This person is openly telling you that the only thing stopping them from being a shitty person is some myth about otherworldly punishment after they die.
Which, of course, means they’ll be juuuust as shitty as they believe they can get away with.
Yeah, the “why be good if there’s no God/Hell” is a disturbing as fuck argument, because it essentially says that if they decide that their god wants them to start killing, they’ll do it.
I’m good because if I do something bad, I feel bad about it. It’s pretty simple.
exactly. i understand that doing bad things is bad because i feel guilt and shame when i do bad things. conversely, i feel good when i do good things. I also understand the broader implications of both-- not to mention that i have empathy and can see the impact of my actions upon others while caring as well.
i don’t need a fairy tale to threaten me with eternal torture in order to not be a sociopath.
That’s the problem. These people lack empathy. They don’t feel happy when they make someone else happy unless they get something more than that out of it.
If you and I have an interaction that leaves us both happy, that’s socialism and GOPJesus frowns on socialism.
because they’ve been taught that life is a zero-sum game: if anyone else’s life improves - even just a little - it must necessarily come at the cost of someone else’s life getting worse. this isn’t true, of course, but they can’t see life as any other way, so the ideas of equality and working together to improve society are antithetical to their worldview. they’re to be fought. They have an “every man for himself” philosophy, and it’s nothing but selfish, self-centered solipsism.
And it also makes them treat their kids like shit.
Why make your kid feel good if you don’t gain anything?
it also teaches their kid that selfish motivations and material rewards are the only things of value, and that they’re worth liying, cheating, and even stealing for-- as long as you don’t get caught, because right and wrong are only a matter of the consequences one may personally face. and, even then, it’s a cost-benefit analysis. again, the zero-sum game.
I had a coworker catholic who both said that statement, and also argued animals had no souls, so no one should ever get in trouble for animal abuse. Along with his ridiculously heated response to any government involvement in Healthcare, and the way he got close to yelling when discussing these topics while also claiming he was just being logical, not emotional. Why yes he did call women emotional, how did you know?
People like him scare me, because it sounds like if he could use some religious context to say I didn’t have a soul, he’d probably come to the same conclusion he did about dogs.
One of those increasingly more common conservative Catholics. Disappointing.
Yeah that’s my takeaway from that argument as well. If you have to be threatened by some vague notion of a future punishment in order to not be a complete dickwad, you’re clearly not a good person.
Why be good if there’s no hell? Because to live is to suffer. Society sucks. Accepting that, working past it, and being kind to those around you makes everything slightly more bearable. You are to be kind to others because it’s the right thing to be.
One crisis of faith away from a murder spree.
Happened to a relative of mine, kind of. Went on a drug and debauchery spree. Not the fun way. Hard drugs, seriously addictive. Stole from the family, we all disowned them. Ended up hitting someone while driving under the influence and killing them. Went to jail, supposedly got sober, but I’m still no-contact.
also the bible says genocide is ok and its ok to do all sorts of things to folks who aren’t your “neighbor”
I always hate that argument. Why be a decent human without the threat of eternal damnation? I mean that threat doesn’t seem to stop a vast number of religious people from being unbelievably cruel to their fellow humans, so…
There are also plenty of good people in places with religions that have afterlives but not hell or any threat of eternal punishment.
True!
Religion doesn’t stop a bad person from being evil. It can convince a bad person they’re still good (better!) when they do evil.
And good people don’t need religion to do good. But it can make them overlook the evil of other religious people and protect them, making them bad.
The best-case scenario is that religion can have no effect on how good or bad someone is. Good people stay good despite religion, not because of it.
The main issue is that religion is something that makes you feel better when you have emotional pain, like a loved one dying. Like any painkiller, it has a purpose and if you abuse it you can deaden your response to actual issues that need your attention.
Originally Christianity was mostly about helping the poor, sick, dying, etc. That genuinely makes you feel better about yourself. Judaism has a lot of references to remaining strong in the face of adversity. Religions are just mental tools. What you do with that tool is up to you. If you hurt other people, it’s your fault.
Please don’t misunderstand. I was not saying that that was the be-all-end-all of religion. I wasn’t speaking against religion in general, just in regards to the irony of suggesting that religion makes people more good. At all.
I don’t. It tells you, in clear language, the type of person that this “loving Christian” is. They literally can’t imagine altruism, and that says more about them than what they think they’re saying about me.
People who say they are only good because of the threat of eternal damnation are literal psychopaths.
I’m only good because of the law. I don’t like the idea of spending the rest of my life in jail.
Then you’re not good, you’re just law compliant.
Lawful Neutral
Laws are not written to make people good. Following them doesn’t make you good.
There are countless laws that don’t send you to jail. Do you break them?
“Why even be good if there’s no heaven?”
They are actually absolutely right. Because I don’t believe in heaven, I’m exactly as evil as I want to be
I think you’re missing the point. We’re talking about tacos.
Be good so you don’t disappoint the tacos
Everything we do, we do for the love of tacos.
I also eat all the tacos I want
High-five bro
I sexually assault and murder exactly as much as I want to, and that amount is zero… ok, at least the sexually assault part
murder exactly as much as I want to
Uh… You mean animals and plants and stuff, right?
…right?
Virgin “I live in an existentialist mental hell I’ve been indoctrinated into” vs Chad “A meaningless life in a purposeless universe means I’m the master of my own destiny, and therefore I choose to eat tacos”
I can confirm that Heaven is on Earth and it’s on the side of the road in Mexico. 🥰
Hell may, or may not come after heaven. The taco works in mysterious ways
“But what about Sunday, the day of rest?” Oh you mean Taco Tuesday?
Only if you’re a foreigner 🤭
Avoid the super spicy chile sauce.
A true disciple of the taco embraces the sauce, and the trials that may follow
So it’s more of a Hindu cleansing of the soul than a Christian eternal punishment sort of thing is what you’re saying.
Excuse me, we’re majority Catholic! (and dwindling)
Wouldn’t it be Cielo in that case?
Eh, tomato jitomate. Same thing!
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again. If you need the threat of eternal damnation weighing over you to be a good person, you’re not a good person.
If you need the promise of punishment to be good, then you’re not a good person.
“Have you accepted the al pastor into your heart?”
Early 2000’s Invader Zim holding up a spork type post.
I can totally see that.
deleted by creator
you seriously don’t understand god
says the poor lost soul who also says
why be good if there is no hell
Do many adults still go around
spoutingbelieving whatever they heard from their parents or Sunday school teacher when they were children, just to get them to stop asking “complicated questions”?EDIT: a word
I am faced with the knowledge that I have masa harina just sitting around.
I’m gonna go have a religious experience.
Edit: did, huge success
Does anyone think this is real?
I’m glad you asked. It bends my brain imagining one person making up this conversation. He’s clever. It also bends my brain that two people could have this conversation. either way it’s kinda genius.
It’s so full of strawmen that it’s pretty easy to see someone making this up
Okay this is actually a perfect eastern vs western philosophy debate hidden in a taco.
I am going to make some very broad strokes here. So no armchair quarterbacking me. I know it’s way more nuanced but I’m not writing an essay on Lemmy.
In general Western philosophies always have a “goal.” Your human life is to prove your worthiness. You need to look back and atone for your past mistakes. You need to look forward so you can do the right things to be worthy. It is very little about being in the now.
Eastern philosophies are much more about being aware of the moment. The past has happened it cannot be changed you should not worry about it. The future doesn’t exist so there’s no need to focus on it. The only thing you can affect is the very moment in time you’re in and the only way to affect it is through your actions.
In this case tacos are the moment. So next time you’re eating a delicious taco. Spend that moment to be one with your taco. Concentrate on the smell. Then feel the texture as you pick it up. How the various colors interact with each other. Then as you bite off some, feel the textures in your mouth and how the flavors interact. Watch yourself, be aware of every time you chew. Remember there is no past there’s no future there is only tacos.
I am going to make some very broad strokes here. So no armchair quarterbacking me. I know it’s way more nuanced but I’m not writing an essay on Lemmy.
In general Western philosophies always have a “goal.”
I know you said it was a broad stroke, and that in general is that way, but I kind of disagree still. I think Western philosophy is about finding if we have a purpose and what is it, and many philosophers since Greek antiquity to today have answered they are skeptic of it existing or it being able to be known. From Pyrrho of Elis and Hegesias of Cyrene to Arthur Schopenhauer and Slavoj Žižek.
The word we are looking for is teleology (not to be confused with theology). It refers to finality, that there is a goal. Many philosophers did not subscribe to a teolology.
Your human life is to prove your worthiness.
Same thing as before.
You need to look back and atone for your past mistakes. You need to look forward so you can do the right things to be worthy. It is very little about being in the now.
I agree a little more with this, there are many Western philosophers preoccupied with ethics. But that’s why I think they were talking of different dimensions. It was not that existentially you should roam the past or future, that your mental activity should be there. It was about being responsible in the now for the future, and to be held accountable for your past. It was a morality thing, not a conscious/existential thing.
In this case tacos are the moment. So next time you’re eating a delicious taco. Spend that moment to be one with your taco. Concentrate on the smell. Then feel the texture as you pick it up. How the various colors interact with each other. Then as you bite off some, feel the textures in your mouth and how the flavors interact. Watch yourself, be aware of every time you chew. Remember there is no past there’s no future there is only tacos.
Hey! Go away with that mindful nonsense. If I do that, I spend too much time with a single bite and I cannot eat as much (/s).
You’ve not understood to Existence until you’ve gone “oh good. foo-ood.”
Source: Been a student, subsidised, unsubsidised, employed also, then left alone too. Unemployed, Also an intern, and not as much.
Foo-ooood is goo-ood. Just grab it. If you can. Tacos are better than death.
Agree 100%. (Sorry everyone who is sick of me bringing this up, but…) I am currently suffering from a condition where I can’t eat solid food and I haven’t for close to a year now. You have no idea how lucky you are if you can eat and enjoy food. It doesn’t sound like something that would be a lucky thing, but it absolutely is. There is nothing in this world like a really good meal.
Have you tried liquid tacos?
