Bane

On these boards here:

Theforce.net

Atheism was getting dumped on so I tried to defend it. Actually, he's attacking materialism as well as atheism. I'm up against a Muslim as well as a fundy Christian. Funny how they use similar arguments?

Anyone better versed in philosophy wanna take a crack at them? I should have stayed out as I'm out of my league. I was getting sick of seeing atheists called stupid and hypocritical.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Bubba the genious isn't.

I have my own debates going on elsewhere, but try using an evolutionary explanation for morality. We have this inborn desire to survive, but we also have an inborn desire to protect our social group. Early groups whose members were not willing to sacrifice their lives died out, leaving populations of people who were willing to sacrifice their lives for the survival of the larger social group. Thus, societies developed with people who had a drive to risk their own lives if it saved the larger social group (or one's offspring).

This is an overly simplistic explanation in a single paragraph, but I think you see where I'm going with this.

Additionally, it's not necessarily the case that humans who use "common sense" in deciding what is moral are appealing to some supernatural unwritten laws. The reason certain actions are common sense is because we were taught a certain sense of morality since birth. Appealing to the morals of your society requires no supernatural laws. One simply has to admit that the ethics of society work and must be doing something right because they weren't eliminated by the competition. Thus, following these moral laws would ultimately be beneficial to society in the end.

Hopefully this helps some.

-Nick

Nowhere357

No way am I a philosophical force, but I'd love to try and help. Meanwhile, keep looking for reinforcements.

Hubble head

Pascal has some good points. I can also see how many are trying to be civil on the posts but you cannot debate religion topics with gloves on and get anywhere, IMHO. There are a lot of good essays on this site that can give you more ammo too.

But you could possibly move onto how ‘we are social beings’ to answer the OP question. That statement does not say much until you get into the instincts behind it but it says a lot for why many choose to believe in fairy tales. The other reason many choose to believe is that it gives our survival instinct satisfaction. Many report initially feeling some kind of euphoria from their god's power and this is the mind playing tricks on them for a few reasons. Anytime we convince ourselves we have satisfied any of our instincts, we are rewarded by a psychological boost that tells us we did something right. Feeling love works in similar ways.
And to sum it all up,
For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned by our surroundings.

Environment is a sculptor -- a painter.

If we had been born in Constantinople, then most of us would have said: 'There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.' If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana.
As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them.
-Robert G. Ingersoll

Bane

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions everyone. I'm not sure I'm going to bother replying as I'm not very well read on philosophy and morals. I'm also not very articulate in putting my thoughts into writing. I suffer from perfectionism so one medium length reply takes me hours just to come up with and post. Takes a lot out of me.


I see Nowhere tried to entice them over here. Good idea.

bocajeff

hey Bane...I'm MadMardigan on the JC. I'll see if I can help you out over there when I have the chance.

Bane

Hi jeff, take your time. Bubba is known for his circular arguments so expect to tenderize your forehead. Seems to have been an influx of fundies over there. Thanks for the help.

Soul Invictus

I'll give it a looksy...although Goliath isn't high on my fav's list right about now, I must say I wouldn't mind watching him erk someone's nerves over there right about now.

Soul Invictus

What's your handle and the topic(s) of the thread(s)?

Bane

My handle over there is Ender. The title of the thread is called "Indentifying with a religion, what does it take?" It started off with a liberal Christian asking some of the fundies over there what it takes to be a Christian as they were accusing him in another thread of not being a True(tm) Christian. Anyway, the liberal Christian was defending non-believers so I guess they decided to poison the well.