Posted on 06/30/2016 10:49:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under. Ronald Reagan
We do see evidence every day.
I have a Christian friend I work with that when we discuss this kind of mentality, atheists etc. he has 4 words for ‘em.... “YOU BETTER BE SURE”.
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Apart from a transcendent God there is no objective basis for morality, only personal preference or social convention.
to paraphrase Dostoevsky:
Without a belief in God, an afterlife and eternal consequences for temporal actions, then all things are permissible.
In other words, anything goes.
The problem isn’t so much that ordinary people are not “moral” but that they are not holy.
Oh ... and also of course the highly immoral new secular orthodoxy that calls good “evil” and evil “good” ... but I don’t consider such ordinary ... more that they are functionally “insane”.
Kaslin, thank you for posting a title which even considers one can be “Good Without God...” as a possibility in the short run. You see, not all atheists are commies, nor humanists. I won’t try to convince anyone here that I am happy or unhappy. I am moral though. The idea that all atheists are x,y or z is incorrect. It’s like asserting that all Christians are moral when we’ve been disappointed by examples of Elmer Gantrys.
We Americans prided ourselves on taking the individual as we found him. If he was fair, honest, decent, we didn’t ask his faith or lack of faith. (see the Badger Clark poem on my profile.) Today, tolerance and benevolent goodwill is given lip service but not often found, especially on anonymous forums.
I write this in hopes of reaching a few Freepers who will think twice before lashing out at all atheists. I don’t assume because of your religious views that you do or don’t live a moral life. How could I know from behind my computer? But I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt whatever code they live by.
Most people get their notions of right and wrong from the culture.
Which means that first, they have no understanding to what degree their morality is already influenced by God. What we call western civilization is however imperfectly and incompletely (and diminishingly) a judeochristian culture.
If you believe in transcendental truths, God is your ultimate source whether or not you understand that.
But secondly, it means that most people have no way of knowing when the culture is going off the rails. If the bow of the ship is your compass, you have no way of knowing you are going to wrong direction.
Freedom requires the prior ability to govern oneself. And the ability to govern yourself is a moral capacity.
Westerner,
I read your post and I have a few questions if you don’t mind.
1. Is Morality a social construct?
2. Is Morality Objective or Subjective?
3. Do you believe we have Free Will?
4. Do you believe evil exists?
5. Do you consider yourself a Logical thinker/person?
6. Where does Logic come from?
7. Could Morality, the illusion of free will and/or our ability to reach logical conclusions evolved in a different way?
“Christians hold that no one is good enough to meet God’s holy standards-—except Jesus, who died in the place of sinners to make those who believe in Him righteous before God.”
Best line in the whole piece. As far as us fallen humans go, external restraint is the best we can hope for. That is government’s God-defined role. Under a lawless heart like Obama’s, they are failing in it more and more.
I doubt you bothered to read the column.
Sorry, humanists. Only God defines what is truly good.
The only real definition of “morality” is abiding by that which is true.
That is correct
Blacks are the most religious, followed by Hispanics then Whites with Asians being the least religious of all.
What is the crime rate of each group?
Denmark is the least religious country in the world, Liberia is the most. Which would you rather live in?
Then again, there may be more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line.
And the less I seek my source for some definitive,
Closer I am to Fine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgwM1Ky228
Correlation equals causation.
Dihydrogen monoxide is a harmful and deadly chemical, for instance.
Dihydrogen monoxide kills nearly all land animals that breathe it. In gaseous form it causes burns. It corrodes many metals in a few days of exposure. It is used as an industrial coolant; it is found in the tissues of every human being living within a 100 mile radius of every factory that uses it.
Not only that, mothers whose bodies are polluted with dihydrogen monoxide pass that pollution onto their unborn children.
Isn’t that horrible? Can you believe in 2016 we still use dihydrogren monoxide, even knowing how dangerous it is?
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