Since pre-monotheistic times, when classic philosophy found morality, ethics and goodness could only be truly meaningful when they were decided upon by mortals for the wellbeing of mortals, and not deliberated under the whim and capriciousness of Gods , there has been , and fortunately is in America to this day at least, a counter balance against that imaginary attempted divine interference. On the basis of that knowledge and understanding the ancient Greeks brought , is established therefore in spite of the Gods and not because of them, secular democratic law They had the empathy to which Gabfly refers, to comprehend that allowing human kindness to be arrogated through the medium of any imaginary God , is to usurp the common understanding of goodness , and open it up to abuse. One of the last people to be declaring what goodness should be or mean for humanity, would be a Christian , or any deity-groupie for that matter , who through their myriad of denominations, each argue and often kill each other for their own superstitious interpretations of what is right and wrong, and therefore denigrate the very nature of virtue as they proclaim it. Performing rituals through the medium of mythical guru teachers like Jesus or Mohammed for example, who one minute are telling you to love thy neighbor and the next to hate your family, should make it immediately clear these so called messiahs, would certainly not make it into the leagues of good-hearted mortal human beings who already know it is morally reprehensible to hate your family. People who are good, are good anyway despite teachings from their religion. If they are good because of it , then they cannot be said to be truly good. Good purely is for the sake of goodness only. To expect no reward. How is it good-hearted because of selfish wishful thinking, that you will do good in order to please some supernatural being who will bestow an eternal afterlife for your trust and subjugation , but which can decide itself that goodness is not what you know it to be anyway?. Any religious group who will hand over decisions on the wellbeing of humanity to the medium of an imaginary deity to usurp virtue, is simply leaving morality open to abuse. There is nothing virtuous in that. It should be no surprise that standards in a society would decline over time when the natural common basic ethic is constantly being handed off to a God, away from the secular social conscience where the doing of what is right and the avoiding of what is wrong, is altruistically and humanistically determined, as those Greeks showed, who after all did shape entire Western thought. Their message is simple and straightforward. There's no necessity for an extra reason, to be doing what you should be doing for your fellow human beings anyway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- I use Islam for the example today. Look at my post. They make rule and law from thier Koran. What happens if in the USA today they make rule and law from religion? What religion? Evangelical christians, Catholics, Baptist, Protestant (all christian)? All this christians in the USA, and have freedom to their religion. That is good. But what happens if they have power to make law and rule for the whole country? Look how they fight about doctrine. "It is also interesting to note that Monsignor Fushek is awaiting trial on seven misdemeanor counts including contributing to the delinquency of a minor, indecent exposure and assault. But these allegations are not the reason he is being excommunicated. His crime according to the church is that he is part of a worship service that does not hold to Catholic doctrine. http://endtimespropheticwords.wordp...christians-and-catholics-truly-walk-together/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Six sisters in Hot Springs, Arkansas were automatically excommunicated due to their participation in the Community of the Lady of All Nations, or more commonly called, the Army of Mary" "A Vatican official stated that the âassociation is no longer considered a Catholic organization because of its false teachings on the Trinity and Mary.â âWe want to do Godâs will, and we believe we are Catholic,â said the 82-year-old Dionne, the assistant superior of the convent. âEven though they say we are not Catholic, this is not true,â said Dionne http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/six_army_of_mary_sisters_in_arkansas_excommunicated/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Today, most Protestant Christians (including many who don't even like to call themselves "Protestant," such as the Baptists) hold to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Though their interpretations of Scripture often vary, they do not accept the ecclesiastical authority of a hierarchical body (such as the Vatican) to dictate the meaning of Scripture, nor do they accept the right of the Pope (or any other institutional officer) to announce new revelation from God." http://protestantism.suite101.com/article.cfm/sola_scriptura ---------------------------------------------------------------------
You are so full of shit so often. Christians are not against empathy. They are against fools pretending that government can be trusted with more concentrated power. The rest of your diatribe is unfounded.
Bernard Carr is an astronomer at Queen Mary University, London. Unlike Martin Rees, he does not enjoy wooden-panelled rooms in his day job, but inhabits an office at the top of a concrete high-rise, the windows of which hang as if on the edge of the universe. He sums up the multiverse predicament: âEveryone has their own reason why theyâre keen on the multiverse. But what it comes down to is that there are these physical constants that canât be explained. It seems clear that there is fine tuning, and you either need a tuner, who chooses the constants so that we arise, or you need a multiverse, and then we have to be in one of the universes where the constants are right for life.â But which comes first, tuner or tuned? Who or what is leading the dance? Isnât conjuring up a multiverse to explain already outlandish fine-tuning tantamount to leaping out of the physical frying pan and into the metaphysical fire? Unsurprisingly, the multiverse proposal has provoked ideological opposition. In 2005, the New York Times published an opinion piece by a Roman Catholic cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, in which he called it âan abdication of human intelligence.â That comment led to a slew of letters lambasting the claim that the multiverse is a hypothesis designed to avoid âthe overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science.â But even if you donât go along with the prince of the church on that, he had another point which does resonate with many physicists, regardless of their belief. The idea that the multiverse solves the fine-tuning of the universe by effectively declaring that everything is possible is in itself not a scientific explanation at all: if you allow yourself to hypothesize any number of worlds, you can account for anything but say very little about how or why. http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=137
"cause no harm" I think you have the foundations of a religion in there somewhere I think you posses the same problem as most anti-religious fanatics, you believe that belief is the root of all evil, which you've argued doesn't exist
Christianity is not a pre-requisite to empathy Best response from a Christian ..... ...Christians are not against empathy.... they just don't empathize with it.
Well as long as they ( and everybody else) keeps their empathy out of major govt policy objectives I'm okay with it.
Note to self - its good to be on the side of science and logic. Afterall, top scientists state that the universe appears fine tuned and a nobel prize winning physicists supports the idea that it is an abdication of intelligence to argue our universe developed the way it has by random chance.