Where do atheists get their morals from?

[crazy canuck]

If you cannot respect faith, then how can you believe in love?  (or more pointedly, that someone else loves you?)

Why would you need faith?  I personally know that it's illogical for someone to not love me.

[Viking]

The use of the word faith as in religious faith and the use of the word faith as in causal or inferred faith can be the source of the confusion. Having faith that somebody loves me is not the same as in having faith that god exists. The former is based on experience and evidence and the latter is not. I have faith that my mother loves me because I have the evidence; what she does, how she does it, what choices she makes, what she says and my best evaluation of her state of mind.

More assertion.

How do you know your mother did do all those things out of a sense of duty rather than love.  How do you know you are not misinterpreting what you percieve as love.   Your best evaluation of another persons state of mind is no better or worse than BB evaluation of the evidence he has to support his faith.

You know what I might be wrong. Maybe my mother didn't love me. Maybe she was really good at faking it. That is quite possible. Welcome to the world of doubt and uncertainty. There are no 100% certainties. The existence of uncertainty does not mean that there is no knowledge and everything is fully subjective and unknowable.

As for religious faith being belief without evidence I'm gonna have to ask you to take that one up with your religious denomination since none of them seem to think that evidence is required. I'll accept the pope's definition of religious faith.

[Viking]

I happen to disagree with BB on the issue of whether God exists.  But I would never doubt the bona fides of his faith that such a God does exist.

Way to go in getting it wrong. I was explaining why I don't think that faith in the existence of god is the same kind of faith as one has in one's gf loving you. I don't doubt that BB thinks a god exists, I just think that BB invents the god his psyche demands.

[garbon]

I don't doubt that BB thinks a god exists, I just think that BB invents the god his psyche demands.

This is a good example of why no one wants to play with you.

[crazy canuck]

I happen to disagree with BB on the issue of whether God exists.  But I would never doubt the bona fides of his faith that such a God does exist.

Way to go in getting it wrong. I was explaining why I don't think that faith in the existence of god is the same kind of faith as one has in one's gf loving you. I don't doubt that BB thinks a god exists, I just think that BB invents the god his psyche demands.

I dont doubt you think your mother loved you.  But all the evidence shows me it was likely duty the drove her and your belief she or anyone else loves you is an invention of your psyche.

[katmai]

Can someone sum up this train wreck por favor?

[crazy canuck]

Can someone sum up this train wreck por favor?

No way man.  You have to live through the pain like everyone else.

[katmai]

Aw nuts.

[Viking]

I don't doubt that BB thinks a god exists, I just think that BB invents the god his psyche demands.

This is a good example of why no one wants to play with you.

And I would hope the people who don't read what I write and then declare it bigoted don't post in threads I start. Unfortunately they don't.

[garbon]

Aw nuts.

[HVC]

I don't doubt that BB thinks a god exists, I just think that BB invents the god his psyche demands.

This is a good example of why no one wants to play with you.

And I would hope the people who don't read what I write and then declare it bigoted don't post in threads I start. Unfortunately they don't.

for someone who didn't read my post you're really hung up on it

[grumbler]

And I would hope the people who don't read what I write and then declare it bigoted don't post in threads I start. Unfortunately they don't.

I have faith that they read what you wrote before declaring you a bigot.

[Razgovory]

sigh... usual suspects though..

naturally nobody has commented on the issues in the OP yet.

You know, if you keep finding that everyone is wrong but you, perhaps the problem lies not in everyone else, but in you.

[Razgovory]

Viking, you have to work past your reputation as an unthinking anti-religious automaton that just spews recycled Dawkins lines at us.

And drop the "Memes" bullshit.  You aren't 13 and you know better.  Regurgitating that pseudoscience makes you sound like an idiot.  Or a fantatic Dawkinite. 

[dps]

Quoting Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Stephen Weinberg

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

You know, that would be a pretty devastating critique of religion if it were actually true.  But good people do bad things all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with religion--for ideology, for patriotism, to protect their families, to help a friend, to keep their jobs, to go along with the crowd, etc.  I suppose that a reasonable argument could be made that ideology and patriotism are substitutes for religion, but the other things not so much.