Atheist v Christian 'morality'.

Nothing wrong with the article; but nothing I didn't already know, or read in Dawkins' "God Delusion".

"Religion provided an answer by introducing beliefs about all-knowing, all-powerful gods who punish moral transgressions. As human societies grew larger, so did the occurrence of such beliefs. And in the absence of efficient secular institutions, the fear of God was crucial for establishing and maintaining social order."

Considering that we seem to be replacing this with twitter shaming, I think I prefer religion.

In a lot of ways secular society does the same thing, the threat of punishment is the basis of the law.

Interesting. I'm not even familiar with that show.  I'll check it out.

Strawman. The vast majority of people of any level of intelligence realize that that horrible acts are committed by all sorts of people. The "atheist-hating Christian" is a made-up boogyman. Or at the very least, the people who do fall into such a narrow-minded category do not deserve consideration.




Some Mormons. Some Catholics.



This kind of thinking is one of society's biggest problems. The immediate, unquestionable sainthood of anyone who is a real, serious victim. Though even that only works in part, because then Christians would have to be the most respected and unchallenged people in the world, given that they are the largest group suffering worldwide persecution right now. But back to the point - criticizing people does not mean you outright hate them and/or a Nazi. It is possible to say that there were problems for German people with Jewish groups, and at the same time completely condemn everything that was done to Jewish people as a result. The two are not mutually exclusive.



Not sure what the point is here. The fact that all human morality was not universally agreed upon on day 1 doesn't mean that there is no objective morality we should be striving for. We grow, we learn, we get closer to spiritual truth. Only fundamentalists would have a problem with that.

Discrepancy between beliefs and behavior

Yes. But in Christianity, the whole point is understanding that you fail every single day, but are forgiven.



Again, not sure what the point here is. Religious people fail all the time. The main difference, however, is that if they acted in accordance to their faith, they would be doing very good things. Atheism is not defined by such parameters, in fact morality often contradicts naturalism. So they have to sometimes go against the logistics of their worldview in order to be moral.

Over-simplification. Generally certain ideals of morality or at least noble characters have always been championed when it comes to diety observance. Greek gods varied and in some tales were a shining light of the best of humanity. The fact that they were flawed in other aspects does not take away from that.





Religious morality is central for society, but not in this conspiracy theory mumbo-jumbo way that is being suggested here. Societies didn't decide to invent religion to control people. Leaders have tried to exploit religion for their benefit since the dawn of time, but there is not a shred of evidence anywhere in the world of secret world order societies constructing religions from scratch and successfully fooling entire populations. This seems to be a common atheistic belief, even though it is absolutely nutjob insane and without a lick of evidence.

Erm, of course they can possess it. And often times they do. What I am saying is that some aspects of human morality are contrary to naturalism and human preservation, whether atheists realize that or not. We've had this discussed for months upon months and as usual leads to circular reasoning. However, a morality based on the concept that every single last person without exception is a child of God and deserves nothing but the best, does explain and complement the best of human morality.

I've never thought about it that way before, but Twitter is like the new Catholic church, lol.

Belief that morality comes from religion implies a belief that morality is objective, and that man is inherently evil, powerless, and incapable of doing good things, solving it’s own problems, or improving itself without supernatural intervention and dependence.

Belief that morality comes from man implies a belief that morality is subjective, and that man is neither inherently good nor evil, and capable of doing good things, solving it’s own problems, and improving itself through science, education, determination, and willpower.

That’s why religion is for the WEAK minded sheep (who need a supernatural shepherd), and secularism is for the strong minded independent types who believe in mankind being responsible for itself.