Why be good if there is no God

[Castiel233]

Sometimes you see this tactic by the faithful in formal debate. Why should you be good, or kind or generous if there is no God. 

 

Yet the question is backwards, backwards.....

 

Why not be evil if God will forgive you.

 

In fact, God commands the killing of humans by other humans for all sort of "crimes" (such as being a non virgin on your wedding night).

 

Yet the faithful rarely carry of such commands faithfully.......

 

Why, cause such behaviour is considered evil by Western secular law.....and they fear secular justice.

 

Given they are commanded to be evil for God, why are they not evil if there is a God.

 

Thoughts........

[Geezer]

Societies have developed laws, courts, law enforcements agencies, jails, & prisons as a way of encouraging people to behave themselves, and to separate those from society that don't obey those laws. That has worked pretty well for a long time now.

 

 

[Joshpantera]

More nonsense from the theistic camp. I was just watching Peter Hitchen's reveal the height of this sort of ignorance. 

 

 

What a bumbling idiot. 

 

And the immediate response: 

 

 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Attached a picture of Penn Jillette answering "Why don't I rape as much as I want?"

 

 

[sdelsolray]

5 hours ago, Castiel233 said:

Sometimes you see this tactic by the faithful in formal debate. Why should you be good, or kind or generous if there is no God. 

 

Yet the question is backwards, backwards.....

 

Why not be evil if God will forgive you.

 

In fact, God commands the killing of humans by other humans for all sort of "crimes" (such as being a non virgin on your wedding night).

 

Yet the faithful rarely carry of such commands faithfully.......

 

Why, cause such behaviour is considered evil by Western secular law.....and they fear secular justice.

 

Given they are commanded to be evil for God, why are they not evil if there is a God.

 

Thoughts........

 

I prefer not to pretend, for the purposes of discussion, that such a god exists, or address the rationalizations, apologetics and straw man fallacies theists raise.  Instead, I suggest that an analysis of human behavior is a fertile source of information for understanding why humans act as they do.

 

For example, most children are taught to behave in certain ways by parents and others.  For the most part, these teachings involve acting in a civil fashion and to be respectful of and not harm others.  Research demonstrates that acting like this lowers confrontations, anxiety and violence, among other things.  It is simply more healthy behavior.  Conversely, some humans promote and exhibit harmful behavior.

 

Humans, collectively within their respective societies, have identified, cataloged and listed harmful behaviors and have imposed laws and regulations upon the society's members which prohibit or sanction those harmful behaviors and occasionally reward altruistic behaviors.

 

Research also strongly suggests that some behaviors are genetically based and many are memetically based.

[older]

A gang member caught in this town a few years back was asked if he was afraid of being punished. He said, "No, Jesus will forgive me in the end."

[Casey]

40 minutes ago, older said:

A gang member caught in this town a few years back was asked if he was afraid of being punished. He said, "No, Jesus will forgive me in the end." 

That's something I never could quite get; you could spend your whole life committing all sorts of crimes, up to and including mass murder, then be forgiven on your deathbed. Thereafter, presumably, you'd have to share Heaven with at least some of those whom you'd murdered. According to one particularly disgusting, although to be fair, now discontinued, Jack Chick tract, this would even apply if you'd molested your own daughter for years on end.  "[A]pparently it’s okay to rape and abuse children as long as you ask Jesus into your heart when you’re done."   Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Jews murdered during the Second World War would be rotting in Hell because they didn't believe in Jesus H Christ, Esq. (Always wondered what the "H" stood for.)

 

Casey

Quote is from https://jackchick.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/chick-tract-review-lisa/

[mymistake]

16 hours ago, Castiel233 said:

Sometimes you see this tactic by the faithful in formal debate. Why should you be good, or kind or generous if there is no God. 

 

I don't mind.  I answer "Because I want to see good things happen".  If they don't understand then I would point out that dogs do not believe in God and show them a youtube video of a dog saving another dog.  There are plenty of videos to choose from.

 

 

16 hours ago, Castiel233 said:

 

Yet the question is backwards, backwards.....

 

Why not be evil if God will forgive you.

 

In fact, God commands the killing of humans by other humans for all sort of "crimes" (such as being a non virgin on your wedding night).

 

Yet the faithful rarely carry of such commands faithfully.......

 

Why, cause such behaviour is considered evil by Western secular law.....and they fear secular justice.

 

Given they are commanded to be evil for God, why are they not evil if there is a God.

 

 

Yep.  There is that whole debate about either God is not sovereign or else evil is arbitrary but I wouldn't waste that on a Christian.  They wouldn't listen.

 

[Tsathoggua9]

Society just works better when people behave well. if everyone is out for immediate pleasure (whatever that entails) with no thought for the eventual consequences, everything breaks down. That is the incentive for "being good"!

[Wertbag]

If He died for your sins and you don't sin then He died for nothing. Lets make His sacrifice worth something!

[MOHO]

36 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

If He died for your sins and you don't sin then He died for nothing. Lets make His sacrifice worth something!

 

Outa likes for the day but I give this commnet two snaps UP!

[older]

6 hours ago, Wertbag said:

If He died for your sins and you don't sin then He died for nothing. Lets make His sacrifice worth something!

 

 

That would be good for an email sig line!

[Casey]

“Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.” (Martin Luther)

Nothing new under the sun.

Casey

[Anushka]

You know I heard my mum say to someone that God will not remember when we fight with others, that God has other things to worry about.

 

As I wrote this, it occurred to me she said that because she knows that her manipulation/interference is a bad thing or at least is slightly sinful. If she didn't think those behaviours were bad, she wouldn't have said it.

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

The whole phrasing presupposes that no one would ever do anything good for any reason other than a (possibly eternal) reward/punishment. It's a twisted argument by a disingenuous person who himself would never do anything nice or good if it wasn't for his fear of divine punishment and greed for rewards, and assumes that everyone else is the same way.

 

Sometimes I wonder if a lot of christians cling to their religion because they really are that dark and twisted, and are afraid of how they know they will behave without it... OR they've been conditioned to believe they would behave horribly without their religion, because that would keep them trapped in fear and keep their pastor's wallet happy?

 

Who can say?

[sdelsolray]

2 hours ago, DestinyTurtle said:

The whole phrasing presupposes that no one would ever do anything good for any reason other than a (possibly eternal) reward/punishment. It's a twisted argument by a disingenuous person who himself would never do anything nice or good if it wasn't for his fear of divine punishment and greed for rewards, and assumes that everyone else is the same way.

 

Sometimes I wonder if a lot of christians cling to their religion because they really are that dark and twisted, and are afraid of how they know they will behave without it... OR they've been conditioned to believe they would behave horribly without their religion, because that would keep them trapped in fear and keep their pastor's wallet happy?

 

Who can say?

 

It's much simpler than that.  Those who fit your first sentence are merely repeating what they have been taught from perceived authority.  The presupposition you mention is part of that indoctrination.  A infected speaker of such a claim did not think about it themselves and did not come up with the idea.  They are simply regurgitating a particular of religious dogma.  It's quite mindless, and, as I said, quite simple.

[older]

2 hours ago, sdelsolray said:

 

It's much simpler than that.  Those who fit your first sentence are merely repeating what they have been taught from perceived authority.  The presupposition you mention is part of that indoctrination.  A infected speaker of such a claim did not think about it themselves and did not come up with the idea.  They are simply regurgitating a particular of religious dogma.  It's quite mindless, and, as I said, quite simple.

 

Just like Prof. Harold Hill in The Music Man, the professor first convinces folks that they have a problem; that they are sinners. "Ya got trouble, my friends. Ya got trouble right here in River City...." Then the professor miraculously produces the solution. "I can solve this problem with a waive of my hand, this very hand. What River City needs is a boys band." And what sinners need is Jesus to save them.

 

That's the basic approach of all advertising. Your hair is too oily, too dry, too straight, too curly, the wrong color, too stringy, too thick. But if you buy our magic hair elixir, your life will be all good. All the guys will like you, your dog will love you more, you'll make more money, loose weight, gain friends, and find new and everlasting happiness.

[Casey]

I'd agree, but there's an added factor here, the uncertainty of what happens after death. As I see it, there's three possibilities:

You die, and that's it, you're dead, and, as the bible puts it, "The dead know not anything." (Ecclesiastes 9:5, KJV)

You die, and find yourself running barefoot o'er  the heavenly prairies.

You die, and find yourself running barefoot o'er Satan's red hot razor wire, with the certain knowledge any wings you sprout will have badly singed feathers. Ah, but there's more, as Mr Demtel would say, for after that comes the Lake of Fire.

Blowed if I know which one it'll be, but blowed if I care much, either.

I will say though, I incline towards a hope of reincarnation, after some good or bad time, but that is my own personal preference, for which I have no more proof than the Christers and blue lighters have for their version. The trouble with Christers and their ilk is they believe in absolute black and white whereas in reality, most people are not good enough to have earned eternal Heaven, and most are not bad enough to have earned eternal Hell, either. That's not to say I don't believe some people haven't earned themselves some hard time as we might say on this Earth, and not to say I don't believe some people haven't done enough good to have earned a better time of it for a while.

Casey

[older]

10 hours ago, Casey said:

I'd agree, but there's an added factor here, the uncertainty of what happens after death. As I see it, there's three possibilities:

 

As Mark Twain said, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

[mwc]

On 4/22/2018 at 8:34 PM, Casey said:

 Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Jews murdered during the Second World War would be rotting in Hell because they didn't believe in Jesus H Christ, Esq. (Always wondered what the "H" stood for.)

     It stands for "Hitler."  He stopped using it after the war.

 

          mwc

 

[quinntar]

Why be good? I just try to be nice.

 

Being good is trying to reach for the stars, you can never stop trying to be good (There's simply no ultimate end) I find that the exercise of acting good is competitive in nature, and a serious burden to carry. It's too much pressure & the expectation on yourself to be good is crushing. So I resign to the fact that I'll never know what real goodness is (If goodness actually exists as something)

 

No, I opt out of that, and just be nice.

[Jedah]

For public speaking, answers like Penn Jillete are probably you best bet for explaining to the average layman why the whole "Morality without god" is a silly apologetic question.

 

But if you want to dig deeper at the crux of the argument, the issue is that humans have a subjective perspective of reality. Because of this, we cannot correctly judge whether or not a source is objective . For proof of this, observe the following logical dilemma:

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

Scenario A:

1. You are a brain in a Vat

2. You have a vision from God and God tells you that you are not a brain in a Vat

Scenario B:

1. You are not a brain in a Vat

2. You have a vision from God and God tells you that you are a brain in a Vat

 

The question both of these bring up is whether or not you can tell if you are a brain in a vat in contradiction to what "God" told you.  If you answer yes then this contradicts previous knowledge, if you answer no then this contradicts the claim of God granting objectivity. In both cases your answer to one must directly contradict your answer to the opposite scenario...but if I were to then ask "Which of these scenarios is more likely to happen to you?" you would have no way of knowing. The issue here is that it is impossible in both scenarios to tell whether or not the "vision from god" was just another illusion created by the computer sending signals to your brain.This means any answer other than "I don't know" is unfalsifiable. You cannot claim objectivity through an unfalsifiable claim, as objective statements by definition must be verifiable. Thus the claim that religion ( which is notoriously unfalsifiable ) grants "objective" morality fails on the grounds that it is a self contradictory claim.

 

This is more or less the general problem with all Kant / Pressupositional apologetics. The only reason these kinds of arguments continue to exist is purely because their counter arguments require some level of knowledge of objective/subjective paradoxes such as "Last Thursdayism" which the average dude just can't be bothered with and is honestly probably better off not trying.

[mwc]

     Why be good if there is no god?

 

     Who the fuck is being good because they believe there's a god?  Believers nearly all behave like shit.

 

     Even the bible says no one is good.  Not one.  Even jesus.  So no one that's who.  Can't do worse than that.

 

          mwc

 

[LogicalFallacy]

Might need to define "good" first.

 

Apparently slaughtering Canaanites, Midinites etc and keeping the teen girls for oneself is "good".

 

If that's what you call good then our definitions of good are different.

[disillusioned]

26 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Might need to define "good" first.

 

Apparently slaughtering Canaanites, Midinites etc and keeping the teen girls for oneself is "good".

 

If that's what you call good then our definitions of good are different.

Yes, much turns on the definition of good.