Without god all things are permitted

>without god all things are permitted
How can atheists even respond?

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All actors/movers are equal, in principle.
Might is right/mob rule/democracy.
This is the truth with or without god. In fact, God makes it even truer: God is the ultimate might.

>without god nothing is permitted
How do christians even respond?

Nothing is true, everything is permitted. Technically this statement allows for God.

People can still be coerced to to the "right thing" through a state that has a secular sovereign. People generally crave peace and stability. A powerful state can enforce that on a Godless society.

You can't have a "right thing" without morality and you can't have morality without a deity

That's pretty funny.

They can't. They just say that UHHH ITS PRETTY STUPID THAT CHRISTIANS NEED TO BE REMINDED TO NOT MURDER LMAO XDD I WOULD NEVER DO THAT ... on an unrelated note abortion is totally acceptable :)

hey, everything is permitted. that's pretty cool.

guess we can make our own values now :)

You can have a dictator and a cultural tradition.

I AM THE BEAST I WORSHIP

>reddit

we have rule of law, so no, not all things would be permitted.

If you could get away with it, there's no reason to hold back though.

>you can't have morality without a deity
With all respect that's fucking stupid, user.

What is society/law/culture/norms/etc?

Sure there is, because people have ethics regardless of religion.

The majority of our laws stem from these ethics. I'd even wager that the majority of biblical law comes from people thinking about ethics.

haha got em

>What is society/law/culture/norms/etc?
shit that falls pretty quickly when theres no ultimate power figure (aka. God) to support all that stuff. and quickly i mean generations, like in 30 years, where a God enforced custom can supervive a whole millennia without too much changes.

I was being serious

That's strange, considering that generally the most atheist countries, china being one exception, are also the most stable countries with the highest living standards.

Why are the things that are outlawed outlawed? Can you justify your prohibitions without morality, and if not, how can you derive an absolute morality that actually matters without God?

Yeah bro I love having the state enforce an arbitrary morality over me using the threat of violence as an incentive to kowtow to their bullshit!

But why should I follow these ethics

post hoc ergo propter hoc

>how can you derive an absolute morality that actually matters without God?

Whether or not an absolute morality exists is irrelevant. What matters are laws that make sense and induce peace and order. And we figure those laws out through logic and culture.

>most atheist countries, china being one exception, are also the most stable countries
in a very very VERY narrow window frame. can you think historically, brainlet? all these super stable fedora cuck paradises are going to convert into a caliphate in the next 50 years.

To sustain peace with your fellow man.

I don't. But that's not what we're talking about.

>base your argument on what you believe will happen in the future
>call others a brainlet

People do all sorts of horrible things in the name of religion, so believing in God doesn't seem to help much

Sometimes I wonder if people know their beliefs are embarrasing, and they still stick with them, or if they only later realise just how embarrasing their beliefs were.

Why should I care about that

Then why do some people dodge taxes, rape and murder?

But we had morality without a deity since God never existed and people were blissfully ignorant.

Well, if you want to survive you better care about it, because if no one followed any rules we'd all kill each other.

Because some people aren't ethical and their greed, lust etc overpowers them? It's obvious that the world is not perfect and there are going to be outliers.

Have you seen online comments in regard to animal torture? We would revert to very cruel punishments for crimes not accepted by society. Without a God we would be incredibly cruel and moral at the same time, and drown the offenders in a bog, cut off their hands, peel their skin et cetera.

im not following you, please elaborate

He stole it from Zizek

Believing in God isnt what does it, obedience

Why should I care about that, god doesn't exist and I have no imperative to exist

lol what the fuck do you want me to say to that? change your outlook.

So you have no response?

Without any form of metaphysics how can you have a morality that isn't just nominal?

it was an idiotic question
>if god doesn't exist I have no imperative to exist so why should I care about other human beings?

How can morality be nominal if it is effective

Well can you tell me why? If you're just gonna keep saying reframing my argument you can just leave. Without a morality stemming from God there is quite literally nothing keeping me caring about people.

"I don't permit it."
t. non-atheist

A. That’s fine
B. Law stops people from murder fucking everyone

>Law stops people from murder fucking everyone

*Sometimes, for now

>Without mommy all things are permitted

i already told you why bud.

What is right is always determined subjectively in separate groups in society trough generally agreed upon principles, usually instilled trough normative upbringing and learned ideals. However, many different traditions of different peoples adopt the same core values, but portray and perform these values with different imagery and terms, yet their messages are still all the same. This reflect the general development of commonly agreed upon ethics, which is reflected in the general tendency in humans to seek peace and stability.

Therefore, whatever achieves peace between people is the objective moral truth.

...

You've told me why you think but you've not given me a reason to care in a godless world. There is no "greater good" if nihilism is the order of the day

I suggest you really read some philosophy of religion if you want a comprehensive view on this topic instead of blindly defending what you've been brought up to believe.

Why does there need to be a "greater good"? Human beings can still find meaning without it.

But they were not only founded under religious principles but their current culture is a secularization of religious values. And it's still too soon to know for sure if they will be successful on the long run or not. Personally I don't think they will. Their morality doesn't stand on anything other than pragmatism, or more precisely their believe that they're pragmatic. What will happen when a crisis comes and liberal values don't look so pragmatic anymore?

>Just do the right thing, user.
How do I know it's the right thing?
>Lol, idk. Just do as I say.

>is right is always determined subjectively in separate groups in society trough generally agreed upon principles
Culture is determined subjectively. Don't worry, there is still room for subjective thought in how society functions.

But the fundamental cornerstones of morality (i.e. it is bad to murder, to make war on others because of beliefs, etc.) these do not change, and are found present in religions all throughout the globe. It gives some evidence to the idea of objectivity in morality, and by extension, even the existence of a divine being who contemplates these sorts of things.

I think your post does show evidence of God, for how couldn't a divine authority that has shown his signs to his people also determine the appropriate morality for them to follow at all times?

We see this in the Abrahamic religions, especially. And to add to this, it is always the right thing to do to find these objective truths. And we have somehow found and maintained these truths through the test of time throughout the years. This is something to be greatly marveled at: for time and the progress of science, even today, should have eschewed the thought of God long ago.

Luckily there is an essence to God that can be felt. If you were left alone on a desert island your whole life, as Rousseau asserts in Emile, you would soon find the truth of your Creator. He is embedded in nature. You would do well to understand this principle, as it is very important.

I've went through a bunch of phases concerning this, but I think I returned to an authentic sort of acceptance of it.

There's Zizek's cheeky attempt to subvert and turn it around using confession and how the big christian denominations handle Sinners, then there's strictly anti-religious views on morality and finally there's God as the big Other, which goes some way towards it, but in the End, it has to be true.

What does it mean to be ethical? Is it that they haven't been indoctrinated into an ideology that promotes the morals of the state or is it a biological disability? Because the former sounds like believing in God(or a transcendental reason to be good to other people) and the latter doesn't account for free will.

those religious values come from philosophers who thought about tenets that allow society to function, not god. Those sacred books were written by men, it's painfully obvious.

But he's right. Because God is all that is Honorable, Pleasant, Virtuous, Righteous, Truthful, and Kind (those are Platonic virtues, mind you), then without a general prime director of his nature, he is more likely to do something less in the interests of his community.

By men with God in mind. Religious ethics is the best we have whether God exists or not. Christianity is the only religion that has atheism within it, and can turn it into devotion.

you cant question shit forever. theres this point you stop questioning your life and decisions, regardless how appropiate. so, yes, they know and stick with it, and then forget about it making it unconscious.

>morals of the state or is it a biological disability
likely both. if you are raised in a bad way, that can lead to miscreancy. If you are born as a sociopath, that can also lead to miscreancy. or you could be stuck with both.

>Teleports behind your concept of morality
>Deconstructs it as interpersonal power relations
>Psssh, nothin' personal, kid!

The doubt is strong in this post. God certainly exists, how could we see evidence of him in other people if he did not!

Not true, really, unless you consider religious thinkers philosophers, but while they are similar they are not the same. And in any case, those tenets were thought by philosophers who believed in metaphysics and in absolutes, so it's still the same thing.

I'm an atheist and abortion is unacceptable unless the life of the mother is in danger
Checkmate, chrisfags

The Church is pretty powerful and influential. That's a material fact. Doesn't really prove that religious laws in themselves are better/truer than ones made by a state or culture.

>a God enforced custom
Oh, wait, so you mean God himself is actually intervening in the material world all the time to enforce religious customs?

It seems to me that there's a lot of irrelevant wanking going on itt, so let's bring this down to a more fundamental level. What does God have to do with things (not) being permitted, really?

it's perfectly reasonable to assume that believers and non-believers can come to the same conclusion regarding murder. the guys who wrote the bible just happened to fall in the former camp, and western society today just happens to come from that tradition.

Doesn't mean that god came up with those ethics.

>Because God is all
Stopped reading right there, pantheism makes more sense than giving God attributes.

This reduces men to p-zombies who will react immorally purely on their genetics/upbringing rather than on their free will.

>I think your post does show evidence of God, for how couldn't a divine authority that has shown his signs to his people also determine the appropriate morality for them to follow at all times?

God is more of a function in the mind of believers, rather than an authority figure that controls their behavior, because what is free will then? No, god is reflection of morality that is created by man and presented in a format that creates a relationship between the story, the receiver and the moral truth so that the individual simplifies the complexity of morality by using symbolism as a strategy to determine what is good or bad.

In a society where god has no function, morality is displayed in the exact same way. We embody our values in human symbols, just like god is represented in Jesus, morality in secular states is reflected in historical figures, texts, ideas that all inherently come from the expressions of human beings, just like god and the principles of their texts.

Of course, should God be understood as a physical truth before man, then all this is worth nothing.

God has specifically given commands of what to do, and what not to do, confirming his existence through testimony.

Alternatively, you could look at it logically instead of empirically: through all of the various religions, certain tendencies arise from each of them for a certain sense of Good and what good constitutes.

>unless you consider religious thinkers philosophers
I certainly do.
>while they are similar they are not the same
Yeah, one uses systematic logic, the other uses faith.

Although one can use logic, even if they have faith, which is why we have religious ethics. Especially for something as obvious as the consequences of murder.

no such thing as free will. Look up causal determinism.

>no such thing as free will

i can tell you haven't thought about the topic enough.

Now they're coming out of the woodwork

I've debated this specific point before, and your objection makes little sense. If you admit he exists, then it's up to how literal you take Genesis. If you believe we were made in his image, then the characteristics follow.

God IS the divine morality we perceive on a day to day basis. If you believe God is exhorting you to do good and not to do evil, that is because God exists, and would never want you to do evil.

God is being understood as we speak. There are forces at work here beyond your control, for certain. Why do you think this board became so religious recently anyway?

I don't think an atheistic society functions the same as a society which believes in God. I can tell you that if you live in America you are lucky for this very reason: it seems Americans have an innate appreciation for God more than more European countries. If we were to take scientific progress whole-heartedly and everything that comes with it as an infallible proof of the non-existence of a divine order like it should be, we wouldn't believe in a God. No one would. But instead of this, we persist to believe. Why? Because he can be felt and seen. People who say there is no physical proof of God in this day and age are sorely mistaken. We are the proof, first of all, and it will continue in that way unless you decide not to believe.

Then you are a defender of God's morality without believing he exists. He is the one who developed Geometry for you to discover. Is it a wonder his ideal moral system most closely approximates to what you are comfortable with, or in some ways uncomfortable with, but brings a greater good in the future if followed? Clearly his ordinations are divine because they were woven into the fabric of existence when he created this universe, along with all the different laws particles follow as well.

...

That argument in itself admits that god doesn't exist, and is necessary only insofar as he provides groundwork for ethics. In a sense it's more nihilistic than any typical humanist standpoint.

>You're a brainlet if you don't believe in causal determinism. Read the Wikipedia articles on Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett to enlighten yourself

You're the brainlet for thinking that I don't believe in causal determinism. How embarrassing.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

>I don't understand greentext

You're really just embarrassing yourself, kiddo

>t. causally determined newfag
>needs to learn how greentext works

If causal determinism is true, then what do you define as morality? Morality must then boil down to what is "most useful" for the individual or what is generally agreed upon by the tribe. People just do things. There's no conscious imperative to behave in a certain way since determinism implies I am COMPELLED to follow newtonian physics or darwinism.

Hot stoves determine the fate of humanity.

No, all it takes is a system of metaphysics, which doesn't need to contain a God. The ancients already figured this out.

we have been causally determined to come up with a system of ethics to sustain our species due to other causally determined factors such as murder, war, or even the very fact that we even evolved into human beings.

And yes, you should be compelled by darwin.

But wouldn't an atheist think that believing in metaphysics is as deluded as believing in God?

no not at all, go read up on metaphysics

I think it's time we start redirecting people to Veeky Forums everyone.

>who is Schopenhauer

>we have been causally determined
>to "come up" with a system of ethics
We have been causally determined to "create" systems of morality? Doesn't this statement strike you as paradoxical?

Yeah, but that was before Heidegger BTFO metaphysics. To believe in metaphysics after that does seem at least as deluded as believing in God.

no it doesn't, "coming up with" is simply a way to describe the illusion of free will. Ethical systems are in fact dictated by the events that lead up to them.

>God has specifically given commands of what to do, and what not to do, confirming his existence through testimony.
Where? In Torah? In Bible? In Qur'an?
If in Bible, which one? Different denominations have different versions of the word of God.
You're acting like Christianity is a simple, ingenious solution to all of our existential, ethical etc problems, while its material origin and, consequently, complexity and messiness are blatantly apparent. Christianity had two massive schisms, one of which led to long and terrible wars. How am I supposed to accept this religion, how am I supposed to differentiate lies from truth in this mess where everyone is calling each other heretics if they disagree, where even the foundational text, the very word of God, varies from place to place?

>through all of the various religions, certain tendencies arise from each of them for a certain sense of Good and what good constitutes.
Incas deformed their children's heads and sent them to die in mountains. Aztecs ritually cut hearts out of their enemies' chests. Muslims today bomb and massacre innocents. All this was and is done in the name of religion, it was all called "good".

In all the things I described in this post I only see human superstition and power games in here, rather than anything consistently good or something that suggests something consistent, beyond the chaotic material world.