Atheist forum refugee

I think many of these "universally wrong" concepts are instinctual for all animals. Animals, in general, do not kill their own kind. Many species get rather upset if you try to steal food from them. Some are monogamous and males in many species fight each other over females.

Don't kill, don't steal, don't covet your neighbor's wife ... all just primal instincts written down. Cats don't need god to tell them not to kill other cats.

 

If you have a moral sense, and you obviously do, then you don't sound like a genuine atheist as I define the term. That's all I'm saying. You're being pretty insulting at this point. We can start fresh and with cordiality, or both go our separate ways.

 

Well, I can't prove it isn't a unicorn. And I wouldn't really care if the ancient Hebrews had called the creator a unicorn
I just personally don't see why the creator would need four hooves and a horn on his head.

 

Atheists can't have morals? Who taught you such silliness? See my post right above yours.

 

Does a tiger feel guilty for taking another tiger's leg of lamb? Is it really wrong?

 

They can have ethics. If they have morals, which are different though overlapping, they aren't atheists as I define the term, because morals say what is right and wrong, not just what is prohibited. And there is no right and wrong if there is no prevailing moral order in the world. I think that there is.

"God" is as good a term as any.

I'm not silly. I may be wrong, but I've thought about this stuff as much as you have.

Might you be wrong?

 

How do fleas know not to kill other fleas? How do lions know not to steal another lion's food? These things are instinctual. As I said, many species mate for life and mourn their dead. A lot of this is just animals being animals.

All laws are made on a basic premise:"Don't be jerks to each other or the tribe will punish you."

 

Sociopaths who harm fellow humans feel no guilt, either. I'm not making a 1:1 comparison, here. I'm pointing out that murder is wrong across the entire animal kingdom.

 

Ironically, atheists taught me much of what I believe. Not intentionally, of course. The OP says,

I'm a refugee from an atheist forum. I was there for years but post 2016 it because a really toxic place to be. I really have grown pretty weary of talking about religion anyway and the politics there was so one sided and nasty that I couldn't take it any more.

He's mad at me right now, but I actually empathize with his plight, as I was on two different political fora that were just like that, especially in the religion subfora. It was so depressing that I just came to believe there was something wrong with them, antisocial really. What makes people act like that? Atheism maybe?

You don't find that kind of acrimony on Jewish and Christian and Catholic fora, not in my experience. No atheist would be insulted on my catholic forum. Is the reverse tolerated on atheist fora?

And before someone complains, yes, Christians have murdered each other and atheists over dogma. It's embarrassing and it was wrong.

 

Right, but what if you and one solitary, weaker member of the tribe are all that's left? You face no punishment for hurting or killing the other guy. You're up on a remote mountaintop and you both have terminal cancer. You'll never get caught. Now what?

 

I guess you are like one of the Christians I encountered on a different political forum. He literally said that the reason he doesn't cheat on his wife or steal from his neighbor is because god said no to those things.

I'm glad you have god to remind you not to be a dick, but some of us do not need this sort of instruction.

 

Non-responsive.

 

You are saying people need god so they know not to murder each other. I'm showing that premise is demonstrably false. Cheers.

 

No, I did not say that.

I'd say it's been a pleasure, but I can't. Like all atheists that I personally have encountered, you debate these questions by insult.

 

They clearly did have the public forum of the time as well as great power...relatively recent times and society have begun to prevent it but many are going down fighting.

 

How have I insulted you? FTR, I am agnostic on the entire issue. I believe/disbelieve in the millions of gods that man has created throughout history equally. I suspect that you disbelieve in several hundreds of millions of gods as well. Our only disagreement is likely with one god; a teeny tiny fraction of all the known created gods.

Anyway, if you met me in person, you'd find me quite a nice person who wishes to harm (or wishes harm on,) zero people. You'd never know I was agnostic, even if you came to my door to proselytize about your particular brand of god.

 

Which might be interesting, if humans could not be expected to be guided by something nobler than instinct.

An atheist who lives according to his profession must divorce himself from morality, since that has no other source but God. This being the case, we may reasonably conclude that very few professing atheists live according to their profession.

Actually, male polar bears will happily eat their own offspring - never mind that the definition of murder has no more application in the animal kingdom than does justice itself.

Not really. To demonstrate that, you'd have to show that such knowledge has an ultimate source other than God.

By insinuating he needs a creature of the human imagination - which clearly translates in your mind to God - to remind him not to be a jerk. You might as well say he gets his morality from a teddy bear.

 

Teddy bear, god, unicorn, spaghetti that flies ..... same/same. Humans have created somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000,000 gods. I see no reason to believe that 6,000 years ago, one of the humans got it right. (This time, we really really really really mean this is our guy.)

 

Please don’t cloak yourself in self righteous indignation about what I say. What you consider an insult I don’t.You seem to have a pattern of believing that anyone who doesn’t believe as you is insulting you. You don’t realize that you were insulting atheists.

 

Please stop insulting atheists.

 

The same reason we have an appendix

 

Thank you for admitting your insolence.

Not one of which I give a flying puck about, of course.

Believe me, I get it: you've succeeded, like the stereotypical atheist, in dumbing God down to something that doesn't threaten your ego. Of course as long as you remain locked into that mindset, you'll never have a clue about Christianity or Judaism; and to all appearances, you won't have it otherwise.

 

I was baptized, took first communion, first confession & confirmed in the Catholic Church. I lived as a Catholic for over 30 years.

As a child, I lied to a priest and told him I broke a plate and didn't tell my mother, because when I told him I hadn't sinned in the last week, he called me a liar. (Probably not in those words, but I was guilted into confession.) I was a good kid; didn't fight with my siblings much, didn't lie to my parents, never stole, never cheated on a test. I had nothing to confess, but it was required. So silly.

I once panicked for two days, because I accidentally ate a bologna sandwich on a Friday during lent. When I told my mother I was going to hell, I cried.

When popes stopped caring about priests who raped little boys, I started to wander away. When I fully realized that the rules were just all cafeteria menu items to pick & choose from, I stopped seeing the point. Either god cared or didn't care; following the rules should never be optional.

I know Jews who eat cheeseburgers, but freak out if there is shrimp in their home. Religious rules are not god's rules, or everyone would follow each and every one of them out of fear of the worst kind of reprimand.

I now believe religion is a roulette wheel, and I simply refuse to play the gambling game as a way to guide my life.

I'm agnostic; there may/may not be a god, but if there is, I'm fairly confident that no religion has the rules right.

Being agnostic isn't an insult to Christians, no matter how personally you take it. You may worship/not worship, follow/not follow rules, as you see fit. All I require in turn is that the religous do the same.

 

I sorta appreciate your coming back to post and all, but you remember that toxicity you mentioned in the O.P.? Well, that's how this thread feels to me.

Enjoy.

 

None of this surprises me, and not a syllable of it militates against anything I said; so I don't know what your point is.

You sure as hell don't post like one.

To be sure. It is, however, an insult to Christians to claim the source of their morality is the equivalent of a teddy bear; and as a theist who respects Christianity, there is no other way for me to take it than as a personal insult, because that's precisely what it is. And obviously you bloody well know it, which is why you're pretending anyone is taking offense at your profession of agnosticism per se.

Ma'am, you're in no position to require anything from me.