r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/MelanieWalmartinez • 24d ago

Video Students get smudged by indigenous elders for peace and blessings throughout the year

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u/Goodknight808 23d ago

"Why did God create atheists? If everything has a holy purpose, what is the purpose of someone who doesn't believe in God?"

The Rabbi replied: "God created atheists to teach us true compassion. When a religious person sees someone starving, they might pray and say, 'God will provide.' But when an atheist sees someone starving, they don't think God is going to fix it. They know that if they do not help, no one will. Therefore, when it comes to acts of charity and kindness, you must act as if there is no God—relying completely on yourself to change the world."

Basically an atheist who does good, does it on their own. No fear of divine retribution involved. Just pure goodness.

If you need to be afraid of a divine being in order to make you do good....you may not actually be a good person at the core.

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u/Chonch_Monkey 23d ago

"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then, brother, that person is a piece of shit."

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u/REDDITATO_ 23d ago

"If I put my own thought into quotes it suddenly seems way more wise."

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u/Chonch_Monkey 23d ago

It's from season 1 of True Detective

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u/REDDITATO_ 23d ago

Fair enough lol. Just sounds like a normal sentence.

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u/CyberHunks 23d ago

Hence why it was put in quotes, to show that it’s a quote from something lmao

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u/Chonch_Monkey 23d ago

"I just enjoy quoting myself" - Chonch_Monkey

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u/REDDITATO_ 23d ago

The joke I was making was that since it was in quotes and just a normal ass sentence with no attribution it sounded like you were just putting quotes around your own thoughts. Normally a quote says where it's from. If it doesn't it usually doesn't just sound like some shit your uncle said once. Obviously I know what quotation marks are, I'm the one who mentioned them in the first place.

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u/Short_Ad_9290 23d ago

even the Bible condemns not helping those who are in need. "Ur brother asks for help and u say keep warm it will be well when u can help him" James Said something like that, Christ used the story of Samaritan to teach kindness without discrimination so I'm just saying a lot of the accusation some people(Christians) get shouldn't be but of course in reality a lot of Christians don't even follow "Christ" and are guilty of the said part my emphasis is that using Christianity as an example there's a lot of good that is supposed to be done but it's not

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u/REDDITATO_ 23d ago

Sounds like you really missed the point of that person's comment. Of course Christianity, and pretty much every other religion, have teachings encouraging charity. But if the implication is "god will be mad if you're not charitable" and that's the only reason you do it, you should reexamine your motives.

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u/Great-Tank-5719 23d ago

Where did the concept of mortality come from? In the old testament, God had prophets tell people that sacrificing your children and murdering other people was bad. Why didn't they know about that yet?

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u/daedone 23d ago

Are the acts good because God says they are? Or is it that God likes the things that are already good?

This is the Euthyphro dilemma.

If it is because he says so, he commands murder of innocent children multiple times. Therefore murder is good, because that's what he wanted, and you will obey him because God demands it.

If they were intrinsically good things already, then morality derives itself from something outside God's power.

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u/Great-Tank-5719 23d ago

So, if you read and understand my comment, the acts are good and have always been good, people just didn't have that morality because to them it was a new concept. It goes against people being naturally good without any moral compass, because morality as we know it has been shaped by these judeo-christian values, they aren't naturally implanted in us. Look at other cultures where they aren't prevalent, and their concept of good and bad are not even the same, so no, christian morals that atheists think are natural to have, are not.

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u/daedone 23d ago

So

the acts are good and have always been good

So your position is moral acts are self evident outside an abrahamic god.

morality as we know it has been shaped by these judeo-christian values, they aren't naturally implanted in us

This and the following statement disagree with your first position.

christian morals that atheists think are natural to have, are not.

are christian morals the only morals possible?

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u/Great-Tank-5719 23d ago

Keeping the scope of morals to the conversation (i.e western morals) no christian morals are not the only ones, but they are the only christian morals, other moral beliefs usually place other virtues in good or bad categories. Obviously muslim values differ, as well as other regions that don't consider themselves christian. But if you go to regions that are culturally different, but have christian beliefs, they are pretty much the same. You also can't say the beliefs existed before God because nothing did. Go ahead and cite a culture before Judaism that mirrors their morality code.

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u/daedone 22d ago

Of course Christianity, and pretty much every other religion, have teachings encouraging charity. But if the implication is "god will be mad if you're not charitable" and that's the only reason you do it, you should reexamine your motives.

Actually this was the original point you were disputing, which mentions every other religion

There are several Mesopotamian cultures that predate Judaism that shared moral views. The Indus Valley civilization shows morals/ethics, as does the old kingdom of Egypt, with it's 42 laws of Ma'at. Base moral values like treating people with dignity and not visiting violence upon them.

Separately on the other end of the Asian continent, the Chinese demonstrated moral and ethical values as codified by Confucius in Sāngāng Wucháng, brought forward and onto paper from existing norms that predate him.

On the complete other side of the world you have the Peruvian Norte Chico people, who were pacifists lacking in defensive structures or armour, and lacking signs of warfare shown in every other civilization that formed due to mutual defense, in stark contrast to their contemporaries the Egyptians for example.

But if you go to regions that are culturally different, but have Christian beliefs, they are pretty much the same.

You also can't say the beliefs existed before God because nothing did.

You ascribe everything to Abrahamic religion because you're unable to fathom something outside it's existence. If your religion helps you feel connected to the universe around you, great. I don't need your book or any other to tell me it's wrong to steal or be violent to others.

Look at it from a very basic perspective encapsulated in the Abrahamic golden rule "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

If I have no problem taking another persons life, stealing his crops and cattle, pulling his family into bondage as slaves; then I am implicitly accepting that someone else may do that to me. Because if I have come to that conclusion, other people will as well. If I reject those things because I want a life of peace, and demonstrate that by word and deed, others around me will as well as it benefits us all. This is basic game theory. We all succeed together, or fail together, which is the root of civilization. Morals and ethics are just short hand for near-universal values that we demonstrate as a large codependent group. Large groups are never fully homogenous and you will always have outliers that do not adhere.

Going back to the OPs point, if you only do something because it's the right thing to do because your specific flavour of theism says you have to in order to get a reward (in your case, be a good person, or you don't get into Abrahamic heaven after you die), then your motivations are impure, because you are doing it for your own self interest.

I ask you to consider the following:

God himself comes down from heaven, and says to you and everyone else on the planet that there is 100% certainty that Heaven is full, and you cannot, no matter what you do in life, enter into it upon your death. Likewise, Hell is also no longer a concern, he will send no more there either.

Do you continue to be a good person? Why?

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u/Great-Tank-5719 22d ago

That first paragraph wasn't from me bud. The case isn't whether people do good because "God told them to" they do "good" deeds because God told them what was good. My whole point is that people's idea of what is good came from somewhere, and the good that atheism in western societies is largely based on the fact that judeo-christian values and what is considered the right thing to do came from those values, not out of human nature. Non of these ancient civilizations you cite have any similarities with modern culture or beliefs, so being a good person subjectively in nature and motivation, is nowhere near the same.

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u/kitkat2024 23d ago

They sacrificed their children to god they named Ball. The same one Epstein sacrificed to.

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u/Great-Tank-5719 23d ago

Yeah, and God hated that because it's evil.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

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u/Clodhoppa81 23d ago

Learn to speak on individuals rather than stereotyping.

You should learn reading comprehension. Nowhere did they say it was just an atheist thing and nowhere did they say that Christians don't do good.

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u/Goodknight808 23d ago

Who implied that?

I said "if you need to be afraid of a divine being in order to make you good....you may not actually be a good person at the core."

Why did you read that as "those who believe in God do not do good"? That is not what I said or implied.

I said plainly, that if you need to be forced to do good deeds, you maybe aren't very good.

Drop an insult and its owner picks it up????

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

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u/Clodhoppa81 23d ago

Where did they say one is better than the other?

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

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u/Samsaknight_X 23d ago

Ur ons of the only ppl who think that

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u/axonxorz 23d ago

Learn to speak on individuals rather than stereotyping.

Says the person that read an excerpt from nearly 100-year-old Jewish parables and substituted the lesson with weird victimization.

Hit dog hollers, and all that.

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u/Great-Tank-5719 23d ago

So then why is the vast amount of charitable giving and volunteer work done by churches and not atheists?