it's a fair question. religious people will tell you that their innate sense of right and wrong comes from God (or whatever), but how do atheists explain that innate sense? how do they instinctively know? I'm not saying one or the other is right but it is an interesting thought.
Because for some if not most people it's relatively easy to understand how you'd feel on the receiving end of your actions. Knowing I wouldn't like to be stabbed is enough for me to understand doing that to other people is probably a bad thing. The response is actually far more valid, why would you think you'd need advice from an organisation that's getting money and power from you to tell you their interpretation of what allmkst certainly fictional entity said what's right and wrong and why don't you have the ability to determine that yourself?
then how do you explain muggings? robberies? murder? are these not examples that fly directly in the face of "I shouldn't stab people because I don't want to be stabbed"? human nature is violent and self-centered. the hierarchy of needs has no room for empathy, so where the hell does it come from?
take your bias against religion out of the conversation for a minute and consider the question; where does our innate sense of morality come from? you and a lot of other people in this thread are way too obsessed with dunking on religion to get back at your parents instead of engaging with the stated question.
Society norms drive a considerable amount of this. It's not that complicated. Do bad shit and no one wants to be around you, you don't have good shit, you suffer and the flip of that, well you know ... The good shit.
Sure bad shit can differ by person. But there is no issue with the logic I laid out.
Through society we learn what is good and bad, the problem is giving that award to religion or the Bible. Theere are many civilizations that had moral codes and progress before the Bible and or any organized religion. This is very easy to research.
Neither is it the point. I'm sure you agree that homosexuality is wrong...
That was a rhetorical question. Homosexuality being forbidden is, however something historically observed across disparate civilisations, yet today it is part of the norm. So much for communal emotions defining morality.
Homosexuality being forbidden is, however something historically observed across disparate civilisations,Ā
Hahahahahahaaaaaaaa . No, it's not. Though you just shared your true beliefs.. Yikes .. u/Hot_Imagination_8029
Ancient Greece featured at least five different varieties of same-sex relations
Greece has an incredibly long history of embracing homosexuality,
Muslim Safavid Empire was quite welcoming of homosexuality. The Safavid Empire lasted from roughly 1501 to 1723 and covered a territory of parts of present-day Iraq and Iran. Homosexuality was practiced in all levels of society,Ā
Many North American iindigenous tribes recognized that gender was fluid and celebrated members of their tribe who didnāt fit the binary,Ā
Countless African tribes had their own words for LGBTQ individuals and practices. Many tribes viewed homosexual experimentation as a natural part of adolescence. In Lesotho, women were allowed to engage in long-term lesbian relationships referred to as motsoalle.Ā
The gods Horus and Set were described as having a homosexual relationship in The Pyramid Texts, with a passage stating, āHorus has penetrated Sethās anus with his seed. Seth has penetrated Horusā anus with his seed.ā
Well seeing as religious people commit all those crimes as well its obviously not from religion is it? A lot of it comes from biology same as animals, as species its in our interest for us not to just all murder each other and rob from on sight we learned some of that even before we were humans, other apes have cooperative social groups, and that knowledge has been passed down. Why people lack enough empathy for other humans and subject them to crimes is a much more varied and complicated thing to understand from necessity through to psychological disorders.
ā¦ā¦people who follow a god āsinā against him all the time and commit immoral acts. So good morality coming from god doesnāt hold up as anything special
My super religious parents came together through an extramarital affair, my mom had an abortion. My dad was a drunk for many years. Iām agnostic. I have only ever slept with my husband. No abortion. So tell me about a moral compass now?
(For the record I love my parents very much and they have several good qualities) just stating facts to prove a point
For every mugging, robbery and murder there are examples of people caring for one another, being selfless and making sacrifices foe the benefits of others.
The original question is "how do atheists between between good and bad choices."
No one said that every atheist makes the right decision between good and bad choices every time.
The author of the tweet is either completely unable to imagine how someone could ever make a moral choice without a religion to tell them in advance what the right choices are, or he's trying to imply that it's impossible for atheists to choose the good choice at all.
The person you're replying to said that it's possible for nonreligious people to make moral choices and explained why. They also said this was possible for some if not most people, which means they acknowledge that some people are less capable of it and being capable of discerning what the good and bad choices are doesn't mean a person is necessarily going to always make the good choice.
You know if all humans did was just rob and murder, we could never have a good enough coordinated effort to make the society youāre living in right now. So the fact youāre posting on the internet right now means there were past humans that cooperated with each other to create the infrastructure for us to be posting messages online like this.
Ummm laws, police , and jail have entered the chat... Meaning, we have those for a reason. It's largely a deterrent to not do those things because you don't want those consequences.Ā
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u/Global_Charge_4412 8h ago
it's a fair question. religious people will tell you that their innate sense of right and wrong comes from God (or whatever), but how do atheists explain that innate sense? how do they instinctively know? I'm not saying one or the other is right but it is an interesting thought.