Ironically, biblical morality is absolutely fucked in the head.

Killing women because they didn’t scream while they were raped (probably because the uncle or father or brother raping them was either choking them out or holding a knife to their throat or something worse.)

Killing infants and unborn children because someone 3 generations ago did a thing.

Stoning teenagers for being, you know, teenagers.

It really is a good thing morality doesn’t come from god.

It’s much easier to be a good person when you aren’t indoctrinated from birth with some book of ancient myths telling you who to hate.

Sending bears after teenagers because they called you bald once is crazy Elisha.

I made a video about this because it comes up so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfgXj_V33Pw

It's scary how many christians will pretend "my particular interpretation of god said so" is objective morality. People actually defend rape, slavery, and genocide.

I rely on sense and reason, personally. I aim to reduce overall suffering because I find suffering unpleasant and I empathize with others, and also because working together is mutually beneficial. It's not a choice between emotion and utility, it's both.

The thing is, you can "debatebro" yourself into most of morality, save for stuff like "homosexuality is evil".

"I don't need the threat of eternal punishment, we've got punishment at home." --Me, a bad person.

By his Noodly Appendage!

The best part is when God goes " see that guy over there, he believes so much in me, i will torment him beyond reason to proof his dedication to me"

There are so many of these terrible examples of god being this huge asshole. When i read the bible in my early teens, it was reading the bible that 'made me an atheist'. Seeing that people took this asshole god serious.

Over the years i did get to learn more about Jesus, he is the proto-hippy about sharing love and kindness. But somehow, very few christians follow up on his words and teachings. Christians actively chosing to be assholes when they have Jesus as a deity in their mythological fanfinction. It boggles the mind.

I think my favorite morality-thing to bring up is Song of Solomon.

Especially when people get on about purity culture. It’s Bronze Age porn.

I mean, yeah. god is a raging asshole, but that one usually gets more entertaining reactions.

It's possibly because they told him to go up the hill where people worshipped other gods, the sinnest of all sins

Since religious morality is made up by people it comes from the same source as atheist morality. Humans!

Religion tends to make it easy for people to insert shitty stuff and claim it is a divine mandate. Atheists have to make a case for why something is right or wrong.

Let's be honest, they do so by adhering to cultural norms with the exact same devotion and lack of scrutiny that religious people do.

"Why do we do it this way?" "We've always done it this way!"
"Why is it wrong?" "Because it's just wrong!"

The very small subset of actually moral people decide between good and bad choices not depending on social norms, not depending on laws, not even depending on morals or ethics, but by what motivations their actions arise from, whether they come from Ego or understanding.

You can never know whether an action is good or bad, you can only know whether your motivations are good or bad.

Evangelicals are just psychopaths, kept in line through fear.

Honest answer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

Religious people act like they're more moral or have morality that's special because they believe in God. However when you ask why all those pious people back in the day: cheated, stole, murdered, adulterer, were racist, had slaves, raped kids and stuff. They would say that it was the norm at the time and nobody else knew better.

To paraphrase Stephen J Fry: "then what are you for?!"

It's a simple 2-part equation to determine what is a good/bad choice (socially)

Golden rule (do unto others...), combined with a little social intelligence to understand that if I were someone else, I might want different things.

Generally, shooting people with paintballs is bad, but there are scenarios where someone is okay with getting shot with a paintball (like when playing paintball) so shooting them with a paintball in that circumstance is "good".

Sure, but so do atheists. They just believe their morality is special because they believe in the current social norms, within the current societal context. In 10 years they'll be different, should a catastrophe happen it will shift completely. It's just as flippant in its own way.

Penn Jillette has a good explanation. I don't agree with a lot he says, but this is pretty spot on. (The clip goes kinda off the answer after about a minute)

tl;dw: If you I don't believe in a god, what's stopping me from raping and killing anyone I want? And the answer is: I have. I already have. I have raped and killed everyone I want to rape and kill, and the answer is............. zero. There are zero people I want to rape or kill. And the question becomes: Who are these people walking around with lists of people they want to rape and kill? Why do we consider THEM the sane ones?

You put yourself in the mind of the person or people your choice affects. If they would think positively about your choice, it's generally good, if negatively, then bad.

This isn't rocket science

There's pretty solid evidence supporting empathy as a beneficial evolutionary trait, it's not like it's random that "don't be shitty to each other" is a social norm.

Yeah, the threat of temporary punishment should do the trick!

Empathy.

But social norms aren't empathy. They are adhered to because of the punishment that will result if you break them. Before you have any chance of developing empathy or emotional intelligence, you are taught as a child that breaking social norms will result in punishment, and from then on your only motivation to follow them is fear of punishment.

And that is exactly the same mechanism as religious morality.

Yup, I don't believe in God, if he is real, I wouldn't want to follow him anyways...

you are taught as a child that breaking social norms will result in punishment, and from then on your only motivation to follow them is fear of punishment.

I'm sorry to hear about your sociopathy, but no this is not how most people work.

Deflection beats introspection, eh? It always amazes me how easily insults come to the "morally righteous".

At least now you know how people become bad - they don't have the courage to question whether what they're doing is actually good.

Good people sometimes do bad things, and bad people sometimes do good things. But the real kicker is that people aren't truly good or bad, it's a false dichotomy.

How do atheists decide between good and bad choices?

Well, some of them are dumb, and they just guess based on what's best for their survival at the moment.

The clever ones employ something called "critical thinking"

(I went to Christian schooling for my entire childhood. I first learned about "critical thinking" and the scientific method when reading an Edmund Scientific pamphlet. Blew my mind... in my mid 20s).

Mutual respect, it isn't fucking difficult.

It starts with "I don't want to die so if you won't kill me, I won't kill you" and just incrementally grows from there.

That Golden Rule. If you wouldn't like it done to you, don't do it to someone else.

I thought that was the Silver Rule.

It's not an insult It's illustrating the ridiculousness of your claim. Your faux-intellectual philosophy is not convincing.

absolutely wild how many people out there will blast me with eye melting LED headlights and then get all pissy when I turn my halogen highbeams on

I think they missed the memo

Is an action good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?

If it's the first one, then all you're saying is "God commands what God commands," and assigning "good" to that is meaningless. If God commanded you to do evil things, then you would have to just blindly accept that as "good."

If it's the second one, then you acknowledge that there's a source of morality independent of God that you're judging God's commands against to determine that his commands are good. At that point, you're in the same place as the atheist, and it raises the question of why we need to listen to God as opposed to just going to the source.

This argument literally predates Christianity. But most religious people just think that philosophy doesn't apply to them and that the answer to every philosophical question is just "Jesus."

I feel it's very hard to make good choices when you don't have the full picture.

Like should I confront my toxic boss at the risk of loosing my job, or should I cave ? It's good to want to keep your job, but it's also pretty bad to allow for toxic behaviors.

How to find a path for peace in difficult times is tremandously hard, I feel. Sometimes it's good to ask for a little help and guidance. To aknowledge you'd be better following whatever the guy who has the full picture and who's "the source of goodness" than your own stupid anger.

Like that's the whole goal, escape the circle of hate. And that I believe is beyond simple human resoning. You need a source of light to get out of your own darkness

Of course, when you call people psycopath it's not an insult, but if someone else were to say it to you, it would be.

And it's like this with everything, isn't it? But you're the good guy.

I for example do not poke my eyes out with a fork... Because doing so it bad. It's actually really simple to decide if something is bad. Much harder to decide something is bad and then realize it's good and choosing it because it is good. I change mind all the time. Science too, it's part of science. You see 👀 results from a test and you realize you were either right or wrong and then you test again... Something different.

Asking people to make "good choice" while knowing they do not have the full picture is gaslighting. It's also how 21st century economy work.

I also hate how bright modern headlamps are and agree that it's a potentially painful annoyance at best, and a huge safety issue at worst.

If you're in the U.S., a study has been mandated and a bill introduced to take steps towards setting brightness limits for auto manufacturers. If this is an issue you care about, consider reaching out to your Congressmen and let them know you want them to support the bill and study mandate introduced earlier this year:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7772/committees
https://gluesenkampperez.house.gov/posts/gluesenkamp-perezs-amendment-passes-house-appropriations-committee-to-investigate-overly-bright-headlights

Most drivers don't choose how bright their headlights are or how they're calibrated. Most modern vehicles come with super-bright LEDs, and because of the popularity of larger SUVs and trucks (which is a different conversation) those lights are about a foot higher off the road. Realistically, we can't expect individual owners to replace or modify factory headlights on their own. If we want the problem to improve we will need stronger industry regulations or financial incentives.

or how they’re calibrated

one of the first things we learned in auto shop back in school was how damn easy it is to properly aim headlights. you turn two screws/bolts. bugs the shit out of me how it's never done anymore.

Well, there is good as in beneficial and bad as in detracting. As my dad said, “about 85% of people are just trying to live their life, not bad or good, but there is the other group that is troublesome” — black markets, affluence against commoners, etc.

First, I said "sociopath" not "psychopath". There's different connotations. Second, it's a description of a pattern of thought. Because you're saying that the only reason people don't to terrible things to each other is because of the fear of punishment, not some intrinsic internal sense of fairness or social cohesion. Like a sociopath would think, because they don't feel normal emotions or empathy.

"Psychopath" would be an insult but also an accusation of malice or cruelty. I don't think you're cruel. (I think you're high on your own farts, and that's not so much an insult as an observation because you're doing the same kinda shit over in one of the Ed Sheeran threads. You sound like a young 20-something with some 100 level psych classes under your belt, and the one-day-old account screams "my main account got banned".)

The source is God

If it’s the second one, then you acknowledge that there’s a source of morality independent of God

you are taught as a child that breaking social norms will result in punishment, and from then on your only motivation to follow them is fear of punishment.

I didn't give up meat because I was worried about angry vegans coming to my house and beating me up, I gave up meat because I rationally evaluated the effects eating meat would have on the world and determined that those weren't effects I wanted to cause.

Am I just built different?

punishment at home

😳🥺👉👈

Most religious fundies like this lack a conscious and do no know such things exist in others.

Good is good. Only thing is deists believe good is a person with intentions for you and everyone to reach himself, to reach goodness.

He helps you if you listen to him, but only if you listen to him. He does not "command" you are fully free to tell him to fuck of at any time

Good is good.

Not an answer.

Let me make this simple. If God shows up in the sky tomorrow and says "murder is good, actually" then is your conclusion, "Oh, I guess I was wrong about murder being bad, it turns out murder is actually good because God said so" or is your conclusion, "Oh, I guess I was wrong that God only tells us to do good things, because God just told us murder is good and we know that murder is evil?"

You're literally doing the exact thing I described, refusing to engage with a philosophical question and just responding to it with platitudes.