No God, no one to judge me for my actions, deeds and behavior on earth; if God is what you want him to be; then what would happen if I decided that my God told me that school kids were evil little critters, and loaded my Ford E350 full of fertilizer bomb and drove it on to the playground during recess? Or... I decided to follow my sexual urges and seduce your sexy 14-year old daughter with sex, drugs and alcohol because she does not have a father in her life and her mother is also a precise example of "no moral accountability" Since there are no moral absolutes, wouldn't this behavior be "natural," and I would simply be doing what I decided was right? Since there are no moral absolutes, then each person decides for themselves what is moral and what is not.
SmokeUpHerman2013-09-07T09:03:58Z
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Just because people do what is convenient or right in THEIR thinking, doesn't mean that there are no moral absolutes. There are. And those who say there are ABSOLUTELY no moral absolutes, are defeating their own statement WITH their statement.
There is such a thing as moral absolutes. The concept of a "social contracts" is nebulous at best and completely insufficient at it's worst. Let's take the concept of honor killings for an example. One group or society holds that honor killings are moral and just while another society holds that honor killings are immoral and reprehensible. How is it determined which way the greater society should act? How does one society take the dominant role? Should it be based on intellect, population, politics? Or does it necessitate war in order to solve the problem . Even then, does that mean the winner of the war was right? Was Machiavelli correct that might makes right?
Actually, there is someone to judge you for your actions, deeds and behavior on earth - the society you live in, the people around you. If your god told you that school kids were evil and you committed mass murder, you'd be violating the moral code of your group and would be punished. If you committed statutory rape, same thing.
You miss the main point. Each person does _not_ "decide for themselves what is moral and what is not." The moral sense arises from within, but is modified and balanced against the shared moral sense of the group. People who are unable to match their moral sense to that of the group are considered criminals.
Theists' moral sense starts the same way as everybody else's. The only real difference is they've codified it into a holy book, created a god to justify it, and declared it an absolute moral code. Because of this, theists forget the true source of their own moral sense and believe that the only possible source or morals are those imposed from without. Without that external source, they believe, a person is without any moral sense and would run rampant.
In a way, it's sad that theists are so blind to their own selves.
We also have such a thing as empathy. We use our brains to put ourselves in another person's situation and experience the horror of a tragic event as if it had happened to us. From that we can make pretty good guesses about what's right and wrong.
Murder is wrong. Rape is wrong. Stealing is wrong. There doesn't need to a higher authority to decided this.
And what does it say about your own character that the only thing preventing you from doing one of these despicable acts is an "invisible sky enforcer" watching over your shoulder?
Also, how do you explain that countries like Sweden where only 18% of the population claim to believe in God, or Japan where Christianity is a tiny minority, that their violent crime rates are far lower than the United States? How are they able to achieve morality without belief in a Christian God?
There ARE moral absolutes - they are called laws - and that is why throughout history mankind has striven to quell the animalistic urges of SOME people (not all) by laying down rules and regulations.
Under your creed of 'do what thou whilst' mankind would have never developed their societies and we would have made each other extinct with slaughter and rape (as rape in young woman/kids can cause long term damage and infertility). Selection of healthy mates would also cease to exist and children born of forced sex may get weaker and weaker and the gene pool watered down until offspring would have more and more deformaties.
If a society goes into freefall and self gratification it will fail, which is what our ancestors learned from millenia of wars, rape and carnage.
So in a world of no rules and morals you can go ahead, do what you want, steal, kill, rape where you like but there's always a stonger/younger opponent ready to destroy you and your offspring too.