Jack the Bodiless

Both the supporters and the opponents of Prohibition were primarily Christians, not atheists.

Duck!

To jojo-sa:

Atheism simply describes a person's thoughts/opinions/belief/philosophy on the idea of God, i.e. we don't believe that God exists.

It does not contain a moral philosophy.

It does not contain a legal philosophy.

It does not contain a political philosophy.

It does not contain an economic philosophy.

It does not contain an ecological philosophy.

It does not contain a scientific philosophy.

This list is far from exhaustive and could go on for pages, maybe bookloads of what atheism isn't.

What it is is a lack of belief in a God (at least as God is usually defined).

But, let me be perfectly clear on one point. The fact that atheism doesn't contain any of the above ideas or philosophies does not mean that atheists don't have their own ideas on these things or that they don't subscribe to other people's ideas on these things.

My own thoughts on politics, science, morality, economics, etc. simply have no concept of God in them. My personal philosophy on life, the universe and everything simply doesn't have God in it because I don't believe he/she or it exists.

We derive our personal philosophies from other sources than God, because we don't believe God exists.

It's as simple as that.

Your question as to what atheism has to offer on ecological problems is like asking what a lack of belief in reincarnation has to offer to the economic problems of the world. It's not really a sensible question.


Duck!

sighhswolf

The strongest driving force and motivating factor of mankind is and always will be the innate
and instinctive will to survive.
To procreate and provide the necessities that will assure the genetic line continues.

Early man existed in a very hostile and dangerous enviornment.
A place in time that was not ideally suited to mans survival. In an effort to provide the best possible chance of survival mankind reconized the need for working together as a group.
They realized that alone, they stood very little chance of living very long.
So they sought out others of their kind, to share the burdens of survival. Communal living spaces that were found to provide warmth with a smaller fire and more bodies.
The hunting and gathering of food was a major chore as they had limited food resources.
They found that hunting as a group, afforded them safety, and a better chance of a kill that could be large enough to sustain them for more than just a couple of days.
They found that group life spread the work load
and lessened the amount of individual work required, thereby lengthening their short life span.
These parameters facilitated the development of a kind of "moral code".
The realization that by working together and living together in small communities their chaances for survival were greatly increased.
To kill one of your "clan" needlessly or for spite would only increase your own work load and
lower your own chance for survival.
These were the beginnings of social interaction
and the birth of a rudimentary form of morality.
So "morality" as we think of it today, was born from the human instinct for survival.

Trial and error is the only "sure" method of learning, and is perfectly acceptable as a tool
in establishing social conditions within civilizations.

There is no confusion in a basic non-belief in a
supernatural, divine being.
There is no confusion in the non-belief in a non-provable, mystical, unknowable, being who has total control over every single thing in the entire universe and created every single rock and tiny lifeform, that we cannot see, hear, converse
with except through his SELF APPOINTED representatives.
I see nothing confusing about that in any way.

I think it is more confusing to try and decide whose god is the biggest and the best......
Whose god really holds the keys to truth and eternal life?
Which prophet is the one mankind should be listening to??
And what religion actually will provide life after death??
Therein lies the confusion, not with a rational
reasoning person who says I see no evidence of a supreme being.
My lifestyle is based on how I want other people to treat me, it's very simple.
There are no confusing issues here, there is only humanism.
And the values and virtues of humankind have been honed by thousands of years of social interaction
and the instinct for survival.
With or without your god, or the christian god, or the Hindu gods, or buddhists fat guys, or jesus
or ying and yang and the Tao......the instinct for survival will continue to keep humankind struggling forward.
And the mysticism and mythology will keep dragging them back to the stone age and redirecting their attention from solving their own problems back to killing each other to see who's god is the baddest.
Confusion?????????????
There is no confusion here, not in my world there isn't.
Wolf