[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Aramike

Skybird, good post, but I do have a disagreement...

This could be semantic because, had you said "atheists", I would have agreed.

However, atheism is of itself a specific belief. One can no more disprove the existance of a deity than prove one - thus is the very nature of the debate, as it were. Atheism, by its very nature is not tolerant of any other belief system. It quite simply postulates that it is the correct system, thereby clearly implying that all others are wrong. This argument holds similarly true for most religions.

I disagree.

Usually people – me included – throw two terms together when talking of “atheism”: these two terms are “atheism” and “antitheism”. Some do it because being careless and not thinking about it, others – me included – do it for reasons of verbal comfort, like they – and me - also do not always verbally differ between church and Christianity, and mean the first when using the latter.

But “atheism” and “antitheism” are not exactly the same. The first simply does not care for the question whether or not deities exist. The latter explicitly claims a position of rejecting the possibility of deities existing.

However, the burden of evidence is not on atheism, since atheism does not make any claims about the existence of something for which there is no evidence, no hint, no forcing logical conclusion, nothing that speaks for it and goes beyond the realm of hear-say and man-founded traditions of scripture, thinking and arguing. In the end, “God” is of the same quality as the statement that there are singing pink frogs living under the surface of Neptune. You can believe they live there, you can choose not to believe that, and you can simply not care. But if you choose not to believe, this hardly can be given as a argument to claim that not assuming their existence is a belief itself, by that every wild speculation would be turned into a logical argument with a justified existence by form and content, every fantasy would be upgraded in substantial, real quality, and every position not being in conformity with these wild speculations and fantasies would be stated to be the same kind of fantasy or speculation by nature and essence like these fantasies themselves. Academically, this maybe is fun, but it leads you nowhere than to fruitless hairsplitting. In the end, theistic religions still are expected to produce a self-justification that goes beyond circular self-referring. And not taking circular self-referring as valid you are a free to label as a belief in itself, yes - but the point is that you score no point by doing so.

Morals claiming to be real only when basing on religious commands and obedience to the dogma, are no morals, but obedience to that given dogma. That way, those riding on the moral high horse, have often turned out to be the most immoral and barbaric history knows of. In the end, your obedience to a set of ideological commands not necessarily makes you a morally good man, even less so when the ideology in question is basing on immoral examples itself, like possible political ideologies, or the psychopathic god of the old testament - an evil, bloodthirsty and cruel villain that for the sake of our safety and the well-being of our families we would lock behind iron bars if he would freely walk around on the streets. What you do and what you don’t do, what you decide and why – this is what makes you a good man, or not. That is moral behaviour forming up as a result of experience in life, and it is context-sensitive. It is not engraved in stone like behaviour rules in an old book, but it changes over the time of your life, and grows with your growing insight, and life experience. It thus could be called an “organic” moral behaviour.

Even more, since man has not the skill or ability to intentionally decide to forget knowledge he has gained, but can only see the need to correct his opinion if he finds out his former knowledge was wrong, you cannot escape to act morally on the basis of your knowledge and experience so far. Heaven and hell are states of mind, and nobody sentences you than you yourself. Neither reward nor penalty there is (except social sanctions of the community you live in). Being free to act as you want, the decision is yours, and your deeds can make you a moral man who is a benefit for others as well (an altruist), or not (which makes you an egoist, or even a criminal). This ultimate conflict in our existence we can already see in the fact that we cannot manage to live without taking life of others, whether it be animals, or plants. What forms our moral attitude in this conflict is the attitude in which we take this life, and whether the life we take is aware of the action and is worried, or not. That’s why from a moral position it makes a difference whether you slaughter an animal in great fear, with pain and inside the horror of a slaughtering factory, or do it yourself in a more peaceful environment, without giving the creature much time and opportunity to be worried and to suffer. Although the outcome may be the same, the different approaches are not.

In the end, morals do not get defined neither by religions, nor atheism, but the simply fact that all creatures have two things in common: they/we all try to evade fear, pain and suffering, and try to find well-being, comfort and happiness. The decisions we make in trying to get there, and the relation between our life quality and the amount to which we adjust the life quality of others, man and creatures alike, for the worse or better, decide on whether we are morally good people, or not. It’s not just the outcome that counts. Even more important is the way in which we achieved it.

That is what morals are about. Religions, or atheism, are not needed for them.

Merry Christmas to you all. For me and my people over here, it means a traditional time of being together with family and friends, Gemütlichkeit, and to be thankful for the memories of a happy childhood my parents allowed (and made possible) to unfold for me.