You are indeed every bit as keen of mind as your avatar suggests.
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Does having religious beliefs make a person more moral than someone who is an atheist
- Thread starter dfnj
- Start date
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
I see two major flaws in your reasoning. First off, you seem to think that being a theist and being a scientists are somehow mutually exclusive. I've got news for you, there are plenty of scientists who also have a belief some god or gods. In fact there are plenty of theistic scientists who work on weapons of mass destruction.
Secondly, it can certainly be argued that the existence of weapons of mass destruction have forced human beings to behave in a more moral manner over the past 70+ years. Without the deterrent of WMD's it's almost certain that the human race would have experienced at least one more world war over the past seven decades, where 10's if not 100's of millions of people would have died from the use of conventional weapons. Would the destruction and loss of life from a third world war fought with conventional weapons have been more moral that being forced to live for the past 70 years under the threat of mutually assured destruction?
Personally I think it's better that since the end of WWII we've lived with the stress and anxiety that a nuclear war MIGHT happen, instead of having faced the reality of the death and destruction from another conventional word war that actually did happen.
I'm not saying people can't change their minds, I'm saying they usually don't. World-views are deeply embedded.
I think you completely missed my analogy.
We're not so neurologically flexible as you seem to think.
PureX
Veteran Member
And yet religions are filled with people who do not accept their moral dictates fully or in their entirety. So clearly, they are not being "programmed". I think you're focused solely on the extreme because it feeds your bias.
As much as you seem to think people in general are free to choose their religion (and attached morals), and do so, when it seems to some of us - due to various factors, such as indoctrination as children, parents passing on such, or cultural pressure - that probably a majority with any religion do not actually do so, and possibly most subsequently do not question this.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
I'ld go a step further and state that someone's atheism or theism has little connection to how moral or immoralg they act. However, for the theist, it depends how they experience and view their religion.
I'm quite positive though.
No, those aren't scientists. Those are engineers. And they tend to receive these assignments and funding from politicians
Again, there's a difference between science and engineering.
A scientist figures out how atoms work.
An engineer then can use that knowledge of atomic theory to either build nuclear weapons or nuclear power plants or medical scanners and what not.
No. You can conclude that you don't really understand the difference between engineering and science. You can also conclude that you don't realise that no engineer works on atomic bombs "just because", and in fact only does so because a politician or government department commissions them to do so.
You mean like the very religious politicians in the US that assign these projects to engineers?
Or do you mean like the very religious beliefs of people like ISIS, who absolutely would develop and actually use nukes if they could, and who would consider it their sacred and religious moral duty to do so?
Sounds like religious beliefs don't really help in moral decision making....
Except that in practice, we don't see the religious act like that at all.
If some heavenly big brother is your only motivation of thinking life is worth it and valuable, or your only motivation to act morally, then imo you are immoral. Or rahter: morally bankrupt.
Then your motivation is just corrupted.
Audie
Veteran Member
Let us know when you change your mind about
belief in some stupid god.
We think you will prove to be incapable of it.
Some sort of program, perhaps.
Audie
Veteran Member
Little suspecting how well this applies to the naive
and gullible who are fertile soil for the con man.
(see every religion except for the one "true" one"!)
Au contraire....scientists who aren't engineers also work on weapons.
The do the research, manage programs, & even lower themselves
occasionally to do engineering (which they won't admit).
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
I honestly don't care too much about fringe religions who may not have a prescribed moral code of conduct. I am also of the opinion that everyone projects their own version of "right and wrong" onto others at various times. So, when a religion has a prescribed code of conduct or moral code, I feel that there is very little chance for a serious adherent not to do that same projecting and according to their religion's prescriptions.It would be nice to some day see an atheist not pile all religions under the same umbrella.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
And I completely agree that it takes a level of comfort, preparedness or "maturity" to really be ready to jump into an activity such as sex and be willing to take it in stride, not be prone to further expectation, etc. There probably aren't many that can accomplish this (I know I can't!), because sex is very often tied to emotional responses and does see one in an open/vulnerable state. I am more speaking not for myself and my own designs, but from a place of unbiased (attempted) examination of the act of copulation as a "moral/immoral" item.
Audie
Veteran Member
Aww and now here I thought that those "Christians" were into
absolute morality.
Not really. Pick and choose is sop. Kind of like what
most everyone else does. People of impeccable character
are rare, I think
As for "a lot more than a lot of other", well, as that applies
to any group, any activity, and "others" galore, that is
about as vacuous a comment as we've seen here.
PureX
Veteran Member
And yet we have proof that a majority actually do consider their religion's dogmas and actually do decide for themselves what of it they will accept and what of it they won't. There are a great many Christians, for example, that do not accept their respective church's teachings on abortion, or homosexuality, or divorce, or sex outside of marriage. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools until high school and I can say for sure that no one 'indoctrinated' me, nor any of the other kids I went to school with. Some of them grew up and stayed with their church, but most of them did not. And even as kids many of us did not accept all the religious teachings on offer. And Catholicism represents a huge number of Christians in this country, and in many others, too. Yet all you seem to see are the cultish extremes in places like the Bible belt with their absolutist bibliolatry and insistence of blind adherence to their dogmas and superstitions.
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exchemist
Veteran Member
Well OK but it is fairly difficult to take something like that out of its psychological and biological context.
All I'm really saying is that the religious disapproval of unbridled bonking fulfilled a valid function in society for millennia. Now it is, to some degree different and it is understandable that well-established religions take time to adjust.
However what I also feel very strongly is that the Christian church has gone off the track of justification in terms of social utility, by attaching to sex itself a lot of pernicious and damaging ideas of guilt, dirtiness and so on. There are even people today (I have met some on this forum) who think that the original sin of Adam and Eve was sexual. That sort of warped thinking turns what should be one of the most natural, joyful and loving experiences of humanity into the thing that damned us all!
Interesting claim. Atheists that I know don’t seem to have any problem to lie and their good and right seems to change by emotions and by what is beneficial for them. I don’t think there can be any more superficial morality than that.
firedragon
Veteran Member
I know some atheists who are such innocent, good people with very high standards of morals and charity. I know theists too who are just like that. I also know theists who are dirty little scoundrels who think they can do all kinds of immoral things to others and get away with it, who i believe are divided into closet atheists and actual theists.
You can never make assessments about who is moral and who is not based on their faith or non-faith sentiments whatsoever. Unless we are bigots and in that case what we may need is treatment.
McBell
Resident Sourpuss
The only thing I can think of that is more superficial than that is when it is done in the name of god...
Anecdotes are fine but as I'm sure you know not that great for discerning overall trends. Not sure I've ever seen any studies or polls related to how one acquires a religious belief and the likelihood of that changing over one's life, but I suspect - given what we tend to see in many countries - that movement is not as easy as you suggest. In the more industrialised countries (and often more secular ones) I'm sure it is a lot easier than in many others. Unfortunately there are still many countries where this might not be the case - due to the factors given.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Then they are working as engineers during that assignment.
Augustus
…
That certainly makes it better, but I wouldn't stop there: "Or love, or fear, or ignorance, or misinformation, or desperation, or naivety, etc. etc."
And given that all non-religious people follow ideologies and that, in general, there is no fundamental difference between religious and non-religious ideologies, Stevie W's quote is actually pretty vapid.