What Happens When You Remove Faith

Wow, I feel special, being all singled out n’stuff Not so much adding negative treatment as much as removing positive treatment... It is immediately good for me although, admittedly, can have negative side effects in the long run. No, its that I think my responsibility extends to nobody. They aren’t worth a shit anyways . People, in general, don’t deserve to be treated in any particular way. They’re just another animal. They’ll stab me in the back for my apple just the same. It just so happens that I care about my family and friends, because I’ve been close to them my whole life. There's no sense in preaching Jesus-stuff under the premise that god doesn't exist. It goes with the question “Without god, would you torture kill a kitten?”. Well, there’s cats out there that would have no problem torturingkilling me. (Maybe I should have used the word kill instead because it doesn’t carry the weight of the malicious intent that torture does, but I hope you get the point and don’t harp on it.) Why should I feel bad about killing them?Now, without god, and seeing humans as just another animal, why would it be wrong to kill other humans? They’d kill me all the same. Ok, maybe it was a bad example. The point was that people are bad and do bad things. If you give them penalties for the bad behavior they stop doing them. Without the penalties, as we've seen in the far past, people are bad (and act in a way much closer to animals). {{an off topic point: I think this is kinda what was hinted at with The Fall, that poeple left their place within nature to be in the place they are today}}God’s penalties are just another set, and without them, there’s less reasons to not be bad.I guess I just see 'bad' as the default.Lets raise a couple wild-men away from civilization and see what their behavior is like. Do you think they would be "good"?

nevermindEdited by Catholic Scientist, : content removed

I don't know. No reason, I guess. Same for people too, eh? I was assuming they had a reason to kill me. Most people are 'followers', and just do what the rest of the group tells them to do. I'll check it out, thanks. So, when you go meet that tribe, are you going to take Stile and Schraff's approach, or are you going to keep your dukes up?Stile and Schraff would get killed and robbed in a second with their approach. That's why I think its bollocks (

Greedless goodness. If we were to remove all penalties for people's actions, then I think we could refer to people as a "Potentially Dangerous Tribe", hell, we can still refer to much of them that way even with penalties for their actions. Besides, I thought you were typing, generally, about how you approach life and behave.If all penalties were removed from people's actions, would you behave any differently? Why or why not? Yeah, I doubt that is going to happen

I agree. I agree with that too. Or the amount of people that are "Actually Dangerous Tribes" (as opposed to potentially) is fairly low where you're hanging out. I thinking along the lines of laws and 'religious' penalties. I wan't thinking physical or emotional "penalties". Sounds good to me. And that's how many poeple do it even with laws. But you gotta keep the dukes around. With only the greedless goodness (and no dukes), you would get taken advantage of or 'taken out'. That's why I don't think greedless goodness works, or exists on some hard-wired evolutionary level. Sure, its easy to claim or have in today's world, but this is hardly the world we evolved through.In the type of world we did evolve through, out-group greedless goodness would not have worked (or didn't). In my experiences, you can't rely on the 'someone else' to get the job done. You have to stick up for yourself. SO do you think that everything (well not everything) is, on some level, either good or bad?

With faith:b) Try to intervene and stop the man from killing the babiesWithout faith:c) Just shrug your shoulders and think " Oh well, whatever's the custom here"I'd expect typical atheists to respond with a)Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

What attitude do you take when you are surrounded by 'others'?What if you can't avoid 'them'? But the seperation is there, nonetheless. It doesn't have to rely on the presence of religion. But the presence of religion is, indeed, having an effect. I'm using 'religion' in a very broad sense.Your 'religion', or lack there of, involves "avoiding the 'others'"Now, as far as the TOPIC of removing faith.Why is so surprising to some of these people that when you alter the religion, you alter the behavior?

You'd just drop what you believed and take their word as true? Or would you falsely integrate?Do you think you would you become as "bad" as them?Or would you maintain your 'religion'? Ahh but there were gods, real or not. Why are people supprised or disgusted, even, by this? Of course.

But I don't want to shed my culture and I don't want to join their's. I think I'm just stuck in out-group mode. In fact, I don't think I'm even invited into thier group. Maybe that's why I sometimes come off as a selfish asshole, because the greedless goodness isn't an option, and from what I've seen, I better keep my dukes up. ...but an inevitable and possibly neccessary one. Oh, I thought thats what they were suprised/disgusted about. Well, I don't know of any people like that.I think both sides are somewhere in the middle thinking that the other side is on the extreme :\ As an aside, what about the Vatican? Do you find their culture to be "repugnant to your sensibilitis"?But anyways, I see what you're typing. I don't think I'd like a 'faith only' culture, but I wouldn't like a 'secular only' culture either. I believe god exists and I think it makes the world a better place. But I love science too. I'd like to have both. I don't think it will ever decline that far. People are still going to have faith regardless. I don't think it is something that can be eliminated. I also think it was, and still is, an important part of our evolution. I saw the thread on it but haven't come up with a post yet. I think your right. I think that faith should be 'under' rationality, so to speak type. When you keep faith on top, it starts to fuck up all kinds of shit, IMHO.
But still, I think it should be there somewhere. Not gone altogether, or negligible. What do you think under the premise that god really does exist? I just don't think that we, as humans, are going to be able to rid ourselves of faith. Maybe that's because I'm a theist though. If god really does exist, how are people going to NOT have faith in it, especially if it is somehow interacting with people.As an atheist, I think I would be right with you. But doesn't it seem like burning other people's culture to eradicate faith?

hrm, I'm a good person but I'm spiky.

But don't you think that if you doing selfish goodness, then you're not doing good?I mean, didn't you say that doing good for selfish reasons makes it bad? Like, the end doesn't justify the means....

Maybe I misunderstood you. What did you mean?I've thought this whole time that you thought that greedy goodness was a bad thing

I don't think its that subtle.What would you call the combination of the motive and the action? Isn't that what we are discussing, whether that combination is good or bad? So you don't think the motive affects the goodness of the combination of the action and motive? Ok. What did you mean by:

quote:

---

that wouldn't be moving in the positive direction of morality in the firstplace, pretty counter-productive.

---

What did you mean by "not moving in the positive direction of morality" and "counter-productive"? They sound like the combination of the action and motive and they sound bad to me.