Its easy to find all the lives religion has ended, but it's hard to measure the ones that it has saved. Our morals come from religion. If we didn't have religion think of all the people that would have died. IT's dumb to make statements like this because there is literally no way of proving how the world would be without religion. Maybe worse maybe better, but you don't know and neither do i. So no it's not plain obvious.

I like to think that I have morals even if bible disagrees. But if the only morality we have is the one given by the religion then too bad.

All I did was ask a question about Kaneco's views, instead of arguing ad hominem, would you care to answer the question?

Assuming we do not get our morals from religion, then where do we get them?

Uninformed here, so sorry if this is a dumb question, but why would the locations chose be so seemingly weird? If their ulitmate goal was to cause the most harm or gain the most coverage, why wouldn't the Stade de France been attacked since it was at the time being broadcast and president hollande was there?

Society as a whole. Humans are social creatures, having morals and a sense of what is right in society helps build and maintain societies because they are necessary for human survival. Religions came about as a way to try to explain how the world works (eg genesis/adam and eve). Societies built up around religions initially with the geographical differences making interacting with different societies difficult. Nowadays between about 20 to 30% of people in the US and Europe consider themselves to not be religious. I'd like to think that they (including myself) aren't all morally bankrupt.

The Stade de France was attacked, two suicide bombers attacked nearby though not the stadium itself as far as I know.

I'm not saying or I didn't mean to say that religion doesn't give followers some morals, because it definitely does.
But I also think that it's wrong to say that we wouldn't have them was it not for the religion.
Our parents and environment teach us too and we also learn by ourselves to tell good from evil. A simple example from almost anyones' lives will be how we're taught in school not to tell on classmates, it is some kind of code of conduct and not exactly something that'd come from religion.

I just thought it was weird considering in the video of them actually playing, you can only faintly hear the explosion. Thanks.

It was a sad night last night.
One of the bigger and less "visible" problem with dealing with any with this, is that since the economic crisis of 2008, governments in Europe have been doing cuts and cuts to keep the debt increase lower, but it means in practice many of these services are undermanned and underfunded. From what I read earlier, in Belgium, we are dealing with 440 poeple who voluntarily left this country to go fight in Syria, and the cyber police unit, who is responsible for tracking what these people when they return back to Belgium and communicate online, is one woman in a part time job. My former boss'es husband works in online fraud, and i heard stories of how underfunded and the crappy offices they were settled in (one electric plug, for a room of a cyber unit of 12 people. Whether you think, that France and the west got this onto themselves for their meddling in Syria (Assad's comment on what happened is sad but true imho, and the interventions in Libya and Syria are a mistake, the Arab Spring leaves a very bitter aftermath for the affected citizens in their country, and the west. Maybe now is the time, for stability and the restoration of their nations border, if the world draws one front against the Jihadi's in Syria.), and I'm sure the ghost of Qaddafi is grimacing pretty hard on what the colonial powers are receiving, or that Europe is being invaded, by a cruel enemy, that will exploit every weakness in her defence, it doesn't matter, the one thing that matters now, is how to get life on track, and how to keep our society safe and free. The USA made some of it's biggest mistakes, by following a doctrine, with a blow-back that will keep regions of the worlds hostage for decades. At the time itself, I never understood why the USA went in undermanned after the Taliban in Afghanistan, and started in Iraq. If they sticked their boots in the ground and weren't under command of "manager" Rumsfeld, there would never been a tide of refugees from there that has been going to europe since 2003-4. Saddam Hussein was an authoritarian dictator, but so are his neighbours. Saudi-Arabia is atm involved with a campaign of occupation in bahrain, and a war in Yemen, to eradicate the shiites, and in the turmoil, IS has territory there as well under control. Saudi-Arabia, which has been supplying madrassas in the middle east and the Mediterranean with their Wahhabi teachings is the biggest supporter financially of IS but the west would never utter any demands to change what their citizens are doing to undermine secularism in the middle east, because the west and saudi arabia "need" each other.

So the people who think about active military intervention? It will only ruin france more, and it's not like any army in europe has been properly keeping up their defense budget, to be able to do the actions, the USA would do. It's exactly what ISIS wants, draw all the western powers into a bogmire, while the most radical elements in society engage in terrorising each other, while governments are tied up in conflicts, that don't strike at the heart of the enemy, and increase the potential recruiting pool for terrorists even more.

It's a very grey mess, and since we are free citizens with reason who carry the torch that the French lit, we will have to accept, that there are people out there, who stand against everything you are for, know your every weakness, and already lost too much, or have no other future, and they are willing to take the fight, into our streets.

For those who radicalise after being born and growing up here, and then blowing yourself up in some hellhole at 25-26, i'm just, so melancholic, I still haven't figured out how you can hate this little grey country, where the girls drive in skirts on their bike, and you have all the beer and cigs and music, and choices, all these choices everyone has in our society with some willpower, and you go get your self killed. Is life that shit, it's worth ending for any conflict? The only sacrifice i would do, is to protect myself or my people, but imagine, you are driving their with your truck, towards the gate of a military base, and in the last 30 meters, you pass by some civilian, who looks at you with innocence, going on about in their life, and you remind yourself to pull the detonator, but will you get into heaven)

this conflict smells the same as any conflict, young people being used as a tool by old men with scrupules and hate, looking to enrich them selves, promising redemption and salvation, while never being at the front yourself.

and it ends up in other young people at a concert, enjoying songs like "you better watch out girl, that boy is bad news" being slaughtered like pigs, and a country in mourning and shock. it's sad, in the world i wish we lived in, the terrorists, who went in, would go like "pretty good music" and put down their guns, and forget about such petty things like war. Sadly, in reality, that will never happen.

A lot of rambling, and i could go on and on, but it doesn't really matter anyway, rather enjoy myself with a beer and a spliff while we still can, and maybe relisten to the histories of the second punic war, and bless myself for being born in the present day.

There is absolutely 0 reason to assume we get them from religion at all. The evolutionary theory of morality and ethics (that moral compunction is an evolved trait that emerged from individual and group pressures) is more than sufficient to explain human morality and even goes so far as to answer why we aren't the only animals to act in a seemingly moral way. Biological evidence even supports this notion.

In fact, I believe that even most theologians these days draw a sharp distinction between religion and morality and one is not reliant on the other. Religion and morality are separate and distinct action guides. I am not saying they are mutually incompatible (there are plenty of moral theists and immoral atheists), just that they aren't in any way related and there is exactly and precisely 0 reason to believe that they are.

we are with you France be strong ♥

Before I voice my agenda, I share my thoughts and sympathies with anyone affected by the attack, whether that be those directly involved, those who know anyone involved, or anyone in general hit hard emotionally by the attack. Keeping you in my thoughts is the most important thing to me, more so than voicing my agenda, and thus I wanted it to be the first thing I addressed with my post.

I am a hardline atheist, but I hold a high deal of respect for the good that religion has done to improve the world in the past. Of course, holy wars were much more prominent in times old, but the Church actively taught people how to read and write, as well as providing food, drink and shelter for those in need. The Arabian Empire was not dedicated to plunder and worldly wealth, but rather to the development of culture, science and the arts, with faith being the primary driving force for their efforts. For their time, they were an incredibly advanced civilization.

But at this stage of humanity, I feel it's reached a point where it is actively holding back our progress as a species. It's being used as an excuse to deny people basic human rights, such as gay marriage, or to promote racism, sexism or any other type of prejudice, or to enact horrific atrocities such as the ones that occurred in Paris yesterday. Whilst this all happened during times old, times old also had the significant advantages that religion brought, whereas the advantages that religion bring today are readily available elsewhere due to the advancement of society; making the advantages obsolete. With the advancements in science and philosophy, it's also fair to assume that it has been giving people false hope all of these years, and that it's time for people to move on from it. It's essentially become a collective of glorified cults and it's another excuse for the world to be driven apart from one another.

The world has evolved a lot for the best since its inception. Religion hasn't.

And do you find this normal or sane? I thought France wrote something that says 'all humans are equal' or some shit like that..

Ok, I really went deep on this one, I rarely speak up about this because its a touchy subject and usually people get all triggered and go full on PC warriors about this kind of stuff and it's not worth it to try and have a rational discussion but since you asked here it goes.

I guess you could say I was raised into a traditional christian family (particularly from my mothers side), frequented sunday school and everything, but early age like right after primary school I started growing out of it and understanding that really all it is is a way to cop out of all the bad things in life, the belief that there's this superior being that guides our lives for the better and at the end we get to live another life in paradise, it means nothing to me. I was very lucky my father was also very progressive and against the church and the influence it had in people, and that the rest of my family allowed me to grow out of it, but I can easily see how thousands of kids out there aren't this lucky and are taught from birth into this doctrine of what is right and wrong according to some 2000 year old scripture.

On the other hand, the thing I am most afraid is death, because for me all it represents is nothingness and ceasing to exist and for me that is far more scary than any other thing in the world, I really believe people use religion as a way to cop out and shelter themselves from this reality.

Religion used to be a bastion of knowledge and the goodness in the world, christian monks among others where some of the most important people to modern world, they saved thousands of ancient works and scriptures, nowadays all it represents to me is backwards beliefs, repression of knowledge/science, violence and greed.

There's even a very good example here in Portugal near my mother hometown in Fátima which is the most important catholic location in portugal and probably one of the biggest religious pilgrimage sites in the world, it's an entire city founded upon undocumented sightings of the virgin mary by some 12 year olds but the reality is that it's a business, it moves milions of dollars a year and the entire city revolves around monetizing church and people beliefs. Even some more progressive priests have come out against it recently.

I don't deny there's good things about religion, the charity work and the spread of general goodwill has surely saved a lot of lives and had a positive influence in millions of people, but it also preys on the weak of mind and is an easy way to take people to extremism. I think the bad outweighs the good and as long as there's religion there will never be peace. Specially when there are different religions who each believe there is a specific all knowing, all powerful man or being that is the answer to all things in life and only that answer can be the right one, I think if you follow the logic its easy to understand why this can lead to violence and extremism.

I wish there was no religion. Whats even more shocking to me is that probably by saying this I get ostracized by this new generation of pseudo liberal and progressive people which will rave and cheer about gay rights and at the same time defend the religions that consider those same actions a sin (in some cases punished by death). It makes 0 sense to me. And Im as progressive and liberal as one can be about these things, I simply can't put religion in the same bag.

We don't need religion to know what is morally right or wrong, we co-existed and thrived far before any religions were "invented". Specially in the age of information and science, when we are sending men to the moon and discovering new planets and galaxies and extra terrestrial life, it just seems to me so mind boggling that such beliefs are still held in such high regard and universally accepted.

I mostly agree with richard dawkins views on religions and here's a good video on some of the problems of religion as a whole.

You really don't have to think hard to come up with some secularly driven massacres that have happened in the last 100 years, and the suffering caused by them dwarfs anything that has gone before or since. Religion is simply a symptom of the same disease - being human, and the human desire of some to exert power over others.

There's nothing that's been done in the name of religion that hasn't also been done in the name of "scientifically proven" racial superiority, historical destiny, or a social system, but they all boil down to the same thing. Religion has been outlawed before and it hasn't stopped millions dying. It's a simplistic platitude.

So I think we can all agree that humans have morals and from those come moral laws. If there are moral laws there must be a moral lawgiver, whether that be society or a religious entity. The question I was asking was where do we get them from?

I find the thinking that society gives us morals flawed. A few examples are since the beginning of America until the 1900's minorities were oppressed through slavery and denial of natural rights. Back then, no one thought that was wrong, society said, "Yes, these people are inferior and it is morally acceptable to have slaves or oppress these people." Another example would be that in the 1940's in Germany, it was morally acceptable, in German society, to kill six million Jews.

Not trying to single out David, just the easiest post to quote.

Woah there dude might want to back off with that Holocaust example

here we go again

I'm quite certain that you just explained how it makes sense.

That just goes to show how susceptible people are to brainwashing. People used religion (the thing about Noah's black son seeing him naked whilst asleep) among other non-religious reasons (being under the idea that black people were physically inferior) to justify slavery and racism towards black people. That's a perfect example of something we would now consider to be morally wrong being prevalent in society due to contemporary morals stemming from both religious and non-religious sources.

If we don't need religion to know what is morally right or wrong, where would you say we get it from?
Religion has been around since the beginning of recorded history, in fact, it's one of the reasons we know what happened in the early world. If it wasn't for monks or scribes or other religious people, we would not know much of what we know today about the past.

I fail to see where I affirmed that society gives the standard for morals, if you don't mind I would love for you to explain your statement more.

At the end of the day, this is a video game forum. I know that what I am saying is most likely contrary to the popular opinion here. In no way do I want to derail this thread for its intended purpose which was to bring attention to the tragedy of what happened in Paris. My heart, thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Paris and those who have died and those who have lost their loved ones.

Why do you keep asking the same question and ignoring replies? :>
I think what dr said is even a better reply to this question.

I have never read anywhere in the Bible about Noah having a black son who was seen as inferior. If someone actually used this as an excuse to justify slavery, then it is completely unfounded in the Christian faith. I would chalk that up to an individual trying to find some excuse to justify something that he knew to be wrong, and eventually everyone else just started using that same excuse. Everyone knows that slavery is wrong, however, slavery was a great way to make money back then. For a small cost, you could have free labor for literally generations.

Something that was once considered morally right is now considered morally wrong. If we get our morals from God then since God presumably doesn't change his mind about what's morally right and wrong then something that was morally right once would always be morally right. If that's the case why do we now consider things that were morally right to be morally wrong?

Valkeri: The sense of an enlightened approach and the critical method required that "If one cannot prove that a thing is, he may try to prove that it is not. If he fails to do neither (as often occurs), he may still ask whether it is in his interest to accept one or the other of the alternatives hypothetically, from the theoretical or the practical point of view. Hence the question no longer is as to whether perpetual peace is a real thing or not a real thing, or as to whether we may not be deceiving ourselves when we adopt the former alternative, but we must act on the supposition of its being real." The presupposition of God, soul, and freedom was then a practical concern, for "Morality, by itself, constitutes a system, but happiness does not, unless it is distributed in exact proportion to morality. This, however, is possible in an intelligible world only under a wise author and ruler. Reason compels us to admit such a ruler, together with life in such a world, which we must consider as future life, or else all moral laws are to be considered as idle dreams... ."
Kant

Davidthewin: please, read up on your own country's history and you will notice this thing called "the civil war" happened. The american forefathers, were all inspired by the enlightment philosophers and there were abolitionists in the thirteen colonies, since always. In contrast, when Leopold II took a hold over congo, the "Force Publique" fought a local war with tribesmen, vs arab enslavers, who had a big hold in the region. That slavetrade, still goes on this very day. We chastise ourselves with our flaws, but in the eagerness of just showing how "empathic" you can be, you ignore history and reality. The local Western African warlords and kings, sold those conquered people willingly to the west, in fact, it was the base of their power. the ottoman empire had millions of slaves, just like the Mughals The USA should get over it's guilt compex over slavery to be honest, and not slander their own country like that.

The Two world wars, seeped all the strength out of Europe, and in the decolonization in the '50s and '60s, many mistakes were made by all sides, the cold war that was going on, created proxy war after proxy war. and this is all secular, but the generations growing up on the battle grounds of ruined nations, turn to religion. You think Al Nasser would like current Egypt? what if we never meddled with Iran in the first place? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran. I'm not sure up to this day, people realise the lasting effect, the devastation of the early stages of the cold war was to the world

The difference is that people in general (the exceptions being abolitionists) didn't think that slavery was wrong.

I believe that I have given clear reasons as to why we can't accept that society gives us our standard for morality. Therefore, if not society then what?

ur right then bro it must only be the bible. a book where there's no genocide of the entire human race for not doing what god wanted, entire cities aren't destroyed cuz god didn't like u banging a dude, god doesn't tell u murder ur son then goes jk just wanted to see if u would, there aren't ridiculous laws about almost anything you can think of where the punishment is obviously death. no dude the bible is a perfect moral center for everyone praise be to Him. Amen

You're basically implying here that morality is objective but it is not. It is subjective and fluid and changes with times. We'd like to believe that over time in society we become more fair and more just and moral by ways of philosophic reasoning, empathy, etc and overall I do think that's the case. DrShadowPuppet briefly mentioned something very important: Many behaviors that we deem moral/amoral can be simplified down to very basic animalistic roots and be explained with natural selection and THAT is the closest we can come to objective morality as we all currently occupy this same, one earth.