Why don't atheists reject values derived from religion?

M

Mind Over Matter

Registered Senior Member
Perhaps because they realize religion promotes fundamental values like the value of life and love. There is no obvious reason why they should reject religion lock, stock and barrel.

What they don't realize is that the only rational basis of the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity is the fact that God is not an isolated Person but a Community. In a purposeless universe morality is merely a human convention...
 
Mind Over Matter said:
Perhaps because they realize religion promotes fundamental values like the value of life and love.
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Can you prove that the value of life and love stems solely or is solely promoted by religion or that it is based off religious values?

Any animal, human or otherwise, values life. Watch a desperate gazelle try to outrun a cheetah and tell me that that gazelle does not value its own life. Is that gazelle religious? As for love, how is it a fundamental value that originates from religion? Do you have proof of this? I love my husband and my children. Does that mean that the feelings I have is only promoted by religious values and therefore I should not be feeling them I as an atheist?

In a purposeless universe morality is merely a human convention...
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Are you saying that it is not?
 
Bells said:
I love my husband and my children. Does that mean that the feelings I have is only promoted by religious values and therefore I should not be feeling them I as an atheist?
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Hi Bells,

Thank your for your response. I was saying that moral actions are actions that deepen love relationships. Immoral actions fail to respond to the demand of love.

Glad that you don't hold that each person is radically alone and separated from all others.
 
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Nothing can be derived from belief in God, because evidently he only talks to a few. Morality is independent of religion and preceded it. Religion often steers people into misguided moral views, like justifying the killing of abortion doctors and beating up gays.
 
Mind Over Matter said:
My point is... between atheists and religious who depicts an extremely individualistics way of looking at a man?
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Why don't you tell us?
So far you've brought up "not valuing others' lives".
Are you contending that atheists, in general, value others less than do theists?
Or that atheists, in general, are less moral?

Or do you simply consider that having an "individualistic outlook" is somehow inherently bad or wrong?
 
Mind Over Matter said:
Perhaps because they realize religion promotes fundamental values like the value of life and love. There is no obvious reason why they should reject religion lock, stock and barrel.
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And the fundamental value that all those who are different and don't subscribe to your world view are inferior and unacceptable?
I'd say it's safe to say atheists do reject some of the "values" derived from religion.
 
Dywyddyr said:
You said that in reply to:

Or was that simply an acknowledgement that some people aren't human? :p
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We are more like our ancestors than we like to admit, and some of that is a good thing. The great apes understand fairness and love as well as war and cannibalism.
 
Mind Over Matter said:
Perhaps because they realize religion promotes fundamental values
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Wait, the thread title was talking about "values derived from religion."

Now we're down to values "promoted by religion."

What gives?

Mind Over Matter said:
There is no obvious reason why they should reject religion lock, stock and barrel.
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There is no obvious reason to think that religion's efforts at promotion are effective, or that any particular values are "derived from religion."

Mind Over Matter said:
What they don't realize is that the only rational basis of the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity is the fact that God is not an isolated Person but a Community.
Click to expand...

That's not a "rational" basis.

Mind Over Matter said:
In a purposeless universe morality is merely a human convention...
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That's true in any universe. Doesn't mean that there do not exist rational bases for favoring one convention over another.
 
The Moral Argument… a Preview

Dr. Victor Stenger argues effectively that the human moral sense is common to atheists and theists and is as we would expect it to be if it resulted from natural causes, the advantages of cooperation, and social evolution, i.e., it is as we would expect it to be if God had nothing to do with it. If God existed, we would expect theists to be more moral than atheists. There is no evidence for the greater morality of theists. To quote Dr. Stenger, “The very fact that humans have a common moral conscience can be taken as evidence against the existence of God.”

(Want more?)
 
Just a question I hope someone can answer.

Has there ever been a study of prison populations as to the percentage of theist and atheist and how that compares to the general population?
 
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