
superstition grows up to become religion.
Why? Why doesn't it grow up to be athiesm? "You get that which you tolerate"
It might be more accurate to say that religion is institutionalized superstition; not really a step towards enlightenment, just more organized ignorance.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
My only argument is that religion was a natural outgrowth of an underlieing instinct for morality.
Stan Shannon wrote:
And, that athiesm was insufficient as an organizing principle for those paticualar environments.
I actually agree with this because it seems we need to have something to base our morality on. It seems like we can't say, "Do Good" without also providing an, "or else." Atheism provides no punishment like the all-knowing and all-seeing god can.
Stan Shannon wrote:
If athiesm now provides for a better organizing principle, than so be it. I have my doubts about that, but I would be happy to be proven wrong.
We now have police who provide the backup for the "or else" in our morality. They aren't all-seeing, but they have an impressive ability to figure out what happened. I don't think Religion will ever disappear (and perhaps that's good), but it seems to decline as the rule of law (and the trust in that rule of law) increases.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~Stephen Roberts
« eikonoklastes »
Daniel R Ferguson wrote:
but it seems to decline as the rule of law (and the trust in that rule of law) increases.
I find that problematic though. Religion, as the fundamental framework for social organization, originally was the law, and the state enforced it as the law, which is why societies finally envoked the principle of separation of church and state. If we are now saying that athiesm, in lieu of religion, is the basic organizing principle for our society, and that the law enforces those principles at the behest of the state, what has really changed? In a sense, we are right back to square one - the state enforcing the moral organizing framework by means of the law - by force. I see that as a violation of the true spirit of separation of church and state. "You get that which you tolerate"
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It might be more accurate to say that religion is institutionalized superstition; not really a step towards enlightenment, just more organized ignorance.
Vincent Reynolds wrote:
not really a step towards enlightenment
I think enlightenment is a subjective term. "You get that which you tolerate"
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Vincent Reynolds wrote:
not really a step towards enlightenment
I think enlightenment is a subjective term. "You get that which you tolerate"
I intended the word enlightenment as in "furnished with increase of knowledge", and not in the spiritual sense. If it'll make you feel better, you can substitute whatever term you feel is a more suitable and objective opposite.
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Rob Graham wrote:
Care to cite some authoritative source for that opinion? I think you meant to say that atheism does not recognize a supernatural supreme being as the source of moral authority. Atheisim, in fact takes NO position on moral authority, it only takes a position on the existence or non-existence of a supreme being. Athiests as a group have a very diverse set of opinions as to what is moral, not all are hedonists (relatively few, in my experience), nor are all unequivocally supportive of abortion. (as you suggested in an earlier post).
You're in complete agreement with me. I said there is no moral authority... as in it "takes NO position on moral authority". That means that atheists do not recognize any authority as delegating moral responsibility. The result is, again as you said, "a very diverse set of opinions". What that means (moral relativism) is that nobody's moral stance is necessarily "right". In other words, hedonism is OK (even if it's not practiced by most atheists). Eventually the definition of "OK" expands indefinately as moral sensibilities are slowly chipped away. History has shown that to be true.
espeir wrote:
History has shown that to be true.
Proof? Or at least a credible cite? And no, I'm not at all in agreement with you. You argue that Athiesm -> No moral basis. I argue that the two are unrelated in any causal fashion. To equate Atheism and Moral Relativism is a non-sequitur, as it is to equate Religiosity with Moral Authority, they are simply not related topics in any logical sense. I can as easily cite many instances where the Pious have committed outrages agains any reasonable standard of Morality as you can cite immoral behavior by Atheists. That alone suggests the absence of any meaningful relationship between morality and religion. Christian during the Crusades committed outrageously immoral crimes against Muslims. Christians during the Inquisition committed morally repugnat crimes agains Jews and non-believers, Muslims today commit morally outrageous crimes agains Christians (and their own). All in the name of their Religion with it's precious "Moral Authority". Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power Eric Hoffer All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke
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Richard Northedge wrote:
And this statement of faith (the one about life and matter etc.) doesn't provide you with any means to enable you to decide whether a given action is right or wrong.
Nor does it need to. Man (over time) has developed societies, government and the rule of law. Through these we establish basic human rights and sets of laws and principles about what is right and wrong. These are human constructs - no theistic or atheistic "faith" is required. "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done." - Peter Ustinov -- modified at 12:10 Friday 7th April, 2006
Mike Mullikin wrote:
Through these we establish basic human rights and sets of laws and principles about what is right and wrong. These are human constructs - no theistic or atheistic "faith" is required.
You've bascially hit one of the hearts of the matter. Many (most?) people confuse morality and law. Law is about ethics and not morality. It's a way in modern society to allow people of differing moralities to peacefully coexist. This is why the fewest laws necessary in this area, the better. Then no group feels too badly put upon and feels the need to lash out. This is one problem with the religious right (any religious right) which wants to enshrine their particular morality on everyone by force of law.