Is it ethical to teach your children that people who do not believe in God are going to Hell?

[alexey]

So you tell me that ethics isn't subjective because each person will look at the history of the ethic with subjectivity. Sorry man, but there is no universal ethic for humanity. As a Christian I hold to the Christian ethic as best as I can understand it, as such the things that I point to as flaws in the nation's ethic are the things that are against my Christian ethic. You are wanting to create an ethical soup where all of our differences are boiled away and we can see what we have in common...but in doing so you are ignoring some pretty major differences in ethic which is the whole point.

There are components of ethics that we all share, and there are components which are different from person to person. It would not be correct to say that ethics are completely subjective. Neither would it be correct to say that ethics are not subjective.

I also think that there is no such thing as a Christian ethic. There is a huge range of things that can be called "Christian ethic". Some of them are VERY different.

Agreed, we're sinful (read that how you wish) prideful, and self-centered. Heck if anything in America we work on a risk vs reward ethic, the way we drive (speed limits) illustrate that, our bankers illustrated that in the economic busts of our history, our government workers illustrate that, and for one I don't think that's a healthy ethic.

I think you and I are mostly on the same page about ethics if we frame them in secular language. Which is my point to begin with

[AsburySkinsFan]

There are components of ethics that we all share, and there are components which are different from person to person. It would not be correct to say that ethics are completely subjective. Neither would it be correct to say that ethics are not subjective.

All we're doing then is arguing about the degree of subjectivity, which in itself means that ethics are subjective, just how much is what we're debating upon.

I also think that there is no such thing as a Christian ethic.

Then you're fooling yourself.

There is a huge range of things that can be called "Christian ethic". Some of them are VERY different.

I would agree that there is a huge range of things that people may call a "Christian ethic" but that doesn't mean that they are. But, there IS a Christian Ethic and its foundation in upon two commandments.

I think you and I are mostly on the same page about ethics if we frame them in secular language. Which is my point to begin with

But, I don't want to use your restrictive secularist language, and it would seem unethical for you to coerce me into doing so.

[Prosperity]

Do you see religion as playing a role in that? After all, vast majority of religious moral dialog in this country appears to focus on politically useful wedge issues.

Maybe this is a question of assigning responsibility. For an atheist, these things are our responsibility. There is nowhere to hide - we have full responsibility for our fellow humans and our planet.

Funny, when I go to church, we don't talk about abortion and gay marriage. There is plenty of moral dialogue though. Last week we were talking about how God's love is not consistent with eternal torment for non-believers and sinners. We also talked about how we need to fairly allocate household chores. If you went to a church then you would have a better idea of the practical aspects of church and religious dialog. Though the mainstream media DOES use wedge issues to distract and divide people, it's important to know that THEIR focus is not reality, but infotainment.

[Kosher Ham]

Funny, when I go to church, we don't talk about abortion and gay marriage. There is plenty of moral dialogue though. Last week we were talking about how God's love is not consistent with eternal torment for non-believers and sinners. We also talked about how we need to fairly allocate household chores. If you went to a church then you would have a better idea of the practical aspects of church and religious dialog. Though the mainstream media DOES use wedge issues to distract and divide people, it's important to know that THEIR focus is not reality, but infotainment.

Why don't you talk about gay marriage and abortion ? And...How do you know he does not go to church ?

The media with religion concerned...projects what they have projected upon them. They don't typically even try to ride that train, they are stating and sharing what is told and giving the rest of us insight to what was said with sources.

[Prosperity]

Why don't you talk about gay marriage and abortion ? And...How do you know he does not go to church ?

The media with religion concerned...projects what they have projected upon them. They don't typically even try to ride that train, they are stating and sharing what is told and giving the rest of us insight to what was said with sources.

Gee I don't know, because maybe there are other things to talk about.

And how do I know? Well, it's just a hunch

[AsburySkinsFan]

What makes anyone think that atheists don't have any morals or ethics or responsibility for humankind or even the planet? Most of the atheists I know possess all three while what I see of publicized Christians, not so much.

For someone who hates to be stereotyped you really have no problem stereotyping others whom you want to pretend are evil ****s. Seriously, your crap would be annoying if it wasn't so commical.

[JMS]

Did you read what I wrote?

There is nothing in your quote that disagrees with anything I stated or wrote.

Are you going to ignore the actual substance of my response (i.e the whole rest of my post?

Pete you quoted a wikipedia article which equated the Middle Ages and Dark Ages... specifically in post 158 your quote stated..

""In the 19th century, the entire Middle Ages were often referred to as the "Dark Ages", Then YOU built upon that outdated notion saying that "many people still used the terms Middle Ages and Dark Ages interchangebale."

My wikipedia article which directly refuted that postions stated that the dark ages in modern venacular reffer to a period of 10th and 11th century, while the middle ages reffer to a period 6th to 13th centuries.. This goes along with my greater point that while the dark ages did represent a backward step in many ways culturally, scientific, militarily, of coarse human rights from the time of Rome... The middle ages period after the dark agest would again represent these area's continuing to grow more liberal ( if that's not to controversial a word) again from where the dark ages left them....

---------- Post added June-11th-2012 at 12:15 PM ----------

I understand that you are saying our society is based on everybody being equal and treating people like that for things like organ transplants.

But is that really what is best for future generations?

I don't think aiming for doing what is best for future generations is a reasonable justification.

I think ultimately that's an "ends justify the means" arguement. If you take to babies how can you really judge which is more important? You cannot, you may think you can, but you cannot.

Just like you cannot take two men, or women and make that determination. you can think you can. Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler all thought they could.. They were wrong.

The ethical thing to do, the right thing to do, is to rather base decisions of life or death not on a persons erronious perceptions of worth by his contemporaries. Rather it is best to give the organ to the person who can best make use of it, ie the best long term prognosis to live. This gives that organ the best chance to help society in general; because it gives the person recieving the organ the best chance ( longest time period) to help socieity.

If what we are doing is essentially random (no net good), and we can do better than random, is our current organ transplant system really ethical?

One can not predict the future. One can not know who the next Galileo will be. Just like Pope Urban VIII didn't know the importance of the Galileo he had was. If you take the 10 most influrantial people in history... They all share one thing in common.. All were were dismissed at some point in their lives as irrelivent. Some of them for hundreds of years after they had died by the majority of humanity including the people in authority.

There just is no way to tell...

[PeterMP]

Pete you quoted a wikipedia article which equated the Middle Ages and Dark Ages... specifically in post 158 your quote stated..

""In the 19th century, the entire Middle Ages were often referred to as the "Dark Ages", Then YOU built upon that outdated notion saying that "many people still used the terms Middle Ages and Dark Ages interchangebale."

My wikipedia article which directly refuted that postions stated that the dark ages in modern venacular reffer to a period of 10th and 11th century, while the middle ages reffer to a period 6th to 13th centuries.. This goes along with my greater point that while the dark ages did represent a backward step in many ways culturally, scientific, militarily, of coarse human rights from the time of Rome... The middle ages period after the dark agest would again represent these area's continuing to grow more liberal ( if that's not to controversial a word) again from where the dark ages left them

This is from YOUR quote of wiki:

"Originally the term characterized the bulk of the Middle Ages, or roughly the 6th to 13th centuries, as a period of intellectual darkness between the extinguishing of the "light of Rome" after the end of Late Antiquity, and the rise of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.[5] [3] This definition is still found in popular usage,[1][2][6]"

THIS DEFINITION IS STILL FOUND IN POPULAR USAGE.

Is it outrageous to suggest that many people use a defintion still found in popular usage?

I don't think aiming for doing what is best for future generations is a reasonable justification.

I think ultimately that's an "ends justify the means" arguement. If you take to babies how can you really judge which is more important? You cannot, you may think you can, but you cannot.

Just like you cannot take two men, or women and make that determination. you can think you can. Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler all thought they could.. They were wrong.

The ethical thing to do, the right thing to do, is to rather base decisions of life or death not on a persons erronious perceptions of worth by his contemporaries. Rather it is best to give the organ to the person who can best make use of it, ie the best long term prognosis to live. This gives that organ the best chance to help society in general; because it gives the person recieving the organ the best chance ( longest time period) to help socieity.

It also gives the person the best chance to HURT society.

It gives them the longers period of time to HURT society.

Your whole argument is that what is ethical is what is best for the largest part of the populace in the future.

You can't provide any evidence that what we are doing in terms of organ tranplants meets that criteria.

Yes, you are giving the people the best chance to survive and help society, but there is no reason to believe that there GOOD to society is MORE than their BAD to society.

One can not predict the future. One can not know who the next Galileo will be. Just like Pope Urban VIII didn't know the importance of the Galileo he had was. If you take the 10 most influrantial people in history... They all share one thing in common.. All were were dismissed at some point in their lives as irrelivent. Some of them for hundreds of years after they had died by the majority of humanity including the people in authority.

There just is no way to tell...

Again, I wouldn't have to be right every time. I'd just have to beat the 50% mark.

He didn't realize the importance of Gaelilie, but that doesn't mean he didn't think that Galileo was well above an average person in terms of ability.

That if he had an organ to transplant that he wouldn't have selected Galileo over 50% of the rest of the population.

I'd guarantee any such ranking based on "ability" or affecting the future would have ranked Galileo higher than many people.

Given the current, approach Galileo could have ranked DEAD LAST.

[pjfootballer]

Most human beings really don't know who is going to hell and who isn't. They are only told by their religion what to believe. Only God knows that if he is the final judge

Most people don't know enough about other religions to determine whether or not a person would go to hell because they don't know anything about their life or their religious upbringing.