Utopia or Utter Hopelessness

josephpalazzo · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:11 am Post subject:

God is a product of our imaginary. And so is morality. Get over it and deal with this reality.

Morality will never be perfect, how could it be, since we constructed it? And it's still a work in progress. Our morality of the 21st century is quite different than 100 years ago, or 1000 years ago, and most likely will be vastly different in 100 years from now.

You theists have created the need to see morality as God's will. When we tell you that this notion of a god is a human invention, you freak out. Duh, that was always the case. God was convenient when we were primitives, uncouth and ignorant. We`ve passed that now. It`s time we recognize what God was all about and start living our lives like mature adult.

Meh_Gerbil · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:26 am Post subject:

josephpalazzo · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:47 am Post subject:

Meh_Gerbil · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:58 am Post subject:

Moloth · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:05 am Post subject:

morality is quite well explained with evolution.

social contract and inter-group altruism is very conducive to survival. look at any group pf chimps (hell, even a pack of dogs) and you'll see a complex group dynamic complete with mores and culture.

humans have simply taken this to an nth degree, with our sentience and diversity.

why do people think that morality is such a mystery? it comes from where every other concept comes from... the biological mechanisms of our mind.
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Last edited by Moloth on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total

josephpalazzo · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:08 am Post subject:

Meh_Gerbil · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:16 am Post subject:

Joe,

I'm going to have to let you and moloth work out the whole evolution and morality thing.
Moloth said this:

why do people think that morality is such a mystery? it comes from where every other concept comes from... the biological mechanisms of our mind.

Given that you seem to think morality has somehow come about apart from evolution, and yet remain an atheist, further clarification will be required before we can continue our discussion. Let me know when you've worked out from whence your morality sprang.
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JBCuzISaidSo · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:16 am Post subject:

Theists tend to view atheists as another belief system all together, this is why they don't (generally) understand that we pull our moral values from our own humanity, there is no cement set of "atheist moral guidelines" nor is there a lack of moral behavior on the part of the atheist.

* Imagine: a riot breaks out, chaos ensues, people are breaking into stores and stealing what they can grab, mugging old ladies, think of LA......do you really think the atheist makes a happy face and thinks "Praise nothing!"?

The only lump together of the atheists one can pull down is the lack of belief in a deity. It's highly silly to attempt to assign anything else to the lack of belief, like zero morals, bankrupt morals, or the Pascals' Wager already hit on with the very title of the thread.

When a theist can understand that maybe they need to outsource to a higher supernatural power in order to be good human being, but that everybody does not, then perhaps there will finally be world peace. The laid claim of no rule giver equals no rules needed or wanted to be followed is false on it's first step.

How lazy to assume a law giver is necessary for the individual good person to be an individual good person. Environment and genetics lay down their path already and shape the human into a contributing member of society or a morally dangerous person all by themselves.

Perhaps if we simply called environment and genetics and the laws of nature "god" (one word vs a whole bunch, so much easier anyways) this would shut a lot of folks up? Whose in?
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Meh_Gerbil · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:19 am Post subject:

JBCuzISaidSo · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:26 am Post subject:

Meh_Gerbil · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:31 am Post subject:

josephpalazzo · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:35 am Post subject:

Moloth · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:36 am Post subject:

kmisho · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:38 am Post subject:

Think of it this way, what evolutionary power would morality have if it was easy to disdain? The sense of morality as absolute is itself evolutionarily inculcated because group dynamics must operate within a certain limited sphere in order to be of advantage to the species in question.

In other words, the sensation of moral absolutes, the very sense of righteousness itself, is an evolutionary by-product.

A good example of this is "the sanctity of life." From the perspective of the selfish gene, the sense that life is sacred is a great trick, an illusion, for the maintenance of the genetic line. When Catholics (or anyone else) say No Condoms, No Abortion, No Capital Punihsment, they are playing the Darwinian game to a T and are in fact being ruled by the very thing they think they're battling against: nature, red in tooth and fang.

Why does this go unnoticed by most? Because it's "culture." Culture has been called everything that people do when they're not paying attention. A good example of this is regional accents. When you stay in your own region and consequently come in contact almost exclusively with people in your own region, you think you have no accent and think the same of the people around you. When you go somewhere else, you naturally think the people there have an accent, from which is inferred that you are the one speaking properly.

This is identical to your sense that you have access to the one proper morality. What you should say to yourself, even more so the more minor a moral infraction is in terms of real effect (i.e. blasphemy), "My reaction is a result of my moral accent, which comes from too much clubbing with my own kind."

This kind of statement is often taken to mean that morality is somehow "subjective" in that it is whatever you or I say it is. This is wrong on every level. Collective morality is a result of evolutionary effects on group dynamics, with group dynamics itself having been selected as evolutionarily advantageous. Morality is independent of us individually and thus capable of being dispassionately observed, which is what "objective" means.
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Moloth · Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:43 am Post subject:

well said, kmisho.
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Last edited by Moloth on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total

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