I (32m) started seeing prostitutes when I was 20 and have done it on and off up to my current age. I find the lack of sexual and emotional connection lures me into to seeing them even when I say I’m going to stop. Whenever I am doing decent financially I end up going back to seeing them. I try to be a spiritual person and read the bible and not lust over women but it can be a struggle and mental battle. Does anyone else have this same bad habit?
How can something be morally wrong if there is no God?
Morals only exist by consensus. If enough people agree something is moral, it practically is. They are an idea, not something that actually exists in nature.
So if nazis were to take over and start making these horrible morals, and people follow them, it’ll be okay?
Depends on who you ask. If you ask the Nazis they’ll say it’s ok. The people they took over would probably disagree.
So who do you believe? Who do you listen to?
I believe that man is made in the image of God, and the Nazi’s treatment of people degrading them as livestock was deeply blasphemous, cruel and immoral. They did not love God with all of their heart and did not love their neighbour as themselves. So I conclude that the Nazis were evil and anyone today who continues to sympathise with them is evil.
So who do you believe? Who do you listen to?
That is really up to you. Whomever your personal morals align with the most. Or don’t listen to anyone and just rely on your own morals.
Basing your morals on “god” is just kicking the can down the road. First of all … which god? There is hundreds of them. And even if people agree on the god, they disagree on the interpretation of the morals (for some reason gods tend to be super ambiguous and imprecise). So you’re still left with the questions “So who do you believe? Who do you listen to?”. It answers nothing.
Because ethics, compassion, love, etc aren’t dependant on religion, they’re basic human values.
they’re basic human values.
According to who?
According to those understanding what it means to be human.
Instinct. Which is a pretty word to say “évolution etched this in our brain as moral people tend to survive longer”
Looking after your grandmother doesn’t benefit humanity. In fact, looking after the old would negatively impact humanity as it’s basically a waste of resources.
Haha, when you’re married and lost for a babysitter you’ll change your mind, when you want recipes, stories about your parents, and a million other things besides their love, caring… but if you miss out on that or don’t value it your life will be poorer for it, no matter how much money you have in the bank.
Looking after your grandmother means you look after people in general, in hope that people will look after you. This is social animal 101
How can someone be a moral person if they only act out morally out of fear of a gods wrath?
You can also act morally out of love for God. A moral act is a moral act regardless of intention. The alternative is no morality at all. And in that case, you’re either following the law out of love for your state and/or fellow human, or because you don’t want to be sent to prison for breaking the law.
The alternative is no morality at all. And in that case, you’re either following the law out of love for your state and/or fellow human, or because you don’t want to be sent to prison for breaking the law.
You’re going in a circle there. If individually define moral action as “an action that cannot be derived from anything but some kind of supernatural being”, then yeah, you can dismiss anything else on normative grounds. But then what’s the point of asking “How can something be morally wrong if there is no God?”?
If there is no god there is no other responsibility than your own. No destiny or gods plan to hide behind, no comfort that people who suffer now will have a better place to go to when they die. You either act like a decent person now or you mess up the only chance people have at a nice life. Once you accept that, there is only the choice to help others or at least minimise the damage you cause just by being there. People who would not realise that on their own won’t improve with religion. They are the kind that would only use religion to judge others and decide the infidels lives don’t matter.
There is enough humanist morality that does not include god and a lot of pretty decent morality that comes from non Christian philisophy or religion. If you want religious people who really act good look at the Sikh. If you want a set of humanist morality rules that have nothing to do with the christian god look at the tenets of the satanic temple.
The Satanic Temple has seven fundamental tenets:
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Because morality exists independently of any deity figure. It is ultimately a set of ideas about what constitutes good conduct between humans and the environment around them.
So why does one Humans moral code matter more than another
Why do you believe that it does?
Look mate, we’re a cosmic blip. On the scale of the universe, we don’t even register. We’re born, we live, we die, and on the scale of how long the universe has existed, it’s not even a blink. The universe is about 13,900,000,000 years old. The first single-cell organisms emerged about 3,500,000,000 years ago. Humans, in our current form, have only existed for a mere 300,000 years. Our sun will turn into a red giant in about 5,000,000,000 years, which will sterilize the surface of the earth, but it won’t matter to humans, because we will have evolved into an entirely different species and almost certainly have gone completely extinct billions of years before that happens.
NOTHING we do matters to the universe. There is nothing we can do that will affect the course of the entire universe. Any belief to the contrary is simply terror management. So how could one moral code, in the grand scheme of the universe, matter more than any other?
What makes you believe, aside from your attempts to manage your terror of non-existence, that any of your morality matters at all?
What makes you believe, aside from your attempts to manage your terror of non-existence, that any of your morality matters at all?
Because I believe that the moral code I follow was authored by a Creator higher than the universe.
If you’re an atheist, morality simply is just a suggestion.
And what is your belief based on? What falsifiable evidence do you have that it’s actually correct, factually true?
In other words, how do you know?
I am convinced that Jesus literally and bodily rose from the dead, and Is Who He says He Is. That is, that He is God.
It is enforced, by varying degrees, by the censure or support of other humans, as well as one’s own conscience.
The moral code you follow may have been authored by a creator figure. It may not have. Frankly, it’s beside the point. In practice, Christian morality is enforced by support or censure of the church and its teachings. It takes as its bedrock a shared conception of humanity as the Created. An atheist’s or humanist’s morality is similarly enforced by support or censure of their human community, though with a different bedrock (a belief in the dignity and capacities of humanity, for instance, either absent of or separate from a deity).
One does not need to be a Christian to act morally. It does mean certain lines may be drawn in areas different than a Christian, but I would say that that simply makes the individual a non-Christian where those lines do not otherwise impede on, say, humanity’s inherent dignity.
I want to say I write this with full respect for your beliefs in your Creator. I believe tolerance for the beliefs of others, where they do not impede on those who do not share those beliefs to live their lives freely, is important. I will add that if OP was being truthful, and actually is a Christian struggling with soliciting sex workers, your suggestion to seek out the Church is a valid one. If nothing else, it places him among humans that share the values he seeks to embody, and may help him on the path he wishes to walk.
For my part, I see no issue so long as both parties enter these arrangements with no coercion or out of compulsion, with the issue here being (absent the Christian context, irrelevant for me but not necessarily you or OP) the compulsion. If it feels bad, and it serves no greater aim, don’t do it, figure out why you’re doing it, and do things more aligned with your morals and ideals - that’s my take.
Do you think only the religious can be moral? That morality only comes from religion? That people cant simply respect others’ lives and live their licpvss according to a moral code?
No. We are inbuilt with a moral code by God. However, people can desensitise themselves to things or lie to themselves. This is why you need a moral code given by God. You cannot have an moral code without God.
We are inbuilt with a moral code by God.
This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.
If you believe that an omnipotent God designed everything to be exactly how it is, then its a perfectly logical statement. But then you also have to accept that God gives kids cancer.
Why do you assume that a god is necessary for morality? What led you to this conclusion? What falsifiable evidence do you have?
No, it doesn’t matter to the universe. Morality can still matter to you. This is the idea that existentialism is built around: you have to make choices for yourself.
Morality matters, friend, even for atheists like me. The trouble with the “only believers can be moral” standpoint is that believers can end up doing the most heinously amoral things in the name of their god. Like burning people alive for example. Stoning sinners to death.
But why does it matter? You can still be moral and be an atheist, but it involves adopting someone’s moral standard without any rational basis.
I don’t need a god to tell me hurting people is bad.
What if someone else does?
If someone else tells me it’s wrong to hurt people I would agree.
Because my god can beat up your god.
Who is your god?
Obviously the one true God.
And his name is…
JOHN CENA 🎺🎺 🎺
