Just how much financial tulip is Greece in?

[expat]

What makes you think atheism is about ‘I’m alright jack’?

Do you regularly talk with atheists? Are they noticeably more cruel or less socially concerned than believers?

As for the good samaritan, it fits perfectly in a world view of seeing other humans as equals instead of holding a prejudice according to their ethnicity or religion.

Glad to see you're not "Godlike", like.

Oh bugger. I don't believe in me.

[scooterscot]

I think I'm trying to say that the less intelligent members of the community need the rules and examples provided from a formal religion to know how they should behave in society. Atheism is just too complex a set of ideas for all but the most intelligent. You can't just have a set of laws and expect people to follow them, we're not all capable of being lawyers to judge when something is lawful.

After all, rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

There is nothing complicated about what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, even a child can understand this.

[threaded]

There is nothing complicated about what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, even a child can understand this.

Hmm, one famous Saint said 'Children are like Angels'. A parent remarked that he was obviously a monk.

Right and wrong are constructs that we achieve from a moral education.

[expat]

Hmm, one famous Saint said 'Children are like Angels'. A parent remarked that he was obviously a monk.

Right and wrong are constructs that we achieve from a moral education.

Wasn't that Gregory with "Non Angli sed angeli"? And the monk bit sounds distinctly 20th-century.

BTW it is self-contradictory to use a claim that "right and wrong are constructs that we achieve from a moral education" to support a religion (like Roman Catholicism) that does not ostensibly believe that. Though it is equally self-contradictory for the Church then to teach.

[threaded]

Wasn't that Gregory with "Non Angli sed angeli"? And the monk bit sounds distinctly 20th-century.

BTW it is self-contradictory to use a claim that "right and wrong are constructs that we achieve from a moral education" to support a religion (like Roman Catholicism) that does not ostensibly believe that. Though it is equally self-contradictory for the Church then to teach.

I think what I'm saying is they're achieving the 'right' result, yes, possibly by the 'wrong' methods. It is not necessary for the basis of a moral system to be correct just that they produce a system that is stable and capable of continuing.

Snake / death cults don't last long, even though they seem to come and go every few generations. So I would say those kinds of religions don't produce a useful moral system, and I worry that modern secularism is leading towards similar outcomes.

[expat]

I think what I'm saying is they're achieving the 'right' result, yes, possibly by the 'wrong' methods. It is not necessary for the basis of a moral system to be correct just that they produce a system that is stable and capable of continuing.

Snake / death cults don't last long, even though they seem to come and go every few generations. So I would say those kinds of religions don't produce a useful moral system, and I worry that modern secularism is leading towards similar outcomes.

Don't worry, within a generation or two Europe will be highly religious.

[Mich the Tester]

Snake / death cults don't last long, even though they seem to come and go every few generations. So I would say those kinds of religions don't produce a useful moral system, and I worry that modern secularism is leading towards similar outcomes.

What makes you think 'modern secularism' is leading toward death cults?

[threaded]

What makes you think 'modern secularism' is leading toward death cults?

Because they lack a moral basis, and people who are not part of the elite cannot see any point in their existence.

[Mich the Tester]

Because they lack a moral basis, and people who are not part of the elite cannot see any point in their existence.

You mean you think that if less intelligent people are atheists they'll top themselves?

[threaded]

You mean you think that if less intelligent people are atheists they'll top themselves?

Without some moral basis that comes from an established religion, yes.