Christianity

[promethean75]

"If that's so, then why do they hide their deeds?"

Now, that is a difficult and intriguing question that should baffle Gary and convince him that god and objective morality are real even though the answer is as obvious as it is unphilosophical: to stay out of jail.

If there was ever a time for a resounding "DUH," this is it right here, baby.

Almost had em, tho, IC.

[Gary Childress]

Then there's no reason we ought to obey those consciences. And when we're tempted to violate them, as we so often are, there is no reason why we should not do so. Natural affections are temporary and transient, and cultural influences are just indoctrination. And both are mere "is' facts, with neither implying an "ought."

The master debater strikes again. Try disregarding your conscience for a while, IC. See how that works out for you.

Lots of people do it, Gary. Do you suppose the rapist, the enslaver, the pedophile, the thief and the slanderer don't know that they're doing wrong, or that their consciences never bother them? If that's so, then why do they hide their deeds? Why do they rationalize them? Why do they show shame when they're caught? And why do they so often admit, when caught, that they did wrong, rather than insisting to the bitter end that what they did was right? Why do some even regret what they did and repent of it, if their consciences weren't at any time being disregarded?

I'll bet there have been moments in life when you shut down your own conscience. And I don't say that to shame you: we're all the same in that. There have been plenty of times we knew what was the right thing to do, but just didn't quite want to do it, so went about rationalizing to ourselves why we didn't have to...

You stated there is no reason we ought to obey our consciences. Are you one of those people who doesn't have a conscience? Is it some kind of alien phenomena to you only experienced by "others"? Or do you feel guilt or shame when you do something you feel or come to find is wrong? I suspect this is more of your BS about morality "must" be "objective" or else there is no morality, and that it can only be so through the existence of God.

You have a destructive philosophy. You effectively tell people who don't believe in God, that they have no basis for moral feelings. That is incorrect for the majority of people. Most people have moral feelings, even atheists, and no, our consciences are not all identical.

[Immanuel Can]

You stated there is no reason we ought to obey our consciences.

No, if you check the context, you'll see that I stated that if secularism were true, then there would be no such reason. I've never intended to suggest otherwise, and if I failed to make that clear, I apologize, and am grateful for the opportunity to clear that up.

[Belinda]

You stated there is no reason we ought to obey our consciences.

No, if you check the context, you'll see that I stated that if secularism were true, then there would be no such reason. I've never intended to suggest otherwise, and if I failed to make that clear, I apologize, and am grateful for the opportunity to clear that up.

But, Immanuel, you perhaps confuse Gary even more. Moral conscience may not be a miraculous gift from God as you assert.

In the case that moral conscience is not a gift from God then moral conscience comes from man's evolution as a social animal. If societies were not composed of people with moral conscience then societies would not produce prosperity. All varieties of moral conscience are part of the evolution of the human brain.

[Immanuel Can]

You stated there is no reason we ought to obey our consciences.

No, if you check the context, you'll see that I stated that if secularism were true, then there would be no such reason. I've never intended to suggest otherwise, and if I failed to make that clear, I apologize, and am grateful for the opportunity to clear that up.

Moral conscience may not be a miraculous gift from God as you assert.

I think it's a very normal gift from God. Everybody has one.

In the case that moral conscience is not a gift from God then moral conscience comes from man's evolution as a social animal.

If that were true, there would simply be no reason we should believe or follow our consciences, and it's not wrong to violate them. We have many instincts we find it right or necessary to suppress...such as irrational fear, superstition, feelings of aggression and uncontextual lust, or xenophobia. These are all natural impulses, too. So why, if conscience is a mere accident of evolution, should we privilege it, and follow it, when we suppress other impulses of the same sorts?

"It evolved to this" is no reason to feel compelled to obey any of our urges.

Let's say a man wants to enslave another. He finds it very useful to do so. Perhaps he's a tribalist or a Muslim, so his society doesn't even disapprove of it. In fact, he wants to do it. Explain, using only evolution as a basis, why he would be morally wrong to do that.

[Immanuel Can]

In the case that moral conscience is not a gift from God then moral conscience comes from man's evolution as a social animal.

Well, if that were true, why should you follow the “conscience” some contingent “society” gave you? Why not follow tribal “morality,” or Nazi “morality,” or Islamic “morality,” or no morality at all, since it’s was only one society’s bigotry that made your “morality” seem good in the first place?

[Gary Childress]

You stated there is no reason we ought to obey our consciences.

No, if you check the context, you'll see that I stated that if secularism were true, then there would be no such reason. I've never intended to suggest otherwise, and if I failed to make that clear, I apologize, and am grateful for the opportunity to clear that up.

That's exactly what I thought and stated so before your reply. Go back and read my reply again.

[Immanuel Can]

You stated there is no reason we ought to obey our consciences.

No, if you check the context, you'll see that I stated that if secularism were true, then there would be no such reason. I've never intended to suggest otherwise, and if I failed to make that clear, I apologize, and am grateful for the opportunity to clear that up.

That's exactly what I thought and stated so before your reply. Go back and read my reply again.

Okay, Gary. So long as you get the point, it's fine.

[Immanuel Can]

"If that's so, then why do they hide their deeds?"
Now, that is a difficult and intriguing question that should baffle Gary...

But not you? So what would your answer be?

[Gary Childress]

No, if you check the context, you'll see that I stated that if secularism were true, then there would be no such reason. I've never intended to suggest otherwise, and if I failed to make that clear, I apologize, and am grateful for the opportunity to clear that up.

That's exactly what I thought and stated so before your reply. Go back and read my reply again.

Okay, Gary. So long as you get the point, it's fine.

Like I said, you have a destructive philosophy, telling atheists that they shouldn't obey their consciences. It doesn't seem to phase you, though. Maybe you really don't have a conscience. Not everyone does.

[Immanuel Can]

That's exactly what I thought and stated so before your reply. Go back and read my reply again.

Okay, Gary. So long as you get the point, it's fine.

Like I said, you have a destructive philosophy, telling atheists that they shouldn't obey their consciences.

I don't tell them any such thing. Atheism does. It gives them no reason to think their consciences are telling them anything they have a duty to believe.

[Gary Childress]

Okay, Gary. So long as you get the point, it's fine.

Like I said, you have a destructive philosophy, telling atheists that they shouldn't obey their consciences.

I don't tell them any such thing. Atheism does. It gives them no reason to think their consciences are telling them anything they have a duty to believe.

People don't choose what they are conscientious about or what makes them feel shame or guilt. You don't need to be a theist to have a good or bad conscience. People from all walks of life have consciences and the ones who don't come from all walks of life also.

[Immanuel Can]

Like I said, you have a destructive philosophy, telling atheists that they shouldn't obey their consciences.

I don't tell them any such thing. Atheism does. It gives them no reason to think their consciences are telling them anything they have a duty to believe.

People don't choose what they are conscientious about or what makes them feel shame or guilt.

Neither do they have to respond to it. Atheism doesn't leave them any instructions on that.

[Gary Childress]

I don't tell them any such thing. Atheism does. It gives them no reason to think their consciences are telling them anything they have a duty to believe.

People don't choose what they are conscientious about or what makes them feel shame or guilt.

Neither do they have to respond to it. Atheism doesn't leave them any instructions on that.

Correct, they don't have to respond to it, but that's not going to alleviate shame and guilt, probably make it worse.

[Immanuel Can]

People don't choose what they are conscientious about or what makes them feel shame or guilt.

Neither do they have to respond to it. Atheism doesn't leave them any instructions on that.

Correct, they don't have to respond to it, but that's not going to alleviate shame and guilt, probably make it worse.

Right. Because the conscience "knows" what Atheists don't -- that morality is real and objective, and when they fall afoul of it, they feel that as keenly as anybody. That's how God has made us all.

But then, Atheism has failed yet again to explain a very ordinary human phenomenon. For Atheism supplies us no reason at all to care about whatever this "conscience" thing says. There's no duty to follow it attached to it at all, according to Atheism.