[Frankly, I don't see how morals or purpose derived from the decision of someone else (e.g. God) are less arbitrary than self-imposed morals or purpose.]
Atheists don't have morals, per se; they have ethics. Morals deal with mans' relationship to God, and is vertical; whereas ethics deals with mans' relationship to man, and is horizontal.
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Man's horizontal relationship to Man? I thought God was opposed to that sort of thing?
And guess what moron, I choose to be a nice person because I have decided that it's the right way to behave. You act like some twisted interpretation of a 'nice' person because you're afraid of retribution/hoping for personal gain. My mere horizontal ethics are far nobler than your vertical 'morals'.
And if God doesn't exist, then who needs morals?
Which means we are not indeed, about to go out and rape, pillage, plunder, and abort everyone we run into.
My ethics beat your morals anytime. BTW, I suspect "morals" in this redefinition project means to obey your head-friend's imagined rules - in this case probably stoning unruly children for eating shellfish whilst being raped. You also must give a room and food to the rapists because that is the moral thing to do.
Horseshit.
Man has no more "relationship" with God than John Hinckley had with Sharon Stone. Man intends to speak to God, and often assumes he speaks to God, but God doesn't give much indication that He listens.
Atheists don't have morals, per se; they have ethics. Morals deal with mans relationship to God, and is the Missionary position; whereas ethics deals with mans relationship to man, and is Doggie-style.
John wrote:
"Man has no more "relationship" with God than John Hinckley had with Sharon Stone."
The example I've heard used to explain the difference between morals and ethics is masturbation. Some people (namely fundies) would call that immoral, but virtually no one would call it unethical.
Things that are immoral are wrong because... you just know they are, or because God says so if believe in him.
Things that are unethical are wrong because they hurt someone else.
So in a sense, I actually agree with this fundie. I wouldn't go so far as to say you need to believe in a god to have morals, but it does imply some kind of "higher" (i.e. "vertical") source for your definition of right and wrong.
Things that are immoral are wrong because... you just know they are, or because God says so if believe in him.
That's a pretty shitty excuse for reasoning, there, bub. How do you know they're wrong? Is it just the 'squick' factor?
I'd say by this definition, this morality thing is just a bigoted fear of the Other, and is utterly bankrupt as a foundation for any society.
Give me a system built on minimizing harm and maximizing freedoms over one built on terror via 'squick' factor any day.
And Buddhists' morality is octagonal.
Seriously, though... some of us are good people simply because it seems the right thing to do, and some are sort-of good because they're afraid of some invisible entity's disapproval. Which sounds like a better reason for not being an evil bastard?
I follow a couple moral/ethical rules that should have made the Top 10, but were not. This leads me to believe that g0d & his ghostwriters fucked up. Either that, or old Moses actually dropped and shattered the third tablet.
Here you go:
11. Thou shalt not cheat the system, because the system was designed to benefit everyone.
12. Thou shalt not abuse the authority that thou hast been granted.
Notice that these two are technically not associated with stealing, coveting, or false witness, so the loophole is wide open.
Oh.....ok...so I guess all those years of stats that show that atheists (and more secular nations as a whole) are actually slightly better behaved than the religious have finally sunk in, and this is, what, a kind of retreat?
"Ok, by immoral, we never meant how you treated other people, we meant your relationship to God, youevil Atheists: treating people well but thinking God is imaginary. Taht hurts his feelings, than he gets drunk, then comes the wrath you know!"
You don't have to redefine the words to match your own stupid theology. Ethics and morals come from Greek and Latin and deal with similar topics and have nothing to do with the Judeo-Christian idea(and appeared long before Christianity came into light). Ethic comes from Greek and means the way a person structures its way of proceding in life in order to deal with others in a community. Morals come from Latin and design the set of rules and habits that we adopt to live in a community. And let me remind you that Jesus himself was well aware of that and was explicitly clear in Matthew when he said that vertical relationships can't exist if you don't have first, and foremost, horizontal ones. Why?, because the former are not evident and concrete, unlike the latter.
Are you "kidding" me? Athiests don't have morals "or" ethics. One of the chief reasons people "get" involved with athiesm is that they gave into their "temptations" and now "they" know they are "in trouble" with the LORD!
How do you get out "of trouble?" Easy, just say that the LORD doesn't "exist" and you're off "the hook." (Until judgement, upon that time holding hands with ol' Suzy slutbags won't sound like the good idea you think it is now).
How do we "know" all this? Simple, we have ex-athiests come to the church all the time and tell us that they became athiests so they could do whatever they wanted: cheating, gay sex, murder, dancing, sleeping in church, fornication, back talk to the preacher, genocide, you name it!
Etymology of "morals" :
morals (noun) -"a person's moral qualities," 1610s, from pl. of moral.
moral (adj) -mid-14c., "pertaining to character or temperament" (good or bad), from O.Fr. moral, from L. moralis "proper behavior of a person in society," lit. "pertaining to manners," coined by Cicero ("De Fato," II.i) to translate Gk. ethikos (see ethics)
Care to try again, AV1611VET?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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