Morality without God is impossible

Sure it a story. Well actually it's an edited collection of mythologies. We have literally millions of stories with beginnings, middles and ends that give us meaning. We like stories.But we don't like feeling that we're not special, that this is all there is and that when we die that it, over. So we make up stories to make us feel better and form institutions and power structures around them. We've done this forever; all those different gods, all those different stories, all those religions and priests. And no-one can agree on any of them.You can't even agree on the Jesus story, the Jews, the Muslims and the Christians all have totally different stories. Isn't that proof of a myth in itself?Life is it's own meaning; you don't need this god thing to give it meaning.

Candle, GDR believes what he believes because he's not insane enough to believe what you believe. He prefers a different story. There are lots of stories.One morning, Thor woke up and found that his mighty hammer, Mjolnir, was missing. He searched everywhere in his hall, but he could not find it. He was furious and suspected that someone had stolen it. He called his loyal servant, Thjalfi, and asked him to help him find his hammer.They went to the palace of Freyja, the goddess of love and beauty, and asked her if she had seen Mjolnir. Freyja said that she had not, but she offered to lend Thor her feather cloak, which could make him fly like a bird. Thor thanked her and put on the cloak. He flew across the nine worlds, looking for his hammer, but he could not find it anywhere.He returned to Asgard, the home of the gods, and met Loki, the trickster god. Loki asked him what was wrong, and Thor told him that his hammer had been stolen. Loki said that he knew who had taken it: it was Thrym, the king of the frost giants. He had hidden Mjolnir in his hall in Jotunheim, the land of the giants, and he would only give it back if Freyja agreed to marry him.Thor was outraged and said that he would never let Freyja marry a giant. He asked Loki to help him get his hammer back. Loki agreed and said that he had a plan. He put on Freyja’s feather cloak and flew to Jotunheim. He found Thrym in his hall, surrounded by his giant kin.Loki greeted Thrym and said that he had come as Freyja’s messenger. He said that Freyja had accepted Thrym’s proposal and was willing to marry him, but only if he gave her Mjolnir as a bridal gift. Thrym was overjoyed and said that he would do so. He ordered his servants to bring Mjolnir and place it on Freyja’s lap.Loki smiled and said that he would go back to Asgard and bring Freyja to Jotunheim for the wedding. He flew away with Mjolnir in his hands. He met Thor on the way and gave him his hammer back. Thor was delighted and thanked Loki for his cleverness.They returned to Asgard and told Freyja what had happened. Freyja was relieved and glad that she did not have to marry Thrym. She took back her feather cloak from Loki and thanked him for his help.Meanwhile, Thrym waited for Freyja in his hall, but she never came. He realized that he had been tricked by Loki and became angry. He swore revenge on Thor and Loki for stealing his bride and his hammer.But Thor was ready for him. He wielded Mjolnir and struck down Thrym and his giant kin with thunder and lightning. He reclaimed his honor and his hammer, and no one dared to steal it again.

Gosh, what a wag! It's been ages since I've been toyed with. How I laughed!
Who said right-wing fundamentalist loonies have no sense of humour?How are you getting on with that question I asked you?

​Generally speaking, if something is myth, it ain't accurate. Stories give hope. But they're inventions - they're not real. There is no rational reason behind your belief, it's just a hope for something other than what is. The sooner we give up this nonsense and deal with the reality of life and grow up, the sooner we can improve our lives here. This is all we have and that's fine.

The world is stuffed full of stories and parables - all the world's religions have them. I asked Chat GPT to create one - it was as good as any.Why you would think a story is evidence of gods, is only explained from previous indoctrination. You believe the stories that were prevalent in the society you were brought up in. You reject the stories and parables of related religions. You even - and rightly - reject many of the stories and parables in the OT because you don't like them. The rational reason is that we know that everything we've ever discovered about the natural world and the universe as a whole does not show any evidence of supernatural involvement and at every turn we find we can reject it as an explanation. We have yet to find any evidence at all for the supernatural or any of the claims of any religious institutions. None. Oh defiantly. Luckily, your delusion is pretty harmless, the major concern is for the likes of fundamentalists like candle.​

​
It's neither acceptable nor unacceptable, it just is. Animals do what evolution has required of them to survive. Or they die.In your view animals were put here as we see them now by your god which requires them to kill other of god's creation just to stay alive. Their "serial killing" behaviour is ordained by your god.So by each of our views, animals are released of any need to act by human or godly moral standards. Not so much of the filthy and random - humans are the animals that are destroying our planet and there’s nothing random about the organisation of an animal’s brain - try not to be dumber than you are.We don't hold ourselves to different moral standards to other animals, we hold no moral standards for other animals.Man is the moral animal - though several animals show behaviour that we could call moral. We, as a civilisation attempt to evolve our moral behaviours over time, we are making progress but it’s slow and not uniform. Too often the real animal side of our make-up interferes and your god is nowhere to be seen. He's not part of this process.

How can I agree with a bunch of cherry-picked anecdotes?If I was trying to make the case for something, I'd present real, balanced supporting evidence. Do you want to try again? Maybe you're right, prove it to me. We don't; as I've said many times over the years but it never sticks because you guys can never bring yourselves to believe it., I believed the same things that you do now once. And if you'd been born in the Atlas Mountains you'd have believed something completely different. Go figure.

Yes I know, it was another "I believe..." statement.You don't know how to work out whether something you feel is actually factually correct. Remember polio? I had a friend die of measles. How are you going to balance all the pluses and minuses and not just see the minuses? You see? You can't believe it possible, no matter what I say, you and Phat and Faith just can't believe that I believed as strongly as you do now. It's literally beyond your comprehension.

Not if you're on the science and critical thinking side of an argument.People interested in finding out what is actually correct, do everything they can to remove their inbuilt biases and study all angles of the argument before forming conclusions.

But it's not beyond my comprehension! I know how much you believe because I believed exactly the same, maybe stronger because I was young and had no doubts at all. You see, you can't comprehend anyone believing the way you do now, then not believing. I'm telling you that that's a simple fact. Call it a revelation if it helps.

Past - of course. I missed the 'd' off 'believed' - but that should have been obvious. Have you unknown Father Christmas?

You don't have to 'contend' that, it's an observable fact - humans have the evolved traits of consciousness and empathy which promote beneficial group behaviours. It's got sod all to do with religion - they exist no matter what you believe or who you pray to.

Unless you're a psychopath - which we consider to be a mental disorder - we are all conscious and have empathy and a conscience.But we also have all the other less lovely characteristics of human behaviours which are also evolved traits that were necessary for survival, mostly based around the need to compete for food and mates and to not become food ourselves. .Our later evolved ability to reason controls both sets of emotions - one way or another, sometimes for good sometimes not. Our secular laws and punishments for breaking them just about keep our baser instincts in check and allows society to civilise. It's a long-term, developmental process with lots of backward steps, precisely the opposite of something that was designed.

Please explain this.

What are you doing here Mike?You have no interest in sticking around and having an honest discussion. You'll post five or ten times then flutter off claiming victory. You are a repeat offender. You've re-opened a 3 year old thread. Why should I even consider responding to you?Are you prepared to commit to a real, discussion Mike? One where you don't run away after half a dozen posts?