Are Athiests evil?

pinder wrote: »

dont nit pick my statements,theyr black and white

That's the problem, they are black and white.

Black and white statements are the purview of religious argument. If you are discussing morality without a religious underpinning then you have to look at the meaning of right and wrong. Otherwise what you are really saying is "I have a Christian moral compass but I just don't believe in God to enforce it, I do it in the absence of a God".

Saying that you "know" what is right is ridiculous. You may have your opinions on right and wrong but you cannot claim you are right over other people's opinions.

pinder wrote: »

affairs are wrong,murder is wrong,rape is wrong.i dont care whther your religious or not,once gain stop nit picking my statements,theyr basic,a monkey could get them faster than you are

It's ironic that you think I am the one missing the point, although I agree your points are basic.

Why is having an affair wrong? Who says it is wrong and why? I would argue that affairs are not essentially and absolutely "wrong" as you suggest but that they are simply unacceptable to our society and for good reason.

In a monogamous society I agree it is seen as socially destructive and therefore it is not condoned (i.e "wrong") but in polygamous societies there is no concept of the idea of an affair.

Monogamy is only really necessary in a patriarchal society where inheritance of wealth and status is passed down the male line. Monogamy is necessary so as to ensure we know who everyone's father is. If a society is matriarchal then there is no need for such a social norm as it is clear who the mother of a child is.


I am not nit-picking at your posts at all. I am pointing out that if you want to speak about "right and wrong" in the absence of a God to tell you which is which then you have to be able to look to the underlying reasons why you would consider such things to be one or the other.

That said I am sure you will just re-state your belief system and not think about it at all.

pinder wrote: »

and do you live in a polygamous society?do i?so in our society it is wrong .so in this discussion with people in a monogamous society im talking about what non christians and christians and all faiths in this society believe to be wrong.your point has no relevance to the point i was making.i was not making a big point originally about whether so and so is right or wrong.i was saying christians believe they will go to hell for doing something morally wrong (ill add in,in our society) while atheists IN OUR SOCIETY who want to do what is morally right(in our society) do it because it is morally right (in our society) not because they believe they will be punished.my original point had nothing to do with what was right or wrong or why something is seen as right or wrong

You were saying that Christians do things because they believe in God and atheists do them regardless of whether there is a God or not. You were also saying that the morality of our society is a Christian morality.

My point is not irrelevant though. In "this society" there are Muslims from Dubai for example. I have a good friend who was born there. In Dubai a man can marry as many women as he can afford to keep in a certain level of comfort. So in "this society" there are people who consider having more than one partner (bigamy I am referring to specifically which, I assume, you as a member of "this society" think is wrong) is not morally wrong. They think this because they have been taught a different moral code. Which is better? Which is right?

In "this soceity" up until 1995 it was a crime to be a homosexual. There are still people who think this is "wrong".

Your point assumes that there is some sort of agreed upon idea of morality and there simply is not. Murder and rape are both crimes, they are not moral issues. Affairs are a moral issue but they are not necessarily wrong.


So while your point is "Atheists are moral cause they want to be and Christians are moral cause they are told to be by God and/or are afraid of punishment" (and I think this is a bad argument as many Christians would argue they want to be moral to honour their God - not out of fear of Hell) I would like to point out that you cannot define morality by a Christian standard unless you are a Christian and saying everyone who is not Christian in "this society" lives by their moral code is simply fallacious.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

People disobey temporal laws at will - often this is without consequence. For instance, not so long ago I used to neck down a fist full of drugs at the weekend, and I would have done so without thought of any sort of legal consequence. That I now no longer indulge myself in drugs (apart form the odd pint) is not due to the fact that I have suddenly become terrified that the rozzers will start hammering down the door, rather it's very simply a function of my own changing morality. I can think of non-religious folks who would be of the same opinion.

I would happily get into a debate about the nature of law, social stigma as a coersive element and command theory v natural law theory but it would be massively off topic.

That said, I hope you can take my word for it that my distinction between temporal law and morals is a valid one, although there is a large overlap between where both come from.

I would not dispute that our legal system is based on a Christian philosophy, the preamble to the Constitution states it clearly:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,

We, the people of Éire,

Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,

Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation [...]

Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution

Our legal system admits its Christian basis. However our morality, in the absence of a religious underpinning which outlines religious person's ideas on morality, requires atheists to look at the sources and reasons for our ideas on morality. This examination is often arduous and requires a great deal of work. It looks at anthropology, psychology and philosophy to determine what we consider to be right and wrong. Often these things coincide with Christian ethics as they are at the psychological basis of all that we consider good and evil.

The other reason that these overlap is that Christians are not wrong on many issues. Taking of another person's life, acting in a manner which we would hope to be treated, these are ideas that sit at the very heart of our conceptions of morality.

No serious modern Christian would agree with the subjugation of women but this was considered morally acceptable up until this century. This stemmed from a traditional misunderstanding of women's abilities. In the medieval age women needed to be protected due to their undeniable physical disadvantage on average in comparison to men. The relative ineffectuality of temporal law in protecting them was combined with a Christian moral imperative that women were to be protected. In the 7th century canonical text the Collectio Canonum Hibernensis it was put forth that a virgin who was raped remained a virgin. This was to protect young women from losing their only social advantage and thusly becoming outcasts.

In modern times where regular physical danger is thankfully no longer an issue we have adjusted our moral ideas on how women are to be treated. It is now immoral to be sexist. There are still many left over habits of the previous status quo such as the idea of "chivalry". In an equal status society even our mating rituals (male driven) are indicative of a previously patriarchal society where courting rituals were necessarily male driven so as to preserve female virtue.

My essential point is that ideas on morality change due to social circumstance. This can only be true if morality is separate from religion as in religion the Word of God is immutable and eternal.