Quote:
Originally Posted by Rotaerk
Morality is often distinguished from ethics and humaneness. Morality is the concern for abiding by a code of conduct defining "right" and "wrong". Ethics is the philosophical inspection of morality. And humaneness is the desire to do good, not from fear of punishment, but because one would not be able to live with oneself otherwise.
Morality is an external attempt to control people, by convincing them through some means to obey these rules, and thus requires some means of enforcement (such as fear of God). Humaneness comes from within, requires no rules, and cannot be enforced. Some people are simply inhumane. They're called sociopaths. Not everyone is a sociopath. If you feel that you might go on a killing rampage just because the enforcer of your moral code disappears, you might just be a sociopath.
In any case, without God, there's another code of conduct that can somewhat control sociopaths: the law. Also, even if God does exist, he's making no attempt to control people, so when it comes to morality through God, what's important is the belief (and fear) in God. Not his actual existence. This isn't motivation for me to believe in God. This is however a reason for me to hope that all sociopaths do.  |
It's called Consequences.
Breaking human law has consequences.
With no fear of retribution after Death, the only way to control behavior is by creating
consequences in Life.
That misses the point entirely because you are claiming as though "God" was made up to control behavior. "Better eat your vegetables or Jesus won't be happy" sort of thing.
We have a vast, and extremely complex Universe, we have a vast and complex variety of carbon based life here on Earth.
The atheist thinks it all just randomly appeared out of the empty vacuum of space and the mathematical constants and precision of the Universe just randomly "showed up" along with it, and the miracle of life just "randomly" developed in a small sliver of infinite space...and human intelligence just "randomly" evolved out of a few deep water vents on the oceans' floor.
I don't know about you, but I'll take the "fairy tale" of a Creator God, over
"Stuff happens" dismissal of the atheist.
Respectfully.
(if it's so easy, make your own Universe)