My Atheist Friends, Help Me Understand
I read posts here that call different things, "harmful to humanity." Others call something, "good" or "bad" or "evil."
A very simple question, who gets to decide the definition of "harmful to humanity" and what is there critieria? The same for "good," "bad," and "evil?" These are not material terms. If everything is material isn't there just "is" and not these moral declarations if one is being thoroughly atheist?
Help me understand your position so I am fair and honest about the views. Thanks.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on -
Lonely - Mankind evolved what we call a social conscience because that helped our species survive all of the difficulties it had to face in the grasslands of Africa, millions of years ago. No god, or supernatural being had anything to do with it.
There was a time, when Humans almost went extinct - there were only a few thousand of us left - some near the sea, in the area of Cape Horn in Africa, and others near the coast just west of Madagascar, but we survived and multiplied and here we are, but no supernatural being had anything to do with it.
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Permalink Reply by thelonely on -
@archaeopetryx
if this is Mankind all Mankind made,and History can provide us by answers,that"there was a time" is a key to all locks,and this history is like stage/scene of evolution of what we talk about it now "morality"!so why it have stopped now,as if Mankind reaches their perfect state or integrality, i think in this subject history can not give us answers it may help us to avoid wrong assumptions .and why we need it if everything is still here and we can test it, and seriously the thesis that moral and ethic is just a result of evolution,and we passed from extinct to a controlled extinct,can not be very true because we are still behaving under a complicated mixture of extinct and moral and taste and economics,maybe politics and many other factors, thus we refer to morality to feel free from all this reality,the idea of evolution till now could not answer us about Language and morality,the ability of knowing this is good or bad looks like is steady and constant and it's not related to the intelligence. let's forgot (god) and try to think in other way.
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on
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Lonely, I know I told you of the time I spent in Mexico, with only a small understanding of the Spanish language, which I later learned, so I never criticize anyone who tries to speak English, but I have to say that I do not understand your post. Can you go back and rephrase it, so I can understand it better?
I want to respond, but I really don't know what to say.
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on -
Do you realize that his post there is one gigantic run-on sentence? His capitalization is semi-random. The sentence begins in lower case but Mankind and History are capitalized for some reason.
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on
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@Unseen - hey, English is not the kid's first language, give him a break!
OR, here's a better idea, let him write it to you in Arabic, and you can translate it for us - does that work for you?
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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on -
Archaeopteryx - he has plenty of Arabic Muslims with whom he ca discuss his theological outlook. I'm not sure why so many theists feel they need to justify their positions with Atheists - perhaps just a way to hone their apologetics. In any event, he came here trying to spread the message of his cult and I, for one, see no reason whatsoever to treat him with kid gloves because he chose a forum that didn't use his first language.
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on
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Call it intuition (or anything else you like), but I also sense he's looking for answers, and possibly other points of view, and I intend giving him the benefit of the doubt. There's a distinct difference in character between Lonely and a troll like Michael, with whom I've no patience whatever.
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Permalink Reply by John Major on -
@thelonely. We deceive it because there is a very powerful force within us called self interest. This allows us to have free pass to do what suits, like keeping slaves, subjugating women, eating animals and the like.
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Permalink Reply by thelonely on
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@john major,i can easily give you other examples of "what suits" for other ppl you may be one of them,or simply i said i am not keeping slaves,i am not subjugating women (i am single),but i like chicken yes.So this is not a way of good discussion in "think atheist" i think. thank you.
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Permalink Reply by onecae on -
No, but remember, If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on Paul's support.
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Permalink Reply by John Major on
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@Thelonely. Thank you.
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on
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I don't know where to post this, but I feel it's important, and if the powers that be choose to censor it, that's on them.
I didn't REALLYstart to get pissed until they denied Archaeopteryx - at some point, you just gotta say, Hey --!
Creationists In South Korea Force Removal Of Evolution From High-School Textbooks
Creationists in South Korea won a campaign to remove evolution from high school textbooks.According to Nature.com, a group called the Society for Textbook Revise mounted an effective petition drive and is claiming credit for the removal of the evolution "error" from student's textbooks in order to "correct" their understanding of the world.
South Korean publishers will soon be removing examples of evolution from many high-school textbooks. The decision was taken , after government officials sent the Society's petition to publishers, reports the New York Daily News.
The group petitioned to remove specific examples of how animals have evolved, including the horse and Archaeopteryx bird, along with any reference to human evolution and Charles Darwin's theory of human origin. The Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (MEST) has confirmed that publishers are working on revised editions.
According to Newser, the Society For Textbook Revise was set up in the 1980s by the US Institute for Creation Research when Christianity spread across South Korea.
Many biologists are furious with this decision saying they were not consulted. Dayk Jang, an evolutionary scientist at Seoul National University, told Newser: “The ministry just sent the petition out to the publishing companies and let them judge.”
South Korea is increasingly becoming a "scientific powerhouse," Josh Rosenau, programs and policy director at the National Center for Science Education told the Daily News. But Rosenau worries that South Korea will not be able to compete internationally if it doesn't continue teaching evolution in schools.
“Evolution is the core of modern biological science,” he said. “When something like this comes to fruition, the scientific community can be caught flat-footed.”
According to Newser, approximately forty percent of South Koreans don't believe in evolution, akin to a Gallup poll showing nearly the same percentage of Americans also deny evolutionary claims.
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