Well if you don't have the evidence you can't make the claims.


Anyway we don't need to go back to some obscure, primitive societies to prove a point..  Lets have  a look at modern attempts at Godless societies.  Last century.  Numerous nations banned God totalling hundreds of millions of people.  The religious were persecuted to the point of death and extincton.  The people were finally free from religion to create a new order based on ethics.  It resulted in mass murder, starvation, oppression, corruption, death and misery.  That's what Goldless societies and ethics give you.

You greatly over-estimate the kindness of humanity.

BTW, your earlier claim about the Scandi's is wrong.  I've already posted their religious believers percentage.  In fact they are more religious than Australians.  All the Scandi's were founded as Christian nations-the cross on their flags is their symbol of this.  Sweden has the most secular laws, and its turning into shit the fastest too.

Nearly all morals we hold today are found in the Bible.

But lets take your point that ethics evolve by way of evolution.  From an evolutionary perspective, what exactly does homosexuality offer that makes it ethical?

(FWY i don't believe in capital punishment for homosexuality)

And as for the Spanish conquests, the Spanish went there for the land, and the gold. The Bible did not say go there and enslave and murder whoever you find.

And thousands that aren't.

What does homosexuality offer from a evolutionary perspective? I'd say none but I'm not an expert. I will say though I'm aware of homosexuality in other animals, including one of the smartest mammals, like the dolphin.

It's good you don't believe homosexuals should be put to death. Probably a good thing that morals have evolved over time so you think like that now because had you been born 400 or 500 years ago (or now in a Islamic country) you'd think differently.

I'm glad we are agreed that morals can change over time.

I already said, with regards to scandinavian countries, 'until recent waves of migration'. Predominantly 14th century thinking Moslems. Wait up, isn't Islam a religion too? 

Hahahaha. They believed they were doing gods work and that the heathens deserved what was coming. Easily justified courtesy of the bible. They even went as far as to have mass every day before they set out to murder and kill.

Maybe you should acquaint yourself with the Old Testament. Plenty of genocide and conquest of godless heathens in there.
Just brilliant.

But having said that. Blaming religious people for killing millions in god's name is as bad as blaming atheists for killing millions because they don't believe in god.  It's more complicated than that.

@Mono.

Sorry mate I meant to say this before. This was what people used to think. Much like how they used to say dogs don't have emotions. Anyone that owns a dog knows that they experience emotion.

Pinched this from online. So rather than paraphrase it I'll cut and paste it. It does make you think though. All through history people have thought humanity exists apart from the animal kingdom. It's why we offer them so little regard. It's also why we see ourselves as having a higher purpose. But what if animals had morals? They've developed these morals without religion. Wouldn't that off some proof that morals existed outside of religion?

The articles are hyperlinked.

Maybe we're not as special as we think.



Primates are an order of mammals that include humans, apes, monkeys, and lemurs. The question of whether they exhibit morality is not easy to answer, as different researchers may have different criteria for defining morality. However, some studies have suggested that certain primates can display moral emotions, such as empathy, compassion, grief, outrage, and fairness¹²Some examples of primate behaviours that may indicate moral sensibility are:

• Chimpanzees are inclined to make fair and egalitarian offers, and only accept those kinds of offers from their peers. They also show empathy for their fellow chimpanzees, and may help them in distress or share food with them³
• Gorillas have protected and cared for injured or unconscious humans, such as a boy who fell into their enclosure at a zoo. They also have elaborate rituals for mourning their dead, such as covering the body with leaves and grass, keeping vigil for a week, and visiting the bones for years to come⁴
• Rhesus monkeys refuse to electrically shock their fellow monkeys, even when it means getting food for themselves⁵

These are just some of the many examples of primates exhibiting moral emotions. However, not all researchers agree that these behaviors constitute true morality, and some may argue that they are based on instinct, social learning, or self-interest. Therefore, the question of primate morality remains a fascinating and controversial topic⁶ 

5 Animals With a Moral Compass | Animal Emotions | Live Science

Do Animas Know Right From Wrong? | Live Science
 

(A) Why not? We randomly evolved. Randomly evolved feelings. And here we are. They're important to me because I'm a product of evolution.
(B) I never said there was a meaning to life. I offered you my personal philosophy. What's the alternative? I don't want to rape and murder people. 
(C) This is probably true. That doesn't make those feelings not real.
(D) This is a very interesting philosophical question. I've swung between thinking there is and isn't free will. I'm undecided at the moment. 

I'm trying to understand your point. Maybe I've missed it again.

We've evolved to place value on things that we call morality due to altruism and other random things that were good for the group. Are morals meaningless? Well it depends on who you ask. What you think is normal and fine is disgusting and untenable by another group of humans. (Say gay marriage or female circumcision.)

The love for my kids is probably (well actually not probable) a chemical reaction (dopamine levels are raised when you have children) that we evolved to care after our children. It is, after all, why they look so cute and smell great when they're young. So we look after them. Because sure as shit they'd die if they weren't cared for.

Hormones and chemicals are probably doing the heavy lifting for sure.

I've explained to you why I think morality is important. (We've evolved to care about other people for the good of the group and the propagation of the species. What more can I say? I don't need religion to tell me I'm upset because someone killed my kid or someone within my social group or further afield.)

I've provided links that other animals display, what we would call, morality within their social groups. It appears that humans aren't special in this way. (But it is a given that in the main animals don't care at all. A fish thinks nothing when it eats another fish for example.)

You cling to the supernatural if you want. I'm Ok over here.

I'm off to give plasma this morning for the 5th time this year. I know a godless heathen shouldn't really care about others but maybe that's the beauty of being an unthinking robotic automaton. (I don't have to think about these things too hard.)

The "I don't need need religion to have morals" is what the most famous atheist in recent time Richard Dawkins used to say ( before he got cancelled for taking atheism and evolution to its brutal logical conclusion as so eloquently expressed by Roosty).  He even refused to use the word morals and replaced it with ethics.

The problem is you and he may say you do not need religion to have morals but history clearly shows that societies have needed and still needed.  All who didn't were worse off or colllapsed.  Those who have are still here and successful. This is the evidence.

The explanation is that ethics is simply ultruism and evolution in action- ie survival is advantaged in groups.  But that's not altruism, and nor is the example you gave earlier.  That's people engaging in quid pro quo.

We're going in circles. You say we need religion, I don't. 

I've said my bit about that.

If the 'logical extension' is I'm an amoral unthinking glob of cells then I accept that. What you really want me to say is without religion the species would be fucked. 

Not so sure about your definition of what 'altruism' is.


quid pro quo /kwĭd′ prō kwō′/

noun

1. Something that is given in return for something else or accepted as a reciprocal part of an exchange.
2. Something given for something else; a tit for tat; in law, an equivalent; a thing given or offered in exchange for or in consideration of another; the mutual consideration and performance of either party as toward the other in a contract.
3. Something understood as another ; an equivocation.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik

altruism /ăl′troo͞-ĭz″əm/

noun

1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
2. Instinctive behavior that is detrimental to the individual but favors the survival or spread of that individual's genes, as by benefiting its relatives.
3. A term first employed by the French philosopher Comte to denote the benevolent instincts and emotions in general, or action prompted by them: the opposite of egoism.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik

Member since 2008.

What do you think of some animals displaying what we'd define as morality? They don't have religion but seem to adhere to fixed principles regarding benefitting the group that are analogous with what we recognise as morality.

I don't know enough about animal behaviour to comment on that.  I could say they're all God's creatures....

Debatable whether they have or not and it isnt just some sort of Pavlovian response to their owner. All "evidence" to the contrary is theoretical... anyway, wont labour the point, 

homosexuality was prosecuted by the Christian religion and later the Moslem one Muz, not ALL religions... Its a flawed argument to lump everything under the one "banner"  

Well the Aboriginals, 40 thousand years ago had a code of ethics based on their dream time stories and connection to the land so who is to know mate? 
Stop seeing this as a "biblical" vs "science" debate and at least acknowledge the plausibility that the reason Ogg, lying in his cave 100,000 years ago, hesitated to pick up a rock and bash in the skull of Ugg and become the Alpha Male in the tribe was because the cave drawings on the wall beside his head showed hm that humans arent a food source and that he should direct that violence towards a woollie mammoth instead :P

Of course you can't think of one. Why the hell should I waste my time giving you a lesson on how humanity evolved before and without christianity? There are many books (and thesis') dedicated to the subject. Feel free to go and open one. 

Well I think your position is more or less identical to that of Richard Dawkins.  It maybe that you can both live your lives as atheists.  At least he campaigned that so should everyone else.  The implication being that atheism is scalable across entire societies and between societies. However, the historical evidence when that has been tried is the opposite.

It could be said that atheism was just one feature of the communist nations of the 20th century that failed, and that they failed for other complex reasons.  You can't know how significant the abolition of religion was to their failure.  You do know however that Marx included atheism as essential in the people's fight for freedom, and the Communists followed through on it, morals and ethics be damned.  

As for the definitions, my definition is the top one: Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

The bolded definition is contradictory:  even if one engages in detrimental behaviour to oneself, the motivation is still selfish-to propogate one's individual's genes

The burden of proof rest with the person making the claim.

Also you weren't asked to provide a  "lesson on how humanity evolved before and without christianity".  You were asked to support your claim by naming ONE Godless successful society.  The fact both you and Muz have refused to do that implies you can't name one.

Well this is impossible because you seem to think that every society except for North Korea and China are god-fearing good christian folk, so if anyone pointed to the number of modern societies who've weeded out the luddites you'd still claim they are christian societes. 

And tbf we'd have even more less religious societies in the world (than the few that even remian) if the various churches around the world were not forcing their ludicrous 'values' on populations

Another gotcha that isn't. A bit of history for you. The bit about not being able to not have a registered faith is particularly relevant.

Stolen from a Swedish page.

You need to understand something about the Swedish church. Being a member of the Swedish church basically says nothing about if you’re religious or not. The church itself is of course a religious institution, but that’s not how most of it’s members treat it.

The Swedish church is generally seen as a cultural institution these days, not a religious one.

This church is from the very earliest parts of the 1100s and it’s not alone, so a lot of cultural heritage to preserve.

This was not always the case. Our large amount of churches is because it was illegal to not be a Lutheran protestant before the 1850s, if you were born outside of Sweden you were allowed to exist in Sweden and not be Lutheran from 1779 and that was only to keep your existing faith. For born Swedes you had to be a member of the Swedish state church and you had to attend Sunday service, it was besides being a religious service also a place for spreading government information. A great place for propaganda for what was back then a very pious nation. It took until the 1870s before you could legally convert to another religion and you had to list what religion you had changed to.

In fact it wasn’t even possible to not have a registered faith until the 1950s when you were allowed to deregister from the church without needing to join another registered congregation. Swedens individualism and freedoms are very fresh concepts.

For the non-religious it can be a very practical arrangement to be a member of the Swedish church even if you’re not a believer. I’m an agnostic atheist and I’m still a member of the Swedish church. They are good people doing a lot of excellent work in charity, crisis counselling, preserving cultural heritage including some of our oldest buildings and more. I know some of the people that work there and they are all nice non-judgemental people.

These days the Swedish church is quite often at the forefront for progressive and somewhat leftist ideas in religion. It was quite quick to adapt to female priests back in the 50s, marriage is gender neutral since 2009 and it works a lot with the ideas of Jesus as a socially progressive person given his many sermons about kindness towards the downtrodden, the foreigner, the prisoner and other outcasts of society. Basically what happened was that the Social democrats who was in charge for the majority of the last 100 years also managed to influence the church.

The church is quite an active participant at pride events, generally under slogans like “Be not afraid” and “And the greatest of these are love”

For me it’s also a practical arrangement to know that my funerary costs are taken care of by my fees. As it is for any weddings or baptisms in my future.

Also, while Swedes aren’t very religious we really like tradition. So regardless if you believe in god or not you tend to baptise the children because it’s a nice ceremony, same thing with konfirmation, church weddings and funerals. I’ve sadly had to bury one of my friends who definitely was an atheist, doesn’t matter. Church funeral regardless because that’s our place to gather and mourn.

Mate we're arguing whether the bible was foundational for the morals we have today. I'm saying morals evolve over time. How we (the west) treated homosexuals has evolved over time. IE morals have changed. 

That's the point.

Saying we wouldn't have morals without religion is ridiculous. When Lenin and Stalin banned religion that didn't ipso facto make murder and rape OK. They still had laws.

It's interesting though. Clearly animals don't have religion and yet exhibit moral behaviours. 

There's plenty of evidence of dolphins helping humans from being attacked from sharks and to help them from drowning. Hell there's a clip where a whale picks up a dropped cell phone and returns it and that's not from some zoo. https://youtube.com/shorts/4Jm0EX2yEcc?si=Ww3MnJ_CgVDF1oVA

What's their motivation?

It's convenient to dismiss it because it adds another complication to humans thinking they're special.

You're right about that. Just about every western country operates independently of religion these days. (Separation of Church and state is in nearly every constitution.)

There are a few hangovers of course like not being able to get an abortion, not having euthanasia and not being able to marry whoever the hell you want. But in the main if religion disappeared from Australia tomorrow the 1 or 2% of people THAT ATTEND church might miss it. 

No one else would.
 
I'll tell you who goes to church in my town. Refugees and Phillipinos. I know because I see them when I drop mum off. If it wasn't for them they'd be shutting up shop.

Here's an interesting study that won't surprise non-believers.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19955414/

Paper linked from this article. (Excerpt below.)  https://theconversation.com/religion-does-not-determine-your-morality-97895

Experimental evidence suggests that people’s opinion of what God thinks is right and wrong tracks what they believe is right and wrong, not the other way around.

Social psychologist Nicholas Epley and his colleagues surveyed religious believers about their moral beliefs and the moral beliefs of God. Not surprisingly, what people thought was right and wrong matched up pretty well with what they felt God’s morality was like.

Then Epley and his fellow researchers attempted to manipulate their participants’ moral beliefs with persuasive essays. If convinced, their moral opinion should then be different from God’s, right?

Wrong. When respondents were asked again what God thought, people reported that God agreed with their new opinion!

Therefore, people didn’t come to believe that God is wrong, they just updated their opinion on what God thinks.

When you change someone’s moral beliefs, you also change their opinion on what God thinks. Yet most surveyed still clung to the illusion that they got their moral compass from what they think God believes is right and wrong.

Particularly if their god is different to your god. Far easier to justify.

I havent been to church (apart from weddings/funerals and the like) for over 20 years yet still believe in God, whats your point? That organised religion is becoming less popular as social media and gender fluidity now fills our lives with more meaningful pursuits???? I dont get the relevance of church attendance?

How do you know these behaviours are moral and not just impulses driven by biological triggers like wanting to protect a weaker species or beleiveng a mobile phone was a bit of food to be retrieved? How can you attest to animals motivation when there is no comminicable way of knowung why animals do what they do.... Your (lower case) bible thumping mate may very well put it down to a benevolent God working his miracle through his creation .... how do we know one way or another.

If it was a prevalent occurrence then i guess we can make an educated assumption however there have been thousands more cases of dolphins curiously engaging with humans and then just ignoring us all together or worse:.

https://medium.com/@darkenergyarticles/the-dark-side-of-dolphins-they-kidnap-rape-and-murder-other-dolphins-and-humans-393b4ab9ce69

I chose to not believe animals have emotional intelligence NOT because of some sort of moral dominion over them but because I want to be able to keep enjoying bacon and juicy juicy rib-eye ... hahahahahahahah

"manipulate" and "persuasive" says it all really Muz.... 

No we certainly are NOT, at least Im not... The debate, as I understand it, is whether a fear of judgement by some sort of supernatural entity was the driver for humanity to want to treat each other better or if it was just a biological function of having to work together to survive and pass on our genes.... 

Christianity is a very young religion in the grand scheme of things, using it as a barometer of the foundations of western morality is like using the Aleague as a guidepost for football in Australia... hahahahahahahah

Human ethics and morals have (absolutely 100% agree with you) have evolved from our deepest darkest days.. Sometimes they have regressed as society (and religion) played a negative role but  overall, just like our physical bodies, our spirtual ones have as well.. If you dont want to acknowledge that the spiritual needs of a person are as necessary to huma wellbeing as food, water, shelter and who she/he/it desires to have sex with that's your call to make.

Typical Swedish mentality.. Claims to be both Agnostic and an Atheist in the same sentence.... pfffftttttt Their religion is tied up in their modern evolution of national Socialism mate....