@Anonymous: A quick question: If there is no God, then where does your sense of morality come from that people should not "bash" you?

@Yiska: To suggest that god is responsible for this is stupid beyond belief. Curious as to which god you speak of.

@Yiska: Why does it matter if we believe in god? It's horseshit.

@Yiska: I am sick of people who have the fucking presumption to assert that humanity has empathy because of a particular god.

@Anonymous: Take care and take a deep breath; enjoy the hearts!

@Yiska: because I don't go around shoving my foot between peoples doors blattering " I can offer you something beautiful. the word of god. "

@Yiska: We were living in groups.
In groups, teamwork and understanding others are more important than outliving everyone, because they make the group more successful.
Whether people want to mate with you becomes a significant form of selection for individuals within these groups, so people who help the group are found more attractive, and thus pass on their genes more.
We already had mirror neurons, like many animals - they help for learning from others by allowing the user to see things form the others' perspective (a bit). An increase in mirror neurons means an increase in empathy.
Empathy is the basis for morality and the heart of the golden rule.

So societies with more empathy are more successful (to an extent) and societies where empathy is valued will see an increase in empathy across generations.

Now, while this increase in empathy was happening within groups, people were still being dicks to other groups. On this level it was still quite dog eat dog. This is very evident in the old testament of the bible, where 'God' often told his followers to slaughter whole villages.
Much later, there was more empathy between us as a race, but we were still being dicks to other races, through slavery (which was condoned by the bible) of blacks, and other racism.
The world keeps getting smaller, and now we are more united as a people, but I think we need to stop being dicks to our ecosystem and ruining the environment.

I don't know what will happen next, maybe we'll go into space and start being dicks to aliens. But that's my explanation of what morality is and why we have it, what's yours?

@refractor: groups/tribes... Even then though Mankind has always thought of something greater then its self. Be it the moon,sun,darkness, a wild beast or even a humanoid figure. We know this because of cave drawings that pre-date the Bible and every recorded scrap of History. Mankind has always thought there must be something greater then us out there. Be it aliens or Gods. meh, my two cents.

@Anonymous: sighs

@Anonymous: Why "must" there be something greater than ourselves? Isn't life beautifull and mysterious enough without angry sky dwelling supermen?

@w00dm4n: Thank you for your post; it was just too funny and made my day! :D

@refractor: Thank you for your well thought out answer; My answer is simple, I believe we have empathy because we are created in God's image. Moreover, whether we believe in Him or not, that we as individuals have many of His attributes.

@Anonymous: But does that explain why there IS so many retarded kids that are so bad at grammar?

@Anonymous: friend

@Yiska: That's kind of a non-answer though. I often find God is just a black hole for difficult questions, in that you can just put him in the place of the answer and then forget about it. It doesn't actually give you any useful information, because we don't know God's motives or methods and we don't know much at all about his nature in general. Even if God IS the answer, he's a useless one and you might as well ignore him.

Why does God have empathy? Why is it a good thing to have? If God has empathy, why has he caused so much suffering (hell included)? Is there anything lacking from my explanation which means a god is needed?

@Yiska: A belief is just that, a belief. I might believe it will rain today with no evidence whatsoever. However strong and important this belief of mine is, I see no reason to go sharing it and, in case I'm wrong, to have provided false information to my neighbours. As true as it is that no atheist can prove tha god(s) do(es) not exist, it's also true that no religious person will be able to prove the contrary without evidence. So why don't we both stay calm and keep our beliefs for ourselves? I think i can guess how weird that would sound to a believer. 'I can't talk about god? When it's all about hope and love? That's harsh.' But please try to think how it would seem to you if I tried to persuade you that dragons exist. Especially after having persuaded half your friends. 'You might not see them, but I've felt their heavenly flames they have healed my once blind eyes.' Can you prove me wrong? No. Are you annoyed by my belief (or the fact that i got your friends as well)? Probably yes. You'd be right to think that I'd better keep my belief for myself and stop spreading it around. Keep it in my home. But then you would also be right to be worried if you discovered that I pass my beliefs to my children, not old enough to understand right from wrong yet, and that I send them to dragon worship rituals every sunday. It'd be totally ok, and socially accepted as well, to report me for being a bad parent. In my eyes, dragons and gods are about the same. An important difference though: I don't think there are many people out there who would profit from me believing in dragons. ;) I try to think (or better hope) that all the atheist comments around are not made by ducks who think you're not entitled to your own belefs. Because you are, be it gods or dragons. I hope what they really are annoyed about, is the spreading of non-accurate information, not so much in a conversation between philosophy lovers, but in the minds …

@Anonymous: Well I can't prove that God doesn't exist... HOWEVER. There is good reason to believe the Bible is not as accurate as most think for many reasons.

#1 the New Testament was written around 70 years after the supposed date of Jesus' death which means the people who were in direct contact with him were long dead. Thus, it is not a primary source.

#2 The people who wrote the New Testament were not named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.. those are code names, since they could have been persecuted for giving up their identities.

#3 The language used in the New Testament was written by someone who was highly educated, since most people at the time could not read or write. Thus, most followers knew the stories by pictures and hear-say. That leaves me with the question, who really wrote the New Testament and for what purpose? (because I find it highly unlikely that someone wrote it for the Glory of God. They had some kind of agenda in doing so, and separated followers from Judaism to Christianity in the process.)

#4 There is reason to believe the Romans would fabricate said story to create a religion that united the whole Roman Empire to one ideal, since people are easier to control if they all see the same side of the coin. When the Romans conquered, they used this to sway the indigenous population by playing up the greatness of God and most people WOULD want to believe it is true, and heaven is real.

#5 The foundations of Christianity reflect Pagan and other ideals and the dates of important holidays coincide (to a degree) with Equinoxes and Solstices (Easter/Christmas)

#6 Many Christian beliefs have been borrowed from religions of the people who were later conquered and converted by Missionaries like Mexico. Symbols are also recycled, such as the holy Trinity, which is very commonly seen in old Celtic ideals. Some Bibles like the King James version were heavily edited to fit a certain agenda.

@Anonymous: #7 The actual New Testament has been recorded to have been tampered with through the ages, as studies have shown that entries have been written over with ink dye that does not match the original source. There is a great study on this conducted in the early 1900s, but I do not remember the name of the source. (sorry)

At the end of the day, I've studied history and took a humanities class solely on the Bible which are my sources of observation. I also have an uncle who attended a seminary for years to become a priest, who now has no faith for Catholicism/Christianity.

I find it highly likely that people would use God as a means to manipulate people into doing things that seem unreasonable because that is what God would want. This is still happening today. I also think it is easy to use peoples deepest beliefs to manipulate them, and I think that is exactly what the Catholic Church does to control people (I grew up Catholic). I find it more likely the universe (or everything that ever existed) is what created us and it should be viewed as the only force able to destroy/create (Maybe God? Who knows). These are just my thoughts on the matter, not to be taken as the absolute answer, but as my personal observation.

And honestly to me, I believe it's probably just Roman Propaganda with a ridiculously long lifetime.

Atheism isn't the belief that you know everything.

@Anonymous: just because i don't HAVE to ridicule them, it doesn't mean that i don't WANT to ridicule them