Atheists do NOT worship themselves or anything else

[B.H.]

Someone on the old Internet Infidel Board used to always argue that if God did not exist there was no need to have morals or act right, since morality and acting right was just an opinion in the eyes of the beholder. We basically gave him all of the arguments why we should still have laws and morals, ect even if God did not exist and he would not listen. Eventually someone said "Well, you just go ahead and try to rape murder and steal since you think there is nothing objective about it and we'll just get a gun and put a bullet in your head to stop you from being immoral, even if its just we mere humans opinion of what is moral, because you have nothing objectively speaking to tell us we can't.

[agricola]

One of the biggest known differences (outside the physical ones) between the human species and the other primate species, is our extreme 'sociability'. Humans are FAR more mutually cooperative than other primate groups. And one of the ways you 'police' that is by removing or disciplining group members that fail to be sufficiently mutually cooperative.
Murdering, stealing, violence against others - these are all 'fails' on the mutual cooperativeness of the group. They are aberrations, and human societies don't tolerate failures of mutual cooperation nor do they tolerate extreme aberrations from the group. The larger our population grows, the more 'groups', because past a certain size, it is very hard for us to manage that feeling of cozy fellowship (the number is below 1000, actually, and about 30 is actually ideal - this is why megachurches always have 'house groups' and why military forces around the world rely on a unit system of individuals which is typically around 30).

Humans WANT to be part of the group. If the group itself wasn't actively promoting the kind of behavior it wants, the individuals in it would be cheerfully SELF disciplining so that they would 'fit in'.

What humans do that is 'different':
We actively 'teach' the younger members (other primates learn by watching, but active teaching is minimal or rare).
We point out things to others - no other primates 'point'. (interestingly, DOGS have learned to follow our 'pointing' behavior. Wolves can't figure us out.)
Those are behaviors that can be observed. Most other differences involve the way we think, which isn't quite so observable!

Cooperative behaviors are a clear advantage to survival. Groups with members that were best at cooperating were best at surviving. Bingo. Evolutionary pressure.

[B.H.]

Also notice that the great moral rules for social cohesion----don't murder, don't physically attack for no reason, don't steal, don't rape, don't hurt someone's kids take care of just about 90 percent of the problems you may find in a small group setting. It really isn't that hard.

[B.H.]

Granted - and yet, do remember that we were all raised with the notion that moral/ethical behavior was inextricably tied to religious belief. I have even had people flat TELL me that if they didn't have a belief in God, then they would certainly rob, cheat, steal and worse, because the only thing stopping them - the ONLY thing - was their belief that their actions were being 'watched' and that there would be an inevitable consequence.

So how do you (anybody) hope - ever - to reassure people like that, when they are obviously going to firmly believe that anybody without a belief in God is, basically, a crime wave waiting to happen and a person totally without a shred of honesty about them, too?

They will not believe a word you say. They will not believe that, just because you behaved well yesterday, that you might behave well tomorrow.

Also - granted - such folks are (thankfully) a small minority of religious believers. But in a world of 7 billion, even a small minority is a large number of people.

Given that these people are out there, I believe that the only way to persuade them differently, is to give them enough examples from their own acquaintance to use 'experience' to teach, since 'doctrine' contradicts (for them) the idea that moral/ethical behavior can exist without the eye in the sky and punishment afterward.

They have those Russian novels to look at - you know 'without God, all is permitted' and also the example of Leopold and Loeb, who reasoned that without a god, it would be a neutral decision to murder a child, because they happened to be curious about what a dead person would look like.

People like this have an intellectual defect in my opinion and may perhaps be borderline psychopathic. It just is not that hard to understand, at least to me, why you should have morality without God. What would happen if we had no morality/law is good enough reason.

[Ivy]

Have some questions, but doubt the wisdom of posting them on New Paths. So
I'll refrain.

[Turtle]

Have some questions, but doubt the wisdom of posting them on New Paths. So
I'll refrain.

I would be happy to answer any question that is seeking an answer to that particular question and not a debate or a platform for your opinion on the subject, and one that does not use inflammatory or derogatory language.

[Ivy]

Have some questions, but doubt the wisdom of posting them on New Paths. So
I'll refrain.

I would be happy to answer any question that is seeking an answer to that particular question and not a debate or a platform for your opinion on the subject, and one that does not use inflammatory or derogatory language.

Are you doubting my ability to do that???

[agricola]

Probably take it to either Old Paths or Coffee Shop, depending on where you think you'll take things. If this is veering off to politics.....

[KLP]

...You are comparing apples and oranges. You make it painfully obvious you don't know what you are talking about , either that or you are choosing to be deliberately obtuse. Plus, this is a support forum, not a criticism or debate forum.

Please do not go personal or make comments on other members...especially in a support forum. I ask your forgiveness for upsetting you. To me it makes sense that commonality can just as easily point to a common creator, for the life of me I do not see how that is derogatory or illogical or inflammatory. Personally I did not see the use of logic and integration to be a negative thing but I will accept your assertion that it is and that all things must be kept separate. Please accept my apology for asking a question when something did not make sense to me. I wish you a belated Happy Thanksgiving or whatever America atheist do on a particular Thursday in November.

[agricola]

I kind of think they eat turkey and watch football later, pretty much like everybody else.

But thanks for the reminder, which I should have caught myself. An idea might seem ignorant, but the person with it probably isn't. All of us run around with certain ideas and opinions we've never exactly thought through in any detail. I know I do. I find them once in a while -

one which I remember quite well, is that I actually thought - in the back of my mind, because if you had ASKED me I would have come up with the 'right' answer - but what I actually BELIEVED was that the more the humidity got over 100%, the harder it rained.
I do know that isn't the right answer, but it still is what I tend(ed) to BELIEVE. It just sounds intuitively right, you know what I mean?

Plus on certain topics (and evolution is definitely one of them) I am pretty sure every single one of us here can remember when we had some pretty interesting ideas about it, and if we had dared to actually MAKE a statement (or ask a question) we probably looked totally clueless. Didn't we all watch The Flintstones? Didn't we all read Alley Oop?