Christians are moral out of the fear of eternal damnation. Their goodness is not out of true morality but rather is out of self-interest and fear.
What about athiests? If there's no afterlife and no reason to be moral, why arent atheists running around decapitating people left and right?

Peaceful athiests- the majority of nonbelievers, are of the highest form of morality.
To be a good person, even when you know that you exist in a valueless universe in which the most pious monk will meet the same fate as the most bloodthirsty murderer- that is the highest level of humanity.
To honestly care for other living things when there is no reward for doing so and no punishment for not doing so- that is the highest level of morality.

To know that when you die youre nothing, and yet still have integrity- that is the highest form of existance you can achieve.

And if there is indeed a god, then he's like a kid with a magnifying glass standing over an anthill, and I dont want to have anything to do with that god.
I will burn in the sixth circle of hell with a smile on my face knowing that my moral values came from myself and not from being scared shitless into submission.


But even worse than christianity is islam.

Morality is reversed in islam; While christianity (generally) rewards good acts such as helping people, Islam rewards evil acts such as blowing yourself up in a crowd of innocents.
Unlike christianity which (generally) enforces order and peace, Islam only enforces disorder and chaos.
The Islamic belief in an afterlife is the most dangerous illusion that exists, because Islamist dogma dictates that the entire world can be vaporized in atomic fire and everything will be perfect in heaven with 40 virgins.


Religion is for people who are incapable of true morality. The afterlife is a lie that creates false morality through fear.
If you're an athiest, and you arent a bloodthirsty hun, you truely are a morally superior being.

Christians are moral out of the fear of eternal damnation. Their goodness is not out of true morality but rather is out of self-interest and fear.

This is not true, according to the Bible, being moral and doing any good works does not free you from eternal damnation.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%202:8-9;&version=9;)


And if there is indeed a god, then he's like a kid with a magnifying glass standing over an anthill,

Why?


If you're an atheist, and you aren't a bloodthirsty hun, you truly are a morally superior being.

I don't see how this is more than an opinion.

You can't categorise shit like that. It nothing to do with whether you're a believer or none not. Even atheists fake morality. They also kill!
Just because a "believer" might pretend to be nice, doesn't mean that without religion he's a badass.

The OP is an interesting mix of opinion and half-truths. While I deplore all organized religions, and especially the Abrahamic religions as being based on fear and denial, it is a gross error to generalize about ALL members of any religion.

At the end of the day, no religion, person, nation , or ethos is "better" or "worse" than any other. That attitude, based on the illusion of separateness, is behind much of the war, hatred and so on in the world.

We are All One.

This is not true, according to the Bible, being moral and doing any good works does not free you from eternal damnation.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%202:8-9;&version=9;)

So you're saying faith and faith only saves you? Great, say hi to all the crazy mothers up there who killed their babies because "God told them to" then. That oughta be enough faith

@OP: I'm wondering how you know what is morally superior?

Also, can you give an example of an good action that anyone performs that gives no benefit to themselves?

Great, say hi to all the crazy mothers up there who killed their babies because "God told them to" then. That oughta be enough faith

what are you talking about?

Ironically enough, most of today's morals are decreed from what the church has declared as moral in the past.

The OP does raise some interesting points, yet needs to work on articulating himself.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God

Translates to

God saves you because he feels like doing it if you believe in him, not because you're awesome. It's God's gift, don't bullshit yourself thinking you earned it


So basically, God saves you because you believe in him, not because you've earned it. And if you're crazy enough to think God speaks to you, how could he not reward it with salvation?

And I pre-emptively refute your killer card with God forgives card. You turn

Thats just a silly religions opinion.

Theres no "saving".

Ironically enough, most of today's morals are decreed from what the church has declared as moral in the past.

The OP does raise some interesting points, yet needs to work on articulating himself.

The church'es' have always been behind the development of morals, and in most casing holding back the advancements into a more civilized society. I have no idea where you got the idea that there the ones leading the way.

Ironically enough, most of today's morals are decreed from what the church has declared as moral in the past.

Church is comprised of people with their own morals. It was created by them. It's no surprise that the church supported the moral guidelines already in place but claiming it's their origin is just ridiculous. Church is that moron who reads and memorizes quotes so he can insert them into conversation as his own to look smart

Human beings are just fucking nuts. Religion does put in place a fairly universal set of codes. I mean there isn't much flawed about the ten commandments besides the ones that say you have to believe in god and not worhip other idols. I mean other then that they are universal to what most human beings would consider to be moral. Also it is a fact that when atheists get together they can be just as nuts and violent as say the Crusades or any other similar group madness. During the French Revolution there was a dechristianization movement and many people of the Christian faith were killed and many places of worship destroyed by a bunch of batshit insane immoral atheists who all thought they were doing something wonderfull for society based on their beliefs. They actually made society alot bloodier. Christians are no less moral then Atheists. No view is more noble to have. It really makes up very little of who you are as a human. All it is is perspective. You can blame Christianity for a bunch of violence and immoral behavior but the fact is the same shit would have happened for a different reason between different groups of people. It's just how people are and religion is part of us.

Violence is a only a choice too many make. It does not have to be part of who 'we' are.

The human race is totally insane. Everyone of us. Our group mind has become that of a schizophrenics.

Also, can you give an example of an good action that anyone performs that gives no benefit to themselves?

Well, I've uploaded two torrents (a virus requested in NS&H and The Poor Man's James Bond 1-4 requested in BI) sepecifically for totse, to be downloaded (sacrificing my bandwidth) for people I didn't know. I also ripped a pre-release of babel, putting myself in the way of legal prosecution, to upload that movie to bittorrent. I did the same thing with a different film not too long ago. I didn't do that because of a god telling me to. I did it because I wanted to help the community.

OP, you're definitely wrong about Islam in some ways, but your'e right overall. When good things are tainted by the hand of a "god" they become as twisted as the words of "His" servants, and black as the fires that will rage on "His" house.

So basically, God saves you because you believe in him, not because you've earned it. And if you're crazy enough to think God speaks to you, how could he not reward it with salvation?


When you look at that verse you have to consider the other verses that speak on salvation being God's gift. Romans 6:23 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%206:23&version=9) also mentions eternal life in heaven is God's gift. But it adds that it is through Jesus Christ. By “believing in him” do you mean believing in his existence? (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%202:19;&version=9;) If this is so, then no the hypothetical crazy person is not given salvation.

Believe that Jesus died for your sins and you're saved, that's what they teach people at any rate

Obviously if she kills her kid thinking God told her to, she's gotta be pretty devout

Obviously if she kills her kid thinking God told her to, she's gotta be pretty devout

If she was devout, she'd know that God has revealed everything He wants to say to her through his word. No where in the Bible does God command parents to kill their children for no particular reason.

Theres no "saving".

Agreed, in the sense that there is nothing to be saved from, except our two worst enemies--fear and guilt--and they are products of a disordered mind.

No where in the Bible does God command parents to kill their children for no particular reason.

Abraham.


























Oh God that felt like a million bucks. Did you give me the shot on purpose?

Abraham.


























Oh God that felt like a million bucks. Did you give me the shot on purpose?

lol pwn

Abraham.


1.) Yes God told Abraham to sacrifice his son. But did his son die in the end? No because it was only a test of his faith.
2.) The command was not universal.
3.) What pwnage?

1.) Yes God told Abraham to sacrifice his son

You asked if God had told someone to kill his kid for no reason. Answer was yes, even if he wasn't serious in the end. The crazy women never got that "wait, j/k", it's the only difference and it'd take concrete faith to go through with it like Abraham intended to do. And just happens you said that faith is what gets you to heaven

But God did have a reason to ask Abraham to do that. He was testing his faith. The whole point of it wasn't to 'kill a child for no reason' the killing never happened because that was not Gods intent. It wasn't a joke it was a test.

You asked if God had told someone to kill his kid for no reason.

Really? Here's what I originally said.

No where in the Bible does God command parents to kill their children for no particular reason.

1.)God's reason for telling Abraham to sacrifice his son was to test his faith.
2.)You ignore that this test wasn't universal.
3.)Afterwards God did not say, all of you who wish to follow me kill your children as the ultimate proof of your faith.


The crazy women never got that "wait, j/k", it's the only difference and it'd take concrete faith to go through with it like Abraham intended to do. And just happens you said that faith is what gets you to heaven

1.)Like you said, the stated hypothetical woman is crazy/delusional.
2.)Therefore the incident involving the woman killing her child is not of God.


But God did have a reason to ask Abraham to do that. He was testing his faith. The whole point of it wasn't to 'kill a child for no reason' the killing never happened because that was not Gods intent. It wasn't a joke it was a test.

Exactly.

Well, I've uploaded two torrents (a virus requested in NS&H and The Poor Man's James Bond 1-4 requested in BI) sepecifically for totse, to be downloaded (sacrificing my bandwidth) for people I didn't know. I also ripped a pre-release of babel, putting myself in the way of legal prosecution, to upload that movie to bittorrent. I did the same thing with a different film not too long ago. I didn't do that because of a god telling me to. I did it because I wanted to help the community.

Did doing this make you feel good?

1.)God's reason for telling Abraham to sacrifice his son was to test his faith.
2.)You ignore that this test wasn't universal.

The crazy woman kills her kid because the she really thinks the voice in her her is God telling her to kill her kid. To her, it's a test of faith, the ultimate test of faith. Except you have to go through with it unlike Abraham, this is different. God can do what the fuck he wants. Are you saying God wouldn't reward such unwavering faith? It's not like she had the capability for realizing she's just insane, are you also saying that God would punish people for being incapable of pleasing him to begin with?


In fact, how do you know she is crazy? Because she acts distraught and whatnot? God just told her to kill her child, I doubt you'd pull through without ill effects either. Why don't you consider people saying God saved them insane if you'd consider the killer so?

Ah yes, God only does NICE miracles. Convenient isn't it? You'd think killing the entire earth's population instead of trying to redeem them would show that God is a bit of a prick but nah, that wouldn't give you the security blanket you need to cope

What your talking about is someone who either is crazy and thinks god is talking to them in which case God would technicaly not be involved at all or someone who God has ordered to kill and go through with the killing of her child which God would never do. So either way it doesn't have much to do with God.

If God saved somebody that would be a good thing. The person would feel it was a good thing. Also other Christians would recognize you were saved. Being saved implys a positive influence on someones life. No Christian would validate you killing your child.

God doesn't just do nice miracles. He whiped out entire citys and caused massive floods and other disasters. But he still wouldn't command someone to actually go through with killing a child.

God doesn't just do nice miracles. He whiped out entire citys and caused massive floods and other disasters. But he still wouldn't command someone to actually go through with killing a child.

I really don't see the logic in that. Oh wait, God thinks it's fun to make people suffer when there's a whole bunch of them? Even if not 'fun', he's still an asshole. And well, if he has no qualms about murdering masses of people, making a mother kill her kid as a show of faith would fit his portfolio of misery

Oh and prove that God didn't tell her to kill her kid. Hell, show me why it's so impossible? Not like it's the first time, except unlike Abe, God didn't feel like stopping them but wanted them to go through with it. The fucking brat would go to heaven by his whim anyway so not like it would be so bad

Even if God wasn't involved, how can he punish the woman for having such faith? Isn't faith what gets you into his good side in the first place? Or are you saying God has no qualms about punishing the misguided tortured insane souls? Just seems nicer every second

God isn't a human. You can't put human connotations onto a being like that or into the decisions that it would make. Also it's an impossible situation because you made it up. Things like it have happened for sure but this is a vague scenario you have put forward. Why would she believe God was asking her to kill her child? What reason would there be for the child to die? How did God ask her to kill her child? Did he (in her mind) send an Angel or something? I don't see what reason God would ever have to kill a child though. An actual Christian would know more about this then me.

But yeah unless she recognized what she did was a sin she would go to hell because God wouldn't actually ask her to kill her child. She would have to realize it was a force beside God that had caused her to kill her child and then she would have to repent. From the sounds of it God doesn't have any qualms with punishing misguided people at all. In fact they all go to hell in the end unless they become guided.

For a start, No, just No to this entire thread.

Secondly, it's true that you are saved by faith, but you are saved by faith in the words of Jesus, "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. (John 14:21)"

I'm sure you can see here that faith is all well and good, but it must be faith in Jesus, not something you've made up. Nowhere , that I can see, does Jesus command you to do anything shitty, and if you have Faith you will follow his words. This just goes to show that the notion of people being excused for any act as long as they profess a belief in Jesus is wrong. Someone with faith will follow the words of Jesus, they won't become insane maniacs crushing the skulls of children.

I'm going to ignore the stupidly ignorant things said about Islam... simply because you're a moron.

Right, what's next.

Oh yes, atheists having some moral superiority of believers.

First, you seem to assume that an atheist makes a decision on what s/he follows morally. Now there is obvious psychological evidence showing that morality is largely influenced by our upbringing. An atheist's morality, like a believers, is influenced by their upbringing, and the society they live in. We can see this in the way that a Christian (And I'm talking about Christians, word of Christ and all that) and an Atheist will have similar morals.


For an atheist to be morally superior to a christian they would have to choose their morals without other influences. This is simply impossible. Both are influenced by the world around them and childhood. In effect the morals of an atheist come from the same place that the morals of a Christian come from, there is just slightly differant reasoning beind it. Both have often been taught what to, and what not to, do from youth. Neither has, to any large extent, free-will regarding their morality.

I will burn in the sixth circle of hell with a smile on my face knowing that my moral values came from myself and not from being scared shitless into submission.

Your moral values have never cam from yourself. Not only that, but your morality is their because you are shit scared into submission. Would you walk out into the streets now and kill someone? I'd doubt it, not only because you'd probaly find it nigh on impossible to just walk up and kill someone, but also because you'd be tracked down and arrested. If the police were'nt there would you go around killing people?

Once again, I doubt it. In the same way, if you removed God from Christians would they all suddenly became insane maniacs spurred on only by the desire to kill? I don't think so.

What you are saying seems to me to indicate that without any restrainsts Mankind would engage on a genocidal campaign of world-wide anhilation. I can't believe that this is true, because we all generally desire to live together, we don't want to kill people all the time. And those that do are the minortiy and not the majority.


I hope that was clear enough, I tend to go off on one and leave coherance behind sometimes.

You don't choose to become insane nor can you choose to snap out of it. And your God is a tremendous asshole if he punishes people for such a thing, it's like torturing a cripple who refused to run. Stop calling him fucking benevolent if you really think he does such crap


Try stealing or hurting people in less permanent ways

Police are really fucking easy to fool if you think before you act. There's absolutely nothing stopping me from going to the neighbor's empty house and emptying it of jewelry and burying it in the forest for two years waiting retrieval. Hell, it'd be easy to leave a pouch of candy with some poison mixed in to their yard and their kids would in all probability have some and die. But I don't do either of those things because I don't want to hurt anyone for no reason, not because cops might catch me. And the worst cops would do is provide free lounging for years without being able to leave. Oh noes, the horror

You don't choose to become insane nor can you choose to snap out of it. And your God is a tremendous asshole if he punishes people for such a thing, it's like torturing a cripple who refused to run. Stop calling him fucking benevolent if you really think he does such crap


Try stealing or hurting people in less permanent ways

Police are really fucking easy to fool if you think before you act. There's absolutely nothing stopping me from going to the neighbor's empty house and emptying it of jewelry and burying it in the forest for two years waiting retrieval. Hell, it'd be easy to leave a pouch of candy with some poison mixed in to their yard and their kids would in all probability have some and die. But I don't do either of those things because I don't want to hurt anyone for no reason, not because cops might catch me. And the worst cops would do is provide free lounging for years without being able to leave. Oh noes, the horror

God , and his benevolence or lack thereof, is not the point here. The point is moral superiority of atheists over believers.

Are believers any differant? Do you really think that the only thing stopping a religious believer from stealing, killing and maiming everyone aroud them is the belief in God? My point is that peole do not naturally go around killing, mugging and raping each other (although the news'll tell you otherwise), and that believer or not, you are not likely to do these things if the authority telling you not to is removed.

If you truly believe that the only thing that prevents a believer from doing these things is belief in God, then to my mind, you'd have to be placing them seperate from the everyday human race. They'd have to be a bunch of sociopaths with only the belief in God preventing them from insanely dangerous acts.

And if you truly believed that the only thing keeping religious believers from going ape-shit was belief in God, thensurely the best course of action would be to allow them to believe in God, so that they don't destroy everyone around them?

They're the ones claiming they act according to God's wishes

Yeah it's bullshit but playing along is more fun

My opinion is that God [if real] is more evil than Satan.

ex) in The Bible,
deaths induced directly by God: 2,270,365[+]
deaths induced by Satan [vicariously]: 10

ex) God has to constantly test his creations' faith to make sure he's got good PR, yet lets countless plagues, wars, famines, birth defects, etc slaughter innocent people

ex) GOD GAMBLES WITH SATAN. The Book of Job. Read it.
"Thou shall not covet thy neighbor." Gambling = sin.

In my opinion, the only real crime Satan committed was standing up to a tyrant king.

It would be very appropriate for Satan to be the official mascot of atheism. Shit, even his assigned Latin name, Lucifer, means 'bearer of light'.

We all die, end of story.

The funny thing about the whole "God testing Abraham's faith" business is that no theist is actually bothered by the fact that God NEEDS to test someone's faith. Doesn't He already know? The moral of Abraham's story is that God favors blind obedience over parental love and it's mind boggling that christians consider this story inspiring when it is simply appalling!
It's amazing that half of christianity's claims contradict the other half and believers just block everything out...

The funny thing about the whole "God testing Abraham's faith" business is that no theist is actually bothered by the fact that God NEEDS to test someone's faith. Doesn't He already know? The moral of Abraham's story is that God favors blind obedience over parental love and it's mind boggling that christians consider this story inspiring when it is simply appalling!
It's amazing that half of christianity's claims contradict the other half and believers just block everything out...

...since when are all theists Christian?

I think some religions place to much emphasis on "evil" as difference.

Evil is an opinion, like whether you like swiss or cheddar.
Less crazy you hold the opinion the betta'.
Got out o' my soggy bed-
I'm a wetta'.

:mad:

this topic is gay and all the posters in it are gay as fuck never post in this topic ever again

To honestly care for other living things when there is no reward for doing so and no punishment for not doing so- that is the highest level of morality.

actualy the highest level of morality would be caring for other living things when there would be punishment for doing so!!! ;)

ps. your whole great speech that will go down in history and last forever kinda didnt make the cut! honestly it sucked!

pss. i fucked your mom -_-