LogFAQs > #937802076

It's overly passive, its system doesn't leave enough room to deal with violent neighbours. That's a weakness when surrounded by violent bastards. Sikhs made wielding a sword to deal with Muslims part of their religion, notice how they're larger than Zoroastrianism.

I feel the better way to phrase it is that it's survival depended on it remaining dominate; which is no longer the case. After all, the Persian empire WAS the head honcho for a long time.

You can make a car with 3 wheels yet strangely every single country has opted for 4 wheels, they're even made of steel! Clearly that means that people naturally gravitate to these things, it's not like cheap steel and maximised distance of contact patch to CoM work well and justify themselves.

I don't feel that this is a terribly strong argument since pretty much the only reason we have our car engines in front of the car instead of elsewhere is because that's how carriages functioned. Some things make sense, yes, but some other things hang around because humans tend to be dumb about the most utterly stupid things at times.

Everywhere people like not being killed for no reason or robbed in broad daylight so obviously these things justify themselves. The limits of these vary however as some people get mighty angry so are willing to allow honour killings and others think themselves pretty sneaky so think they can get an upper hand if we're leanient on theft.

This is why I changed to adultery. Murder is probably the single easiest thing to declare immoral regardless of your belief system. But I would like to point out that you seem to acknowledge and approve of my point. That an imperfect recreation of morality allows for things like honor killings or the notion that it's only theft if you get caught or whatever else.

No, it's objective that death no good, theft sad and being cucked no fun. We're intelligent creatures with empathy so we're more than happy to negotiate to lessen that risk.

Would it not be moral, or at least acceptable, to kill a person threatening your life? Would not the same hold true for a person whom steals to survive? From a purely biological standpoint would it not make sense for a man capable of providing to have as many wives as possible?

Where's the requirement divinity be involved? This is an extraneous element.

First off, I am using divinity not in the specific but in the abstract. What divine being exists specifically is irrelevant. But the inclusion is essential since, without it, any moral system is, effectively, arbitrary and morality meaningless beyond basic social cohesion. Without divine inspiration any morality is little more than a complicated system of 'you don't do this to me and I won't do this to you' which falls apart the moment someone realizes that the system can be abused. I.E. without divinity or some way to measure a persons moral failings beyond the scope of man it truly is a sin only if you get caught.

And yet athiests teach their children not to shit on others. Athiests develop rule of law just fine, but it requires understanding why it's wrong to steal and being able to explain it to others rather than blowing it off as "God said, ask him."

You act as if religious people are incapable of teaching their children to not be jerks to others. That religious people are incapable of justifying any moral stance beyond the basic assertion that God says so yet an atheist will not do the same or, conversely, ignore such rules because they believe morality to be irrelevant.

To re-iterate. I did not say an atheist could not develop a moral system. After all, they grew up in a society and culture seeped in a morality system and they are thinking, reasoning, beings at least some of the time. So that they could create a moral system would not be surprising and would be sensical. What I said was that their moral system would, inherently, be imperfect if they attempted to create it in the absence of the divine. It could still be 99.999% 'accurate' but would still come up short.

The rules make perfectly solid logic, athiests just get to cast off BS like making sacrifices to God or going to mass without looking like hypocrites. There's plenty of BS in the bible that didn't make it in to English Common Law as it's not necessary to be a good person without necessitating God. Like my previous example, is everybody just copying the original car when they make 4 wheel cars or are they just doing what makes good sense?

Yes. Instead they can be hypocrites by being just as dogmatic, close-minded, and ignorant as the Christians they so gladly mock and belittle by ascribing those same traits. Many of the most kind, loving, and open-minded people I've met were Christian. Many of the most close-minded, hateful, and malicious people I've known were atheists. I would never think to claim that the reason such a dogmatic, close-minded, ignorant, hateful, and so-forth group is that way is their rejection of God and that, somehow, this would change about them if they accepted Christ. Likewise I would not believe for a second that a loving, kind, accepting Christian who lost their faith in Christ would cease to be loving, kind, and accepting because the only reason they were that way was because they believed God would reward/punish them.


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I am the gentle hand who heals, the happy smile who shields, and the foot that will kick your ***! - White Mage