I claim that human beings can be "Good Without God" .  


I do not think that being an atheist makes a person good or bad.  

I claim that believing in God  or  believing that the Bible or the Quran is the word of God does not "make" a person good or bad. 
    
It is clear to me that there are good and bad atheists as well as good and bad theists.  


Have A Thinking Day May Reason Guide Us    

  

Howdy Namchuck

May 22, 2011 -- 6:28PM, Namchuck wrote:

May 22, 2011 -- 6:01PM, IDBC wrote:

I claim that human beings can be "Good Without God" .  


I do not think that being an atheist makes a person good or bad.  

I claim that believing in God  or  believing that the Bible or the Quran is the word of God does not "make" a person good or bad. 
    
It is clear to me that there are good and bad atheists as well as good and bad theists.  


Have A Thinking Day May Reason Guide Us    

  

 

I'd go along with what you say about atheists entirely, IDBC.

Atheism is only about what one doesn't believe, and one doesn't build a way of life on a negation. But one negation doesn't imply all negation. No, it's the next step for the atheist that is more interesting and rewarding, which is determining just what that way of life will be.

On the other hand, I think the physicist Steven Weinberg is right when, in speaking of religion, he says: 'With or without it (religion), you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion'.

I would agree with Steven Weinberg but I would add that political idealogies can also make good people to do evil things. 

Have A Thinking Day May Reason Guide You

May 23, 2011 -- 12:56AM, Namchuck wrote:

May 22, 2011 -- 8:04PM, IDBC wrote:

Howdy Namchuck

May 22, 2011 -- 6:28PM, Namchuck wrote:

May 22, 2011 -- 6:01PM, IDBC wrote:

I claim that human beings can be "Good Without God" .  


I do not think that being an atheist makes a person good or bad.  

I claim that believing in God  or  believing that the Bible or the Quran is the word of God does not "make" a person good or bad. 
    
It is clear to me that there are good and bad atheists as well as good and bad theists.   

 

  

 

I'd go along with what you say about atheists entirely, IDBC.

Atheism is only about what one doesn't believe, and one doesn't build a way of life on a negation. But one negation doesn't imply all negation. No, it's the next step for the atheist that is more interesting and rewarding, which is determining just what that way of life will be.

On the other hand, I think the physicist Steven Weinberg is right when, in speaking of religion, he says: 'With or without it (religion), you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion'.

I would agree with Steven Weinberg but I would add that political idealogies can also make good people to do evil things. 

Have A Thinking Day May Reason Guide You

Hello IDBC!

Yes. I suppose we might agree that dogma, whatever form it might take, is a source of considerable evil.

 

That's my dogma ! 

Howdy Jocko

 

Aug 31, 2011 -- 8:12PM, Jocko wrote:

For those of us who don't believe in any gods, we have no choice but to believe we can be good without gods, or the only alternative is that it is impossible to be good.  Since atheists have just as strong opinions on right and wrong as anyone else, the statement is self-evident, not debatable.

I as an atheist believe that people who believe in God/gods can also be "good". 

I have met some theists who are "good" and I have met some atheists who are "bad". 

It would therefore seem "self-evident" to me that being an atheist or being a theist has nothing to do with being "good" OR "bad'. 

So the question that occurs to me is that if being a theist or being an atheist does not determine what makes an atheist or a theist "good" or "bad" then what is the CAUSE? 

As far as I see it atheisim is a belief that neither God nor gods exist.  

Or atheisism is a conclusion that there is insufficent evidence for the existence God/gods. 

Atheists tend to be monists.  Theists tend to be dualist.  

Atheists do not believe that morality-ethics has its origins in a dualist being or beings. 

 

 

Howdy

Since we appear to agree that you can be good without god and can be good with god the next question that occurs to me is are people who believe in god better than people who do not believe in god?

 This is an event I attended a couple of weeks ago sponsored by the Center For Inquiry and the Ethical Culture Socieity. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIScvPw92vQ