Merlyn_LeRoy

Which is nonsense. Gods never show up to state what these morals are, it's always only humans. Christianity has changed drastically over centuries. Different Christian sects don't agree on what is moral even though they supposedly all worship the same god. And since gods can have any morals, theists can claim any behavior as moral, too. And theists could say slavery is moral today too, because it's really only their opinion of what is and isn't moral; they only claim they know what their god wants, like the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845.

SSScout, theists (mostly Christians in the US) are constantly using that exact argument to claim atheists are innately immoral, as people like Eagledad has. I will not interpret it any other way.

Typical BSA member insulting an atheist for not being humble when insulted.

Neither are religious tenets, of course, but plenty of people pretend they are, which is simply not dealing with reality.

And it's always, always, always religion that gets the credit.

When people who belong to an organization that denegrates atheists like the BSA, and denegrate the morals of atheists, I'll respond. If you don't like that, that's your problem.

I agree, but since religions have axioms that cannot even be questioned, they are even worse at trying to settle moral questions. And I guess he and/or god wasn't omnipotent, at least back then. Hey, the Qin Dynasty outlawed slavery over 200 years before Jesus showed up, so why couldn't he tell people not to own slaves? It's possible to not own slaves even if the government allows it, so why didn't he tell people that? No, there's more than one promise, and there's one that omits any gods: https://members.scouts.org.uk/documents/AdultSupport/Promise/FS322016.pdf And B-P supposedly composed the “Outlander's Promise”. I'm pointing out that you are just doing "my religion says X, therefor anyone who believes X got it from my religion".

That's a good reason to not use faith-based assumptions to decide morals. What? When did Jesus condemn slavery? Wrong. See Welsh v. United States (1970) and Seeger v. United States (1965). The law was written as if a "higher authority" was required, but the supreme court ruled that CO status could not be exclusive to only god-believers, or only to people who belonged to a religion that taught pacifism. By the way, the plaintiff (Elliott Welsh) was also the father of Mark Welsh in Welsh v. Boy Scouts of America (1993) The UK explicitly allows atheists now. WOSM still hasn't said anything about that, as far as I've heard. This is the same old lie that "if my religion teaches X, anyone who also says X got it from my religion".

Yep, and they don't agree on even basic questions. And when religious tenets on morality conflict, either one side admits their god is wrong (or doesn't exist), or both sides dig in and insist their view is the only correct one. This is not useful in deciding morals. And all religions today have been exposed to new and conflicting moral values, which is why religions like the SBC used to support slavery but now don't. Society changed them. And vice-versa. Christianity definitely supported slavery for centuries, until it was changed due to societal pressure. But I was replying to this statement of yours: "Like you, I do not believe that atheists would have a moral code without religions that define right and wrong. " Right there, you're saying atheists would not have a moral code, period, without religions that define right and wrong, which is a very different claim. Drop them with a bible and tell them it holds all absolute morals that they all must follow and see if they contradict the bible and decide that slavery is wrong.

I think the BSA's decades-long disparagement of atheists both by word and deed contributes to the slurs against atheists in this forum. You know, like when scouts write things like "Merlyn ... You're the Stalin of the web era", as if I'm equivalent to a mass murderer. Oh, that was you who wrote that.

What, like your nonsense replies? I give back what replies deserve. PS: what you have are humans claiming their god wrote the ten commandments. It's still humans all the way up.

Go ahead and argue that it's good. So slavery is moral? You can buy slaves from other countries and leave them as property to your children? But you're getting that from religion. Humans wrote the bible. I see you didn't understand my comment. There ARE unicorns in the bible, and false animal husbandry.

Go right ahead and argue that it's good. This is just silly. Morals are opinions. Gods have nothing to do with it. That's why religions keep changing what is moral or immoral. Christianity said slavery was fine for centuries. How did the SBC change then? They didn't claim their god showed up and corrected them. And your assertion is no different than saying "elves" give people their morality. It's just baseless assertions.

I'm not saying only Christianity is worthless in deciding morals, ALL religions are like that. They are based on assertions that try to be unquestionable. And oh dear, "hate speech", when I'm replying to assertions that atheists can only be moral due to religion.

Even granting that, it still makes religions useless for deciding moral questions. Christianity literally had centuries to call slavery immoral, yet failed to do so. Aquinas was OK with slavery and plenty of popes endorsed it and some owned slaves themselves. All of them? There are over 30 examples. Whataboutism doesn't wave away how worthless religion is for determining morality, it only shows that you're trying to deflect the issue.

A group of atheists that cooperate would outlast your imaginary brute-force society. There are human fossils that predate the oldest religions on earth that show they were either handicapped or elderly, and lived long past where they would otherwise die without help from other humans. Religions are terrible at morals; the Southern Bapist Convention was founded in 1845 expressly to defend slavery, and they finally officially apologised for it -- in 1995. If a sect as large as the SBC in a religion as large and old as Christianity can't even get a basic moral question like slavery right, I don't consider them useful in deciding moral questions.

Except the BSA doesn't follow them with regard to atheists, nor (judging by past comments) does Eagledad.

We went through this 14 years ago: And 13 years ago: And 10 years ago: And probably more.

The BSA has said in various court cases that they are a religious organization, but they didn't use that wording in Dale -- that was pretty much just whether the BSA was a private club or a public accommodation (which by itself would probably cut them off of public school chartering, since I doubt public schools could own & operate a private club). And the BSA didn't part with public schools and the military until the ACLU threatened to sue, which was 5 years after Dale. And yes, that was totally due to the BSA's discrimination against atheists.

Well, about a quarter of 13-18 year olds are prohibited from joining the BSA, for a start: https://www.barna.com/research/atheism-doubles-among-generation-z/

If it changes depending on what god(s) you believe exist, does the term mean anything at all?

As far as the UW (and probably most of the corporate sponsors), they still have a policy against giving to organizations that discriminate on the basis of religion and/or creed.

So do I, and I know of all the recent policy changes. I don't agree it's the same organization. An organization that excluded Jews (as many US clubs did decades ago) is different from the same organization once it stops excluding Jews. Excluding people is teaching by demonstration.

I've been fine, how's by you?

On what possible grounds?