Penn doesn't wear magic underwear. He wears Hulk underwear

[_DarkHelmet]

Penn Jillette argues that atheists have true morality. He makes a good argument that many here have made. He then starts making fun of Mormons at around the 4:00 mark. He was a little childish, but I did laugh when he said he didn't have magic underwear, but he does have Hulk underwear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rudd6Dzp ... AAAAAAAAAA

[_jskains]

He is dead wrong. He does things for reward and punishment. It is just at a social scale rather than a spiritual one.

JMS

[_jskains]

He also makes the religious argument with the sister comment.

God, our Father, also wants us to not hit our sisters (fellow mankind) because it is the right thing to do.

And in Jewish faith, there is no focus on heaven. So sorry, Atheism does not have any moral highground.

[_Buffalo]

He is dead wrong. He does things for reward and punishment. It is just at a social scale rather than a spiritual one.

JMS

I actually agree. Social reward, and also psychological reward. I'd posit that these are the two factors that most motivate all people to do good deeds and avoid doing harm. A combination of evolved empathy and social pressure.

And there's nothing wrong with that being the reason why we do good. :)

[_DarkHelmet]

He is dead wrong. He does things for reward and punishment. It is just at a social scale rather than a spiritual one.

JMS

What is troubling, I believe, to many atheists is when believers say things like "If I didn't believe in God, I would probably be on drugs or dead." or "If you don't believe in God, what's keeping you from raping and murdering?" Using this logic, the only thing that makes these people do good things is the fear of punishment from their god, or the hope for a reward from their God. It's an external force providing their morality. Without God enforcing his morality, these people are amoral animals, capable of pure evil. What makes this even scarier, is because their morality is provided to them from an external source, believers are also capable of truly evil acts, if their God tells them to do it, because their morality is whatever their God tells them it is that day.

[_jskains]

But society is no different. Morality from social norms is dependent on whatever society dictates.

Homosexuality was disliked for years before liberals took it on as their pet project. Prior to the "save the homosexuals" rallies of the recent years, even common agnostics were disgusted with homosexuality.

Now it's cool to be pro-homosexual. So society changed.

Before swearing was unacceptable. Now the F-Bomb is dropped at any moment.

Society is just as fickle if not more-so than their religious counterparts.

JMS

[_DarkHelmet]

But society is no different. Morality from social norms is dependent on whatever society dictates.

Homosexuality was disliked for years before liberals took it on as their pet project. Prior to the "save the homosexuals" rallies of the recent years, even common agnostics were disgusted with homosexuality.

Now it's cool to be pro-homosexual. So society changed.

Before swearing was unacceptable. Now the F-Bomb is dropped at any moment.

Society is just as fickle if not more-so than their religious counterparts.

JMS

True. Society changes and evolves as we gain more knowledge. For the most part, society progresses. Most people consider this a good thing. We abolished slavery, we no longer lynch blacks, our daughters have opportunities that our grandmothers did not. We evolved from monarchies to democracies. We no longer burn witches at the stake. Look at society's track record compared to religion. Isn't it telling that religion typically progresses along with society, just at a slower pace.

[_jskains]

True. Society changes and evolves as we gain more knowledge. For the most part, society progresses. Most people consider this a good thing. We abolished slavery, we no longer lynch blacks, our daughters have opportunities that our grandmothers did not. We evolved from monarchies to democracies. We no longer burn witches at the stake. Look at society's track record compared to religion. Isn't it telling that religion typically progresses along with society, just at a slower pace.

And there is a violent increase in 13 year olds getting pregnant, and the violence between people is getting worse. Please and Thank you have both dropped from our vocabulary, and the power of hiding behind the internet has empowered some to be cruel and ugly.

I don't find the behavior of people like Scratch to be an example of progress, but his behavior, tactics, and lack of social morality is far more common today than ever.

And worse, young punk kids running around the internet, gloating about not believing in "Sky Wizards and Zombie Sons" demonstrates lack of even basic respect and tact. If you don't believe me, I am sure I can find some comments on local news sites here where that special kindness is spread throughout. SLTribune is one of the best galleries of it.

I don't believe in Hinduism, but I certainly don't run over to their forums and mock their Gods, declaring how silly it is. I have respect for other religions even if I don't believe them. That respect is rare among the religion of Atheism.

JMS

[_Buffalo]

And there is a violent increase in 13 year olds getting pregnant

False

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/0 ... udy-shows/

and the violence between people is getting worse.

False

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/20 ... -safer-now

Please and Thank you have both dropped from our vocabulary,

False

and the power of hiding behind the internet has empowered some to be cruel and ugly.

True

[_Buffalo]

I don't believe in Hinduism, but I certainly don't run over to their forums and mock their Gods, declaring how silly it is. I have respect for other religions even if I don't believe them. That respect is rare among the religion of Atheism.

JMS

"What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world"
- Prophet Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270

"...all the priests who adhere to the sectarian religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels."
- Prophet Joseph Smith , The Elders Journal, Joseph Smith Jr., editor, vol.1, no.4, p.60

"Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent"
- Apostle Orson Pratt proclaimed, The Seer, p. 255

"After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon"
- George Q. Cannon said, Gospel Truth, p.324

"When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness."
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 5:73

"The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God"
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 8:171

"Brother Taylor has just said that the religions of the day were hatched in hell. The eggs were laid in hell, hatched on its borders, and then kicked on to the earth."
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 6:176

"Christians—those poor, miserable priests brother Brigham was speaking about—some of them are the biggest whoremasters there are on the earth, and at the same time preaching righteousness to the children of men. The poor devils, they could not get up here and preach an oral discourse, to save themselves from hell; they are preaching their fathers' sermons —preaching sermons that were written a hundred years before they were born. ...You may get a Methodist priest to pour water on you, or sprinkle it on you, and baptize you face foremost, or lay you down the other way, and whatever mode you please, and you will be damned with your priest."
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, 5:89

"The Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called"
- Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p.196

"But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of Christian Churches ... But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance"
- Apostle Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, 18:172

"Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p.167);

"Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom."
- Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, 10:127

"What! Are Christians ignorant? Yes, as ignorant of the things of God as the brute beast."
- Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses 13:225

"What does the Christian world know about God? Nothing... Why so far as the things of God are concerned, they are the veriest fools; they know neither God nor the things of God."
- John Taylor, Journal of Discourses 13:225

"Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness. For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men."
- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282

"...the Book of Mormon remains secure, unchanged and unchangeable, ...But with the Bible it was not and is not so....it was once in the sole and exclusive care and custody of an abominable organization (Christianity), founded by the devil himself, likened prophetically unto a great whore, whose great aim and purpose was to destroy the souls of men in the name of religion. In these hands it ceased to be the book it once was."
- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, The Joseph Smith Translation, pp. 12, 13

"Must we, under the broad folds of the American Constitution, be compelled to bow down to the narrow contracted notions of Apostate Christianity? Must we shut up our consciences in a nut shell, and be compelled to submit to the bigoted notions, and whims, and customs of the dark ages of popery, transferred to us through the superstitious of our fathers? Must we be slaves to custom and render homage to the soul-destroying, sickening influences of modern Christianity? No!"
- Official Church Publication "The Seer," Vol.1, No.7, p.111