Am I an agnostic or an atheist?

Quote: Evenbob

... I'm an atheist and have no
moral center.

Did I miss something? Who said you need God to have good morals?

Who said you need the fear of the big bad boogerman to believe in the Golden Rule?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Did I miss something? Who said you need God to have good morals?

FrG used to say it, now he only hints at it. He
says he doesn't understand how an atheist
can have morals without god.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Did I miss something? Who said you need God to have good morals?

Who said you need the fear of the big bad boogerman to believe in the Golden Rule?

I'm quite sure Evenbob thinks I think that, he would be wrong.

Any human being, regardless of their faith, can have good morals. In fact because human beings are so unique and special, made in the image and likeness of God, they have an inner conscience that if properly developed, formed, and listened to - will guide us towards doing what is right. The big problem for atheists is determining what is right. For example in Bob's case of returning the phone you will notice that his motivation was all based on himself. He knew what it was like to misplace a phone, he knew how much that sucked and so he made the right choice in calling and getting it back to its owner. One question we could ask him is; what if he happened to really need a phone at the time he happened to find this missing one? What if the selfish need for a phone was stronger than the empathy he felt for the one who lost it. The right thing to do is still to give it back to its owner, but now you have to be motivated by something stronger than just plain old goodness. You need a strong moral code that determines there are some things that are always right or wrong, NOT based on how I am feeling, what my needs are, or circumstances. Notice that fear of the big bad boogerman is also horrible motivation to do good or believe in the golden rule. What you need is a mature moral center that is not grounded on you, culture, society, but on something more real and more universal and more unchanging - namely God.

Quote: FrGamble

For example in Bob's case of returning the phone you will notice that his motivation was all based on himself. He knew what it was like to misplace a phone, he knew how much that sucked and so he made the right choice in calling and getting it back to its owner. One question we could ask him is; what if he happened to really need a phone at the time he happened to find this missing one? What if the selfish need for a phone was stronger than the empathy he felt for the one who lost it. The right thing to do is still to give it back to its owner, but now you have to be motivated by something stronger than just plain old goodness.

Now lets get to the real world, the world
we really live in. A Christian guy is on hard
times, he's out of work and his family is
on food stamps. They can barely make the
bills every month. He prays to god every day
to send some help his way. He finds a $100
bill in an empty cart in the parking lot of the
supermarket. By law, finders keepers is not
losers weepers. The bill should be turned into
the lost and found dept of the store to see if
anybody claims it.

Will our hero do that? Or will he be praising
Jesus all the way home for answering his prayers.
Will he do the right thing? For him, in his
dire straits, he IS doing the right thing by
keeping it.

Something you'll never understand, FrG, is
morality isn't written down somewhere on
a list in a book. It's an ever moving thing,
it's determined by a person in every different
situation he's in. For sure, you want it on a
list, you want to tell people when they have
to be moral, because you and your Church
are the official moral arbiters. You have given
yourselves the absolute power of judging
and determining. Too bad real life isn't like
that.

An atheists morality will always be superior to
a morality from some non existent god because
it comes from us from the inside, we do something
because we want to, not because someone told
us what the right thing is. It's sad you can't make
those decisions on your own and have to depend
on a book to tell you when to do the what's right.

Wow, FrG must agree with my post for a change.
There's nothing like the truth to make you sit up
and pay attention. Kudos to me..

Quote: Evenbob

An atheists morality will always be superior to
a morality from some non existent god because
it comes from us from the inside, we do something
because we want to, not because someone told
us what the right thing is. It's sad you can't make
those decisions on your own and have to depend
on a book to tell you when to do the what's right.

Spoken like the devil himself. "We do something because we want to." Is that your basis of morality? Talk about egotistical. You couldn't have proved my point more strongly; your so called morality is really selfishness and self worship. You and you alone want to determine what is good and evil, right or wrong. You don't want a book, or lists, or a Church, or God, or a culture, or society, or another human being, or anything else to help you make those decisions. It is Evenbob all the way. You know everything. You are your own god, with a very small lowercase "g".

Quote: FrGamble

You don't want a book, or lists, or a Church, or God, or a culture, or society, or another human being, or anything else to help you make those decisions.

You ever wonder how peaceful societies, like
the people in the Amazon tribe who have
little to no contact with the outside world,
no missionaries, no books, no TV, and know
nothing of those things, don't you ever
wonder where they got their morality from?

The love each other, have no concept of a
god other than thanking the animal they
kill for giving it's life. They don't kill each
other, or rape each others children, or
steal from one another. There is no crime.

They made their own morality. They do the
right thing because they want to, because
it makes sense. They realize to get along as
a people, they need to work together. They
didn't get that from a book, or a list, or a church,
or a god, or a culture, or society, or any place
else. They figured it out all by themselves.

What's really scary is, you think people are
selfish and self worshiping if they think for
themselves. If they act like their own moral
arbiters. How dare they do that, how dare
they cut the Church out of the picture. Why,
if everybody started doing that, the Church
would be out of business, and you can't
have that.

First of all your idealistic vision of these Amazon tribes is naïve. There was no crime in these societies, really?

Secondly, they did not individually make up their own morality. There were in fact very strict moral rules imposed on the members of these tribes and cultures you seem to reference. Where did this morality not to rape, kill, or steal come from? Not from the Church for sure. It comes from the same place the Church received such moral laws, from God. Stop making this serious issue about the Church and your prejudiced view of her. The key is for you to recognize the sickness, selfishness, and danger of thinking any one human person based on what they want can be the judge of what is moral or not.

Quote: FrGamble

First of all your idealistic vision of these Amazon tribes is naïve. There was no crime in these societies, really?

People like this work as a unit, they are all
dependent on each other to survive. Crime
as we know it really doesn't exist.

Quote: FrGamble

The key is for you to recognize the sickness, selfishness, and danger of thinking any one human person based on what they want can be the judge of what is moral or not.

Good grief, you are really threatened by this. We
make moral judgements all day long, with a belief
in god or without one. The truth is, religious people
are weak and need someone to keep them in line.
That's what your job is. Others, like atheists, are perfectly
capable of raising moral children, giving to charities,
being kind to strangers, working at food banks and
homeless shelters, just because it's the right thing
to do. Nobody has to tell them. Thank goodness
you're here to help those who don't have a clue
what to do on their own. That should make you feel
great.

I feel the Church has a place in the world, finally. Now
that they've realized they'll never run it again.

How can you say things like being kind to strangers or giving food to the homeless is the right thing to do? Stop telling me or others what is right, you must be all about control and making people think like you.

Apparently from your above arguments what you meant to say is that the examples you gave as the right thing to do are really just what you want to do. I might want to do something different and have a completely opposite list of things that are the right thing to do. By making morality a selfish subjective activity you have lost the right to tell me what is moral or good. You have also lost your credibility.