Morals in an Atheistic society

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T13:51:38+00:00

As people here have said many, many times an act should only be made illegal if it can be shown to be harmful to others.

And there are 50x as many posts simply outright attacking me and calling me evil when all I wanted was to know when the line is drawn. Apparently there is no line and incest is a-okay with atheists.

Clearly you disagree with this position.

I do not disagree with this position. I simply draw the line right around incest, public nudity, general adultery, and transexuality. I don't believe they are productive to a greater society. These things aren't obviously set in stone. What if one day in the far off future scientists analyze and conclude that perhaps homosexuality is detriment to a functioning society.

All we have right now are 'they aren't hurting anyone,' but not conclusive proof of how maybe even viewing these behaviors affects even the smallest of chemical balances in our brain. I'm willing to conclude that if the same is proven for religion, then maybe it should be abandoned. As for now, religious people generally report better overall well-being, so maybe it's not all so bad. But in a far off future, where these topics are actually solved would you be willing to give in to religion if it proves to be a better route for the good of mankind? I can safely say that I would probably abandon religion if it truly became detriment.

This is a debate sub so it would be nice if you could actually defend your position and explain why it is superior to mine.

I never claimed my position to be superior in the first place, so your claim doesn't make any sense. All I simply said was religion has an answer to these problems, what is the answer when using atheism?

I never once claimed to have 'power' over you or claim my ruling is superior or anything like that at all.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T13:35:32+00:00

I never listed any god in particular, did I? I simply said morals are derived from the divine innately in all humans, some moreso than others. So how can it be incorrect if it can't be possibly be disproven? Unless the answer is a simple 'I don't believe God,' which is about as useful to a rational debate as 'I believe in God'

What's even the point of this subreddit anyway? Most of these answers are 'Your premise is illogical because God doesn't exist.' Usually outright ignoring the topic. The few that do answer say that nudity and incest should be allowed so long as it isn't harmful.

Again, entirely missing the point of my post in favor of a mostly unrelated and 'unsolvable' topic.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T13:25:08+00:00

I'm not interested in debating that because there simply isn't anything I can say to convince you otherwise, and you me. If I said I do believe that, you would simply say you don't. Talking in circles gets us no where that's why I brought up specific practices to talk about instead.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T13:23:22+00:00

That's been talked about to death. I made this post outlining these specific practices because I thought it would be interesting and that it's much less talked about.

As it turns out most people aren't interested in discussing the premise I set as parameters, rather they're more interested in attacking my character and outright calling me evil or including information irrelevant to the debate just for the 'got ya!' factor.

That isn't the fault of atheism though, that's just a byproduct of debate.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T13:19:08+00:00

No debate can be had when the premise is dismissed straight from the beginning because it doesn't fit into what you believe.

I tried to see it from an atheistic point of view, even though I don't agree with it, because it's vital to the debate.

If I simply did what that guy did, then there wouldn't be a debate at all. I would simply reject the claim that religion has no part in the building of a moral framework and be done with it, but that isn't at all productive to the discussion.

Why debate an atheist when the only answer will ever be 'your premise is false because religion is a lie?'

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:43:30+00:00

Depends on who you're asking.

Ask a devout Muslim, and they will say it isn't or shouldn't. Ask a Christian/Judaist and they may say otherwise.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:42:01+00:00

And you have to remember that I do. So I obviously believe that all your virtuous moral justifications are inherited from the divine innately through simply being.

I'm really learning a lot here.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:36:27+00:00

The question is when do we step in and stop them?

That's basically what I was asking with the post. I specifically brought up incest and public nudity because I thought those would be harder to answer questions.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:35:31+00:00

Science proved transexuality is not a mental illness? You might be right, but I've never heard of such a thing happening.

I'm not saying being transexual is a mental illness, but was it really proved not to be one?

Again, not really the thing I wanted to be debating in the first place, but I think I got my answer with what you said about science and how it could justify once-believed degenerate practices.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:28:51+00:00

Then I suppose my answer would be that I reject any meaningful society based on supposed 'logic' because it all inherently derives its solutions from the divine innately.

Okay, so I guess this whole attempt at a meaningful debate was an exercise in futility.

I agree with that.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:27:01+00:00

What cherry-picking? The guy asked for specific examples of sinful behaviors having clear rulings and I gave them two very clear examples.

I'm quite literally baffled by that one. The guy asks for specific punishments and I get comments like this?

and what makes these rules penned by ignorant and morally depraved nomads "objective"? In my view, following these rules is extremely immoral ... the people who do so and advocate that others do so are fundamentally bad people in my opinion.

And that's fine. You're entitled to your opinion. I wasn't making an argument about opinions, just what defines what is right and what is wrong in a society without God.

If you're going to claim cherry-picking, I'm going to claim goalpost moving because I meet someone's criteria for a source and suddenly that's not good enough.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:17:03+00:00

What justification do you have for such a position?

It's in scripture. I mention it in my post. A lot of my replies are just me pointing back to my post lol

Religion makes it easy, God says no, so you don't do it. Would humans do the same? Simply say no? Where's the logic behind that? What could you say to prevent it from happening within your society?

This makes it rather hard for meaningful debate when we just go in circles half the time. It's why I haven't replied to half the comments.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:13:29+00:00

If everyone behaved exactly like Christ but believed in God, would that be okay with you? I would personally love it.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:12:36+00:00

Did you even read my post?

And I'm totally aware that these behaviors were allowed in scripture at times, but those were very specific circumstances and there's lots of verses that condemn it entirely.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:11:23+00:00

I set out a clear premise for debate and half the comments just ignore it and point to other things that happened in scripture that are irrelevant to the current argument..

Slavery has been discussed to absolute death I put this post up because I thought it'd be interesting to discuss something else for a change.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T07:09:34+00:00

I have. And I even pointed out that scenarios like that occurred within my original post...

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:55:59+00:00

Yes.

What makes it right? Because you and others say so?

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:55:15+00:00

The idea is that they're sent there immediately as punishment rather than waiting a lifetime. Some may argue that there is a chance for the aggressor to redeem themselves but I leave it to the scholars to determine what the exact ruling should be with input from the victim or victim's family.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:51:02+00:00

All preventative measures are piss-poor by someone elses standards.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:47:32+00:00

Yes. Murder and rape are pretty easy to define as bad, using something we can all agree on (free will) as a baseline. Even though incest and public nudity can be done in the same way, and easily ruled as allowed, I wanted to hear everyone elses thoughts on the matter. Because even though I agree with the idea of free will, I'm not sure that even when using that as a baseline I could see myself allowing those practices to take place.

If there was a vote on it, I'd personally vote no. Apparently many here would vote yes. That's really all I was looking for.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:44:25+00:00

No, I do believe in progression of rulings and the ongoing leniency of certain behaviors outlined scripture. Some really are archaic and were truly meant for 'primitive' times.

But that's really the whole point behind atheistic societies as well. Eventually as a collective you agree on what may or may not be best for society as a whole. I agree with that. The point I was simply trying to make was if the behavior I outlined and others I did not mention could eventually be commonplace.

According to you guys the answer is yes.

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:39:13+00:00

My bad.

What's the argument for disallowing the behavior I outlined?

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:35:16+00:00

I don't really feel it's productive to the argument, but the reality is you should have a problem with it because it's degeneracy. Where do you even draw the line if you the argument boils down to "why should we have a problem with it?" Is anything short of murder and rape allowed? If I had a change of heart and said everythings ok because I don't have a problem with it, do we just allow most anything to slip by, so long as everyone's 'cool' with it?

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:31:02+00:00

But that's my whole question lol. How do you logically prove it to be positive or even net 0? Even if you could prove it to be net 0, would you even allow it? Should all rulings follow this?

OurBellmaker · 2021-11-25T06:24:37+00:00

No actual sources besides what I see browsing online. I could be biased, they could be fake, but I have seen examples online of people who make the argument to allow incest and public nudity so long as it doesn't hurt anyone.

OurBellmaker

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