this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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[–] Naia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the only reason you are a good person is because you fear punishment then you are not a good person.

[–] nomadjoanne@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Or blind loyalty to a leader, real or imaginary.

[–] 667@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They exercise a fascinating amount of cognitive dissonance by simultaneously holding that Christianity is based on moral dictates of god–the ten commandments–yet ignore, or are conveniently excused by the New Testament, the other 603 dictates.

Their morality extends only so far as it is convenient, and then the rest are "well those morals were written for a different time". No dude, according to your moral code derived from your religious text–that's the way it's supposed to always work, and your willful ignorance of them won't get you into your concepts of paradise.

The natural result here is that anyone not 100% compliant with the dictates of the sky wizard are going to hell, or–more reasonably–it's all made up and revised as periodically needed.

[–] InternetTubes@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's just a way to project and sync their ego for the followers. They just have to try their best and can faith their sins away if you are in it, yet for outsiders they act like it's the most solid belief system ever and demand a completely different standard they don't hold themselves to.

[–] 667@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Concur. It's a system that (still!) relies on people not actually reading the the text. Even a cursory review reveals these flaws. But organized religion is generally specifically known for discouraging questions.

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's a ting called "society", which defines morallity...

[–] poplargrove@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

In some societies genital mutilation is accepted, I dont think you will agree that means it is moral and ok if they practice it. Saying society defines morals also means if you lived when slavery was accepted you would have to say abolitionists were wrong.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They think it's moral, which is the point. Morality is fluid, not objective. Do I think genital mutilation or slavery are moral? Absolutely not, I think they violate basic standards of human rights. But those standards are, themselves, human inventions and not objective truths.

Almost no one thinks they're the bad guy in the story.

[–] poplargrove@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I haven't missed the point, what I've given are stock responses to moral relativism. I got them from ethicist Russ Shafer-Landau's books "The Fundamentals of Ethics" and "Whatever Happened to Good and Evil." If my comment doesn't make sense do read it, the chapters on relativism are short.

I will try to repeat. If morals are made true by the perspectives of societies, you are absolutely wrong in saying genital mutilation is wrong for them. It is only wrong for you, because your society says so. You must admit they are correct in saying it is something moral for themselves. A ridiculous conclusion.

I'd like to hear why you think there aren't objective moral facts. I'm an atheist myself and think they can exist.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Morals are human constructs. Human constructs are not objective facts.

[–] poplargrove@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think you would agree there are epistemic norms like 'if we dont have enough evidence for something, we shouldnt believe it" or "if a view has contradictions, we should reject it". These are rules that tell us how we should reason, and they are objective facts we didnt create. Moral facts are just like these but tell us how we should act. An argument to to you is ("companions in guilt" arguments): I think its likely you accept those like the former are objective and not made by us, so you should accept the latter can be so too.

Morals imo aren't created by humans. Some are, but real moral facts like 'the holocaust was wrong' or 'torturing babies for fun is wrong' do exist. They are things to be discovered (not as easily as the obvious ones I listed), not created, just like epistemic norms are.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

What is a moral fact? State one please. I would like to hear about this universal moral. Does it apply to the Aztecs or were they universally immoral?

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 1 points 1 year ago

Um, yes? Except if i knew better. Morals are bordered by your horizon.

[–] 0ops@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago
[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

There's actually a great podcast by radiolab about morality: https://radiolab.org/podcast/91508-morality

The classic Dawkins response to this: https://youtu.be/VgHoyTvyh4o

Let's also remember that Steve Harvey would say that himself about atheists. There's so many more.

[–] electrogamerman@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

This part of history is crazy to me.. and even crazier is that there are still a lot of people with thise beliefs

[–] SmoothSurfer@lemm.ee -4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

To be honest there really is nothing to be the base of anything, if we dont take religion as base. Since religion is a given idea by a being which is ontologically higher than us, it is logical to base everthing on it; but first you have to accept it, where the problem begins.

This mat seem too much skeptic, indeed radically skeptic but you can not justify any premise you make. Even the basic logic like, a is equal to a. Many things may seem intuitionally true but when you try to justify it, you cant.

But here we are, i have a stomach which wants food, i have a mouth which wants to talk, i have dick/pussy which wants to fuck. We are a society, and we are here, we want to be together. So we need some limits to live together. Thats how we create our fucking morals.

[–] poplargrove@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Statements like a=a, the law of non-contradiction or mathematical facts are called "necessary truths" (as opposed to contingent truths), they don't depend on anything like a god to be made true and will always be true. This is very basic stuff.

Another reason you cant base it on Gods is because you need logic and other things we use to reason to decide on the very question of the existence and nature of the Gods. You have to use it before you can even justify it.

[–] SmoothSurfer@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago

Analytical truths are by definiton are true and independent of any emprical evidence or observation. So let me tell it more simple: we accept they are true. Saying they are true without depending on anything or this is basic stuff doesnt make them true. Let me ask a simple question, why do we define them true without dependence on anything. You can not answer it becuase this is the limit of where our comprehension stretch out.

I said we cannot find anything to be the base of our morals except religion. And I especially state that you have to believe them, not logically prove them to take them as your base for morals. You can take anything as your premises, like religion or analytical truth or synthetic truths; its upon you. To me the most useful one is to take analytical truths as base.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

You have a dick/pussy?

Sex with you must be very strange.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.de -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

a is equal to a only because we define it to be. Bad example tbh.

[–] SmoothSurfer@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago

That was kinda the point. I gave the most simple example came to my mind, something that we all accept without questioning