[Powder]

Adjutant Stormy, on 07 January 2010 - 10:37 PM, said:

Thank you powder,

I've had the moral relativism argument many a time before. And whether you're fighting straw-men or paper-tigers, it really is most beneficial for all parties to actually respect the intelligence of the other.

Agreed. Not really sure what came over me there. Back on point tho-- you said morality is based on self interest then. So the presupposition then is that everyone is out to better themselves.
Personal question following
{
So then the best way to motivate people into stopping something like world hunger would be to show them that it is in their best interest to do so. Obviously in so doing there would be more humans to work in concert with one another or something? Or is it simply not a problem to be dealt with any longer? I can guess all day at how that logic plays out (obviously I have not gone apostate, and so I haven't sent myself through that line of thinking). What is your opinion on such things like world hunger, Aids epidemic, etc.
}

At the great risk of being black and white again Atheism is motivated by self interest (selfishness), while the Christianity I see is motivated out of group interest (selflessness)? Does that go to far? Using either of these things you can come up with some sort of morality... interesting indeed!

Question the next: How do you ascribe meaning?

-Powder

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Unfortunately, for helping far-off people to be in someone's self-interest, he or she must include those people in their community (the group to which they subscribe, cede rights to, help as a matter of self interest). This then breaks down to the limitations of people's sympathies, and human faults therein. A lack of unity. This is because of the limited additional utility of including (or ability to include) these other disparate groups.

The stereotypical condition that solves this problem is alien invasion / war. It becomes Humanity, and not America, Russia, etc. etc.

Meaning is something we have to agree on, first. What is meaning?

[Illuyankas]

Powder, on 07 January 2010 - 10:48 PM, said:

At the great risk of being black and white again Atheism is motivated by self interest (selfishness), while the Christianity I see is motivated out of group interest (selflessness)? Does that go to far?

You could easily say that Christianity is motivated by self interest - I help that dude out and I don't burn in hell - and Atheism (all hail Athe) by group interest - I help that dude out despite their being no net benefit for me at the moment or in the long run, purely because he is a fellow human being etc - but personally I think both sides, and in fact all sides, are motivated by self interest in sustaining the group. But that's me.

[rhulad]

I'm an Atheist, and could not honestly point to one place where my morals are derived from. That being said, I do not believe that someones morals can come from a single source, or for that matter, that they could be written down as a set of rules etc. Morality is not a black and white concept that can be easily defined. I would say that the vast majority of things that I value, or would consider moral probably came from my parents and experiences while growing up. I'm only 23, they could change based on something that happens in the future.

Powder, on 07 January 2010 - 10:48 PM, said:

At the great risk of being black and white again Atheism is motivated by self interest (selfishness), while the Christianity I see is motivated out of group interest (selflessness)? Does that go to far? Using either of these things you can come up with some sort of morality... interesting indeed!

Question the next: How do you ascribe meaning?

-Powder

Out of curiosity by what definition do you describe Atheism selfish? Or being motivated by self interest? I do not believe that I am motivated to not believe in a higher state of being and of God based on self interest. I probably wont debate the point with you (there would be no point, you would win) but I may come up with a rebuttal depending on your answer.

Before I answer your second question you must first give your definition of meaning.

[Powder]

First off there is no winning or losing. When people share ideas in an open and honest forum everyone who listens with an attentive ear benefits (Unless gibberish is being uttered, yet even then you would learn who not to listen to in the future). Anyhow. I was hoping that you would define meaning. I did not want to change the discussion by giving you my own. Perhaps if I ask it another way.

What is your purpose in life?

Stormy nice reply on the flaws of setting up rightness and wrongness from your perspective. If this board were Dragon Age Origins I would be moved like +6 up the little rep scale today (no homo). With my religious leanings this flaw changes. It shortchanges the process and creates humanity from its inception. History tends to back me in that most charities are religious in nature if not specifically Christian, it seems we are pretty focused on bettering the world in our best moments (to those of you just tuning in we tend to stray away from the darker sides of the Christianity/Atheist movements, everyone has charlatans).

I did not define Atheism as selfish, Stormy did. My definition was lacking, his is better, take his or add another that can be put up to debate.

Christianity could be motivated by self interest, absolutely. In earlier posts I critique this view, and to me it is a poorer form of Christianity which will eventually result in casting off the system entirely. After all if hell does not exist, there is no need to be scared of it. Given the posts on this board it is quite easy to see that being convinced that it does not exist (especially when its uber-scary) is not entirely difficult. But for more info check some of my longer posts.

-Powder

PS is it bad form to answer so much in a day?

[Terez]

Powder, on 07 January 2010 - 08:19 PM, said:

Before I get into a response though please note that I am doing my best to respond in love to you, because I really do find your story quite upsetting, your attitude towards the church is made plain in several instances (the various uses of 'tm' showing the commercialization/sloganization of modern American Christianity).

In kind, before I respond, let me point out that I find the sympathy to be patronizing at best. No offense, but your points will be better taken without it.

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You seem to have been indoctrinated with a great deal of folk theology.

This is false. I was indoctrinated in the most widely accepted tenets of Christianity, in what I feel was a very average way. Your inclination to brand the theology in which I was indoctrinated is not surprising at all; Christians have been seeking to blame the faults of Christianity on doctrines with which they do not agree for nearly two thousand years now, hence the numerous denominations. The myth of the 'casual' church goes along with this, and the myth of the 'rule-driven theology' as well. I don't believe that the Christianity in which I was raised was all that different from the Christianity in which you have been indoctrinated. The 'folk theology' was primarily derived from my later experiences with charismatic churches, and as I said, I was not indoctrinated in those.

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When you were a tender youth, you were told if you just had faith you could do x (I am not sure what x was, and it may well be personal so it is probably best that I don't). You may deny this next part, and to be honest I actually expect you to. I can see you sitting there after an emotional high (your christian experience seems to be filled with those) saying YES I BELIEVE, God come and act! Sadly, your request was not answered. Your theology told you that if you had faith it should have been, yet it was not. Your practical experience on the other hand said that this was not the case.... So what could you do? You become disillusioned with your church, you say things like 'I have faith, yet this is'nt happening' and 'I know that the bible says if I have faith I can see this happen' (The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.) And it is true the Bible does say that. I do believe it. But that does not settle it!!!

This is, again, false.

1. The words of Jesus clearly say 'ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened unto you'. The context is clear.

2. I never expected God to answer any particular prayer; the Bible very clearly said that I should not expect it, and so I did not. The Bible did, however, suggest that some prayers would be answered if I had faith, so I did look for some evidence of my faith, and as I said, I found that evidence. My loss of faith came not because I felt that I had been slighted, but because I had reason to doubt my own 'evidence' for the Truth™ of my belief system, just as I had reason to doubt the sincerity of those who told these stories of faith healing and guardian angels, and just as I had reason to doubt that the charismatics were on to anything, after all.

3. I became disillusioned with my church and with every other church that I attended not because I felt that my prayers weren't being answered, but because constant Christian fellowship drove home the point that Christians have nothing special that other people do not have. Any Christian will recognize that even the most pious Christian will have faults, but few Christians will face the implications of that fact. I did, and the implications were a detriment to my faith. I had the logical choice between giving up my faith, or giving up the institution. I gave up the institution. The loss of faith came ten years later, when I was faced with a number of self-deceptions that had been caused by my belief system. I realized that I no longer had a need for the belief system, so I used Occam's Razor to snip away the motivation for self-deception.

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There are numerous occasions within the scriptures (which thusfar I have stringently avoided in my posts, but yours demands an answer), where this simple reading of the text must be thrown out.

Of course. But you're getting into doctrine territory. You have your own opinion on the 'correct' approach to the interpretation of scripture; others will have different opinions, and there is nothing to say that your opinion is better than any other person's opinion. It's the same sort of problem that you allude to in your arguments against morality without religion, and far more apt at demonstrating the fallacy.

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Your theology was stifling your Christian growth.

I call bullshit. I think that my common sense is what stifled my 'Christian growth', and my inability to convince myself that my motives were pure at any given time, or that anyone else's motives were any more pure than mine. This realization gave me the freedom to question the belief system in which I was indoctrinated. I don't regret it a bit.

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On to a second point. Your Christian experience in your youth seemed to be one of emotional highs, which were seldom backed up by knowledgeable highs (for lack of a better term).

This couldn't be further from the truth. I said there were a number of emotional experiences over the years, but these were simply parts of my faith, not the whole. As I said, we were expected to take notes during sermons, and we did intensive Bible study before church services, in Sunday School. We regularly had competitions for scripture memorization, but the learning was far more geared to analysis and discussion than rote. My pastor and even my minister of music were doctors in theology, and the staff at the church was in general well-educated and also dedicated to educating the church. My own father got his degree in philosophy from a Christian university, and his brother completed seminary as well as law school.

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There are other serious theological issues that are within your primary text, but I am not sure how interested you are in digging through this stuff posthumenously.

That all depends; if you want to convince me that my doctrine was somehow responsible for my loss of faith, as opposed to your doctrine, then you're welcome to try. It won't be painful at all, I promise - like I said, I have no regrets about my loss of faith.

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As to morals. The two things I picked out of your lengthy response are these.

1) morals are a social construct- This is the third time this response has been given, and the third time quite a bit of talk has issued forth without anyone answering my primary question. What makes one societies rules 'right', and anothers 'wrong'. If you struggle for real life examples of societies which most westerners feel are wrong, pick your favorite dictator whose society claims they are right and run with it. Then proceede to tell me why they are wrong. Or conversely pick your favorite utopian society and tell me why they are right.

Conversely, can you do the same for your own morals? Simply saying 'because God said so' doesn't work; as you said earlier, a simple reading of the text does not always suffice. Which leaves you much in the same position, morally, as the atheist.

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2) Morals should be based on logic - Rep could have been delivered for this point alone--you answered the question! Logic as a base for morality sounds good at a surface level (coincidentally I get accused of only sounding good here as well so do not feel bad). So lets work some logic!

1. People who are mentally handicapped are a drain on resources both in the private and public sectors.
2. The State could save x amount of money every year by eliminating said drains.
3. Therefore we kill all the mentally handicapped people in the state.

Thank you for the example of flawed logic. Is there any particular point that you wanted to make with it? As I mentioned in my previous post, logic is not a perfect tool, but in my opinion, it is the best tool we have for determining a moral code. The flaw in this logic is that it assumes that the savings in public resources are worth more than the lives of the mentally handicapped; the flaw in the point that I believe you are trying to make is that you assume that, without religion, the 'wrong' choice will be made.

[Terez]

Powder, on 07 January 2010 - 10:48 PM, said:

At the great risk of being black and white again Atheism is motivated by self interest (selfishness), while the Christianity I see is motivated out of group interest (selflessness)? Does that go to far? Using either of these things you can come up with some sort of morality... interesting indeed!

I believe that Christian motivation is inherently more selfish than non-religious motivation, which makes no claims on God's eternal favor or divine plan. The Christian sets himself above the non-Christian with notions of a higher order of morality than the mundane. The mundane requirements of society necessitate laws that protect the individual from crime; our dependence on one another is a simple fact, not a divinely-inspired ideal.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Terez, on 08 January 2010 - 12:56 AM, said:

Powder, on 07 January 2010 - 08:19 PM, said:

Before I get into a response though please note that I am doing my best to respond in love to you, because I really do find your story quite upsetting, your attitude towards the church is made plain in several instances (the various uses of 'tm' showing the commercialization/sloganization of modern American Christianity).

In kind, before I respond, let me point out that I find the sympathy to be patronizing at best. No offense, but your points will be better taken without it.

A rookie mistake, but it's a fairly accurate sentiment. This is a debate of intellect, matters of the heart can be left for the bedroom and the pulpit. It's like quoting the Bible at atheists to make a point, well meaning, but not effective.

[Powder]

Well I am free to make some of those I hope. Actually my posting on the day on the whole has been rather touchy feely as terez has amply pointed out. My bust? I guess Ill just quit while I am ahead and chalk it up as a good learning experience. Thanks all!

-powder

Edit: Ignore this if this is patronizing, but I apologize for stepping way out of bounds and inferring things about your personal experience without actually knowing you. To do such a thing was incredibly foolish, and makes me to be quite an ass. I deleted the asinine posts I made earlier today. Again my bust.

This post has been edited by Powder: 08 January 2010 - 05:30 AM

[Terez]

No hard feelings, Powder; feel free to take up the discussion again any time. I am known here for losing my temper in religious debates, and though I am getting better about it, I came close to losing it in the last post just because that particular attitude of sympathy annoys me highly; I get it from my family often enough, I think.

[Powder]

Terez, on 08 January 2010 - 11:03 AM, said:

No hard feelings, Powder; feel free to take up the discussion again any time. I am known here for losing my temper in religious debates, and though I am getting better about it, I came close to losing it in the last post just because that particular attitude of sympathy annoys me highly; I get it from my family often enough, I think.

That was what I had feared. Just goes to show you how many different interpretations of a given text there can be! I never thought those comments came across as patronizing but as soon as you said it a little light went off in my head and I felt like a complete ass. Hence the deletions. I am not sure if that broke forum etiquette but I do not really care. I hope to continue the discussions, I was lulled into complacency for a few posts and forgot how volatile such topics can be. Hopefully you all are willing to work through my indoctrination into proper debate etiquette. If so read the following. If not it is probably best if we drop it for now.

A thought, obviously I suck at approaching Atheistic territory. Can anyone help me better understand the arguments from a moderate Atheistic position? Maybe basic tenents, code of conduct, meaning of life, like general overview stuff? If I am ever going to stop putting my foot in my mouth I need to know the lay of the land so to speak. I know what Dawkins believes, Ive read enough of his material to figure that out. What about people who are not academically committed to the ideal? What does it look like, what does it feel like? I am done making assumptions (lol'd at this comment), I am curious.

-powder

[Terez]

The deletions weren't really necessary, and in fact, generally I would suggest not deleting posts no matter how embarrassed of them you are. But that's just my personal philosophy.

It's going to be hard to pin down a particular code of conduct for atheists. We're a disparate bunch, and not really bound together by creed like the religious folks are. The only thing we all agree on is that we should resist attempts to turn our societies into theocracies, but even the details in that will lead to many different opinions from atheists.

[Powder]

Terez, on 09 January 2010 - 10:20 AM, said:

The deletions weren't really necessary, and in fact, generally I would suggest not deleting posts no matter how embarrassed of them you are. But that's just my personal philosophy.

It's going to be hard to pin down a particular code of conduct for atheists. We're a disparate bunch, and not really bound together by creed like the religious folks are. The only thing we all agree on is that we should resist attempts to turn our societies into theocracies, but even the details in that will lead to many different opinions from atheists.

The posts I deleted came across as offensive. It showed in the tone of the responses I was getting (not just from you), I could see the whole attitude of the thread dissolving and so I removed the offending posts in hopes of continued discussion.

-Powder

[EsotericForest]

Terez, on 09 January 2010 - 10:20 AM, said:

The deletions weren't really necessary, and in fact, generally I would suggest not deleting posts no matter how embarrassed of them you are. But that's just my personal philosophy.

It's going to be hard to pin down a particular code of conduct for atheists. We're a disparate bunch, and not really bound together by creed like the religious folks are. The only thing we all agree on is that we should resist attempts to turn our societies into theocracies, but even the details in that will lead to many different opinions from atheists.

I think the funny thing about Athiests is the fact that they've almost pinned themselves with a religious title. Being Athiest means you don't believe in a a god, but yet when you go to some of these websites, and they give you a drop down list of different religions you can select...Athiest is one you can select. ...Sorry, but I'm amused.

[HoosierDaddy]

How is that atheists pinning themselves? Unless it's a site about atheism, where I doubt that question is even raised.

[EsotericForest]

Well I was just saying they've somewhat pinned themselves with that title because they always just say "I'm an athiest" or something, instead of the obvious answer of "I don't believe in god" [img]http://forum.malazanempire.com/public/style_emoticons/darkset/:).gif[/img]. So instead of them just not believe in god, it's now become an official title for some reason. So it's almost their religion to not believe in a god, and just believe in themselves.

This post has been edited by EsotericForest: 10 January 2010 - 04:07 AM

[Terez]

You're not making any sense. Religious folks can say all day that atheism is a religion - you certainly aren't the first to claim it - that doesn't make it true.

[Dolorous Menhir]

If the religious are trapped in a mental straight-jacket and unable to understand that atheists are not just choosing a different theological label, that's their problem, not yours.

[EsotericForest]

Dolorous Menhir, on 10 January 2010 - 02:32 PM, said:

If the religious are trapped in a mental straight-jacket and unable to understand that atheists are not just choosing a different theological label, that's their problem, not yours.

Alright, here I've attached this example of what I'm trying to say. You have a drop down list, from myspace, of all the different "Religions" you can select. Logic would say, that if you don't have a religion, that you would select "No Answer"...but no, Atheist is one of the choices. So no, you don't have an "organized" religion, but it's almost become a religion unto itself, or at least a religious title. I'm not saying being "Atheist" is a religion, because it's not like you go to a church or temple and worship . Being Atheist is a title, just like being Christian, American, or lesbian is a title...my point is that it's almost a religious title because when you have to select a religion, it's one of the choices along with Christian, Mormon, or Buddhist. If it wasn't for it being this way on sites like Myspace or Care2Connect, I wouldn't even try to make a case of this, although I'm sure there are other examples elsewhere.

Alright, I'm willing to just let this go...being that I was somewhat kidding around in the first place. I hope nobody feels that I was in some way trying to make an attack against them with my comment, and if they did, I apologize. My goal was never to attack any religion, or belief system (whichever way you'd prefer), because you're entitled to your own opinions, just like I'm entitled to my own as well. But, at least that doesn't mean we can't get along, half the fun of being around people is that we're all quite different in different ways. So don't worry, I'm not one of those Christians who's going to stand on top of his car and yell about how all the people going into the Metallica concert are all going to hell...which by the way, is a rediculous and untrue statement. Do I agree with Atheists and what they believe to be fact? No...but they don't agree with me either, which is fine, we all have free will for a reason. I've been in too many religious debates and they absolutely never go anywhere, and the only thing they really accomplish is making people angry. If a person wants to know something about what I believe and why, I don't see much point in putting it in a debating topic, because nobody will really be listening to what I have to say...they'll just be thinking of a way to debate it from another angle.

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[Dolorous Menhir]

The "argument from social networking" is a new one on me. I'm tempted to be nasty, but you seem to have a healthy attitude to these arguments, EsotericForest, I like that. I would think twice before offering that evidence again in the future though.