Okay. To settle something. You don't need to have a belief in a deity to have morals, right?

yes it is not necessary to believe in god to have morals..but believing in god who tells you to have them makes you fear to not do otherwise...and to be restrected to them as you fear god and love him in the same time..people have prinsiples..and good moral but they may not be able to be committed to it under some circumstances..but with believing in god ..you may think 100 times you before do the opposite...thats happens to me .

No of course not. lol Have you been talking to Truth Does Not Matter again. That guy is a quack and could not find an original idea if it sat on him.

Thanks for reminding me who that was. He's out there for sure.

And that is that...

Um...

no you don't have to believe in a deity.....

In free societies at least (but are there any?) religion is not the designated arbiter of morality.

You certainly do not need to have a deity to have morals.

Anyone hat needs a Diety to instill morals in them is lacking something in their character...

Of course you don't need to have a belief in a deity to know right from wrong. Everyone knows what right and wrong are, it's just a matter of whether they choose to accept them or to completely reject them. Also, some morals we learn are from our parents but we certainly don't need a deity to discern right and wrong, that's just absurd. If that were true then atheists would be some of the most immoral people and I don't think that that's true (although in some cases, it probably is)--some religious people are the ones who forget about morals and their God is supposed to have "taught" them and apparently he failed.

And Just how many believers in this Diety reject the morals..... Look at prison statistics,,, NUFF said... LMAO

Morals are dictated by the society you live in,,, in some societies,, what we do is immoral, and to us what they do is immoral.. The religion you are , you are born in,, whatever your parents are, 90% of the time that is what the offspring will be.. however we are all born atheists untill we are brainwashed in what ever religion is local in the community....

of course you can do wonderful things without any knowledge of God.....the problem is without God our 'wonderful deeds' are all entwined with our egos (we have expectations!)......I give the girl down the street flowers (wonderful me ...lol), i like her.....but I also expect this to buy me some traction....maybe that don't happen (hummmm,, "what a B she is")........this is love without God (just look around you )........The process of coming to God is a process of letting go your ego,,,,and living from your spirit..........I give the girl down the street some flowers, I kinda like her....(same event),,, but my motivation is to create some happyness for her (its about her not me)..............(without God we keep trying &trying;, and losing, & losing......with God we can't lose)

One doesn't need a god to not be egotistical.

we all have egos,,,,and the ego is all about serving self (what can I get ?)
our spirit (God within us if you will ) is all about selflessness...(what can I give ?)

You don't need god to be selfless. I know a lot of selfless Atheists. It's idiotic to think you need a deity for that. That's weak and pathetic.

its not that you need a 'god' for that .....its that God is the 'discriptive' of what that is........i.e....if you are thinking with love, if you are thinking in selfless ways,etc etc....you are aligning your mind with what God is,,,,makes no difference what you believe.....thats what you are doing,,,and you'll know when u are doing that / and not by the ways it makes you feel

Just to be clear on what you are saying, I, as an agnostic, am incapable of selfless acts. Is that really what you are trying to say? Because I do stuff like that all the time, with zero expectation of a return, other than a feeling of satisfaction at having possibly brightened someone's day. Giving with expectation of a return is NOT giving. It's called SELLING.

Sorry, but you folks that base everything around religion have it a bit screwed up. To start with, your example is not only flawed( you assign two different degrees of feelings for the other person. First is like and the second, the one you call moral and attribute to god, is "kind of like"), but also irrelevant as it has NOTHING to do with morals. Let me help you. You are rowing your boat across the lake. You come across a drowning person. This presents you two choices, either row on by, or reach your hand out and pull that person into your boat. By your reasoning, those of us without your God in our lives would choose to simply row on by and let them drown, or have some expectation of reward for pulling them out. But you are wrong. The immoral person will demand payment BEFORE pulling that person into the boat. The moral person will not give any of that a thought, and simply reach down and help the drowning person into the boat. Because it is the right thing to do. Because letting them drown would be the wrong thing to do. No deity is required to make this distinction.

kinda like that....u a thinking guy......but thats not really what i'm saying....there is a place in the hearts of everyone that I ascribe the word God to......only a man very apart from that place (evil...lol),would allow someone to die when they could save them.....in each of our hearts we know the 'light' we know the 'darkness' in different degrees........cause we've all gone through different 'crap' thats had its effect on us....by doing 'spiritual work ' you can tip the balance,......when Jesus says "rejoice", cause u can overcome the world......(well!),,,he ain't just a' bullsh**ing you

That has NOTHING to do with a god. It's an excuse!

it is a word to discribe the phenomena that takes place when we choose to 'let go' all our angers, resolve our saddnesses......and reconnect to what our heart is and who we really are

No, it's not. There is no deities and we don't need them.

lol.....you don't have to call it God,,but it is a very real thing, that often unfolds in 'unexplainable ways', , , it is the result of alining your mind with 'loving' thought.....and just letting all the rest go.............................. so God is what we call this....(u could call it Joe (lol),,,it still is what it is

Then it has NOTHING to do with a deity. My original question was talking about deities. You're making this more complicated than it needs to be.

sorry !

Mhmm...

I love 'The Wizard of Oz'.....it tells the story of our search , thru lines of fantasy (way cool !!)............................. in the end Dorothy is told that her whole dramatic journey had been unnessary, that all she had to do was click her heels , and say it.....(i'm sure she's a little p'ed at this point...lol)....and she says "why didn't you tell me that ??"........and the good witch replys..."you would never have believed me !"

It actually required very little thought as it isn't based on fantasy. Things are not right because some deity says they are right. Things are not wrong because some deity says they are wrong. They are right or wrong on their own merits. It doesn't feel good to do right because it satisfies some deity for you to do right, it feels good because it is right. The converse is also true. This is all self evident when your mind is not clouded with absurdity.

No, DDDDDUUUUHHHHHH. Religion has no meaning to me or my life, but I still have morals. I mean, come on people, stop being so dang stupid.

Of course not, you can have morals by knowing whats right and wrong in your mind. That's why we have one, religion is just another way of having them. Morals are morals at the end of the day and really its all down to how we as the individual see's it

Morals and religion really aren't a "pair", moral is about your conscience and what is common sense to do what is right.

I've heard that babies taste like chicken...

"Hi! I'm Crazy Eddie! I put babies on spikes. Do you want a rack of babies? We've got babies on racks! Mmm, they taste of chicken!" They do! Babies taste of chicken! Cannibals say that human flesh tastes of chicken, so babies must taste of chicken. And chicken tastes of humans. "

A classic example is that of places like the "Friendly Islands" - before the missionaries got there. People living happy, moral and productive lives...

Sorry Maggs...I draw the line at eating babies. I don't think they would taste very good, and that would be kind of immoral ;)

But seriously, no, good is good, right is right, and I firmly believe most of us are born with a natural sense of it. This is easily observed in toddlers and younger.

Toddlers - whose most oft-repeated phrase is "mine!"??? When I presented my two year old nephews with toy trucks on my return from California the one immediately began pounding the other in the head with his. I recoiled in shock and horror and my sisters said they're like that all the time.

No Blue Flamingo? Anyways, the argument that you need to believe in God or whatever to have morlas is idiotic.

Nope.

Morals and belief (or lack of belief) in a deity are two separate things. Believing in a deity doesn't automatically mean a person has morals, and someone who DOESN'T believe in any deities is just as capable of having morals. If anything, I think the morals would be stronger and more sincere, because the way you behave and treat others is governed by your OWN ideas of what is right, rather than following a dictated set of rules to live by.