Can you be good without god?

what's hedonism?

Wow, you're really joggin' my noggin', smart guy.
You don't sound like a moron at all.

Ah... It was all so simple back then

typical

God is being itself. You can't do anything without him.

Truth is simple; it's error that's complicated.

>God is the Supreme Good and the subsistent Goodness of all good things: nothing has existence or goodness unless infused by God.
Prove it.

God doesn't exist, so the question is rather: can people be good?

we already don't know if there is a god or not, so yes. there might not be one.

Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

wtf user how can you be so wise pls tell me more

the question is rather: is there any action objectively good? Since 'good' is not a category that exists without people

A small error in the beginning is a great error in the end.

"Good" does exist without people. A good apple and a bad apple exist without people. What you mean is that the moral good does not exist without people: which is true. But the moral good cannot be understood apart from the more general (objective) goodness of things, e.g. we can't say that killing is morally bad if we do not understand first that life is a creature's good and not death.

Can you be cool without cold?

>fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things
False.
>Therefore there must also be something...
Non-sequitur.

Yeah no, don't put words in my mouth.
What is a good or a bad apple is simply up to the entity that makes the decision.
Good and bad are no natural categories such as up and down which can be applied without anyone judging aboout them

It's a quote from a medieval text so the word "fire" should be taken in the sense of one of the four elements which is the exemplar or general cause of hot things, rather than as a bonfire or a candelight. In modern terminology, what he calls fire we would call simply heat or thermodyanmic energy or something. The point is that just as there is a cause of heat in the universe that is responsible for all the hot things in it, so there is a cause of goodness (God) in the universe that is responsible of all the good things in it. If you deny that there is such thing as objective good in the universe then you are a nihilist and it's useless speaking to you.

>What is a good or a bad apple
see pic,
We can tell how good an apple is by seeing how well it fulfils its "apple-ness". This is independent of how humans perceive it.

And? That doesn't stop people from doing shit. You think the same people who do horrific shit give a fuck about the after-life? Like that user said, if the fear of being judged is what stops you from doing bad shit then you are inherently a terrible person.

>>evolutionary
>Lol
this is how stupid this board is these days

>2010+8
>Aristotelian metaphysics
How is your first year as a phil undergrad going?

that apple isn't bad, it is rotten. This apple fulfills its apple-ness as much as a non rotten apple would do.
A bird wouldn't consider this apple bad, but eat it, so you say wether the apple is good or bad depends wether we deem it to be one or another. That does not make these categories any objective matter

And what keeps ''Heat is the cause of all heat'' from being a simple tautology?

Switch some terms around and you'll see how silly this argument is: ''I define Aphrodite as the ultimate source of cummies. Cummies exist, therefore Aphrodite exists. If you deny cummies exist you simply have a limp dick and are not worth talking to.''

>a good apple is a good apple

It's not "Heat is the cause of all heat" but rather that Heat - with a capital 'H' - is the cause of all heat or hot things.

> ''I define Aphrodite as the ultimate source of cummies. Cummies exist, therefore Aphrodite exists. If you deny cummies exist you simply have a limp dick and are not worth talking to.''

But this is true. The Aphrodite have defined here is not a Greek goddess, but she does exist in that there is an exemplar Woman - that exists in all particular women - which is sexually pleasing to men.

The rotten apple is ceasing to be an apple and is deficient in its apple-ness (bad) compared to the ripe ones whose apple-ness is more intact.

>It's not "Heat is the cause of all heat" but rather that Heat - with a capital 'H' - is the cause of all heat or hot things
I capitalized Heat you mong. Adress the argument. What makes 'Heat' more than an abstraction?
>But this is true
Prove it.
Why is the rotten apple less of an apple?

>deficient in its apple-ness (bad)
>things ceasing to exist the way they are, are bad

Dude, I don't have to win this argument, neither do you. Think about your arguments posted here one more time and tell me if you really think they backed up your point.

Let's not think in terms of absolute good then, but in terms of good relative to the things own nature:

What is a good car qua car: one with four wheels, or one with a wheel missing?
What is a good apple qua apple: one that is ripe, or one that is decomposed to the point of being unrecognisable as an apple?

>What makes 'Heat' more than an abstraction?

The fact that it has a concrete existence - in varying degrees - in all hot things.

All things in the universe are hot to some degree. If, for the sake of argument, we assume the truth of the Big Bang theory, then all the hotness of hot things comes from that initial Heat of the Big Bang. All heat in the universe is just a participation in, an effect of, that primary Heat which was in the beginning. The same is true of God in relation to all the good things in the universe which participate in his supreme goodness.

No. It's next to impossible to be good even with God. Have you ever tried being good? Have you ever tried never telling a lie, never masturbating, never lusting, giving to charity until it hurts, never getting angry, never coveting, never stealing (piracy counts), never using foul language, never wasting time or being lazy, never looking at porn, obeying every law, etc? It's impossible. As an atheist you're so lost and so far in denial and of such a reprobate mind that you refuse to even recognize the evil in most of those evils out of self-indulgence. Even with faith it's next to impossible to be good. And yes, unless you're perfect in your thought, speach, and action, then you're not good. Everyone who I've ever met who has declared themselves a "good person" has been the absolute worst. Recognizing that you're not a good person is the first step toward becoming a better one. Anyway, not believing in God is an intellectualization of the sin of impiety so just by being an atheist you're committing one of the worst sins and so are by definition a bad person.

Atheism is evolutionarily maladaptive.

based St. Paul
/thread

since it is YOUR abstract idea of what an apple is, categories good/bad apply only because it is YOUR judgement. The apple doesn't care. Nature doesn't care. A dent in the apple doesn't make it bad. People call it bad, since it doesn't match their idea of an apple.

>The fact that it has a concrete existence - in varying degrees - in all hot things.
Earlier you identified Heat with thermodynamics, which is just our description of heat as a natural phenomena. You still haven't gone beyond heat as just that, and made no meaningful distinction between heat and Heat. If the distinction is temporal, then you haven't explain why the same applies to qualities like good.
>The same is true of God in relation to all the good things in the universe which participate in his supreme goodness.
Why? An ultimate source for good that exists outside ourselves is not a given.

Can you be bad without a god?

>never masturbating
lmao

If you found out that there is no god, would you kill yourself?

...

Yes, but not in the moral sense.

...

>wow god (note the lack of capitalisation christfags) is the only thing stopping you from being immoral? you're a piece of shit xD
>what stops me from being immoral? Evolution and the fact it's in my benefit, checkmate christcucks
truly enlightened

Individuals can but not societies

Yes, dipshit.

>So you do things just for the sake of "feeling good"?
There are other factors at play, but that's the basis of our moral intuitions. The fact that we don't always consider moral what is in our interests doesn't dispute that. It's analogous to our sex drive in that way. We get horny so we'll procreate, but that doesn't mean we don't do fucked up shit that won't result in babies. Just because you like to cum on birds doesn't mean the telos of your dick is to fire cum at birds. Nature is chaotic in that way.

Good originates wholly from God. You can do Good, but it will never be "without God".

you can't spell good without g-d

Can you be god without good?

"yes". but you're a retard if you're an atheist and still think there's some spooky stuff dictating how you should live - including some amorphous idea that you're "just being a good person" whatever the fuck that means. admitting its arbitrary is a liberation, and ironically can make it easier to be a "better person".

Spooky stuff? And no, believing in good simply means you're a well adjusted person, God's death notwithstanding.

>"good"
>"well adjusted"
have you ever bothered questioning anything in your life? these are categories of social acceptability, not extant things. very different from the attitude of the religious person to morality, who considers it a real and existent thing.
there's also something sick and fallacious about your implication that belief in good is a sign of being well-adjusted, as if that should arbitrate belief... rather than the actual accuracy of a belief in "good".

>Can you be good without god?
Evidence suggests no you can't. Atheistic regimes regularly genocide people and atheistic places like Hollywood are havens for rapists and pedophiles.

you should read about the child sex abuse in benedictine, marist and st john brothers monasteries in Australia. some of the most horrific shit i've read.

Sure, but I choose to be good with God.

especially the Christian brothers at Bindoon. I'm sure you can find this shit everywhere though

>You are an idiot because I greentexted your entire post and said so

wow, you are a god amongst men, that was intellectual manslaughter right there

Yeah obviously.

t. Me

Great post

Name one civilisation built in reverence to the Not-God.

>How fucking retarded to you have to be to not get fucking understand this in your lizard brain.
Perfect atheistic sentence?

>have you ever bothered questioning anything in your life?
Yes, like why your mom's pussy isn't looser than it is since you're obviously a waterhead.
>these are categories of social acceptability, not extant things. very different from the attitude of the religious person to morality, who considers it a real and existent thing
The concept of morality is predicated on man being a social animal. A moral sense is a sign of acquiesence to a social hierarchy, even if the particulars vary from person to person. You may say it's a one-to-one connection with God or w.e, but any point of contact is found in a particular social context.
>there's also something sick and fallacious about your implication that belief in good is a sign of being well-adjusted
It literally is nigger.

nice meaningless post. you've defined the context which gives rise to and harbours moral thought and behaviour. you haven't justified it's content as truthful.

>you haven't justified it's content as truthful
That wasn't the argument, retard.

It's an issue because atheists continue to misunderstand what theists are claiming. It's so stupid. Nobody is claiming that you have to believe in God to be a good person, we're saying that there has to be a real God that exists if objective good and evil is to exist. The very concept of evil is meaningless if there is no transcendent standard of morality which we can measure out actions against. We can't call a line crooked unless we have some idea of a straight line. This "straight line" is knowable through reason and we know that we have moral obligations regardless of whether or not you believe in God.

The problem for atheists isn't that they can't abide by true objection moral obligations, it's that they can't philosophically justify having true objective moral obligations in a universe without God.

fuck off peter hitchens

it wasn't intended to be a sensible argument
i was just saying that anyone who could unironically write such a thing is a fucking idiot
it was a plain old insult. idiot.

No, of course you can't be good without "god". If you don't care about concepts, or any abstractions, you will end up with materialism and following your self-interest. Self-interest becomes "god".

I told my friend that espoused a moral nihilist position that in a more just state he would be locked up. He was quite offended, I think - but my point was that it was hypocritical of him to be morally offended by anything.

The opposite of theism isn't materialism. It's a common but hardly necessary consequence.

>an atheist using a "scientific" creation myth
>not an idiot

hurr, god micromanages all of my actions. i cannot be good without god. at every moment in time, he is telling me exactly what to do with my free will.

funny cos it's actually true

he physically appears once every plank time interval, and speaks a command. those commands are god's objective morality. sometimes, i fuck up and fail to carry out the command and then the evil comes into the world.

No it's not.

Not an argument.

Neither was
>lol

>evolutionary function
I hope anglos get fucking genocided

You can act good, but that's an aestetic preference at that point.

He is

>god micromanages all of my actions
True, God is the Prime Mover who moves all things, including our wills. However, because he is on a higher plane of existence, he can move our will without interfering with its liberty, preserving free-will.

>i cannot be good without god.
True, and you cannot even exist without God. Any goodness or existence you have is from him.

>at every moment in time, he is telling me exactly what to do with my free will.
True, and he mostly does this through your own conscience.

*religious places like the Catholic Church are havens for rapists and pedophiles

its not anglos its autistic americans poisoned with g*rman blood
i think america is reddit the country

>I am feeling uneasy if I can't fully explain something, so I just say god does everything

nice view you've got there

I was the first poster you replied to.

>believes in god
>starts his argument by stating "evidence"

*tip*

Yeah I was reading the thread and felt compelled to point out how autistic you are.

I'd love to tip back, but somehow I can't upload images

You just argued against your own point.
>This "straight line" is knowable through reason and we know that we can have moral obligations regardless of whether or not you believe God.

So if we can reason our way to the straight line, then at what point does God come in and act like a transcendental standard of morality?

I believe you're right however that we can't abide by true objective moral obligations, because such moral objectivity if it existed would be impossible to discover.

Yet determining good and evil at any point will always take reason and perspective from those parties involved. I can justify having a moral obligation by simply rationalizing myself in another person shoes and if whatever action I take will do harm to that person. The short of it comes down to would I want this done to me?

At no point do I see God in this cycle, he's no point of reference, only myself and others involved.

test

>However he is on a higher plane of existence, he can move our will without interfering with its liberty, preserving free-will.

Out of all your statements this one is the most batty. I won't even ask how you pretend to know this, but I'm curious how he can move our will without interfering with it's liberty.

If my action does not come from my own mind and executive decision then it is not my free-will, it is someone else's. Now if you're saying he persuades or influences us, then that's different. Yet that's cohesion and actively retaliates against free-will.

All of us have the Holy Spirit within us. God has imbued every human with both free will and an inherent perception of morality. Thus a person who hypothetically has never heard of any religion or deity can still do good works by listening and obeying the natural law we commonly feel inside us.