And with enough faith youd have people working on it forever

A relligion dies when its goal has been achieved

I'm atheist and I'm still a good person with moral knowledge, yknow? I don't need God to make me moral. And anyone that is only moral for salvation is still as selfish as a sinner

I'll take selfish people acting good for their own gains over them acting badly.

And well, you still have to understand that humanity is still hardwired towards instinct

I'm not saying "ban all religion" obviously, belief is a very strong thing and more power to you if you're a rational accepting person with a deep and profound belief. But I work in terms of reality and I won't resign myself to being so ambitionless that my only reason for contributing and helping people is I don't want eternal agonising pain

I do not believe any atheist believes in morals or can come up with a coherent set of morals. They always go, always, to whether or not someone is "nice" or "kind." But these have no fixed menaing at all. Nice to who, when, and what circumstances? Sometimes you shouldn't be nice or kind or em pathetic, in fact. These are not what you build values on.

And it so happens someone who acts for the betterment of societty for selfish reasons, is better for the herd

It was one of many things that led me away from atheism--the moral question gets a surprising number of people.

Than someone who acts deviantly. For the sake of it.

So this is how you were when you were an atheist?

You're wrong, Max, morality doesn't depend on religion. If God didn't exist would you randomly start being a dick? Or do you have innate, in-built values that you act upon because you know they're right regardless of God?

Or even better, rationality and instinct.

If without God you wouldn't act morally, you're just kind of an asshole, to be blunt

Humans are social, depend on social connections, and natural selection takes care of those unable to coexist.

"This" meaning what? That I'm critical of an ideology I rejected? That I insist it's an ideology and a movement? [shrug] I recognized it was an ideology and a movement and I left. I then had many experiences to lead me to examine the social phenomenon more largely. Psychological studies, sociological studies, history, philosophy, and quite a bit else. I came to my beliefs hard, over a period of many years.

The humans who are bad at coexisting or are more secular breed less or die to exposure.

I agree completely Ginga- a good society comes about when helping the collective helps the individual

Id argue that its not just relligion that creates morals but that relligion is a result of refined instinct and morals.

'This' being how you described ahteists. If you were not this way yourself you would have absolute proof that not all atheists are like that. That you would think this is what atheists are I can only assume it is how you are.

you wont convence someone who thinks they know something that they dont know what they are thinking

Created by millions of years of evolution

@Vigil You can think that if you want, but what I find is that no atheist anywhere has ever in all of history at any time anywhere constructed a consistent moral system. Virtually all believe morality is just social convention or genetic and give armwaving generalizations about "group survival." None of it's scientific and none of it makes sense to me anymore. I used to srot of think like that, that it was all social convention and genetics/survival of the fittest. I just reject those beliefs now, I think they're incorrect.

God has 3 purposes for establishing a moral system:
1) It roots it in something that's difficult to change or manipulate. We can see how reason alone is easy to manipulate with fads in intellectual spaces like academia.
2) It provides a means of accountability (yeah, sure stealing that candy didn't get you *punished now* but what about the afterlife?)
3) It provides such a moral system and community binding in the first place.

@Schedrevka I can provide scientific evidence for what I say. Let me know if you want to discuss it. Otherwise, you can jhust keep believing whatever you want, about me or about anyone else who doesn't share your beliefs.

I can smell the smug

I only believe about you what you said. If you say 'all atheists are x' and you were once an atheist that means you must believe you yourself were x.

Gonna be a long way before someone like you gonna be converting people to the flock

Consistent moral system? I'll give you a consistent moral system, sure. "Nobody should infringe on the rights of another to perform behaviour which does no harm to anyone else. People should attempt to help others the best they can."

Meanwhile, Roman Catholicism now accepts homosexuality, and once burned people to death for provable scientific fact but now doesn't

But I've gotta leave for a rheumatologist appointment. Have a good day everyone.

Sounds like I'm more consistent than religion

OK. You're not happy. I'll help you out. See my knife? You won't cry anymore.

@pratel "God" (with a capital G) has been understood for thousands of years not just by religions but philosophers as "The Ultimate Intelligence Running Reality." That is a normal belief in humans that you find in virtually all societies. The Christian claim, in specific--which you can believe or not--is that God chose to become a human being for 33 years in the person of Jesus Christ--that he BECAME a human who wlaked around for a while. The generic idea of "God" as that ultimate creative intelligence/force running reality is pretty universal in humans, and science even says it's a normal evolved trait that most humans are born with. We develop it right around the same age as language, between 2 and 4. There are some exceptions, like autistics, who are more likely to lack this normal intuited rational sense, although certainly it's not true of all autistics.

If the objective is to reduce suffering and "help" you just need a funny definition of help. @Vigil

LOL it doesn't sound like it to me, but whatever.

Hey Max, what are your clothes made of right now

OK. So "the invisible hand of economics" would be god?

The Bible states if you wear clothes made from more than one fibre you're going to Hell so

@pratel You need definitions of "help" and "compassion" and "empathy" and "kind" and "nice" and "good" that are consistent that people can recognize. We don't all come to the same conclusions based on the same dataset.

Sure.