Religion or Science - How do they compare?

I'm using heart in the same sense it is used in the Bible. For example, here is a quote from Matthew 6:

quote:

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For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

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It matters as far as this discussion goes about whether our sense of morality evolved from simply mindlessness or whether there is a cosmic sense of morality that has always existed as a result of pre-exiting intelligence.The only other issue is that if we believe that there is morality beyond our own we can start to become prideful for what good guys we are as opposed to believing that we are simply reflectors of God's love for us. Pride can then evolve in lots of unpleasant ways.

Yes. Your claim seems to be that a sense of morality is not possible without that pre-existing intelligence. My question to you is why that sense of morality cannot grow out of a sense of duty to one's family, friends, clan or species?I don't believe that atheists are immoral or that atheistic societies must be amoral, but your argument does not seem to leave open any possibility of a non-theistic morality. What is your best defense for your position?

You haven't read all that I have said on this. Here is something I posted earlier in the thread. I wrote to Ringo somewhere recently that he sounded was more Christ like than what I have heard from many Christians over the years. I have also said the same thing about things that Chris Hitchens said.I have also said that the still small voice of God speaks to everyone regardless of their religious, or lack of religious beliefs. I have also said that it is my opinion that if Jesus was telling the story of the Good Samaritan today in our western culture it would be the story of the Good Muslim.I do maintain my belief though that all positive morality is only possible because there is a universal standard that is essentially defined as "The Golden Rule". I contend that a universal standard of morality requires a universal intelligent moral foundation.

The material you quoted suggests that morality is universal. What you are adding to that is your belief that it comes from a divine source, and in particular from Jesus Christ, regardless of one's belief system.So, no argument from you. Just belief. At least that what I think you are espousing. If I've missed something, let me know.

We've done this over and over.'Contending' is just another word for asserting and what you're asserting is your belief. Well fine, but we know this and it's not moving anything forward.What we actually *know* is that man is an evolved animal. All his traits have evolved. If we accept that our emotions, like our physical bodies, have evolved - anger, fear happiness, jealousy, love etc - and that empathy - which is the source morality - also evolved (we have evidence of this), then why can't morality have evolved? Why does it need a god?

Of course it is about belief. That's all any of us have regardless of our views in answering this question. All I can do is to give the reasons I believe.

Isn't that better than taking your morality from some alien overlord whose agenda might not be good for us at all?

I'm not saying that it can't have evolved. Evolution is a process and I am saying that I contend or believe that the process has an intelligent root.I'd also add that what has evolved naturally is a societal thing. I do believe that as individuals we have a personal conscience and part of that is a discernment of what is loving and what is unloving and the choices we make. We all know that if we find a wallet with money in it some will return it to their owners and some won't. That is personal and not societal. I think that our conscience is God speaking to us in that still small voice, which is not to say that we aren't also influenced by all sorts of natural memes from family, friends etc.

For you. That's not true GDR, those of us that don't share your beliefs accept the evidence that morality like all other human traits evolved and is still evolving naturally. You simply prefer your beliefs over the facts.

Sure, That assumes though that we have a common definition of what is good and not good. Our culture has evolved with a judeo-christian background and so we have a common definition of what is good. Other cultures not so much.

What you call facts are your beliefs. I have no doubt that human traits are affected naturally. You believe that is the whole story. I believe that there is more to it than that, and even if I am wrong in saying that it still doesn't answer the question of whether or not that natural process came from a string of other natural processes back to the BB or whether there is an intelligence that is responsible..

Well, no. You said yourself that we have different ideas of "good" depending on what works for us. In reality, there is no absolute good that works in every situation. Why substitute an imposed "good" that might not be good for us at all?

Perhaps you can say which of the facts below you think are beliefsIt's a fact that man is an evolved animal
It's a fact that man's emotions evolved like his physical body
It's a fact that empathy is the emotion that allows us to have caring feelings for other people and want to protect them from harm
It's a fact that people that have some specific forms of brain disorders lack empathy and do not share our moral vaues. We call these people psychopaths.
It's a fact that we can see the parts of the brain where empathy 'happens'. It's got nothing to do with god's 'small voice' or hearts.
It's a fact that empathy is a brain process.
It's a fact that our societies change/develop our moral values using laws and the criminal justice system to create more just and ordered societies over time.
It's a fact that when these systems break down, societies sink back into disorder.
It's a fact that there's no evidence for any god-like involvement in any of this process
It's a fact that I am not relying on any belief to create this list.

I know that I shouldn't jump into the middle of this like this. Sorry. I have been an atheist for more than half a century after having started to read the Bible and realizing that I just simply could not believe what I was reading, then half a decade later living through the "Jesus Freak" movement (the present-day fundamentalists) whose teachings I really could not believe, followed by "creation science" which is just a pack of lies supported by an incredible amount of outright dishonesty, lying, and deception, followed by the Radical Religious Right mentored by Christian Reconstructionists whose goal was to install a fundamentalist Christian theocracy (the CRs died out to be replaced by the Dominionists who are still with us). Now we have white evangelists/fundamentalists fervently kissing the ass of the AntiChrist in order to seize more secular power to further white supremacy, revealing that their religion has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus' teachings, but rather only ever served to justify slavery and all kinds of other evils.Truly, the best evidence and argument against Christianity are the Christians themselves. And as per their very own Matthew 7:20 Test, they prove Christianity to be a false religion. How could any sane person with even just a shread of moral sense ever begin to consider becoming a Christian? The followers have turned the very religion into an abomination. Jesus' "Golden Rule" was a Pharisee teaching repeated in an early Star Trek episode, "Dagger of the Mind" (which introduced the Vulcan mind-meld), by the writer Shimon Wincelberg as "Shimon bar-David". You see, there was this uppity gentile going to all the yeshivoth demanding that they recite the whole of the Law (ie, the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament to you goyim) while standing on one foot. The head rabbim of the other yeshivoth just grabbed a large stick and ran that idiot off their property. But when he pulled the same stupid stunt on the Pharisees, Rabbi Hillel replied with the Golden Rule: "Do not to others that which is displeasing to yourself. That is the whole of the Law. The rest is just explanation. Now go and live it." Frankly, after half a century, I'm shaky on the wording of that last sentence, but I have preserved its meaning.That incident was in 20 BCE, a full half a century before Jesus' purported ministry. Clearly, the Pharisees were the "spirit of the Law" people and Christian vilification of them is unjustified.Really? The Golden Rule? Don't you have anything original?
 
 
But ultimately, it does just all boil down to human nature. We are all people who have to live together and function together in order to make everything work out. Just a few days ago, I was on a flight from Miami to Phoenix next to a window seat populated by somebody who bore all the markings of being somebody I would despise politically. I politely let him know every time the attendants came through (though the first time I verified with him that my doing so was alright with him) and after we landed I invited him to move past me (I even had to do some inventive seat crawling -- BTW, all my own carry-on was under the seat). Why? For the common good. For "the good of the order" (a term I learned in the US Navy, but which was never explained to me).That is the basis of morality: for the common good and for the good of the order. The rest is just explanation, including the bullshit religious explanations. 
 
 
But I do need to repeat what I had heard Penn Jillette describe in a YouTube video which I unfortunately cannot find right now. It's actually a scenario that theists themselves have been known to pose. I am almost literally salivating at the chance to counter it.You are a family of atheists who suffer a break-in by theists who know that you are atheists. The theist presenting this scenario goes into gory and explicit detail of how your children and wife are horrifically raped, mutilated, and killed before your eyes, all while telling you that because you are an atheist you are completely alright with every horrific act that they commit before your eyes. Then they start to carve out parts of your own body, each and every time telling you that because you are an atheist you are completely alright with each and every thoroughly and utter despicable act they commit. Bullshit! Penn Jillette's response is that those acts are completely evil and nobody needs any stupid gods to tell them so. In other words, morality does in fact not depend on any stupid little gods, but rather as humans we know what is right and what is wrong.Now, in my own personal fantasy of responding to this particular Christian travesty, I want to draw on the attempted rape scene in Watchmen by asking the theist presenting the scenario: "Is that what makes you hot? Is that what turns you on?" After all, he's getting all worked up while describing the break-in theists gleefully cutting off my genitals, so shouldn't I assume that that is one of his own fantasies about atheists?I hope that you do realize that these Christians are a lot sicker than they let on.

Arguments of that kind are not helpful in deciding between two alternatives. I am asking for some reasoning if you have it.