Reclaiming the Moral High Ground

I have always said that i do not need to be told about Morality and what is right or wrong by the religious, i do not need to be told that it is wrong to rape pillage and kill or to take which is not mine because the society that i live in makes it quite clear that these things are unacceptable and as you grow up you come to know at this is correct even if some people choose not to live by those morals generally it is accepted by the majority.

Myself being a person of few paragraphs i sometimes find articles written that explains my view much better then i could or would, this one is a good example of why i find the moral superiority proclaimed by religion to be an example of hypocrisy at its best.

If any of the true religious believers would like to comment i suggest that you read the whole article otherwise i don't see the point in you doing so.


http://youngausskeptics.com/2013/08...-1-on-the-moral-superiority-of-non-believers/

 

I'm not reading it, but I believe that morals are built into all of us honestly. I'm not here to preach to anyone and the typical "shove my beliefs down anyone's throat".

 

Like i said why bother commenting, pathetic.

 

Sorry i meant no trolling, i dont get it how have i trolled i do want replies i just think that if you are going to comment then at least read it first so you can comment on the content that is all that i meant and that is exactly what SIB did not do so why bother commenting.

 

Im not religous, being that i suspect you are not im inclined to ask why did you bother? Some peoples beliefs are sacred and as long as they are not shoving their beliefs down anyones throat they are to be respected. However what you have chosen to do is link to an article that when i read it came across as forceful. This is wrong and im pretty sure the religious among could see this as antogonistic.

Evrryone has a right to a point of view from all aspects of life even yours should be respected but im struggling to find what sort of discussion you are tryinig to initiate. As for the pathetic comment comment i think you should excercise better decorum.

Baza

 

Oh how lovely. More aggressive atheism.

 

Ok point taken now what do you think.

 

Why not post your own points here for everyone to discuss instead of a long boring article that most people won't bother reading...

 

The article goes into more depth then i would thats why i posted it and you don't need to read all of it to get the main idea and i know that many religious people will refuse to even spare a moment to read anything that remotely offends their beliefs out of pure stubbornness.
At least i have the respect to read all the religious articles even though i don't believe before i comment or i wouldn't comment, i don't believe that most religions or religious preachers have much moral ground to stand on at all considering their track records now and though out history that is basically what the article is getting at, i don't see why religion proclaims to be an authority on this as if it was a given i would say it was more the opposite then the norm of coarse there are exceptions i cant paint them all with the same brush.

By the way i don't call myself an atheist i call myself a none believer, some Atheists are becoming to organized like religion and i cant be bothered with that.

 

Yeah true about history but the catholic church hasn't improved all that much when you look at all the immoral goings on and i don't mean that they religion shouldn't have some moral standing they should but the pedestal that they would like people to see them on is simply not there and its not really the followers that i an referring to but more the preachers more than not what is preached is not practiced.

 

i personally liked the essay. thanks for posting.

 

Yeah well if people would at least read some of it they would see where i was coming from maybe a little better then just commenting only on what i say but there you go.

 

dude, it's an internet forum; expect people to troll you--my motto.

but anyway back to the article...

i think the author raises some very good points on the supposed moral absolutism found in christianity. i like the line about "given i am yet to drown all of humanity barring one family in a flood.."

sure, it's a bit of trolling, but christians, muslims and jews deserve it. they've been trolling reality now for thousands of years.

 

Yeah don't think im crying about it i give as good as i get more sometimes, people might say why do you bother, its personal i don't like religion pretty much on the whole with a few exceptions and i enjoy rubbishing it not just for the sake of it but i believe that it deserves to be rubbished.

This bit of the article explains that he is not painting everyone with the same brush as i am not either i just wanted to verify that as it might at first have seemed that way.

(I am not saying that all non-​​believers are moral, or all religious people immoral. Nor am I saying that religious believers are incapable of being moral simply for believing in the metaphysical or divine. All I am saying is that the religious forfeit the moral high ground the moment they profess moral certainty, which all true believers do and must profess, and that non-​​believers who don’t by default have a superior starting perspective with which to view moral questions and make moral decisions.)

 

Prices theorem asserts all morality is intrinsic - a view that can actually be reconciled with a religious outlook .

Why not start there in a deconstruction of inherent value systems?

 

IMO morals are a taught concept, whether by the church or by other factions of society, starting from parenting and whilst the principles are usually sound in morals (I do think some ideals are slipped in to protect certain people or for agenda) it is up to people to enforce them.

The church has proven itself to be made up of humans with all of their faults just like any other section of society, I leave my more specific feelings on the Church to the side for now.

 

You actually don't get to make that call. If you want to control the conversation that closely, MAP probably isn't the place to make it.

Nevermind that SiB spoke out in support of your belief that morality doesn't stem directly from religion. Saying it's pathetic comes very close to personal attack. And, frankly, is pretty ironic in a thread about reclaiming moral high ground. Dial it down a notch or two, yeah?

 

I just wanted to quote this because I feel Rhythmkiller has made an important point (doing my David Cameron impersonation). It does come across as antagonistic.

Upon reading the article I wouldn't personally call it forceful, but there were obviously chosen phrasing that felt deliberately chosen to be outrageous and to stand out. Most of the article was a quite a bit more mild by comparison in my eyes.

You kinda do with this one. If I went by the first couple of paragraphs, I would assume that he was saying all non-believers are better human beings than theists. Having read all the way through, that's not exactly the point he was trying to get across in my eyes.

Yeah, I can't speak for the folks with a faith or belief system as an agnostic per se, but even I found this a tad snipey.

From my experience, it's not so much out of stubborn-ness in many cases. It's more like...I'm struggling to find the right words, so bear with me.

Imagine you have an idea. Something you hold to yourself, that makes up a large chunk of who you are as a person. It helps define you, shape you, give you purpose, ideals to hold and an identity to cling to. Someone doesn't just post something you "feel in your bones" is wrong, but screams of being offensive, forceful, directly hostile and goes against everything you feel you stand for. Not everybody is going to want to sit there and force themselves to go through it every time somebody posts what comes across as (in internet terms) a wall of text they have no love for.

Does that make sense?

Kudos to you for reading religion articles in spite of your lack of belief, but not everyone is the same.

Like you said, you can't really paint them all with the same brush. But for me, arguments like these fall into the same mindset of the Original Sin arguments. Do you blame your grandchildren, their children, their children (etc, etc) for the mistakes their forefathers made?

On track records, certain organised religions like the Catholic Church do get a bad rep and there are a lot of ministers that wholly deserve that rap. But you can't blame them for the mistakes of the past, it'd be like blaming modern german children because of the Nazi's.

I think this is more to do with the ease of reading and posting for many people. A lot of people go online to escape their reality for a little time and just do inane crap, they don't necessarily want to go into deep philosophical debates that require them to read large quantities of text before commenting.

Admittedly I did read the whole article and there's quite a few points I would disagree with as a natural position, but that's really another conversation