Letter to an Innocent Man

[Acriku]

I believe in human kind. I believe in the greatness we can do if we just work together. Religion separates us, divides us by specific beliefs, when religion is gone, we can come together as a single race and accomplish enormous things.

[TMA_1]

why though? those opinions are just yours. If another person wants to be different, who says your opinions are correct. dont you see, by being an athiest, you put all values on a level playing field, evne if you think differently. If you believe in nothing higher than all of your opinions are just as good as another man's. Humanism through the enlightenment to now has almost always been secularized. There is no value to it if there is no unifying force or focus. Anton Levay would be right if a God didnt exist. There are no rules but those you make yourself as long as you dont hurt others. In hedonistic philosophy that is how it works. Do what you will without hurting others. Your humanism is valueless if you dont believe in something higher than mankind. In fact hedonism is more logical.

[hilamobster13]

ex, i dont think ANYONE in here is staying on topic. infact, i think im more on topic than most of what anyone in here is saying. i mean, at least what i said in some way concerned the letter.

bah to you. bah to all of you.

[Acriku]

TMA it is called MORALITY. You know that word, that keeps people from doing things they believe is wrong? Well if society functioned to teach the morality through the educational system, and no religion to divide us, and many other things on the ladder to unity of human kind, we could live with the morality of civilized beings, together for the good of human kind.

If you believe in nothing higher than all of your opinions are just as good as another man's.

Are you saying that if someone believes in something higher, then their opinions are better than another man's?

[Dude_Doc]

But not every religion does hurt mankind or divides it.

[Acriku]

It does, because it allows no unification with another religion, because of the specific beliefs with each religion. We can achieve anything that is beneficial from religion from humanism.

[TMA_1]

but why have morality? your opinion is no better than any others. You see without religion your morality is just as equal with an evil madman's. You dont have a focus but what you make in your own mind. You only have what is here, just like everybody else and that damns you to complete homogany and unification of opinion. Your opinions are equal to an evil person because you have no higher focus.

[Acriku]

You are suggesting mankind can never have morality without religion. Well granted we would not be here without religion, we probably wouldn't have a USA without certain religious people fleeing from Europe, but religion has served its purpose and has no use anymore. We have the morals, now get rid of the former necessity. The benefits of religion are outweighed by the negative things caused by it, and the benefits can be reproduced by humanity without religion.

[VigilVirus]

The logic that you have used to come up with those statements is completely idiotic, TMA. Every person has their own morality and opinions and religion does not play much role in them - it is mostly background, culture and how the person was raised.

So stop with the all atheists are evil crap please.

[emprworm]

Belziel: "Emprworm, your views and that story that you wrote is very idealistic and 'morally perfect'. I can tell you, the majority of the people in the world (over 99.9%) do not have the same view....You can these stories well, but who can we know that you actually mean it and not feigning it like those 99.9%?? "

First of all, you don't know as much about people as you think.

And second, what you think about who I actually am is something I cannot change. If my stories struck something inside you that you realized you do not have, why must you then say that simply because you do not have it, that means that no one else does? My friends that I hang out with share the same view as me. Last week a homeless man came up to me asking for some spare change as I was walking out of the grocery store with a bag of groceries. He said he was hungry. He looked thin. Now, some people would just say "well, he'll buy booze with it so he can get lost" as a cop out for their own selfish greed. I didn't have any spare change. I didn't have any 1 dollar bills. I gave him a 5 dollar bill. In the last 2 months, I tell you I have not seen someone so happy over such a piddly thing as a 5 dollar bill. THis man literally looked like he was celebrating college graduation. If you are a person who thinks only of yourself, you are not alone in this world. But there are many people that are not like that. Much more than .01% as you seem to suggest.

[VigilVirus]

One act of charity does not make the person a morally perfect humanist. It may be one of the following:

1. A person has too much money (very common)

2. A person feels bad for what he did in his life and wants to repay his sins with charity (also very common)

3. A person wants to impress others (wants everyone to know how good he is).

You see, those are very selfish reason for any good act and therefore makes the act itself - selfish.

[emprworm]

Belziel where on earth are you coming from?

WHen...o WHEN did I say I was morally perfect?

*slaps belziel*

Wake up man.

you are talking on the surface of Saturn.

I am here on earth. Stay on the same page, dude.

lastly, whatever motives YOU have for helping someone, you have no idea what mine are. If you help someone because you are being selfish, don't be so arrogant to think that everyone is like you.

Just because Belziel has certain motives/selfish perspectives does not necissitate therefore that every human must be as Belziel is. Sorry, but you are not the Lord of Humans.

[Acriku]

Thank you empr, for using the exact words above that I would say to TMA's post about atheists help people to feel happy. :) I truly know what it feels like to help somebody with no question in mind as to not help that person, and no expectations of reward, so I agree with you empr. But what is the limit to the charity? If the homeless person told everyone else you gave out bills to homeless, and they came to you for money for food, would you pay them all? And then more ask you? Would you pay them?

[VigilVirus]

Belziel where on earth are you coming from?

WHen...o WHEN did I say I was morally perfect?

*slaps belziel*

Wake up man.

you are talking on the surface of Saturn.

I am here on earth. Stay on the same page, dude.

lastly, whatever motives YOU have for helping someone, you have no idea what mine are. If you help someone because you are being selfish, don't be so arrogant to think that everyone is like you.

Just because Belziel has certain motives/selfish perspectives does not necissitate therefore that every human must be as Belziel is. Sorry, but you are not the Lord of Humans.

I never said you were perfect. I was generalizing people's common reasons for charity. And I was not basing this on myself either. I was basing it on what I know to be certain.

I have seen people to do it for all those 3 reasons, but I have yet to see the rare occasion of someone doing it for another reason that those listed.

And that's because like you said, this is Earth, and we are human and therefore are prideful and selfish. We only want what is good for our ego, for ME and not for HIM.

[Acriku]

That would lean toward the Puritanic beliefs that human beings were born evil. I think a lot of other factors make us who we are.

[VigilVirus]

Well, I'm a christian actually. And humans were turned to evil by Satan in christianity.

[emprworm]

acriku, obviously i cannot hand out money to every homeless person. i will simply revert to my analogy of the starfish.

i try to help some when I can, but by no means can i help them all, and if 1000 homeless approached me, i would have to turn many away.

[Acriku]

Puritans were sort of Christians, just really extreme and believed all human beings were evil. And do you believe Satan is a real being or is a collective noun to describe any factor that is evil? Just wondering.

[VigilVirus]

I believe in Satan as the source of all evil, but IMO humans would have also turned to evil even if he didn't exist. Therefore they are just as evil.

In my logic: how can a perfect being like an angel fall to evil while an imperfect one like a human doesn't?

[Dude_Doc]

Religion becomes what you make of it. If I decide that my religion is the ultimate right and dominating, of course I upset other people. I think every religion has its own way of praying to God, so there is no one "real" religion, they just have different perspective. It's like different personalities, we all have different views on the world. The society you talk about is a society where people are equal inside themselves, where people believe in a one common goal. And unless no one on the earth forces everyone to believe in one thing, no one will. I have mine problems, you have yours. Like everybody else on this planet. And no, people won't drop believeing. There will always be some religion, God, aliens (Rael) etc. People on earth simply have different goals. One person wan't the world to become Jewish, another one it to be Muslim. And even if there is no fight, they won't just fall for the other side. Unless we force them, but that would be Fourth Reich, and no one wants to see/experience such things.

[exatreide]

when were the other three riech?

[Acriku]

Dude_doc, that's why we must have patience, for in the future hopefully people will see the scientific discoveries and inventions and theories and laws and religion will slowly deteriorate, replaced by humanism. That's wishful thinking though :)

Also a note, humanism does not have to apply to just atheists.

[TMA_1]

historically, humanism went hand in hand with modern thiesm and diesm as well as athiesm. There were many christian philantrapists though. Look for example the great people like charles dickens who saved many orphan children from death and helped in building great orphanages that changed people's lives.

An athiests acts are all relative and therefore vanity. doing "Good" for people does not make sense for a belief in making your own personal way through life. Others are just organisms, right acriku? so why treat them like they are better than animals? you may say they are conscious, but that is just random mutation of evolution. So you believe in your own personal sense that morals are good and that others who were moral were good. What makes your opinion any different from those people in the world markets, who read valtair, learning how to in a utilitarian fashion, benefit themselves without helping others? they dont care at all about others but making money for themselves. That has been around as long as being good. How are the two different?

God will judge those in the end by their works. Translations mean anything that is independant from God. If you do good without God, it is just as worthless as doing evil. We as christians should be filled with the spirit all the time and be humble, love others, not grow violent, be as doves in innocence ad infinatum. We are sinners though like all others humans on this earth.

[Acriku]

Humanism is all about finding the value of life, the value of others.

http://atheism.about.com/library/weekly/aa093098.htm explains what I mean.

[TMA_1]

glad athiests at least blind themselves with morals. though it is silly.