Maybe that was more youth than anything. You were "moving that direction", but maybe you would have felt differently if you had reached the destination. It's your responsibility because there is no cosmic force. Helping people because the boss tells you to isn't really charity, is it?
Do you only help people because it's a commandment, or do you also do it because you have an innate human aversion to suffering.
I thought Sam's routine on starving kids was hilarious too, but to me he seemed to be attacking the Sally Struthers commercials, which had more of a liberal guilt trip mentality than appealing to legitimate human solidarity. "I'm thinking, 'hey, maybe the camera guy can give the kid a sandwich.'" "Don't feed him yet Bob! It doesn't work unless he looks hungry for the camera!"
Family is important to many people; criminal families always live by that rule. Blood is thicker than water. Found that out the hard way.
Speaking of weird and mysterious, this is the second dig at family that I've seen on this very thread when discussing religion. Very strange. One guy says that in heaven, you don't care about the fates of your family members souls, and that earthly families only purpose is to help you prepare for an everlasting lifetime with your heavenly father (whom you will no doubt praise every second of every minute for all eternity), and here you are saying that caring for family is an attribute most aligned with organized crime.
Very weird coming from Freepers, especially since as long as I've been a conservative thinker, caring for family is one of the main antidotes for many to cure them of government dependency.
I guess as the new father of two little ones, this type of thinking is strange and foreign, especially coming from so-called conservative Christians. That's why I have these discussions. I wouldn't be aware of these worldviews if I didn't talk to people
If I was an athiest, I'd be offended that you want to subject me to your particular moral standards.
Like Don Corleone says, as long as your interests don't infringe on me, then it's none of my business. Or more seriously, as Jefferson said, "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
You have posted hundreds, maybe thousands, I got tired of paging through them, of anti-Christ posts here on FR.
It’s almost like you’re dedicated to being anti-Christian.
Not at all. I'm here to speak on behalf of a non-theist justification for morality. The only things I'm truly against is the crazy creationist cult that has taken over a lot of the Christian right. I think it does the limited government philosophy an injustice to have so many people on our side of the political be anti-science. That's probably where most of those posts originated.
You won't see anything critical of religion until about late 2007 though (I've been here for almost 15 years). That's when my reverse conversion occurred.