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  • #46
    Re: Atheists and morality

    Originally posted by anunitu View Post
    So,if I kill someone,but do not feel guilty do I have a moral sense? This might kick off another round of questions.
    You may have had a reason that justifies it for you and makes up a personal moral of sorts. Killing senselessly and with no guilt probably has some deeper psychological factors than a lacking sense of moral... and technically a coldblooded killer can still treat animals well, or care deeply about the environment. They may just have a different take on what matters... our perception of what is acceptable is individual. Then there's the group of people who probably share the common sense of ethics and moral, but still go against their own better judgement.
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    • #47
      Re: Atheists and morality

      Interesting point Iris. There are physical issues with the brain that can stunt the emphatic nature of some people.

      Here.

      Blame the Brain: Why Psychopaths Lack Empathy

      Question: does the Psychopath still have a moral ethic?

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      • #48
        Re: Atheists and morality

        Originally posted by anunitu View Post
        Not everyone has morals BMH,if that were the case,the jails would be empty.
        Some people do.

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        • #49
          Re: Atheists and morality

          Originally posted by anunitu View Post
          So,if I kill someone,but do not feel guilty do I have a moral sense? This might kick off another round of questions.
          Realistically one could kill and have no sense of regret and still have a sense of morality and ethical position. That's one of those moral & ethical debates between the difference between does one kill or does one murder for instance. Consider a soldier kill's and we say he / she has both morals and ethics. Yet someone murder's and claim they lack morals & ethics due to cultural & social conditioning. Yet there are societies such as ancient Sparta where one right of passage was the murder of a slave. Yet the Spartan's had a high level of moral & ethical concepts for their culture & society.

          Consider what does it say if a person kills but has no sense of remorse but enjoys a sense of elation and enjoyment? If it's a human they've killed then as a society we come unglued, if it's an animal we call them something else. Yet killing is killing and only the danger and potential the prey could kill the hunter increases the rush of the hunt.

          Morality and Ethics, do we live up to it or use it to control us and narrow the scope of how we define ourselves and what is acceptable?
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          • #50
            Re: Atheists and morality

            I have a different take on morals.

            You get morals when you mix the following:
            I know what I think is right or wrong.
            I fear repercussions.
            I have a sense of my Vegas odds on having those repercussions played out if I do this thing.


            It's all just good and evil + repercussions-table odds= my action.
            Satan is my spirit animal

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            • #51
              Re: Atheists and morality

              Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
              Are atheists ravaging beasts without morals, or is it possible that atheists get there morals from somewhere else? If so, where?
              A moral is generally a rule of conduct that a person follows willfully.
              A distinction must be made between particularist morals- morals which apply only to one's own group, or only to oneself, and are often based upon common-sense wisdom; and universal morals- morals which apply to everyone, and relate to justice and right and wrong.

              Atheists most often base their morals (of both the particularist and universal types) upon their own judgment, and consequently their morals vary widely between individuals. The only problem with that is that human insight is limited, and atheists cut themselves off from any possibility of accepting divine wisdom, which means that atheists' knowledge of right, justice, wrong, and injustice, and the manner by which to pursue the former, has an upper limit. The major religions have only gotten a little bit of rightful divine wisdom though, and in some cases have gotten evil divine wisdom, so atheists are not at a major moral disadvantage to most religious people.

              It is ironic that a christian website like Conservapedia would say that atheists can't be moral, when Christianity itself is immoral (in the universal sense), because it perpetrates the disruptive aggressive lie that people who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus will burn in hell for eternity. It is likewise an immoral disruptive aggressive lie to say that atheists can't be moral.


              Originally posted by SeanRave View Post
              I'd have to disagree, morality doesn't equal lawfulness.
              Indeed; the legislatures are comprised largely of depraved psychopaths, who make it legal for people (and especially those in various positions of authority) to perpetrate a wide variety of disruptive aggressive behaviors, and make it illegal to do various things that are righteous or benign. The legislatures are thus prime examples of immorality (in the universal sense).

              It is a common behavior of psychopaths to work hard to attain positions of power (like foxes watching the henhouse), and to conspire with other psychopaths in positions of power, so that is not at all unusual. That serves two purposes: 1. to create much larger amounts of disruptiveness and injustice, and 2. to satisfy the psychopaths' delusional sense that they are inherently dominant or encompassing over other people.


              Originally posted by anunitu View Post
              Question: does the Psychopath still have a moral ethic?
              Stereotypical low-functioning criminal psychopaths typically do not have morals.
              High-functioning psychopaths, on the other hand, have morals as often as anyone else does. But high-functioning psychopaths do not have the universal morals against disruptive aggression, and many of them have "anti-morals", which are so-called "morals" that serve to cause or facilitate disruptiveness and/or injustice.

              An excellent and convenient example of high-functioning psychopaths with morals are the authors of the Conservapedia article that is mentioned in the original post. Said psychopaths apparently have various morals, but they do not have the basic universal moral against making disruptive deceptions, and especially against innocents. It should be noted that psychopaths are characterized by a fundamental desire to disrupt, and that intention causes not only the behavior of disruptive deceptions, but also willfully blindingly disrupts and warps the psychopaths' own fundamental perception, which means that psychopaths very often believe their own disruptive deceptions. In the case of the aforementioned Conservapedia edittors, they have an underlying disruptive sensation of dominance, which is directed against atheists, and which fundamentally warps their perception of atheists, causing them to perceive atheists as worthless scum. Consequently, such psychopaths make up various disruptive aggressive lies about atheists, and they seek out various bits of information with which to try to reinforce their lies and delusions.

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              • #52
                Re: Atheists and morality

                I'm gonna agree with what you have to say here.

                Though:
                which means that atheists' knowledge of right, justice, wrong, and injustice, and the manner by which to pursue the former, has an upper limit.
                Humans have an upper limit. We do not 'accept the divine' because we are fully aware the 'divine' is just us thinking we are smarty pants...when it's still just our own brain..upper limits and all.

                In essence those with a touch o' divine knowledge' look at atheists and see they have reached a peak in their morals due to not getting it from the divine.

                In essence those without this touch just wonder and stare into your face. Figuring how long it will take for you to catch on to that.

                And thus the divide and literal sameness of our understanding...and complete human limits.
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                • #53
                  Re: Atheists and morality

                  Yuppers - Umma gonna agree.

                  Whether "the devine" has any special insight or not depends on if "the devine" has any actual existance or not.

                  Here, in the atheist section, the answer is generally something like "no existance."
                  Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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                  • #54
                    Re: Atheists and morality

                    I would like to take part in this discussion.

                    I think the first thought gone wrong is, that an atheist dont believe in anything. An atheist dont beliefe in a theological pattern and/or system to interact with his or her personal universe. But sure enough he or she must belief in ideas and concepts wich are, from a scientific view virtual, for they are imagined and not measurable. It's part of being a human being. So having a kind of moral is nothing that corrolates with believing in a spiritual system or better narrative.

                    Blaming atheists or better said follower of narrative B by followers of narrative A for violencing rules of the narrative A is useless and a self definding mechanism of the narrative. Otherwise an atheist could blame a follower of for example the christian belief or the wicca cult for beliefing in imaginary and false gods, beeing superstitious or to lazy to think "properly". A narrative always tend to defend itself.

                    Its just my opinion.

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                    • #55
                      Re: Atheists and morality

                      After removing an initial flaming post and subsequent replies to said post, I have re-opened the discussion. This topic is not about who's superior to whom because of what one may or may not believe in. If the topic devolves again, I'll get very cranky and I don't like to be cranky.
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                      • #56
                        Re: Atheists and morality

                        Originally posted by anunitu View Post
                        So,if I kill someone,but do not feel guilty do I have a moral sense? This might kick off another round of questions.
                        IMO, you can kill someone and not feel guilty and still be moral.

                        For example, I have a friend that was force recon, while he regrets having to kill and the loss of a life, he doesn't feel guilty about it in most cases.

                        Or look at assisted suicide--were I a physician or a loved one, I might regret the loss of someone's life without feeling guilty over causing it when it was something they wanted and it helped end their suffering. Or what about the surgeon that tries a very risky and novel new surgical procedure (we're maybe about to have our first human head transplant)--if the patient is going to die anyway, and in pain and disability, and wants to do something extremely risky for a chance at a normal life, provided the doctor is very upfront about the risks, should the physician feel guilty if it doesn't work?

                        Most often, I see the difference between guilt and regret described something like this:
                        First guilt: many suggest guilt occurs when we do something that we know is wrong while we are doing it, typically for ethical, moral or legal reasons. Regret, on the other hand, is the emotion we experience when we look back on an action and feel we should or could have done something differently. It differs from guilt in that we didn’t know or feel at the time that we were doing something wrong, or we didn’t actually have control over the situation. Also, it typically is not that we did something that falls in that morally or legally wrong category, but rather a benign action (or inaction) that we later wish was done differently based on an outcome. (source)
                        Generally, this conversation is addressed in grief discussions, since that seems to be the place where people are most likely to publicly address their guilt and/or regret in an attempt to draw distinctions between the two for therapeutic reasons.

                        I don't think the distinction is quite this simple, but (with some exceptions and caveats) I think its a good place to start...

                        IMO: Guilt is something you feel when you intentionally choose to do something specifically to hurt/harm someone else for personal gratification that you feel bad about vs. regret--how you feel when you wish circumstances could have gone a different way, whether the action taken was intentional or not. --if you kill someone on purpose to see them suffer for fun, guilty feeling or not, you have "no morals," but if you kill someone trying to kidnap a kid (intentional or not) and don't feel guilty, you might be perfectly moral
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