God is dead: long live atheism. Crush religion!

DadaKopf

yeah, u heard it! God is a whoremongering, masochist! What you got to say about it? Huh?

Discuss with constructive criticism

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"I collect spores, moulds and fungus."

Belisarius

Koph , now your just Trying for a fight

Oh lord Forgive this Foolish muppet , he knows not what he says

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Shrewgar!

Hobbes

or prehaps you could try to post your constructive reviews on the subject instead of trolling for replies.

The religion thing has been done already in another thread anyway.

DadaKopf

are you suggesting that i begin saying something sensible, thus leading the direction of the conversation??

No no, why that would be didactic and dogmatic. Rather conversation and discourse should flow freely from provocation. So, young sirs, i resent your statements and I suggest that you begin to respond with due concern for the most ultimate of questions.

To say that the topic has been covered is to refute and negate the discussions of millenia of ancestors - please treat the topic with the gravitas it deserves.

The question is: if God is dead, is everything allowed?

Greenbean

Just about every religion, culture philospher defines God as something which can't die. Its impossible to describe God as dead and have a general conversation about it, otherwise you're talking about something else.

DadaKopf

that's assuming the literal meaning of the quote from Crime and Punishment: "If God is dead, then everything is allowed".

You're arguing about semantics - God and religion has little valid temporal power anymore yet alone ethical influence nowadays. The point is that this power has dissapated since it's neither needed nor revered.

Until someone can undeniably prove god (which no one has), you might as well assume that no such entity exists nor doesn't exist; remain agnostic on the subject. Until the concept of God can once again become meaningful, God is dead.

Is everything allowed?

Hobbes

If god is dead DadaKopf... you killed him.

neuro-praxis

Good one Andy.

Nobody has *disproven* God's existence either, Dadakopf.

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Give me back my towel. I'll sue.

Excelsior

Oh ****. Your apparent knowledge of this subject has just destoryed my faith in that old fashioned unneccesary concept of a God.

I guess I better go eat my flowers without guilt now. I do so enjoy the guilt.

azezil

i don't believe there's a god but i would insist my kids (when i hav them) go to mass. i believe mass god etc. gives children a good start in life, teaches them that if they do wrong they will be punished! the ceromonies are nothing more than a bit of entertainment but the teachings and morals spoken about are worth listening too...

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"just because ur not paraniod, doesn't mean they're not after u!"

TacT

I think the point of most religion is to try and simplify our oh so complicated lives.........Whether there is a prevelant being that influences how we do this is is irrelevant.........live your life the way you like to live it..........enjoy and die.

The Bible is only a couple of nicely thought out ideals and stories which help us to simplify things and comfort us in our own loneliness.

Belisarius

Well Koph ,Much like the Greatest Artists of Our time , youve not only caused Outrage but youve also made me think , however what Ive thought of is a Counter-argument

Religion isnt dead...Its expanding baby , Islam in the Pacific , Christianity in China , Catholocism in Russia ..true its all in disadvantaged area lending to the old maxim that Religion is the pacifier of the proleteriat ,But hey...thats the life of a kid in the Ghetto I suppose. Its poor comentary on the Materialism of Life that we abandon religion once a new model of Nokia comes out

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Shrewgar!

amp

"God is dead: long live atheism.."

Ha! If God is dead then God was once alive and atheism is the belief in the total non-existence (present or past) of such an entity. Nicely trolled.

I use to be a rabid Atheist until I realised that it was more effort than most religious people actually put in. Athesism to some people is more mentally restrictive than most religions.

The facts imho tend to point to the fact that all groups of humans tend to have have developed the concept of a higher being/s independently in order to explain the important questions in life like:

Where do I come from?
What happens when I die?
Why did this bad thing happen?
Why did this good thing happen?
Why does a buttered piece of toast always fall to the ground butter down?

So Gods are created to explain them and thus letting us get on with more mundain questions like "What's on telly?"

Oscar Wilde said "Religion is the opiate of the masses". For some people it's an emotional crutch to get them through some of the bad sh!t that goes on in life.

That said, religion does perform some fundementally important rituals like Marriage and Death. For those that have witnessed or been a part of a full on white wedding there's a lot of stuff to get organised and you've got to be serious to actually go through the whole thing.

For me the real question is:
Did God create humans, or did we create God?

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!
art is everything and of course nothing and possibly also a sausage

azezil

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by amp:
"God is dead: long live atheism.."

Ha! If God is dead then God was once alive and atheism is the belief in the total non-existence (present or past) of such an entity. Nicely trolled.

I use to be a rabid Atheist until I realised that it was more effort than most religious people actually put in. Athesism to some people is more mentally restrictive than most religions.

The facts imho tend to point to the fact that all groups of humans tend to have have developed the concept of a higher being/s independently in order to explain the important questions in life like:

Where do I come from?
What happens when I die?
Why did this bad thing happen?
Why did this good thing happen?
Why does a buttered piece of toast always fall to the ground butter down?

So Gods are created to explain them and thus letting us get on with more mundain questions like "What's on telly?"

Oscar Wilde said "Religion is the opiate of the masses". For some people it's an emotional crutch to get them through some of the bad sh!t that goes on in life.

That said, religion does perform some fundementally important rituals like Marriage and Death. For those that have witnessed or been a part of a full on white wedding there's a lot of stuff to get organised and you've got to be serious to actually go through the whole thing.

For me the real question is:
Did God create humans, or did we create God?

</font>

well put! i believe we made god for the reasons u'v already posted!

*ur my hero*

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"just because ur not paraniod, doesn't mean they're not after u!"

Belisarius

Amp ...maybe Im wrong , but wasnt That Karl Marx...you know the Optiate of the masses thing , im sure it was

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Shrewgar!

SheroN

I am your god worship me.

El_Presidente

For some odd reason I was reminded of this artical

http://www.theonion.com/onion3703/marilyn_mason.html

When I read your post.

Tell me, do you listen to Marilyn Manson much yourself?

Enygma

Was thinking about this whole thing the other day, just imagine if Jesus showed up tomorrow. He'd be on every talk show (even Jerry Springer!) and TV station and after about two weeks we'd be bored of him and he'd end up hosting "Jesus and Pals" on Public Access TV.
It's kinda sad really.
I always thought that what Kevin Spacey said towards the end of Seven was really true, but it's obviously no excuse to go killing people, that's what made him a sicko.

On the subject of whether God exists or not, who are we to say?
I think Dougal summed it up when he said...
"So what happens to the people who eat fish on Fridays? Do the go to heaven or hell? It's Mad!"

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My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.

Manach

Firstly, Dadakopf I am so glad you have learn how to operate machinery like computers perhaps one day you'll even learn how to interact socially with people.

The phrase "God is Dead" and thus the collapse of Western morality belong to Nietzsche. From what little I know of him, he seems to try and get his message across via complex plity stories or koans, which might be subject to misinterpretation.

I think that N. was saying that the old morality based on the godhead was dead and being replaced by the new ubermench's. He seemed a bit vague, but it appears to be based a maximum self-actualisation (? damned if I know what it means).
He did however make it quite clear that while the reasoning behind moral acts was wrong, the actual acts themselves were praiseworthy. He would have regarded the neglect of basic decency to other people as being coarse and vulgar.

PS Excelsior, my lot do guilt wholesale

Greenbean

Azezil, I'd be more the converse, I believe in God, but I don't believe in many religions. They seem to be sucessful desert cults, which thrive in the same way as a life form - survival of the fitest.

I can't doubt the large doses of stability that a religion will give to ones life though. All I know is I exist - I wasn't created out of nothing and whatever created me (be it a universe existing in a completely harmonised way that can or cannot be explained) then I call that God and its good enough for me, no afterlife etc as long as I am something, I take comfort in that. Who wants to live an eternity anyway, its the scariest thing I've ever imagine. I thus subscribe to Kantism (I think).

God in religion maybe dying, but the media has taken over. Media is the new religion. What religion typically does is bind people together so that they might live cohesively as a large group (ie cities and countries, rather than clans). With the arrival of stable capitalism the religion is replaced with media. But capitalism as a structure is particularly new and not as stable as it seems; one great thing capitalism does is create an illusion where it doesn't even seem to exist or be there. When people start to glimpse it, it can be scary, thats why you have the X-files and other such conspiracy type feelings. Media binds people together instead. Opinions and beliefs are structured by media, and there theres a reverbatory effect where people can structure the media. Its actually similar with religion - look at how religion is now trying to change to keep up with peoples changes (remember the simpsons superbowl add - "we've made some changes".)

Belisarius

Nietzsche! GAH! I knew it was his , but I couldnt think of the freakin name! .

Well Koph , you seem to have run into a bit of a landmine here ,attacked on all sides by Good god fearing catholics and Little wierdo South Side Rich Kids who are Committed Buddhists till the next fad comes round , Alone and Under seige , Im reminded of the words of Chief Wiggum

"Wheres your Messiah now!"

I jest of course , God Lives ,And His name is Bob

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Shrewgar!

Belisarius

Well Its just a thought , but in theese modern times Morality has very little to do with Religion more so with Civilisation . Consider It , say a thief stole a Car ,Both You and others dont think of it as a sin , you think of it as against the law , Your not fearful of Eternal retribution in the life beyond , your fearful of Being nabbed by the Police . In this semi-agnostic world we live in nobody really considers morality , Or at least on the tail end of a pensive reflection .Its more an Interpretation of Nietsche's that conventional religion and faith is on the way out . The Burden of self regulation being removed in Favour of the Guidance of your Neighbours , Your Town , your Country ,in essence your fellow man .Maybe God is dead ,maybe now is the day of The Cult of Society .

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Shrewgar!

Chubby

When you used the word "evolved" Azezil, did you mean progress in society? We are not born with a sense of right and wrong but the concepts are instilled in us from an early age by school, the church and the media. Even if no one believes in god anymore, "everything is not allowed" because we are governed by rules and laws of the society we live in. To think that people don’t do bad things because god is watching is just naive.

azezil

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Chubby:
When you used the word "evolved" Azezil, did you mean progress in society?
</font>

yes, ok we may falter for a while but i would like to believe we are evolving as a people and one day the need to instill fear in our young in the form of a vengeful god will become unnecessary.....

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"just because ur not paraniod, doesn't mean they're not after u!"

amp

Yeah Belisarius, "Religion is the opiate of the masses" is a Karl Marx quote. I should have known better - Wilde is much funnier:

"People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards."

http://www.phnet.fi/public/mamaa1/wilde.htm

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!
art is everything and of course nothing and possibly also a sausage

Greenbean

There was this study done before the the turn of the last century (ie 18**), and some may know the name of the study etc and what I'm talking about. In it prisoners were studied to see what it was that would give them a moral stance, to stop committing more crimes. One theory was social acceptance being the ruling line and that it's hardwired - we can't survive without social acceptance in the animal world and this works on through to the human world. Each prisioner was deemed to have gotten themselves into a state where social acceptance hadn't become important and they had reduced morals. To put this to the test the inmates of a prison where place in a jail so that everyone else could see each other. For some reason this was recorded to have made significant changes in the prisoners attitudes.

If the social acceptance theory is correct then what really rules us from day to day in todays living, isn't religion etc its more your oprah winfrey's and graham nortons, movies, books etc. What they preach or get away with outlines and moulds our sense of what is socially aceptable, they mould our idependent thoughts. This is why religion can't work (it doesn't allow for independent thought) and media now is in more control. Now we have loads of mini-mortal-gods instead of major ones.

Trying to approach this "without god do we loose morals idea".

DadaKopf

i think you might be referring to a design of prison that was devised by Jeremy Bentham in the late 1700's in England and it was called an 'ocular prison'. To the best of my knowledge, it was never taken up by the British government at the time, or ever again but the idea was to do exactly as you said.

It was all to do with Bentham's [and John and John Stuart Mill's] Utilitarian theories where goodness was merely the persuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. It wasn't exactly extreme democracy by any means but social mores, peer pressure, education and positive and negative reinforcement had a lot to do with it.

It didn't exactly work but it was very influential and still is. Bentham had many hair brained schemes - one was to have his body embalmed after his death - you can go visit him in the London School of Economics

DadaKopf

Hey, all I was asking was if the value of transcendental morality is taken away from human experience and interaction, what is there to stop us from committing immoral or amoral acts since there's no overarching ethic to keep us in check.

Yes, the spirit of the "God is dead" statement comes from Nietzsche, all the same, Dostoyevsky was a proto-Nietzschean and his character Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment embodied the traits of the Ubermensch wholly seprately from Nietzsche - kind of like Calculus being discovered by Leibinz and Newton separately. Nietzsche didnt really consider the reality of a God in many ways, more the meaning and influence this largely imagined entity has on man. In fact, a contemporary (and influence of Marx) Ludwig Feuerbach merely considered the notion of God to be a projection of Man's own unconscious aspirations and abilities (for self-actualisation) - to be more like himself, to aspire to greatness, goodness or to transcend the given world. Peer into a pond and gaze at your own reflection, baby!

Most of you are ignoring the main crux of my question which we all have problems with: if there's no valid moral code, then what the hell is good or bad? How are we to know anymore?

It's we're all living in the postmodern age, we're told through the media that there's no such thing as objective morals. That's nietzsche baby - total nihilism and no universality. 'Morals' are nowadays merely statements of personal preference, not judgements from on high with universal weight. I'm not necessarily questioning the existence of God as such, more the fact that He has little influence on anything anymore - that can hardly be refuted.

Nietzsche, Husserl then Derrida have destroyed metaphysics, thus destroying much of religious 'theory' - it has little value in Western culture so, once again I ask: Is everything allowed?

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"I collect spores, moulds and fungus."

adnans

before this thread goes out of control (it usually happens, admit it)

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">yeah, u heard it! God is a whoremongering, masochist! What you got to say about it? Huh?</font>

well all burn in hell now dadakopf, hold on, you said theres no God. phew, close one there.

have your own faith and ideas. let others decide for themselves. i have my reasons.

adnans

DadaKopf

I'm with you there - think what you want but it still doesn't mean the end of conviction. People will defend what they believe in all the same.

It'd be great if everyone could be apathetic - oh, globalisation - but no.

Mneh.

azezil

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by DadaKopf:
Hey, all I was asking was if the value of transcendental morality is taken away from human experience and interaction, what is there to stop us from committing immoral or amoral acts since there's no overarching ethic to keep us in check.
</font>

its a little thing called a brain and common sence!

one would asume in this day and age that such a question need not be asked, ppl should have enough "cop on" to know the difference between right and wrong!

so what if there's no god that doesn't mean we should all run amuck, i'd like to believe that ppl are evolved enough to know that certain behaviour is not acceptable and that we're mature enough to behave in a respectful manner without having to be threatened by the wrath of a vengeful 'god'.

maybe thats just me!

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"just because ur not paraniod, doesn't mean they're not after u!"

DadaKopf

i dont buy it

azezil

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by DadaKopf:
i dont buy it </font>

obviously some of us are more evolved than others! LOL

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"just because ur not paraniod, doesn't mean they're not after u!"

Excelsior

Please, whatever about your opinions on morality and that "Nietzsche, Husserl then Derrida have destroyed metaphysics" (!), please don't then pretend that Bentham and John Stuart Mill had the same form of utilitarianism.

And Manach, my web buddy, I am gonna get me some of that GK Chesterton that you rate so highly. I might be able to dabble in some of that badass guilt you talk of then.
I am amazed that on a concept so universal as morality, ethics, or theism, that views between such a wide number of people could be so similar.
Manach is a Catholic. Catholicism is thought by everyone except Catholics and other Christians in this country to be the "standard" or "conventional" belief. In reality, vagueness seems to be the real normal.

[This message has been edited by Excelsior (edited 26-03-2001).]

DadaKopf

excelcior, what exactly is your education regarding these strands of thought? I'm interested.

Anyway, of course Bentham and JS Mill had huge divergences in their thought but all the same, they were both Utilitarians

Totally radical, dude.

Energizer1

U people need to get a life!! who cares what ur thoughts on religion are, it is to personal a topic to be posting it on the internet!!

Excelsior

Well DadaKopf, I am a software engineer in training.
I am Christian, so that is kind of a good attribute if we debate God. But the tone of this conversation really doesn't make me optimistic about my chances of reasonably being listened to.

I am currently reading On Liberty and Subjection of Women and it would be fair to say that my hobby is Philosophy.
So I have the knowledge to back up my opinion.


Satisfy your interest?

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My Adolescent website:
http://www.iol.net/~mullent

TacT

Thomas, you think too hard

Panda

I'm a "Christian" according to my parents, but i never had any say in this.
I dont believe in that whole jesus bs, and im sure when i say this that others will agree that there is some sort of supreme being type entity that created the universe etc,etc,etc
so "long live atheism" for me is dumb, and you seem to just trying to dig at religion while making a "popular topic" or whatever.

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Aka: Dragon,Sexual Harassment Panda

amp

Energizer1 you seem to have some "issues". Tell me about your mother.

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!
art is everything and of course nothing and possibly also a sausage

Panda

"issues"?!? nah, hes just mental in the head.

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Aka: Dragon,Sexual Harassment Panda