Now, now... Let us not make assumption that all children are born in atheists as we cannot verify that unbiasly. I am against all generilization. That is just your assumption, I humply diasgree you with that. I believe all human beings have inborn need to believe in something.
We have absolute proof, when a child is born they are no more the citizen of the country of their birth, they no more speak the language of their parents or the country of their birth, they do not know they are even human. There are a huge number of things babies do not know, they are born with their instincts, and little else, God included. No one can believe in something that they dont know exists, therefore everything you dont know about does not exist until further notice.
Atheistm is believing there's no such thing as God
All of the people who have been brought up without the concept of god are athiest by description of them not believing in God, they cant believe in something that they dont even know exists.
But that doesn't mean anything that can be rationalized, should be rationalized or that when its rationalized is then absolute truth. Some say truth is 2 edged sword
One of the concepts of science is that people what to know more, they rationalise, theorise, and test until they find the answer, another of my great dislikes of religion is that it quite specifically asks you not to, it tells you in such a way that it is right and anything you do or say otherwise will be met with a harsh punishment. When I belive something to be true, I will hold to that idea because the knowlege is sufficient evidence that it is the most likely outcome, but if someone comes along with a better idea, or more definitive evidence I will quite hapily change my views. Religion is always right in its own eyes, but it is slowly disintegrating in light of modern science. You have come a long way from someone of your own branch of faith 500 years ago, you now believe that the earth is more than 6,000 years old, dinosaurs did exist, and the earth goes round the sun, and that our solar system is just one of hudereds of billions, but you still hold some of your archaic beliefs without a shred of evidence at all, but you have embraced others with no more evidence.
The rationale of people thousands of years ago was to create a god of thunder, a god that made the sun come up, a god of mischief, a god that makes the harvest grow. People have always tried to explain things, but now we (some of us) have moved on to better but still rational ideas.
Yet formal education doesn't quarantee that person actually knows what his diploma say he should be able to do... Put person in work and look the results.
My point exactly.
Morals you are reffering are based on judeo-christian hocus-pocus as some atheist said.
Certainly not, people who had never seen a christina person in their life, let alone read the holy book or listened to a preacher have all of the moral they need, they are imprinted into us as they are millions of other species, and I have not once heard of the God of rats and the 10 commandments of Rats telling them how to look after themselves, and their offspring. Man wrote down those morals, but just to be sure they would be followed by people who did not have any kind of law enforcement, numbers 1, 2, 3 and 10 were added. But I note a few are missing, where is the commandment telling people to look after their children. If you answer that by saying that it is innate within us then you must also include the rest of them, bar 1, 2, 3, and 10.
As those of us who enjoy history can also read about crimes Khmer Rogues did when their pursued their Atheist and communistic idiology in building their dream nation without money and based on communistic idiology which was fiercly atheist.
That is an easy argument to win.
Just because some people do bad things because they are NOT religious does not mean that they would have done exactly the same thing because they were, I dont need to draw comparisons here you know them already. Just because Hitler, Mussolini and Hussein all had moustaches, does that then mean that everyone with a moustache is a trully evil person.? Comparisons here cannot be drawn at all.
Atheists and religious people both can do as horrible things when they are fanatics. Not all fanatics believe in God or gods. But all fanatics are wrong. Especially those are ready to kill those who do not share their views.
I agree completely, and when you start to hear of suicide bombers who are Athiest, who murder people solely because they are not, that is when Athiesm has a serious problem, but those suicide bombers DO murder specifically because of their religion.
Indeed as there is no need also for compulsory denial of God's existance aswell.
Absolutely not, that would defeat the entire point.
Religions are corrupted. We also should remove politics from science as we removed religion from politics. All estremists are wrong, no matter what they say, since extremist cannot negotiate nor they cannot find compromise.
I agree, but someone still needs to control the scientists in just the same way as someone needs to police the police, and it should not be politicians - who I dont know. And we really have not removed religion from politics at all, if anything it is getting further involved than it was in previous generations.
Morals is very intresting thing as they vary so much based on country and time. For ancient time's it was perfectly morally to sacrifice your first born by Burning him or Her in the fire for Ba'al
Things like that are not and never were morally correct, acceptable yes, because that is one of the things that religion does to people - if you dont sacrafice you boy, the sun wont rise and we will all die, note numbers 1, 2, and 3 of the commandments tell you not to think as you are a lesser being, and you must do what you are told before you can even think for yourself, thats why religions have got so much control over people, they tell you not to think, but only to do what you are told.
This is exactly the reason why suicide bombers do what they do, they only do what they are instructed to do, and it is all written down in their book, they are given threats and rewards - of course these brainwashed minions of evil men do what they do, they do it because of the power religion has over people.
Moral is what our parents and people who teaches us while we grow say is acceptable and what is not. Moral itself is tied to society, societys history, culture and such. Good moral is based on your view. Since we share same cultural view, we agree upon this that your action was morally good.
Our parents simply reinforce what is already there, and yes culture does have a great influence on us as well as our parents, it tells us the levels of acceptability.
But still, having two sets or rules and stadards, wether unconsciously or not is still having double standards. Wether its natural behaviour doesn't change what it is.
But you simply cannot deny that its there, you can do your best to change yourself, but it is still present.
Hitler was human being, was he not? Tobin is human being is he not?
That is quite arguable to some people, a monster would be a better description for many, but denail is pointless, they are/were both human.
We do not need approve, nor accept the horrible things people do. Nor we do not need like them. We can say they did wrong things and horrible things, but they are still human beings and should be treated as the basic dignity human being deserves. I was taught forgiving. I forgave person who murdered my father. I forgave Nazi's who were responsible decimation of my fathers family line in Romania and near by area's during WWII. Son of jew or Son of gypsy.
I disagree, there are some things that simply connot be forgiven, and even doing so would be immoral in my point of view. Forgiving somone for blatant premeditated murder is as good as saying that what you did was bad, but its OK now - what kind of message does that send to people, you can murder people in cold blood, but everything will be forgiven in the end.
Forgiving someone of such things only affects those who have forgiven or been forgiven, me as a bystander would not be affected by that forgiveness, but if it makes you happy keep it up. I am sorry to hear about your unfortunate family history.
Revenge has never solved problems. And eye for an eye and tooth for an tooth, all world would be blind and toothless... Only way to stop wars and violence is to be one who stops.
Revenge, no, it has never really solved anything. But stopping fighting an enemy is a foolish idea, just because you stop does not mean they will. In some situations such as northern Ireland the best measure was to get both sides to stop, some people didnt, but the bulk of the people did, but in outright war it would be suicide.
Mahathma Gandhi did show what passive resistance could do. And I love what he said: "I like your Christ but I don't like your christians, because they are so unlike your Christ". He nailed it...
Ghandi was foolish in many ways, and some of the things that he chose to do, helped break India apart, a much better example would have been Martin Luther King, and his Athiest backers and colleauges.
human is only species known to kill for revenge or for satisfaction or for sadist pleasure. Most other animals just kill for food or for self defence.
There are many actually, Foxes, Orca, Rats, Lions, Baboons, and no doubt others.
When fighting against monster's beware that you do not turn into one... if we kill the killer, are we better than killer was? I think not. One murder does not make other any more better or more rightous.
I disagree, if I was in a kill or be killed along with dozens of others, I would have no remorse at all, simply because I have saved many lives, no doubt I would have nightmares forever, but I would still know that what I did was right, and justified.
Death sentence can make sense but is it morally ok? That depends on your culture but in my faith there's no justification for death penalty. Maybe I once was for it. But it does not change anything its just making another wrong thing to fix one wrong thing.
Going back to a previous point on society, this is not a question of whether it is morally wront, but whether society thinks it is wrong. It is not there so much for revenge, but as a just cause and more specifically as a example to others - whether it works I cannot say. Most people who view such things come away mortified even if they wanted the revenge.
We should punish criminals according our laws. But that doesn't mean we should stop respecting human life. Human and human life is always worth of respecting for.
Personally I believe that people who have removed others rights have lost all of their respect, and as I believe respect needs to be earned, the start their jail sentences with 0, and have to work up from that point.
God condemns people how they deserve it. Nobody escapes that. That is my faith, that's why I don't need to judge people nor I should, since I am not wise enough to judge people.
As you wish, but I believ that I CAN judge people because I am wise enough to make judgement on my own (they wont be perfect every time, but I will stand up and claim them to be my own regardless).
But what good has my religious belief generally done?
I hope they have done the same as my Athiestic views and morals.
What good has Mother Teresa's religious believes done?
Not a great deal.
What is my ultimate goal of my faith? I don't have own religion. My ultimate goal is that I can look myself from the mirror without feeling shame.
It seems to me that you are developing your concept of faith as you go along, that a much better idea than being told what to do.
Simply by not knowing doesn't make anyone atheist.
Not in my opinion, you are an Athiest if you dont believe in God, if you have not heard of such a thing by defenition you cannot believe in it - therefore you dont believe, thus an Athiest. You forgot one point, everyone on the planet is athiest to someone, so unless you believe in every God that some does believ exists or has believed existed 10,000+ of them you are also Athiest in someones eyes.
wether its Creator God or that there's no supreme deity at all. Beliving something, religion or idolog or insane halluccinations... but there is no person who would not believe in anything. Everybody who is alive believes something.
Yes that is true, but I find any form of religion very difficult to believe in. Given the choice I cant see that anyone would go from knowlege of their surroundings, to belief in something with 0 evidence, 0 proof, and yet it tells us to do things that are immoral, and not to do things that are totally natural, I see religion as no more than shackles.
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you."
Both of these seem quite close to the golden rule, which has been around in one form or another long before these verions of it were written, that does not mean that I wish to take away these wise words, far from it.
Question: How sure are you on your own faith and believes?
I think that you and I are not that different in our beliefs and opinions with the exception of the religion and a couple of specific points about respect and unconditional love, not to mention that really intrusive God, but as they are specific to the judeo-christian belief we can pass them of as religious. It is also nice to know that you are religious, but have no formal religion, and are changing your beliefs as you go along, a wise move all round.
Just thought I would add this, another example of religion poking it nose into ther peoples business where it is not wanted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... films.html
Andy