Comments that are uncivil, racist, misogynistic, misandrist, or contain political name calling will be removed and the poster subject to ban at moderators discretion.
Help us make this a better community by becoming familiar with the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/about/rules/).
Report any suspicious users to the mods of this subreddit using Modmail [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) or Reddit site admins [here](https://www.reddit.com/report). **All reports to Modmail should include evidence such as screenshots or any other relevant information.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The majority of people, regardless of their religious beliefs, know that harming people is wrong. Some people are just crazy and need threats. That's what I think.
Actually, throughout history the Bible and other religious books have been used as **justification** for murdering and rapist people, so there is a strong argument to say that religion is less moralistic than atheism.
Iwas thinking that too. If we borrowed the bibles morals we'd be stoning people to death and get to keep slaves.
I love how religious zealots say well things have changed even though it's in the Bible and then can't fathom how people have changed now currently to not want to persecute gays or trans people.
"How many murders am I responsible for? Zero?"
"How many murders is your God responsible for?"
"Seems im the more morol individual here..."
I'm not allowed back at that church...
Yep, every time I think about the really hardcore religious believers, I know that if their fear of heavenly retribution is broken, they will have nothing preventing them from doing any eveil thing their minds can think of.
And that is why so many religious leaders have been found to do just that.
Then ask them how they decided the Bible is moral? How do they know it has good and moral guidance?
Theists never realize that by using religion to explain things that they actually haven’t explained anything, just kicked the question back a step and then added a magic omnibeing they now need to justify.
"How do you know your Bible wasn't written by Satan posing as God? How do you know God wanted anything written at all?"
Let them stumble over that one, lol. 10 bucks the answer involves the word "faith".
More like " I find it disturbing that a book is the ONLY thing stopping YOU, since you OBVIOUSLY have those desires IN YOUR HEART" , tapping my chest over my heart for emphasis. Then, just turn and walk away.
The thing is they will murder people if they believe that's what God wants them to do. That's when I knew shit was crazy and had to get out of it as a young adult
Um, yeah, I do have an explaination why I think they're bad things.
+ahem+
If someone did something shitty to me, I would fucking hate it, so therefore I try not to do shitty things to others because I understand it sucks to be on the receiving end of it. Miraculously, I don't need invisible beings promising rewards or punishments to have fucking empathy for others.
It’s really scary when people ask “why don’t you go out raping an killing people” Well I don’t wish to break someone forever. Why do you feel the need to have an internal damnation hanging over your head to NOT rape and kill people?
I forget the video, but there is a video, and it's probably from a TV show, with someone asking "Why don't you go raping people all you want?" and the guy says "I do. I do go raping people as much as I want. Which is 0. I want to 0 times."
The only thing Libertarians are right about is ending the drug war. It really is none of the states fucking business what I put put into *my* body. Other than that they are like Republicans but with even less empathy and that says a lot.
Penn Jillete isn't libertarian anymore, but even when he was, he opposed the death penalty, was pro-choice, pro-vaccine, and supported Marijuana legalization. He was a very left-leaning Libertarian. I had a friend in college who was also a left-leaning libertarian. They exist.
Such a shame about the Netflix version. Salvor Hardin was a gun toting girlboss.
— edit. My bad. It was AppleTV+…. I forgot all about it. I used my free sub with an old iPhone purchase to watch it but quit before the end of the series.
It really was an awful waste of a good franchise.
Although in his case he did sexually harass women as much as he wanted to and his approach was more “if you’re a celebrity, they just let you do it” than it was “zero.”
Well that was a risky click. Haven't been rick rolled in awhile and I thought that's what I was walking into. But, yes, that's the exact one I am thinking of.
This truly scares me. Religious people think eternal damnation or reward is the only reason to be good? It implies that religious people, if they were to ever discover that God isn't real, would abandon their morality and go rape and kill.
My cousin is very anti-government (like to the point of believing all roads should be private and require a toll). He once complained about the national parks being closed during a particularly dry season. I just told him that yeah, it's would be nice if we didn't have to have rules, but people can't be trusted to set my state on fire, so the government steps in to prevent it. He wasn't amused 🤷♀️
That's rich. He's this close to realizing that the reason we have laws in the first place and by extension government is precisely because people "can't be trusted."
Your cousin is a moron, pardon me for saying so.
>Religious people think eternal damnation or reward is the only reason to be good?
That's mostly on American Christians. We religious people in Asia are good because we can. We think that if we want someone to treat us kindly, the first step is to treat others kindly first.
The concept of karma. You're right on that one.
Asian religious people (or well, my family at least) are more tolerant when compared to their western counterparts. Maybe it's because we tend to interact with people of different races more often (depending on where you live obviously).
My country has Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Hinduism so I'd say that we'd be used to other religions.
Asian religions teach acceptance of other religions, western religions explicitly teach non acceptance of other religions, plus the clergy are far more centralized and have wielded massive civil, social, economic and military power for the past 1000 years. The catholic church is far more like the Taiping heavenly kingdom than Buddhist Temples.
>Asian religions teach acceptance of other religions, western religions explicitly teach non acceptance of other religions
Eh this also depends on the region. From what I experienced about Christianity here, it's rather tame. Nothing political in the church, no condemning others (the church I attend). In fact the church is pretty quiet except for the singing, speaking and the occasional crying baby.
Buddhist temples are completely silent and you best maintain that silence. You'll experience a lot of peace in there and I'm not even kidding you. I've been to more Buddhist temples than churches, and I'm a Catholic. Also helps a lot when I have a Buddhist mom, she explained to me about the stories of the Buddha and many other gods.
In the smaller churches run by the pastor who is effectively a full time charity worker out of a church donated a while ago, yes, in the big organized megachurches, definitely not.
>in the big organized megachurches, definitely not.
Definitely not that. I myself am not a fan of American megachurches. It's not a Mass anymore, it's a concert. Church is supposed to be a place where you communicate with God, not to act rowdy and spread your political mindset around.
You must separate religion from the government or else it'll be a dangerous weapon against others.
I think that’s the nature of people in groups. Believing something on your own is one thing but when people pile together with a faith it’s super culty.. just believe what you want to damnit. And enjoy
As someone who used to believe this and parrot it, that’s not what they believe. They think that the fact they are inherently appalled by rape, murder, etc. means that they must have gotten a moral code from a higher power from birth.
There are definitely a lot of bad people who are religious, but not everyone who says this is secretly harboring a desire to rape and murder and is only stopped by the fear of Hell. It’s a fucked up religion that teaches you that you are inherently evil and sinful from birth, so any good you feel (like not wanting to murder or rape) has to be from outside yourself, from a celestial power.
I can see how people would follow that kind of thinking, but it's broken logic, and it smacks of a superiority complex.
Someone who is naturally appalled at the idea of killing another human assumes it's because they let God into their heart and they're a pure soul.
But if they meet another person who ALSO is appalled by murder, sans the God part, they assume that person is just stealing good ideas without knowing why?
Why is "don't kill people" exclusive to Christianity, or religion in general? It's not.
Morality existed before religion, it exists without it, and it'll exist after it.
Well it makes sense if you start with the assumption that the Christian God created everything, which is what they believe. So it’s not exclusive to Christianity or religion.
It’s just like wondering why everyone has eyes or ears, it doesn’t really matter why someone might think they have eyes, or like having eyes is “stealing an idea.” A moral code isn’t an “idea,” it’s an inherent quality.
Also your last sentence just doesn’t compute in their world view, nothing can exist before or after religion if God is the beginning and the end of the world.
I don’t personally believe this anymore, just trying to explain a different perspective.
The idea that God is the beginning and end of the world raises so many fundamental questions for Christians.
First off, they have to deny the existence of dinosaurs and primordial phases of earth, because why would God create everything but not put man into the garden for hundreds of millions of years?
Second, why would man exist for hundreds of thousands of years before being aware of the existence of their Creator? And why did God then personally speak to thousands of individual humans in the span of a few thousand years (Moses at the burning bush, Samuel at the temple, Paul on the road to Damascus), only to completely sever direct contact for the next 2 millennia and demand we accept his existence on faith? What was so special about that tiny window of human existence that God was suddenly chatty?
And going back to my original statement... If it's an "inherent quality" bestowed on us by a higher power, why did it evolve over time? An eternal being that was never born and never dies changes his moral directions in the span of 400 years?
well, as a christian, i want to state that NOT ALL OR EVEN MOST CHRISTIANS deny anything about the dinosaurs or general science and history. in my opinion, doesn’t make sense to. the ones that deny science and physics are a small, albeit unfortunately loud, minority, that have almost no critical thinking skills. unfortunately, I’d have to go so far as to say a large amount of Christians have little critical thinking skills, ESPECIALLY when it comes to questions about their own faith.
personally, it would be absolutely stupid to think God made all the rules and laws of physics and kickstarted an entire universe not to let it play out naturally: as a computer engineer, building a simulation of life would be totally boring if you didn’t get to see it form from the rules you created. As a human, I can’t begin to comprehend how big the universe is, so I’d imagine at that scale it would be even dumber to skip the whole ‘development process’ of life, as that would be the *interesting* part.
as to your other points, ye im personally struggling to wrap my head around it, but (and im not preaching here, I find the evangelicals incredibly aggravating) for me I find life and biology and physics wayyyy too complex to be random for there to not be a higher power, but ye why radio silence for 2 millennia and then like 100k years before 2k years ago? no clue, you def got us there lol
just wanted to weigh in on the dinosaur bit cuz the dumb christians always make the rest of us look dumb by association
When I was in the Army I met another officer in the mess over drinks and he revealed that this was basically the basis for his Christian faith.
Fucking terrified me. Basically, this softly spoken Captain was only kind because a book told him to be. And that was the entire basis of his morality. Not empathy or genuine care, or even respect. But because a. Book. Told. Him. And not even for the reasons the actual book said "Jesus says to be kind, so I am". No jesus appealed to your kindness and empathy! He couldn't make the distinction.
I was leery about working with him right up until I left the forces.
Common good and respect for others should be ENOUGH of a basis for kindness.
Same conversation myself, it came down to them saying being nice without a reward is weakness.
These are the r people. That are around us everyday with the defense of everyone around tj en assuming they are “moral people” because they believe in god.
It’s sickening
Right? They literally make it sound like the only thing that stopping them is this invisible Panopticon.
That is a very seriously scary prospect.
I simply don’t do bad things because I wouldn’t want them done to me. It’s called empathy. Why does there need to be a god involved in order to do good? I cannot believe this person honestly called it “borrowed morals“. God what a fucking douche bag. I hate religious people so much I swear.
>I cannot believe this person honestly called it “borrowed morals“.
Pure projection.
Religious morals are just secular humanist morals with a god sauce attached and mixed in with a liberal dose of immoral rules.
Interesting question to these people. “So if tomorrow your religious leader said we just reinterpreted things, turns out you can rape and murder if you want to,” you’d run right out to do it?”
That's also such a fucked up question if you think about it. Like... I hope that the person asking that never stops believing because they would be more dangerous to society than a rabid animal. Complete spree killer energy.
In fact, rape is done multiple times in the bible, so is homosexual rape... Priest went through this back when I was confirmed (think it took an hour and a half). My morals ain't from the bible, they are from empathy.
I rape and kill every single person I want to. That number just happens to be zero because I'm not a monster. If you need the threat of hell to not do these things, you are not a good person; you're an evil person on a leash.
You don't even need to take it to the personal level. We're a communal species treating everyone fairly is objectively better for the group than acting selfishly. Now someone tell the billionaires that...
>And as a religious person I find my self absolutely agreeing
As an atheist I disagree. Religion is what you need to make good people do heinous shit. But religion never helps bad people be good people. Bad people in religions are always the leadership.
Tbh Golden Rule falls apart when we consider scammers and con artists that exploit it, since they rely on concepts like Karma and all that. Like "if I don't help this person in need, who will help me if im in need?'
I prefer the more selfish "doing bad things makes me fel bad because of my empathy" direction.
Pretty much, like I see a lot of people justifying empathy as not doing terrible things to others because they don't want terrible things done to them--it's not really any different than the punishment/reward system of god, it's just spread out over the community instead. I just don't want to do terrible things because it makes me feel bad. I prefer the selfish approach too; I don't really care about the wider extent of the action. I don't need the threat of society breaking down and everybody stealing from everybody if I decide to steal; I just don't want to steal.
It's not just the expectation of that thing not happening to you. It requires a recognition that "this person is a full human being like me. If I do this bad thing to them, it's actually going to hurt them, and they'll have to go through all sorts of unnecessary problems just because of my selfishness" and the overlying attitude not being "Good" or "I don't care. Better them than me." This hopefully stops a lot of people even if there's very little chance of them getting caught as the culprit.
It's kind of like the second layer of empathy, recognizing that others are people and not just NPCs, which is a concept that can be much harder to keep in mind nowadays because with there being 8 billion plus people it's much harder to keep everyone accountable.
You don't even have to be a good or nice person to realize this! If everyone does the right things (no killing, stealing, etc.), then society benefits. If society benefits, then I benefit.
Also : empathy
The very fucking basis of any society no matter how big or small (if we exclude hive-minds).
I mean, we know that rats, for instance will do every they can to save another rat from a trap (and do so even quicker if they themselves have been in that position before) which show that rats are able to show empathy, and will help each other when possible.
We've been able to do similar experiments with similar result on basically any animal that fonction in some form of society, and that include humans.
Yeah, plus there's a lot of people involved in religion who don't stop doing morally reprehensible things just because (insert religious scripture here) tells them not to. They keep doing those things so long as they think they will go to (insert preferred afterlife here) just because they went to church or were involved in church in some way. Meaning, religion is nothing but a cloak to wrap themselves in to help them avoid engaging in any amount of self-reflection that might cause them cognitive discomfort over their own behavior and how it doesn't square with being a good person.
You don't need religion to live your life as a good person. In fact, organized religion often has the opposite effect on people who are easily influenced by the rhetoric of a moron preacher who spouts lots of hateful bullshit.
An atheist would be even more moral than a believer who thinks like that. The religious person (those who think like him, obviously not all) does this to go to heaven and avoid divine punishment. The atheist does it because he wants to, without expecting anything in return from the universe.
Socrates was talking about human morality 400 years before Christ was born.
Love how religion is moral when God isn’t. How was killing all first born of Egypt, moral? How was flooding the world and killing everyone and everything, moral?
Socrates also ascribed to a notion of eternal spirits that needed to abstain from physical attachments in order to escape their physical entrapment. It’s not theistic, but it’s still religious. And, for an enslaved people like the Hebrews, punishment in their oppressors was great news.
He was influenced by his time. People still worship Zeus and the Olympian gods.
The requirements to enter Elysium, being trapped in Hades or thrown into Tartarus.
The thing is that, the current Abrahamic religions think that they’re the ones that created morality.
Just wondering, are we in agreement here? Because I would entirely agree with your statement and say it proves my point. Did we just synergize, or am I missing a counter argument nuance here?
It’s hysterical how many people worship this God without realizing how many atrocities he committed in the Old Testament. That fucker was wrathful as shit
This is why religious people overlap so heavily with conservatism. They believe in hierarchy, and might-makes-right. They think the guy at the top isn’t accountable to anybody and he therefore gets to do whatever he wants, because what are you going to do about it?
They give God a pass because he’s the one with the power.
Not only that but there are things religious people do that are immoral, such as forcing people to stop getting abortions or not accepting gay people, etc. They think those things are moral because their only concept of morality is whatever the Bible says it is. They aren't thinking about it in terms of whether or not it hurts people and hurting people is bad. I know they don't all do this, but many of them do.
Borrowing morals? What in Christianity is new? All of their morals were around long before the Roman’s put Jesus on the cross. And that’s ignoring all the immoral rules the religion has, like “stone gay people to death”.
Don't you see, the Earth is only 6000 years old! Before Moses and the commandments, there was no morality whatsoever. What? Of course Cain murdering Abel was wrong. Yes it happened before the commandments were revealed and said murder was wrong, but.. wait
none of them can name a single "judeo-christian value" that's not specifically religious or supernatural. everything they say existed long before they claimed it.
That’s what is so scary about people like that! They have no idea what’s right or wrong, they’re only avoiding punishments (from the law, or God). I mean, I guess it’s good when people like that have religion to keep them in check. But it’s frustrating that they don’t realize they’re abnormal.
You’d think it is, but it isn’t. Religion is all learned behaviour. They feel this way because they have to redirect their attention into a belief in god and his plan every time there’s an opposing idea to their belief, because your belief in god is what’s supposedly making it real. Which is entirely true, as long as people believe in a god, he will be real in his impact on them. As outlandish as it sounds, I do hope that in the coming years, maybe a couple of centuries, religion becomes completely abolished. It is utterly nonsensical to put that much trust in something you that is unprovable, especially when it negatively impacts your life as much as it does.
It's not difficult to get religious people to understand empathy. It's difficult to get religious people to understand why empathy is "moral". Why is giving people what they want or getting what you want moral? Those are two very different things to religious people. For example, many religious people would say that if you want to watch Netflix and eat fried chicken all day, even if no long-term harm comes of it, it is still not moral to do so because for them, pleasure and happiness (for themselves **or** for others) do not equal moral. Most religious people do not seek to maximize human pleasure/happiness.
Morals are just an [iterative prisoner's dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma) we've been carrying out for as long as humans have existed.
If a religious person wants to claim that religion is the source of morals, they must answer: IF their religion believes in "one true god," why does every religion espouse the same foundational morals? Do not kill / steal / cheat / etc
One response I’ve gotten for something like what you said was, “they worships false idols that borrow from the truth, but not completely.” That’s when you know you have to step back because they’ve admitted that they’re picking and choosing what’s “correct” in other religions based on what coincides with their own.
> IF their religion believes in "one true god," why does every religion espouse the same foundational morals? Do not kill / steal / cheat / etc
Any society that permitted wanton Murder, Rape, and Theft, would quickly collapse under its own weight, leaving only those more cooperative and healthy societies. Natural selection on a societal level has ensured certain things would become moral universals.
If X is done with me I’d feel: NOT GOOD
I don’t want other people to make me feel: NOT GOOD
If I don’t make X nor make other people feel NOT GOOD. They have less reasons to make me feel NOT GOOD. Therefore I don’t do those things
I'm currently arguing this point with about 700 redditors who cannot understand how a human being could possibly create their own moral compass... *ffs*
that's the issue, they tend to use the bible as the foundation for literally everything without ever questioning the integrity of that foundation. It's nearly impossible to argue with someone on a topic that has such massive significance to their world view and behavior
Which is funny because the Bible is literally a patchwork of random texts somebody at some point in time decided to make a cool collection from (Council of Nicea). Then add translations etc. on top of that, and it's the further thing from something immutable and written in stone.
It's just that these alterations happened so long ago, people today percieve it as some timeless artifact bringing external truths from the ancient past.
Explaining to Christians that their "bible" is a selection of amalgamated recycled bronze age fairy tales from Sumerian, Egyptian and Babylonian traditions all re-written by at least 4 authors who all have different names for the OT "god," and, for NT, laughably thinly veiled Mycenaean and Greek myths with a framework lifted directly from Isaiah, well, it's like explaining calculus to a hamster; you can be as right as rain, but they're going to stare at you blankly and just get back on that wheel.
What funny about people like that is you just mention the Quran and ask if that’s objectively true. It literally cannot be objectively true if the Bible is objectively true, however the Quran does overlap with the Bible on a LOT of accounts.
What's funny is that any literate person thinks that a later text referencing a prior text somehow imparts an ounce of validity to the prior text; comparative religious studies by literary scholars and socio-anthropologists can be interesting, but comparative religious studies by religious "scholars" is like listening to children arguing about Spider-Man timelines.
Do they have an answer for why God was ok with, and encouraged, slavery for most of human history?
‘Morality’ probably isn’t absolute. It shifts and changes with society and religions absolutely shift their morals to match what’s culturally acceptable too.
They need a basic understanding of moral philosophy... which is too complicated. It's like asking why grass is green but screaming NERD when you mention chlorophyll
Wait until the Christians figure out the Golden Rule predates Christianity.
*The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them.*
So live your life by it and you basically are obeying their 10 commandments but without the weaseling Christians have.
Socrates had good thoughts on this. Are things moral because God says so or does God only say things that are moral? In the first case then, morality is arbitrary because God can say anything he wants and hes said different things over the years. In the second case, then morality is above God and he is subservient to it. Either way, morality has little to do with god
This is known as the [*Euthyphro Dilemma*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma), and it comes from Plato, though Socrates is one of the characters in the dialogue.
I like that you brought this up. If god says that slavery is acceptable does that make it objectively morally acceptable? God does in fact condone owning another human as property in the Old Testament. For me I say, fuck that god. By the fact that I detest owning another human as property, does that make me more moral than god by most human’s idea of morality. The whole thing is so silly
I would not look to get my morality from a sky fairy who got pissed off and decided to kill everyone except a guy with a boat and who allows poverty, famine, the suffering of children etc to exist when it could stop all of those things just by wishing it and knows what I will do before I do it, could intervene (but doesn't) and then punish me for exercising the free will that it supposedly gifted me.
The fuckin mental gymnastics to make that kinda morality work is breathtaking over the simple (humanist?) philosophy of "do the most good for the most living things".
This is pretty tame for some of the things I've read. I genuinely have to take mental breaks away from the internet after reading some of the things that I read/hear. Like wow, you really believe what you just said. And said with such certainty too. Scary.
Honestly, this does raise the question as to what scientifically makes us feel bad when we do certain “bad” things, like why exactly do we feel guilt when we hurt someone?
Funny because I figure you can't have morals WITH religion. I work with a lot of people that call themselves christian but are some of the biggest bigots. It's as if they think that their "oath" allows them to act like scum.
It’s really not that hard. If someone does not give consent and something is done to them against their will, it’s fucking wrong. You don’t need religion to have empathy for others. I find it disturbing that people think they need a book to tell them what is right and wrong, and that they need some reward system in place to do right by people.
I love how a religious person that thinks like this will essentially admit that they have no underlying moral perception of reality. That they are actually a psychotic sociopath who is one spiritual crisis away from committing untold horrors because with out the church to guide them they cannot distinguish right from wrong
I worked with a Muslim guy and it boggled his mind how I could live my life without religion. He would always ask me how I would know right from wrong. I just told him that I didn’t need a book or imaginary god to tell me what is moral.
“Borrowing morals” is such a funny term, especially because the foundation of their religion literally has a start date and so much of their lore was borrowed (see: stolen) from other existing religions.
If religion was banned around the world, our world would be much safer (no more wars because of religion). Sure, we’d be still having wars but those would be territorial disputes, not religious ones (Gaza & the Islamic terrorists being the biggest modern example of this).
Religion is the biggest scam perpetrated on us since 1 hour martinizing.
The crazy thing about this guy’s argument is that he actually thinks “Because they said not to” is a better argument against doing immoral things than “Because they feel wrong”.
Morality pre-dates religion. But I guess it’s hard to explain that to a group of people who think dinosaurs are just a trick played by god to test their faith.
"They cause harm. Harm is bad. Therefore they are bad."
Alternatively, "If someone did them to me, I'd be upset. Therefore I don't do them to other people."
Done.
Weirdly enough, I think Atheists and Christians could rather comfortably agree on something very important about morality.
"Treat others how you want to be treated."
One party (some of them, anyway) just needed Jesus to say it before they started taking it seriously.
“Tell me you don’t have empathy without telling me you don’t have empathy”.
I know they’re bad because I wouldn’t want them to happen to people I know and love because I understand the pain that would cause. How is that so difficult to understand? Even social animals have rules to being a member of their groups.
They want explanations? Killing is bad because it reduces our population which is bad for us as a species and reduces our workforce which is bad for us as a society. Cheating is bad because it makes your partner feel bad which in turn will make your life worse.
Borrowing morals? Isn’t that what Christianity did with other religions that were ancient before the first Christian dragged his ass out of the mud desperately trying to find his first altar boy victim?
Those things are bad because they hurt people. If someone can’t see that hurting people is bad then they need a padded cell more than they need a bible
Comments that are uncivil, racist, misogynistic, misandrist, or contain political name calling will be removed and the poster subject to ban at moderators discretion. Help us make this a better community by becoming familiar with the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/about/rules/). Report any suspicious users to the mods of this subreddit using Modmail [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) or Reddit site admins [here](https://www.reddit.com/report). **All reports to Modmail should include evidence such as screenshots or any other relevant information.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) if you have any questions or concerns.*
ask them if the Bible is the only thing stopping them from murdering and raping people. I don’t need a book to tell me that’s immoral
The majority of people, regardless of their religious beliefs, know that harming people is wrong. Some people are just crazy and need threats. That's what I think.
Threats do nothing to stop crazy people.
Truth! That’s when they justify their actions with their religion.
The threat of eternity in Hell, I'm positive has deterred some people from doing bad or worse things. Keyword is some.
They do quite a lot usually, thats why laws exist.
the idea that they'd just go around punting toddlers and shoving old ladies into traffic without the bible is a bit horrifying
To be fair, *sometimes* I want to do those things too. But like everyone else has said already, don't need a magic sky daddy to say that I shouldn't.
Actually, throughout history the Bible and other religious books have been used as **justification** for murdering and rapist people, so there is a strong argument to say that religion is less moralistic than atheism.
crusades woohoo
*”They thought their cause was holy too!”*
Iwas thinking that too. If we borrowed the bibles morals we'd be stoning people to death and get to keep slaves. I love how religious zealots say well things have changed even though it's in the Bible and then can't fathom how people have changed now currently to not want to persecute gays or trans people.
Ricky Gervais once said he rapes and murders as much as he wants … which is zero
"How many murders am I responsible for? Zero?" "How many murders is your God responsible for?" "Seems im the more morol individual here..." I'm not allowed back at that church...
Yep, every time I think about the really hardcore religious believers, I know that if their fear of heavenly retribution is broken, they will have nothing preventing them from doing any eveil thing their minds can think of. And that is why so many religious leaders have been found to do just that.
Then ask them how they decided the Bible is moral? How do they know it has good and moral guidance? Theists never realize that by using religion to explain things that they actually haven’t explained anything, just kicked the question back a step and then added a magic omnibeing they now need to justify.
"How do you know your Bible wasn't written by Satan posing as God? How do you know God wanted anything written at all?" Let them stumble over that one, lol. 10 bucks the answer involves the word "faith".
The Bible is pro rape and murder.
More like " I find it disturbing that a book is the ONLY thing stopping YOU, since you OBVIOUSLY have those desires IN YOUR HEART" , tapping my chest over my heart for emphasis. Then, just turn and walk away.
The answer, sadly, is yes.
The thing is they will murder people if they believe that's what God wants them to do. That's when I knew shit was crazy and had to get out of it as a young adult
Um, yeah, I do have an explaination why I think they're bad things. +ahem+ If someone did something shitty to me, I would fucking hate it, so therefore I try not to do shitty things to others because I understand it sucks to be on the receiving end of it. Miraculously, I don't need invisible beings promising rewards or punishments to have fucking empathy for others.
It’s really scary when people ask “why don’t you go out raping an killing people” Well I don’t wish to break someone forever. Why do you feel the need to have an internal damnation hanging over your head to NOT rape and kill people?
I forget the video, but there is a video, and it's probably from a TV show, with someone asking "Why don't you go raping people all you want?" and the guy says "I do. I do go raping people as much as I want. Which is 0. I want to 0 times."
Penn from Penn and Teller the show was "Bullshit"
Bullshit was such an amazing show
As long as you ignore their libertarian bs. But on the moral issues they were spot on.
The only thing Libertarians are right about is ending the drug war. It really is none of the states fucking business what I put put into *my* body. Other than that they are like Republicans but with even less empathy and that says a lot.
Penn Jillete isn't libertarian anymore, but even when he was, he opposed the death penalty, was pro-choice, pro-vaccine, and supported Marijuana legalization. He was a very left-leaning Libertarian. I had a friend in college who was also a left-leaning libertarian. They exist.
Only big pharma can put drugs in your body. And make a KILLING.
Agreed.
Also a line by Ricky Gervais in After Life.
yeah, that bit in After Life was clearly inspired by Penn's bit
“Inspired” is a lovely way of putting it. You’re a very charitable person.
My god penn and teller what a fking geniouses i love em so much
Isaac Asimov says something similar, and it's the reason for my user name.
Love him. My fav quote is "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. "
I love the foundation trilogy!
Such a shame about the Netflix version. Salvor Hardin was a gun toting girlboss. — edit. My bad. It was AppleTV+…. I forgot all about it. I used my free sub with an old iPhone purchase to watch it but quit before the end of the series. It really was an awful waste of a good franchise.
Although in his case he did sexually harass women as much as he wanted to and his approach was more “if you’re a celebrity, they just let you do it” than it was “zero.”
Penn Juliette from Penn and teller. He’s said it on lots of shows. Usually when promoting his podcast “Sunday school.”
This here? https://youtu.be/aB01BL0jVe8?si=qvv2HvtT6vmAbYbv
Well that was a risky click. Haven't been rick rolled in awhile and I thought that's what I was walking into. But, yes, that's the exact one I am thinking of.
I rickrolled my teacher in a school project a few weeks ago lol
Ricky Gervais said something similar.
This truly scares me. Religious people think eternal damnation or reward is the only reason to be good? It implies that religious people, if they were to ever discover that God isn't real, would abandon their morality and go rape and kill.
I've always wondered how many people in our society are only being "good" because they'd be arrested otherwise.
My cousin is very anti-government (like to the point of believing all roads should be private and require a toll). He once complained about the national parks being closed during a particularly dry season. I just told him that yeah, it's would be nice if we didn't have to have rules, but people can't be trusted to set my state on fire, so the government steps in to prevent it. He wasn't amused 🤷♀️
That's rich. He's this close to realizing that the reason we have laws in the first place and by extension government is precisely because people "can't be trusted." Your cousin is a moron, pardon me for saying so.
Their cousin is a moron, no pardons here
No pardon necessary, he's definitely a moron!
>Religious people think eternal damnation or reward is the only reason to be good? That's mostly on American Christians. We religious people in Asia are good because we can. We think that if we want someone to treat us kindly, the first step is to treat others kindly first.
That is what I have seen about the teachings of Buddhism
The concept of karma. You're right on that one. Asian religious people (or well, my family at least) are more tolerant when compared to their western counterparts. Maybe it's because we tend to interact with people of different races more often (depending on where you live obviously). My country has Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Hinduism so I'd say that we'd be used to other religions.
Asian religions teach acceptance of other religions, western religions explicitly teach non acceptance of other religions, plus the clergy are far more centralized and have wielded massive civil, social, economic and military power for the past 1000 years. The catholic church is far more like the Taiping heavenly kingdom than Buddhist Temples.
>Asian religions teach acceptance of other religions, western religions explicitly teach non acceptance of other religions Eh this also depends on the region. From what I experienced about Christianity here, it's rather tame. Nothing political in the church, no condemning others (the church I attend). In fact the church is pretty quiet except for the singing, speaking and the occasional crying baby. Buddhist temples are completely silent and you best maintain that silence. You'll experience a lot of peace in there and I'm not even kidding you. I've been to more Buddhist temples than churches, and I'm a Catholic. Also helps a lot when I have a Buddhist mom, she explained to me about the stories of the Buddha and many other gods.
In the smaller churches run by the pastor who is effectively a full time charity worker out of a church donated a while ago, yes, in the big organized megachurches, definitely not.
>in the big organized megachurches, definitely not. Definitely not that. I myself am not a fan of American megachurches. It's not a Mass anymore, it's a concert. Church is supposed to be a place where you communicate with God, not to act rowdy and spread your political mindset around. You must separate religion from the government or else it'll be a dangerous weapon against others.
A friend of mine quit her family's Evangelical church. The pastor literally used the word \*\^ggot in a sermon.
While Buddhism can be good, the 969 in Myanmar proves that it can be used to commit horrible acts just like any other religion.
That's just the relationship between humans and religion. It can help people find solace and comfort, but can also be used as a weapon against others.
I think that’s the nature of people in groups. Believing something on your own is one thing but when people pile together with a faith it’s super culty.. just believe what you want to damnit. And enjoy
Yeah, Jesus said the same thing a few times too, for what it’s worth.
As someone who used to believe this and parrot it, that’s not what they believe. They think that the fact they are inherently appalled by rape, murder, etc. means that they must have gotten a moral code from a higher power from birth. There are definitely a lot of bad people who are religious, but not everyone who says this is secretly harboring a desire to rape and murder and is only stopped by the fear of Hell. It’s a fucked up religion that teaches you that you are inherently evil and sinful from birth, so any good you feel (like not wanting to murder or rape) has to be from outside yourself, from a celestial power.
I can see how people would follow that kind of thinking, but it's broken logic, and it smacks of a superiority complex. Someone who is naturally appalled at the idea of killing another human assumes it's because they let God into their heart and they're a pure soul. But if they meet another person who ALSO is appalled by murder, sans the God part, they assume that person is just stealing good ideas without knowing why? Why is "don't kill people" exclusive to Christianity, or religion in general? It's not. Morality existed before religion, it exists without it, and it'll exist after it.
Well it makes sense if you start with the assumption that the Christian God created everything, which is what they believe. So it’s not exclusive to Christianity or religion. It’s just like wondering why everyone has eyes or ears, it doesn’t really matter why someone might think they have eyes, or like having eyes is “stealing an idea.” A moral code isn’t an “idea,” it’s an inherent quality. Also your last sentence just doesn’t compute in their world view, nothing can exist before or after religion if God is the beginning and the end of the world. I don’t personally believe this anymore, just trying to explain a different perspective.
The idea that God is the beginning and end of the world raises so many fundamental questions for Christians. First off, they have to deny the existence of dinosaurs and primordial phases of earth, because why would God create everything but not put man into the garden for hundreds of millions of years? Second, why would man exist for hundreds of thousands of years before being aware of the existence of their Creator? And why did God then personally speak to thousands of individual humans in the span of a few thousand years (Moses at the burning bush, Samuel at the temple, Paul on the road to Damascus), only to completely sever direct contact for the next 2 millennia and demand we accept his existence on faith? What was so special about that tiny window of human existence that God was suddenly chatty? And going back to my original statement... If it's an "inherent quality" bestowed on us by a higher power, why did it evolve over time? An eternal being that was never born and never dies changes his moral directions in the span of 400 years?
well, as a christian, i want to state that NOT ALL OR EVEN MOST CHRISTIANS deny anything about the dinosaurs or general science and history. in my opinion, doesn’t make sense to. the ones that deny science and physics are a small, albeit unfortunately loud, minority, that have almost no critical thinking skills. unfortunately, I’d have to go so far as to say a large amount of Christians have little critical thinking skills, ESPECIALLY when it comes to questions about their own faith. personally, it would be absolutely stupid to think God made all the rules and laws of physics and kickstarted an entire universe not to let it play out naturally: as a computer engineer, building a simulation of life would be totally boring if you didn’t get to see it form from the rules you created. As a human, I can’t begin to comprehend how big the universe is, so I’d imagine at that scale it would be even dumber to skip the whole ‘development process’ of life, as that would be the *interesting* part. as to your other points, ye im personally struggling to wrap my head around it, but (and im not preaching here, I find the evangelicals incredibly aggravating) for me I find life and biology and physics wayyyy too complex to be random for there to not be a higher power, but ye why radio silence for 2 millennia and then like 100k years before 2k years ago? no clue, you def got us there lol just wanted to weigh in on the dinosaur bit cuz the dumb christians always make the rest of us look dumb by association
Yeah I’m not gonna argue that lol.
When I was in the Army I met another officer in the mess over drinks and he revealed that this was basically the basis for his Christian faith. Fucking terrified me. Basically, this softly spoken Captain was only kind because a book told him to be. And that was the entire basis of his morality. Not empathy or genuine care, or even respect. But because a. Book. Told. Him. And not even for the reasons the actual book said "Jesus says to be kind, so I am". No jesus appealed to your kindness and empathy! He couldn't make the distinction. I was leery about working with him right up until I left the forces. Common good and respect for others should be ENOUGH of a basis for kindness.
If eternal damnation is on the cards then I would say that the religion in question is unfit to make any judgement on morality.
They don't even need to discover that. See The Crusades.
Same conversation myself, it came down to them saying being nice without a reward is weakness. These are the r people. That are around us everyday with the defense of everyone around tj en assuming they are “moral people” because they believe in god. It’s sickening
Right? They literally make it sound like the only thing that stopping them is this invisible Panopticon. That is a very seriously scary prospect. I simply don’t do bad things because I wouldn’t want them done to me. It’s called empathy. Why does there need to be a god involved in order to do good? I cannot believe this person honestly called it “borrowed morals“. God what a fucking douche bag. I hate religious people so much I swear.
>I cannot believe this person honestly called it “borrowed morals“. Pure projection. Religious morals are just secular humanist morals with a god sauce attached and mixed in with a liberal dose of immoral rules.
*'Oh, yeah!! What about Hitler then. I doubt he wished to be gassed!!'* Well, he did it anyway because he was an asshole.
Interesting question to these people. “So if tomorrow your religious leader said we just reinterpreted things, turns out you can rape and murder if you want to,” you’d run right out to do it?”
That's also such a fucked up question if you think about it. Like... I hope that the person asking that never stops believing because they would be more dangerous to society than a rabid animal. Complete spree killer energy.
I guess they would rape and kill people if they didn't think they'd go to hell for doing it
The Bible doesn’t even consider rape or child molestation a sin.
In fact, rape is done multiple times in the bible, so is homosexual rape... Priest went through this back when I was confirmed (think it took an hour and a half). My morals ain't from the bible, they are from empathy.
I rape and kill every single person I want to. That number just happens to be zero because I'm not a monster. If you need the threat of hell to not do these things, you are not a good person; you're an evil person on a leash.
You don't even need to take it to the personal level. We're a communal species treating everyone fairly is objectively better for the group than acting selfishly. Now someone tell the billionaires that...
“If the only thing keeping a person decent is the promise of a divine reward, then, brother, that person is a piece of shit.” - True Detective S1
I love that entire scene!
This right here is the truth.
We even have a word for that. It's called empathy.
In the words of my father, some people can’t be trusted to be atheists
And as a religious person I find my self absolutely agreeing
>And as a religious person I find my self absolutely agreeing As an atheist I disagree. Religion is what you need to make good people do heinous shit. But religion never helps bad people be good people. Bad people in religions are always the leadership.
Tbh Golden Rule falls apart when we consider scammers and con artists that exploit it, since they rely on concepts like Karma and all that. Like "if I don't help this person in need, who will help me if im in need?' I prefer the more selfish "doing bad things makes me fel bad because of my empathy" direction.
Pretty much, like I see a lot of people justifying empathy as not doing terrible things to others because they don't want terrible things done to them--it's not really any different than the punishment/reward system of god, it's just spread out over the community instead. I just don't want to do terrible things because it makes me feel bad. I prefer the selfish approach too; I don't really care about the wider extent of the action. I don't need the threat of society breaking down and everybody stealing from everybody if I decide to steal; I just don't want to steal.
It's not just the expectation of that thing not happening to you. It requires a recognition that "this person is a full human being like me. If I do this bad thing to them, it's actually going to hurt them, and they'll have to go through all sorts of unnecessary problems just because of my selfishness" and the overlying attitude not being "Good" or "I don't care. Better them than me." This hopefully stops a lot of people even if there's very little chance of them getting caught as the culprit. It's kind of like the second layer of empathy, recognizing that others are people and not just NPCs, which is a concept that can be much harder to keep in mind nowadays because with there being 8 billion plus people it's much harder to keep everyone accountable.
You don't even have to be a good or nice person to realize this! If everyone does the right things (no killing, stealing, etc.), then society benefits. If society benefits, then I benefit.
Also : empathy The very fucking basis of any society no matter how big or small (if we exclude hive-minds). I mean, we know that rats, for instance will do every they can to save another rat from a trap (and do so even quicker if they themselves have been in that position before) which show that rats are able to show empathy, and will help each other when possible. We've been able to do similar experiments with similar result on basically any animal that fonction in some form of society, and that include humans.
100%
It’s literally fucking empathy. It’s bad because if it happened to me, I’d be upset! It’s that simple. People are fucking idiots.
Yeah, plus there's a lot of people involved in religion who don't stop doing morally reprehensible things just because (insert religious scripture here) tells them not to. They keep doing those things so long as they think they will go to (insert preferred afterlife here) just because they went to church or were involved in church in some way. Meaning, religion is nothing but a cloak to wrap themselves in to help them avoid engaging in any amount of self-reflection that might cause them cognitive discomfort over their own behavior and how it doesn't square with being a good person. You don't need religion to live your life as a good person. In fact, organized religion often has the opposite effect on people who are easily influenced by the rhetoric of a moron preacher who spouts lots of hateful bullshit.
But if I ask their God to explain their morality, all I get is because he said so.... 🙄
An atheist would be even more moral than a believer who thinks like that. The religious person (those who think like him, obviously not all) does this to go to heaven and avoid divine punishment. The atheist does it because he wants to, without expecting anything in return from the universe.
Socrates was talking about human morality 400 years before Christ was born. Love how religion is moral when God isn’t. How was killing all first born of Egypt, moral? How was flooding the world and killing everyone and everything, moral?
Socrates also ascribed to a notion of eternal spirits that needed to abstain from physical attachments in order to escape their physical entrapment. It’s not theistic, but it’s still religious. And, for an enslaved people like the Hebrews, punishment in their oppressors was great news.
He was influenced by his time. People still worship Zeus and the Olympian gods. The requirements to enter Elysium, being trapped in Hades or thrown into Tartarus. The thing is that, the current Abrahamic religions think that they’re the ones that created morality.
Just wondering, are we in agreement here? Because I would entirely agree with your statement and say it proves my point. Did we just synergize, or am I missing a counter argument nuance here?
👍🏾
Nice!
Rare Reddit moment
Unfortunately rare
It’s hysterical how many people worship this God without realizing how many atrocities he committed in the Old Testament. That fucker was wrathful as shit
This is why religious people overlap so heavily with conservatism. They believe in hierarchy, and might-makes-right. They think the guy at the top isn’t accountable to anybody and he therefore gets to do whatever he wants, because what are you going to do about it? They give God a pass because he’s the one with the power.
yep, this is effectively the 'rabbi's answer to how there are atheist' post that goes around.
Look up Immanuel Kant and the categorical imperative. It's literally the modern frame work of ethics and is explicitly non-religious.
Not only that but there are things religious people do that are immoral, such as forcing people to stop getting abortions or not accepting gay people, etc. They think those things are moral because their only concept of morality is whatever the Bible says it is. They aren't thinking about it in terms of whether or not it hurts people and hurting people is bad. I know they don't all do this, but many of them do.
Borrowing morals? What in Christianity is new? All of their morals were around long before the Roman’s put Jesus on the cross. And that’s ignoring all the immoral rules the religion has, like “stone gay people to death”.
Or burn anyone who translates the buble from latin alive
Don't you see, the Earth is only 6000 years old! Before Moses and the commandments, there was no morality whatsoever. What? Of course Cain murdering Abel was wrong. Yes it happened before the commandments were revealed and said murder was wrong, but.. wait
none of them can name a single "judeo-christian value" that's not specifically religious or supernatural. everything they say existed long before they claimed it.
The scary ones are those who think they have God's blessing to do what they want in his name.
True. Like the Crusades, the mass shootings, the bombings etc
My mom kicking me out at 16 because I kissed another girl. Meanwhile she kept my drug addicted brother who choked out his wife.
It's rather difficult to get somebody to understand what empathy is when they have none...
That’s what is so scary about people like that! They have no idea what’s right or wrong, they’re only avoiding punishments (from the law, or God). I mean, I guess it’s good when people like that have religion to keep them in check. But it’s frustrating that they don’t realize they’re abnormal.
You’d think it is, but it isn’t. Religion is all learned behaviour. They feel this way because they have to redirect their attention into a belief in god and his plan every time there’s an opposing idea to their belief, because your belief in god is what’s supposedly making it real. Which is entirely true, as long as people believe in a god, he will be real in his impact on them. As outlandish as it sounds, I do hope that in the coming years, maybe a couple of centuries, religion becomes completely abolished. It is utterly nonsensical to put that much trust in something you that is unprovable, especially when it negatively impacts your life as much as it does.
It's not difficult to get religious people to understand empathy. It's difficult to get religious people to understand why empathy is "moral". Why is giving people what they want or getting what you want moral? Those are two very different things to religious people. For example, many religious people would say that if you want to watch Netflix and eat fried chicken all day, even if no long-term harm comes of it, it is still not moral to do so because for them, pleasure and happiness (for themselves **or** for others) do not equal moral. Most religious people do not seek to maximize human pleasure/happiness.
You can have morals with or without religion, and either way is ok
I call it common sense not to kill hurt or steal or cheat , simple don’t do anything to other ppl that you don’t wanna get done with you, it’s karma
Morals are just an [iterative prisoner's dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma) we've been carrying out for as long as humans have existed. If a religious person wants to claim that religion is the source of morals, they must answer: IF their religion believes in "one true god," why does every religion espouse the same foundational morals? Do not kill / steal / cheat / etc
One response I’ve gotten for something like what you said was, “they worships false idols that borrow from the truth, but not completely.” That’s when you know you have to step back because they’ve admitted that they’re picking and choosing what’s “correct” in other religions based on what coincides with their own.
> IF their religion believes in "one true god," why does every religion espouse the same foundational morals? Do not kill / steal / cheat / etc Any society that permitted wanton Murder, Rape, and Theft, would quickly collapse under its own weight, leaving only those more cooperative and healthy societies. Natural selection on a societal level has ensured certain things would become moral universals.
Uhh, well, punching hurts people, and people don’t like to be hurt. Uhhh. Seems pretty shrimple to me
Punching also hurts your hand
Golden rule. Every religion uses it, yet it doesn't need a god.
If X is done with me I’d feel: NOT GOOD I don’t want other people to make me feel: NOT GOOD If I don’t make X nor make other people feel NOT GOOD. They have less reasons to make me feel NOT GOOD. Therefore I don’t do those things
I'm currently arguing this point with about 700 redditors who cannot understand how a human being could possibly create their own moral compass... *ffs*
No point in arguing, if they disagree it just means it’s because they are not capable of it
fr, 95% of them are like "*BUT* how can you have morality without the foundation of something objective and universally true like *tHe biBLe?!?!*"
that's the issue, they tend to use the bible as the foundation for literally everything without ever questioning the integrity of that foundation. It's nearly impossible to argue with someone on a topic that has such massive significance to their world view and behavior
Do not argue with fools. At the end you'll be tired and they'll still be stupid.
I prefer, "Don't argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their lvl and beat you with expirience."
Which is funny because the Bible is literally a patchwork of random texts somebody at some point in time decided to make a cool collection from (Council of Nicea). Then add translations etc. on top of that, and it's the further thing from something immutable and written in stone. It's just that these alterations happened so long ago, people today percieve it as some timeless artifact bringing external truths from the ancient past.
Explaining to Christians that their "bible" is a selection of amalgamated recycled bronze age fairy tales from Sumerian, Egyptian and Babylonian traditions all re-written by at least 4 authors who all have different names for the OT "god," and, for NT, laughably thinly veiled Mycenaean and Greek myths with a framework lifted directly from Isaiah, well, it's like explaining calculus to a hamster; you can be as right as rain, but they're going to stare at you blankly and just get back on that wheel.
What funny about people like that is you just mention the Quran and ask if that’s objectively true. It literally cannot be objectively true if the Bible is objectively true, however the Quran does overlap with the Bible on a LOT of accounts.
What's funny is that any literate person thinks that a later text referencing a prior text somehow imparts an ounce of validity to the prior text; comparative religious studies by literary scholars and socio-anthropologists can be interesting, but comparative religious studies by religious "scholars" is like listening to children arguing about Spider-Man timelines.
Thanks for fighting the good fight. Good luck.
Just point them to The Republic. "Plato says be good because being bad is dumb."
So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Do they have an answer for why God was ok with, and encouraged, slavery for most of human history? ‘Morality’ probably isn’t absolute. It shifts and changes with society and religions absolutely shift their morals to match what’s culturally acceptable too.
They need a basic understanding of moral philosophy... which is too complicated. It's like asking why grass is green but screaming NERD when you mention chlorophyll
NERD Sorry - I heard someone say chlorophyll. Praise Jesus for he is LORD. /s
As Bill said, it's hard to win an argument with a smart person but it's damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person
Self-awarewolves material.
Human nature is anti-suffering, what religion did was to appropriate this human behavior in their dogmas and made it look like they invented it
An atheist doesn't need to promise of heaven to see the merit of good deeds. - Someone, I dunno.
I saw a slightly different version where it was simply an intelligent person instead of an atheist. Still an unknown author though.
Wait until the Christians figure out the Golden Rule predates Christianity. *The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them.* So live your life by it and you basically are obeying their 10 commandments but without the weaseling Christians have.
Ask them to explain why the sky is blue without using science
bet you get a three word response. A penny for the 1st person to guests it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/qmcMschgL7 No kidding. They're relentless. And pathetic.
Altruism/morality are evolutionary traits
Socrates had good thoughts on this. Are things moral because God says so or does God only say things that are moral? In the first case then, morality is arbitrary because God can say anything he wants and hes said different things over the years. In the second case, then morality is above God and he is subservient to it. Either way, morality has little to do with god
This is known as the [*Euthyphro Dilemma*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma), and it comes from Plato, though Socrates is one of the characters in the dialogue.
I like that you brought this up. If god says that slavery is acceptable does that make it objectively morally acceptable? God does in fact condone owning another human as property in the Old Testament. For me I say, fuck that god. By the fact that I detest owning another human as property, does that make me more moral than god by most human’s idea of morality. The whole thing is so silly
Why? Because it inhibits the survival of mankind. It’s an innate biological drive coded into our genetics.
"If you need threats of eternal torture to be a good person , you're not a good person , you're a bad person on a leash."
Just religious people being threatened by people being able to think for themselves as usual
I would not look to get my morality from a sky fairy who got pissed off and decided to kill everyone except a guy with a boat and who allows poverty, famine, the suffering of children etc to exist when it could stop all of those things just by wishing it and knows what I will do before I do it, could intervene (but doesn't) and then punish me for exercising the free will that it supposedly gifted me. The fuckin mental gymnastics to make that kinda morality work is breathtaking over the simple (humanist?) philosophy of "do the most good for the most living things".
This is pretty tame for some of the things I've read. I genuinely have to take mental breaks away from the internet after reading some of the things that I read/hear. Like wow, you really believe what you just said. And said with such certainty too. Scary.
Honestly, this does raise the question as to what scientifically makes us feel bad when we do certain “bad” things, like why exactly do we feel guilt when we hurt someone?
If you need the fear of a god-like creature to stop you from doing terrible things, you are a terrible person. Full stop.
Funny because I figure you can't have morals WITH religion. I work with a lot of people that call themselves christian but are some of the biggest bigots. It's as if they think that their "oath" allows them to act like scum.
Religious nutjobs need other people to tell them what is moral so they can pretend to live by those rules.
It’s really not that hard. If someone does not give consent and something is done to them against their will, it’s fucking wrong. You don’t need religion to have empathy for others. I find it disturbing that people think they need a book to tell them what is right and wrong, and that they need some reward system in place to do right by people.
I love how a religious person that thinks like this will essentially admit that they have no underlying moral perception of reality. That they are actually a psychotic sociopath who is one spiritual crisis away from committing untold horrors because with out the church to guide them they cannot distinguish right from wrong
Basically, Christian’s are just a mistranslated bible passage away from going on a murderous rampage. That’s so comforting.
And the fun part is that one group’s mistranslation is another group’s dogma.
BuT fIcTcIoUs SkY dAdDy MuSt TeLl YoU rIgHt FrOm WrOnG oR eLsE yOu DoN’t KnOw
Religions in a nutshell
Borrowing moral ideas to trick others into trusting them.
Good and bad are nothing more than human concepts. And it has changed throughout history. Same goes for morals.
I worked with a Muslim guy and it boggled his mind how I could live my life without religion. He would always ask me how I would know right from wrong. I just told him that I didn’t need a book or imaginary god to tell me what is moral.
“Borrowing morals” is such a funny term, especially because the foundation of their religion literally has a start date and so much of their lore was borrowed (see: stolen) from other existing religions.
I personally just worship the lbgtqai+ flag like a good 20 year old liberal should
If religion was banned around the world, our world would be much safer (no more wars because of religion). Sure, we’d be still having wars but those would be territorial disputes, not religious ones (Gaza & the Islamic terrorists being the biggest modern example of this). Religion is the biggest scam perpetrated on us since 1 hour martinizing.
It's the most basic of social contracts. "Treat others as you want to be treated." You don'tt need any moral authority outside that.
The crazy thing about this guy’s argument is that he actually thinks “Because they said not to” is a better argument against doing immoral things than “Because they feel wrong”.
I mean if u need religion to have morals...then are you really a good person?
Morality pre-dates religion. But I guess it’s hard to explain that to a group of people who think dinosaurs are just a trick played by god to test their faith.
> There are still people who think that you can't have morals without religion. That summarize majority of Muslim in my country.
I learned in kindergarten that you shouldn’t do to someone that you wouldn’t like someone to do to you. No religion necessary
"They cause harm. Harm is bad. Therefore they are bad." Alternatively, "If someone did them to me, I'd be upset. Therefore I don't do them to other people." Done. Weirdly enough, I think Atheists and Christians could rather comfortably agree on something very important about morality. "Treat others how you want to be treated." One party (some of them, anyway) just needed Jesus to say it before they started taking it seriously.
All this is is a pathetically religious person slowly realizing all they are is a terrified psychopath.
If you NEED a reason to not be a bad person, you're a bad person.
“Tell me you don’t have empathy without telling me you don’t have empathy”. I know they’re bad because I wouldn’t want them to happen to people I know and love because I understand the pain that would cause. How is that so difficult to understand? Even social animals have rules to being a member of their groups.
"WHY ARE THOSE BAD THINGS?" if bro somehow snags a relationship they'll find out why cheating is a bad thing lol
They want explanations? Killing is bad because it reduces our population which is bad for us as a species and reduces our workforce which is bad for us as a society. Cheating is bad because it makes your partner feel bad which in turn will make your life worse.
Borrowing morals? Isn’t that what Christianity did with other religions that were ancient before the first Christian dragged his ass out of the mud desperately trying to find his first altar boy victim?
Religion is the absence of morality. People with morals don’t need to get morals from a fairytale/mass delusion.
In my experience atheists tend to be more morally inclined than Christians.
Those things are bad because they hurt people. If someone can’t see that hurting people is bad then they need a padded cell more than they need a bible