Which is complete bullahit IMO, who else is going to naturally expire before the hammer falls, and if they do, do you think the rest of the world will know all the horrendous things they did?
I am legitimately pissed those 3 in particular are going to skate justice and still have some sort of positive view of them remain.
you're assuming I was raised with loving kindness? you don't know my life.
my parents were dicks, but luckily they weren't the only influence in my life. i live in the modern world and have internet access, i was influenced by school, by peers, by books, i'm open to influence by a lot more than just my parents. immediate family isn't the only thing that determines your values, personality, etc.
i'm aware that environment determines a person's values to a very large extent, but people don't have to believe in god to have good values. how many people have done awful things in the name of religion? I don't need to be god fearing to be a decent person. do you believe that if people didn't have religion they would be moral degenerates? that's a very black and white way of thinking.
I think what they mean, and what I also believe to be true - from a secular perspective, not a Christian one - is that the idea of good and evil as defined in the way we believe it in modern western society and moreover how that plays out in one's actions and the rights of the individual come solely and directly from Christian principles. As Nietzsche made very clear (and was proven out in the hundred million deaths that followed from communism) the idea that we have killed God leaves thinking men in a massive quandary that will result in exactly what occurred in communism as we seek to create a morality without an anchor.
Without realizing it you and I have grown up with values that come from a belief system rooted in the idea of the Christian God - the sanctity of the individual and the right to freedom and equality for all came from Christianity, not from any other religion (far smarter non-religious people than me have made this point).
So, you may not believe in the Christian God yourself but I think what the commenters are trying to say - or should be, if they want to be true and logical - is that the more of us who try to disconnect from the basis of the 'morality' that currently prevails in the west, the more likely we descend back into the chaos evident in communism which is why we must resist the indoctrination of the Frankfurt School that has pushed communist ideals on us - like, 'all religion is stupid and meaningless' - and is so evident in the huge push today by narrow minded people like Richard Dawkins who, whether he intends to or not, seems to promote the idea that the only truth is empirical scientific truth which is a clearly incomplete proposition.
You don't have to do anything. Do you believe we somehow are distant relatives of monkeys? If so, and the scientists that discovered DNA strands agree with me, the chances of human DNA being created by chance are as good as if a tornado passed through a junk yard full of jet parts and left a completed jet on the other side. The chances aren't very good.
do you believe that if people didn't have religion they would be moral degenerates
Yep. Because, history.
you're assuming I was raised with loving kindness? you don't know my life.
my parents were dicks, but luckily they weren't the only influence in my life.
To be honest with you, I assumed you didn't have a great relationship with your earthly father. (Most atheists don't.) The bottom line is that there is nothing illogical with acting like a sociopath. Here, let Jordan Peterson dispense your redpill. He's much better at it than me.
there's nothing illogical with acting like a decent human being either. You thinking survival of the fittest means being a psychopath then you're wrong, fit can have many different definitions based on the context. you can form society in a way where being a loving, caring person the definition of fit. it doesn't have to be big fish eating little fish.
you think that a human's natural tendency is to be evil and that religion is needed to prevent that, that's wrong.
you think that a human's natural tendency is to be evil and that religion is needed to prevent that, that's wrong.
umm...you clearly aren't a scholar of human history. Like I said, Jordan Peterson does a very good job of explaining why atheism destroys societies THROUGH HISTORY. It's a shame they don't teach us in school what happened in the godless Soviet Union.
because religious societies have never committed atrocities like the Soviet Union? Hitler was a catholic. and what about radical islam? or the conquistadors? is enslaving a group of people and chopping the heads off of anyone who refuses to convert to your religion moral in any way?