Not beliving in God = You would then do (X) bad thing..

[playhavock]

So, I have seen things like this writen and heard them spoken the beliver in God says something like:

"If I did not belive in God... I'd do all sorts of horrable things!"

To me, this is not real morality, it is akin to saying that I do not steel because I'm afraid of being caught and sent to jail. Rather, I do not steel becuase I do not want to, I do not wish to do this act, I know that stealing harms someone else, causes incress in prices, and other results that are all negtive, and more over, I simply have no desire to steel, for no other reasion that it is negtive it action and nature.

There are meny ethics and morals I hold that I hold only becuase I personaly value them, and some of them I can make a logical augment for, others I perhaps can not, I've not looked at all of them, but I do not say "If (Y) is proven wrong, I'll start doing (X) bad thing!" for I never know when or if (Y) might be proven wrong, even if it is something I am very sure about say, gravity - "Why if gravity stops working, I'll start killing!" (actualy we will all be flung off the planet due to centerfical force and killed but on the way I could try to kill someone I guess)

No, I do not make my ethics about a "if (Y) then I'll do (X)"

To me those who utter that there morals hinge upon there belifes really deep down want to do those bad things, and its only begrudgingly that they do not do them, at least thats what it seems like when they utter such things.

What do you say, would you do (X) the moment you stop thinking there is a God? What bad thing do you really want to do, but are not doing just because you think there is a God?

[playhavock]

Morals nead not be objective to matter, but in essance you seem to say that you would find no reasion to live without God, and I find that a sad statment of codependent type behavor. Do good for love of this God - or out of fear, eather is equaly a problem should you ever deconvert.

You seem to think that your morals and happyness hinge upon your belvie in this God - and because you belive that - for you it is true, thus if you ever happened to stop beliveing or had a moment of unsertenty you would then act on your own impusles... but you do that as it is. You DO act how you want to.

However, it troubles me that you place your morals and ethics as well as personal happynes dependent upon a belife in God (or anything else) rather then as a practical matter wholey seperate from any and all belifes - I myself place my ethics outside my ideas of skeptisem and science and logic and all other things - if my belifes change, my ethics and morals will not - thus I nead never fear finding out that I was wrong about anything for it will not effect my behavor at all.

[Truely Free]

Havok, Thanks for you answer.
What seems to you as sad, seems to be logical to me. As a Christian, I find the answers to all the toughest questions in Jesus Christ.
Some for example are
(q) what am I worth (a) You are worth the blood of Jesus Christ.
(q) what is my purpose? (a) to Glorify God.
(q) who am I (a) you are the Beloved of the Creator of the Universe
(q) Am I a good person (a) No, but you are loved through Christ regardless of what you do.
(q) how am I to know what to do (a) Follow Christ and be like Him.

Christ gives my life meaning and worth. Do I do what I want. Well yes. Saint Augustine quotes "Love God, do as you please." As a Christian the first statement is the foundation for the action. I want to do good because I love God and want to give God glory. This is not to say that I don't fail...but that is natural for humanity and God forgives through His Son.
If I lost my faith, not only would I loosing my first and greatest love (Jesus Christ) I would have also lost all purpose and meaning in life. Nothing else is significant enough for me to build my life on, trust me, I've searched. So, being a good person would be meaningless. If I were a good person, I would only be remembered for, at most, two generations after myself by only a small amount of people and than be forgotten like the majority of other people who walked the earth. Same if I were evil. And if, for any reason, it seemed the people didn't view me as a good person; what would be the point? Beyond that, life is painful. If there were not heaven or hell, and no unconditional love to tether me to life, why would I stick around. It sound logic to me. If life without God has only what meaning we give it, why fake a meaning and struggle through life for no reason. Better to just skip to the end. Being moral is to hard for such little temporary gain.

Beyond that I believe in the Calvinist doctrine of complete depravity..."man is basically evil." I take that a step further and say, all men are capable of all evils, they only lack the conditions to bring that out in action. Thus, you say: I don't steal because I don't believe stealing is right. Now what if your child was starving and you had no other way to feed him/her. What than.
Some people require less of a push, some more. For instance, some kill for pleasure, some kill for revenge or self-protection. All, however are capable (emotionally if not physically) of killing.
In essence, we sin because we are sinner. We do bad because the bad is already in us. A murder kills because he is a murderer. He was a murderer before he killed, it just hadn't come out of him yet.
Christ changes the identity of a man. Instead of sinner we become saved. Thus what comes out of us is good without bad motives or coercion.
That is the basis of my morality.
You say your morality is not based on your beliefs. I argue mine isn't either. It is based upon the PERSON of Jesus Christ.
What is the foundation of your morality, if it is not your beliefs?

[playhavock]

Since you kindly answered my questions, even if I disagre with those as answers (for me) those answers are answers for you and as such I understand where you are comming from.

-

You say your morality is not based on your beliefs. I argue mine isn't either. It is based upon the PERSON of Jesus Christ.

I would augue that person is a belife as well.

What is the foundation of your morality, if it is not your beliefs?

My ethics are relyant upon logic that is not effected by any belifes I have or lack, utilitarian morals they are called - "do the most good for the most people"
I do not have to belvie this will work, becuase its observble results - its based upon reasin not faith in anyhting or anyone, other then obserble results that can not change since they contune to happen. Were I to find a better model for ethics, THEN I might change to that if it can be more effecitve then the one I have - but that is based upon facts, not feelings or faith or belifes.

[PhiloKGB]

Now, on myself personally. John Piper points out that as Christians, our greatest joy should be God. He further points out that we pursue what gives us pleasure, and if, as Christian, Christ is our pleasure, we pursue Him. This is the basis for my "morality". If it is not based out of my joy in Christ, it has no place in my life. I would, as a believer, consider much more immoral than you would. Not out of a more developed sense of morality, but out of a different motive and a different foundation.

I don't think you have any basis to state categorically that there is a numerical difference in the things we consider immoral. I think that erroneous assumption arises from the relative amount of noise American Christians can make -- compared to that of non-Christians -- about a few controversial topics.

In that, if I didn't believe God didn't exist there would be two devastating effects in my life (a) I would have no foundation for an objective morality, and so right and wrong would only be deciphered by my emotions, which have lead me wrong EVERY time I followed them.

Except you just said that your morality is based in your "joy in Christ." What is that if not an emotional basis?

(2) I would have no basis for purpose in my life, thus no reason to be "good", and I would choose to simply live my life pursuing whatever made me happy.

I guess it's good that you're alive and sufficiently healthy to consider the purpose God has for you. That you weren't, say, killed in a hurricane to demonstrate God's disapproval of gay marriage to the rest of us, or born into poverty in Saharan Africa and allowed to suffer because "free will" or some such.

Often making the right choice requires sacrifice (if you disagree you must not be married ) and I would have no reason to sacrifice, and no reason to consider anyone else's needs before or equal to mine. I would be forced to make up my own purpose by following whatever end gave me pleasure. Now, depending on what gave me pleasure, that would work out in different ways. For instance, someone who finds pleasure in other's praise will be more concerned with being "good" or attractive in character or appearance, while someone who finds pleasure in self will be more prone to walk all over other people to achieve their needs.

Is there really any way to determine if this is true other than some vague introspection?

For me personally, I think I would have killed myself long ago if there was I didn't have a relationship with God. I have simply not been able to find a source of pleasure outside of Christ that was even slightly dependable. Suicide would have been anything but immoral to me in the mind-sets I have been in the past. It was only my love for God and His for me that kept me. That might have been a bit personal, I wanted to answer your question truthfully.

I hope it lasts. That's the thing about emotional sickness; things that make you happy make you happy until they don't.

[Truely Free]

PhilKGB, though I appreciate your reply and your interest in what I had to say, I am going to have tell you that unless you make yourself more open to debate, I am going to chose not to engage you.
If you have some genuine questions about my view on the matter, I will very willingly answer you. Your post seemed to me more a misplaced release of frustration. I may be wrong, perhaps it's just the way you phrased things.
I don't mean to be rude, but I won't be answering your post again unless your post is less argumentative. I am sure we have much we could learn from each other in civilized debate.

to playhavok

Since you kindly answered my questions, even if I disagre with those as answers (for me) those answers are answers for you and as such I understand where you are coming from.

Thank you for the questions. As I am sure you can tell, I am always eager to talk (sometimes a flaw ) and I appreciated learning about you as well. I look forward to more debate with you.

[playhavock]

Sure. Always welcome a 1-1 debate with a more formalised setting.

[PhiloKGB]

PhilKGB, though I appreciate your reply and your interest in what I had to say, I am going to have tell you that unless you make yourself more open to debate, I am going to chose not to engage you.
If you have some genuine questions about my view on the matter, I will very willingly answer you. Your post seemed to me more a misplaced release of frustration. I may be wrong, perhaps it's just the way you phrased things.
I don't mean to be rude, but I won't be answering your post again unless your post is less argumentative. I am sure we have much we could learn from each other in civilized debate.

Frankly, I find it insulting that you've unilaterally determined my debate style is uncivilized. You're welcome to prefer the internet equivalent of the British Parliament, but please, from now on, spare me the condescending lecture, total lack of charity, and poor mind-reading attempts when you deign not to answer my challenges.

I don't know how you've apparently managed to avoid seeing real incivility to date. Good luck trying to browbeat everyone into adhering to your narrow debate parameters.

[Truely Free]

PhiloKGB,
I'm sorry you were offended, but I would urge you to go back and re-read your statements. I cannot account for your intention in writing them, but they seemed to be very aggressive and had very little for me to be able to address. As I said before, it could have been the manner in which your phrased it.

I guess it's good that you're alive and sufficiently healthy to consider the purpose God has for you. That you weren't, say, killed in a hurricane to demonstrate God's disapproval of gay marriage to the rest of us, or born into poverty in Saharan Africa and allowed to suffer because "free will" or some such.

That's the thing about emotional sickness

I cannot speak for the whole of you debating style as I have not participated much with you before or read many posts. I only speak for this one post.
I have asked people to re-phrase what they were saying before and have asked them to correct me as well in order that I might learn and better myself.

I do chose to be selective in who I debate, as I have specific purposes on this site. I want to learn, and I want to avoid arguing. So, yes, I will be "narrow minded", to protect myself and others. If you disagree with this and choose not to participate with me in debate anymore, I understand and have no argument. However, if you would like to work with me to help me understand your position, I will be very happy to debate with you for the betterment of us both.

As I said before, I don't do this to be rude, but I do not know you personally, and can only judge on what you put on the internet for me to read. If you come across as aggressive I will chose to protect myself from you by distancing myself. If you can't understand that, you needn't worry yourself with me, there are plenty of competent people on this site to have debate with.

[PhiloKGB]

I'm sorry you were offended, but I would urge you to go back and re-read your statements.

Why would you assume I hadn't done that?

I cannot account for your intention in writing them, but they seemed to be very aggressive and had very little for me to be able to address. As I said before, it could have been the manner in which your phrased it.

I guess it's good that you're alive and sufficiently healthy to consider the purpose God has for you. That you weren't, say, killed in a hurricane to demonstrate God's disapproval of gay marriage to the rest of us, or born into poverty in Saharan Africa and allowed to suffer because "free will" or some such.

This is aggressive? Is there a hidden threat here or something?

That's the thing about emotional sickness

Aggressive? Wrong, maybe. But you did say you'd be suicidal but for your possibly temporary condition.

Maybe you should have just ignored me.

[thepandemicson]

To PhiloKGB:

I have to agree with Truely Free on this one. I also interpreted this as aggressive and unnecessarily insulting.

I guess it's good that you're alive and sufficiently healthy to consider the purpose God has for you. That you weren't, say, killed in a hurricane to demonstrate God's disapproval of gay marriage to the rest of us, or born into poverty in Saharan Africa and allowed to suffer because "free will" or some such.

This is aggressive? Is there a hidden threat here or something?

This insinuated that all (or most) Christians are anti-gay and think like the West-Boro Baptists. Even mentioned so briefly, this is deeply degrading.

That's the thing about emotional sickness

Aggressive? Wrong, maybe. But you did say you'd be suicidal but for your possibly temporary condition.

Maybe you should have just ignored me.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret this one. The initial remark could have been directed at the suicidal part, but it could also have had a double meaning and been aimed at her beliefs. At the very least, it's easily misconstrued and may not have been aggressive in the least. I could see how that might be misread.

I think that erroneous assumption arises from the relative amount of noise American Christians can make

Generalization. True, quite a few American Christians can make a lot of noise, but that certainly doesn't doesn't speak for all (or even most) American Christians. The noisy ones are just the ones who get noticed, while the rest sit back and face-palm, knowing the prejudice to follow will soon be headed their way.

On a related note, those assumptions about morality aren't restricted to Americans or Christians. I imagine most people like to think they've got the best set of guidelines for decent or moral living.