Free Will

My dear brother Tim, thanks for your input, I was desperately waiting for your comments.

Tim wrote: Islam and the other 'great religions' regards 'human nature' as a constant that can not be changed by religion which only provides "guidelines". In this view no amount of morality can prevent the selfish,rebellious, 'original' sinful nature of man. So by this, man is left with only a superficial veneer of 'morality' but otherwise unchanged.

Tim wrote: Islam and other religions say it is permissible for the wealthy to remain wealthy (because it is human nature to have appetites) as long as charity is dispensed.

Tim wrote:  This only addresses the personal voluntary morality of the individual and dose not answer the social impact of economy which recognises the social forces brought into being by wealth accumulation have a very amoral impact.

The atheists usually have no such concept of man as inherently greedy and do not acknowledge his individual right to accumulate welth to the disadvantage of his fellow humans.  Tim

AhmadJoyia wrote: Ketchup wrote: Mmmm Seriously, I will excercise my free will and stay out of that thread for now! I am sorry. I have corrected the mistake in my response to your last but one reply on line one. I have added "without" before the word "faith". Kindly see, now if it makes sense. Thanks.

Can we be moral if there is no god?  Why not?

By nature man is happy chap, and lives in pursuit of happiness so if you value happiness then you also value the happiness of others around you...  Man can be bad but is essentialy good on the inside so does he really need a god to be good?  Can morals not be be learned through logic, reason and emotion?

Is being good instinctive, and part of human nature or is it beaten into us?   If we are forced to be good then a god is essential in creating a moral belief.. if we are only good in this life because the rewards in the next one are far greater then I consider that immoral and pretty selfish.  How can this be morally correct?  That means the existance of morals does not necessarily mean there is a god.. just that som,e need a guiding spirit because they know they can stray off the path.

Has it occured to you that God is just a mispelling of Good?

You say that god exists because we have a set of values that we all follow and cite your reasons that what is good and bad is defined by god....

I see no good reason why man should believe in a god... Some of the worst atrocities in history are accountable to religion even if they are now in a state of peace or semi peace.  I see no logic in religion, just fear and guilt.

Why should I believe in god?

Human social organisation is driven by necessity. Religion was a way in which people attempted to explain complexities and the down-right baffling. Hunter-gather communities, nomads, and urban dwellers have all developed distinctive religious cultures.

With the growth of the city states with centralised monarchical government the tendency was towads unified religious imagery i.e. monotheism, 'one-god' patriarchal hierarchy, unsurprisingly just like the 'earthy' arrangements.

The morality that grew up reflected, especially in family-life, morality was governed by and reflected property rights,ownership and inheritance.

Morality grows out of the prevailing economic, political, social and religious history. For sample, until recently the dominant moral landscape in Europe was a Judaic-Christian tradition founded on the Ten Commandment.  These commandments were written (I believe) by people, to reflect and regulate the social life of the tribes and families. It could be argued that the idea of one-god was from the experiences of life in Egypt as slaves under a unified kingdom. Without this disciplined, centralized state it would have been impossible to conquer and rule their neighbors land.