Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Debate: Is it possible for man to live a moral life without religion?

2009-09-27T17:35:20Z

DavidKondner: /* Yes, it is possible */

{{debate}}

'''NOTE - PLEASE READ THE PREMISE SECTION BEFORE POSTING REPLIES - THANK YOU.'''

==Premise==

The inspiration for this debate topic comes from several sources, and is not meant to be an attack on religion. The main inspiration was contemplation about the novel ''The Lord of the Flies''. Is it the basic nature of man to devolve into savagery without moral guidance, or, given enough time, would man develop a moral framework to live by because of the inherent benefits to society? If so, could this happen without religion to frame the moral values against?

The related question is that if one assumes that religion is required for man to live a moral life, then what are the essential characteristics that religion must have in order for its adherents to live a moral life. Catholics, Jews, Protestants and Muslims follow different tenets of faith, but it would be wrong to call someone immoral simply because they are devout in one faith and not another. That implies that there's a common baseline of morality to certain faiths, and that a person who follows those aspects of that faith would be leading a moral life.

The purpose of this debate is not to come up with simplistic yes/no or right/wrong answers, but to use a thoughtful question to allow members of the CP community to express their views on the subject so that others can develop new insights from reading them.

==Yes, it is possible==

I don't want to write volumes here so I am going to refer people to a good book on this topic that I read recently. It is "Primates and Philosophers" by Frans de Waal. De Waal is a primatologist. The premise of the book is that the great apes exhibit behaviors that are the basis of moral action. So morality appears to have a evolutionary basis. De Waal also points to cross cultural studies of moral decision making that suggest that some moral thinking is basically hardwired and not dependent on cultural belief systems (including religious beliefs). It's pretty fascinating stuff.

The common belief seems to be that the theory of evolution and the phrase "survival of the fittest" means that brute force and violence are the route to evolutionary success. In fact, all sorts of physical and behavioral adaptations can be successful. In the great apes, social behaviors that promote cooperation, empathy and sharing have proven to be successful strategies for survival. [[User:MikeAndrews|MikeAndrews]] 09:52, 19 January 2009 (EST)

:I believe it's absolutely possible. Whether one believes that we carry a divine spark or not, the reality is that we are all born as atheists in the sense that we have no knowledge of who or what to worship until we are taught by others. There is no reason to believe that a child could not be raised in a society where there no exposure to religion, but a thorough grounding in ethical values instead, and have that child grow up to lead a fulfilling and productive life. Cooperative society works better than every-man-for-himself anarchy, and that social factor along with the rule of civil & criminal law would be enough incentive to do the right thing or face material consequences. --[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 19:54, 19 February 2009 (EST)

Yes, I daily witness others that seem to live a proper life. Most consider a person moral if they are a law-abiding citizen. I can split hairs on morals. Can you live a moral life without knowing morals? In the Roman Catholic Act of Contrition it says "in what I have done and what I have failed to do." You can be a good person but fail to reach Heaven because your good human nature is not enough. Having morals is not enough, you need God in your life.--[[User:Jpatt|jpatt]] 20:59, 19 February 2009 (EST)

:I'm not sure that a law-abiding life and a moral life are the same thing. If I want to kill, steal, and otherwise do horrid things, and I only refrain because I'm afraid of getting caught and punished, am I, in fact, a moral person? --[[User:Benp|Benp]] 21:14, 19 February 2009 (EST)

::That's the irony of it. You didn't commit a crime (law-abiding) but want to or fear the consequences (not moral). You are still perceived as being good when in fact you are not. Or the person that wants to do crime thinks they are moral for not committing the crime, they are still not. Can you be good without religion? Yes --[[User:Jpatt|jpatt]] 21:47, 19 February 2009 (EST)

:::I think it's possible to be good without being religious, Jpatt. I was raised a Roman Catholic, and was taught (in my case at least) that because of original sin and man's inherently flawed nature, I was born into a less-than-moral state and had to use my life to follow God's guidance back into morality and grace. Could it also be true, though, that living a moral life for its own sake reaps its own rewards in this life?
:::I've just been laid off from my job, for example, and have to spend the next 30 days training my colleagues to take over my functions to get my severance package. It could be tempting to make the least possible effort at training so that when I'm gone, the company will acutely feel the loss. That's not the moral thing to do, though, and I'm giving the transition my best effort. What's relevant is that I'm not doing it because a poor effort would cost me my severance, I'm doing it because I like my colleagues and don't want their performance to suffer because I didn't help equip them to succeed. You can be just as missed by leaving on a high note of professionalism as you can by leaving with a petty "since you don't need me, you figure it out" bailout. The former helps you more in life, though, because it's a small world and people have long memories. You can find that in life it's better to do the moral thing for the long term happiness and benefits it brings to you, and not just to avoid negative consequences. Making the moral choice in how I leave this job has nothing to do with religion, but it's a moral choice all the same. --[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 23:10, 19 February 2009 (EST)

::::I agree 100%, I forgot my 'yes' at the end of my last statement. Sorry to hear about the job, certainly not good news. I'll be praying for you this week, new employment at the same pay scale. --[[User:Jpatt|jpatt]] 23:36, 19 February 2009 (EST)
:::::Thanks for the kind thoughts - being cut in a weak economy isn't fun, but this happened once before to me in the 1990's and the job I landed in turned out to be better than the one I was laid off from. My hope isn't so much for a job with the same pay, but one that doesn't cost me time with my family. I have some special-needs kids, and I'd take a pay cut to be able to telecommute or work on flex-time as I do now to be there when they need me. The companies that offer this will be rewarded by incredibly loyal employees. --[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 23:47, 19 February 2009 (EST)

Doesn't anybody read Kant anymore? Helloooo, categorical imperative? Kant doesn't mention religion at all in his works, and he's 99% right in his moral philosophy that says, basically, do not do anything that, if universally applied, would eventually contradict itself. Murder without reason, for example, fails this rule. [[User:Ckral|Ckral]]

Yes. In Dante's "Inferno", the very first level of Hell is Limbo, realm of the virtuous pagans. They are not punished there, but then, they lack paradise. Dante’s work is not an authoritative source, but his ideas are reasonable and I agree with them. In Biblical times, surely in the all the lands without Christianity there were some virtuous people, and if there were even just one, God would not consign him to eternal torment in Hell.-David

==No, it is not possible==

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. While I believe it is possible for an individual man not to profess a religion and still live according to a code of morals, I do not believe that it is possible for Man, collectively, to do so. Simply put: I believe that the development of concepts of morality and justice are so inextricably linked to religion as to be inseparable.

The moral man who does not profess faith in God is nonetheless informed by religious concepts of morality; thus, he is NOT living a moral life without religion. He is simply living a moral life in which religion is not the central fact. --[[User:Benp|Benp]] 20:05, 19 February 2009 (EST)

:Those are interesting thoughts, but let me put an alternate premise forward. Most religions tend to have common values, like prohibitions against murder, stealing, deceit, etc. Given how wildly different some faiths can be, monotheism vs. pantheism for one example, isn't it more likely that man is inclined to develop moral codes that grow in sophistication along with their societies, and that these common, human-centric values are superimposed on different faiths rather than different faiths coincidentally arriving at the same moral codes? --[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 20:32, 19 February 2009 (EST)

::I would suggest that such a hypothesis is at least partially testable, thus:
:::1. Is there historical evidence of a civilization where concepts of morality and justice developed in the absence of religion, or before religion?
:::2. Is there evidence that a civilization can maintain concepts of justice and morality in the long term in the absence of religion?
:::To the best of my knowledge, no such evidence exists. Moreover, in the absence of God, I would want to know ''why'' those moral codes seem to be relatively universal. I think that you have to really strain credulity to claim that they're all due to biological imperatives. --[[User:Benp|Benp]] 21:12, 19 February 2009 (EST)

Conservapedia:Contact Us

2009-09-27T03:22:27Z

DavidKondner: A question about being taught evolution in an AP Bio class. PLEASE HELP

Hello, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but... I am a student in public high school, and am taking AP Biology. I have just learned that Evolution is an entire '''chapter'''''' in the course. Would it be moral for me to learn evolution without believeing it just to pass the test? Or should I drop the course? (This would be very time consuming and difficult)- David
== Unable to edit? ==

I would like to post the following to the Jesse Helms article after "Foreign Policy" but am locked out. I don't know why. {{unsigned|BertSchlossberg}}
: Editing is often turned off overnight (U.S. time), which may have been your problem, although that means that you shouldn't have been able to post here, so unless it was turned back on in the meantime, I can't explain it. Would you like to try it again? [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 08:47, 19 December 2007 (EST)

:: Right. The [[Jesse Helms]] entry is not locked.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 09:06, 19 December 2007 (EST)

==When only part of an article is accepted==
I recently posted an entry, [[F-105 Thunderchief]], and included a references section and a category, but in the final article, neither section shows up, although they are clearly present when the "Edit" button is clicked. Just now, this happened again with another entry I tried to make. What gives? Does the site only accept so much information in a new entry? --[[User:Frey|Frey]] 17:58, 27 February 2008 (EST)
:You had a bad <nowiki><ref></nowiki> tag which I have fixed. [[User:BrianCo|BrianCo]] 18:02, 27 February 2008 (EST)
::I did? Oopsie. And thanks.--[[User:Frey|Frey]] 18:09, 27 February 2008 (EST)

==KAL 007 article on Main page==
I would like to propose having the article [[Korean Airlines Flight 007]] as a featured article on the Main page. Thanks.[[User:BertSchlossberg|BertSchlossberg]] 15:32, 1 March 2008 (EST)
(finally got it right!)

: I'd like to review it in detail and hear what others think about it. On its surface, without yet studying it, it appears to be a major work. Congratulations!--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 15:58, 1 March 2008 (EST)
:: There's a [[Conservapedia:Featured articles|page]] for listing proposed featured articles. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 17:52, 1 March 2008 (EST)

==To Kill The Child/Leaving Beirut==

I just wrote an exteremly long and extensive artical about these two songs. Then, when I went to save the page, it said that it did not save it because there was a quote in their to explain about the song that contained a profanity. What gives? I thought that this website was supposed to educate people, yet people cannot be educated if they cannot know what the artical is talking about and what the proof is. {{unsigned|Std}}
: We have a profanity filter for good reason, but sometimes exceptions need to be made. You haven't supplied enough information for us to judge if this warrants an exception. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 22:47, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

What exactly are the exeptions that would get me the warrent?

How do you upload an image?

{{unsigned|Std}}
:You have to ask an administrator. There was a problem with people uploading obscene materials. [[User:HenryS|HenryS]] 00:42, 11 April 2008 (EDT)
: An exception would be warranted if, for example, the word caught by the filter was not objectionable in the context. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 02:57, 11 April 2008 (EDT)

Can anyone do an article on Cong. Larry McDonald, a passenger aboard KAL 007?[[User:BertSchlossberg|BertSchlossberg]] 07:01, 8 May 2008 (EDT)

==Proposal==
I wrote some time ago about making plans to build Conservapedia into a force to be reckoned with. This site has the potential to become a powerful tool, but still has a ways to go, I think. As an example, I just did a search on [http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NDZiMjkwMDczZWI5ODdjOWYxZTIzZGIyNzEyMjE0ODI= ACORN], a group funded by leftist billionaire [[George Soros]] that is becoming a very serious threat to the integrity of local elections. All I found was a one-line page about the oak tree. Of course the solution to this is to simply create the page myself. But I don't think this solves the larger issue; to my knowledge, there isn't a program of incentives inviting conservatives to contribute high-quality information and research articles on our opposition. How do we do this?

For one, I take it that Conservapedia gets some heavy traffic. Heavy traffic = $$$ in potential advertising revenue. Use that money to attract the right people to help build Conservapedia into a powerhouse of information. This could include rewards for college students, or hired admins (background checked with references and resume, of course). Perhaps contact county or state Republican/conservative groups, show what you've done, and propose a team effort to get more people to contribute articles to the web site.

In short, there's a million ways that this project can grow, and it is more important to me that the conservative cause succeeds than to keep these ideas to myself. My hope is that someone reading this will take hold of them... [[User:Alexander|Alexander]] 17:35, 29 May 2008 (EDT)

My IP address at home appears to have been blocked. Could someone please unblock me? [[User:FOIA|FOIA]] 15:16, 27 June 2008 (EDT)

==Bobby R. Himes==
I have a photo for the new article [[Bobby R. Himes]]. Can I get permission to upload it?[[User: Bhathorn|Bhathorn]] 18:24, 29 August 2008 (EDT)
: If the picture is on-line (and available for Conservapedia to use, of course), post the address here or click [[Special:Emailuser/Philip_J._Rayment|here]] to e-mail me the link and I can upload it to Conservapedia for you. If it's on your computer, e-mail me via that link anyway and I will reply with my e-mail address for you to e-mail me the picture, so I can then upload it. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 23:59, 29 August 2008 (EDT)

==Banning policy?==
Hello, I represent a website interested in your work. However recently a member of ours, JMcClane used your website and edited a page on Obama because it stated he was a Muslim, which it has been proven he isn't, he has been banned for 5 years, care to comment? It was a JPatt who did the banning, would he like to comment too?
:JMcClane removed a large amount of material in that article and replaced it with this:
::''"Obama is regularly mistaken as Islamic due to his second name, in fact he is not Muslim though stands for equality between religions. He is in fact Christian, though rumours were spread by Conservative spin Doctors hoping to turn the public against him."''
:And who is JMcClane to you? Care to comment on that? [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 14:16, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

:Beyond the fact that you didn't answer my question mate, we're part of the same website who are interested in the current election in America, you might have heard of it. He became involved in this site and this happened, so I reiterate, gonna answer the question properly?
::I did answer your question, "mate", and you're not going to act like you run ''this place''; you will answer mine now. [[User:Karajou|Karajou]] 14:33, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

:As I said, we're part of the same website. I'm sorry about the mate comments, I'm just friendly like that. You've said you banned him cause of the edit, but isn't it kind of harsh as it is proven he's not Muslim so the entire article was pointless. That's all I'd like to know. And 5 years does seem steep.

Which website do you represent? Why are you interested in Conservapedia? Our banning policy is carefully calibrated and appropriate to the demands of the various situations. And sign your posts with four tildes, please; we are not interested in anonymous 'contributions'. [[User:Bugler|Bugler]] 17:10, 17 October 2008 (EDT)

==Google misdirection==
In Google Search, the entry for ""Alger Hiss - Conservapedia" was changed today from "http://www.conservapedia.com/Alger_Hiss" to misdirect to the nonexistent Web page "http://www.conservativeencyclopedia.com/wiki/Alger_Hiss." Is there a way to ask Google to restore the correct link? [[User:FOIA|FOIA]] 13:19, 4 February 2009 (EST)

*Thanks for noticing and reporting this, FOIA, but nothing needs to be done. When we had the hard drive failure, and temporarily re-directed, the search engine bots picked that up. Now that things are restored, the bots will report back to all the search engines, and in due time will be directing properly. The Google (and all other engines) are smart enough to compare and repair. Or so they say. Administrator Conservative might have more insight into this, and I have linked him to this page. --[[User:TK|'''₮K''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 14:23, 4 February 2009 (EST)
** For what its worth, Google is pretty much 100% automated. They almost never manually intervene in their search results, and that's generally due to a court or otherwise governmental order. [[User:ArthurA|ArthurA]] 14:38, 4 February 2009 (EST)
*** You mean that they generally ''only'' intervene due to court or governmental orders, correct? [[User:Npov2|Npov2]] 00:56, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

== Copyright? ==
I'd like to comment that [[:File:Kathleen Sebelius.jpg]] should probably be tagged as “fair use” rather than as “public domain.” Also, I think the description of the {{tl|commons}} template, both in [[Help:List of Templates]] and in the template body itself, is slightly misleading: items in Wikimedia Commons are not necessarily in the public domain. Thank you. [[User:Npov2|Npov2]] 00:56, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

== In the News ==
I'm not sure how to submit suggestions, so I'll post this here: Timothy Larsen, "[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124355313058264477.html Look Who's a Believer Now]," ''The Wall Street Journal'', May 29, 2009, p. W13. [[User:FOIA|FOIA]] 10:40, 1 June 2009 (EDT)

== Google Gadget? ==
I understand that [[google]] has problems, but has there ever been thought to developing a "Google Gadget" with a conservapedia news feed?[[User:Mrguido45|Mrguido45]] 20:59, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

== Evolution Feature on the Main Page ==
The section of the main page devoted to the Evolution article states that, "In 2006, the prestigious science journal Science reported concerning the United States: "The percentage of people in the country who accept the idea of evolution has declined from 45 in 1985 to 40 in 2005. Meanwhile the fraction of Americans unsure about evolution has soared from 7 per cent in 1985 to 21 per cent last year." The study was conducted with 2000 Americans (approximately), selected by pseudo-random digit dialing over the telephone. the study found that the portion of people unsure about evolution has increased in a statistically significant manner. The second finding of the study was that the proportion of people who believe in evolution and creationism have not changed in any statistically significant way (i.e.: That the p-value of the 1985 and 2005 data sets is greater than 0.05 - simply put, that there is not enough detectable difference between the respondents in 1985 and 2005 to make any kind of statement about it). Essentially, the study cited on the main page didn't actually prove that the public belief in evolution is declining. I would request a change to that article to remove the irrelevant citation about a decrease in evolutionary thinking among Americans. [[User: Praboud|Praboud]] 19:52, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

== Referred to as a Methodist ==

Hi, I am not sure if this is the right location to ask this, but at the bottom of my user page there is a category section that says "Category: Methodist Conservapedians". I didn't place that there and it isn't available for editing out when I look at the editable content for my user page. I only bring this up because I am not a Methodist and I do not wish to mislead anyone into thinking I am. I do not know who added me to this category or why, or somehow if I accidentally did this myself. If possible, may I be added to the "Agnostic conservapedians" category instead? Thank you. -- [[User:BMcP|BMcP]] 8:42, 20 June 2009 [EDT]

:It appears to be because of your userbox "This user believes in the United States Constitution." When I tried putting it on my user page, the Methodist category automatically appeared there as well. --[[User:OscarJ|OscarJ]] 09:02, 20 June 2009 (EDT)

::Fixed. --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 11:20, 20 June 2009 (EDT)

== I might be wrong... ==

But I do see quite a bit of bias on Conservapedia. If this is supposed to be "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia" then shouldn't bias be removed? I think that some of the articles are great and others are blatantly biased based upon the authors moral views. I know that some of the topics go against the beliefs of the people who run this site but it isn't a great way to run things. Tolerance of others and their beliefs, no matter what we think of them, is what Conservapedia should be about. Just my opinion and nothing more.

:Just your '''unsupported''' opinion and nothing more, you might have said.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 21:35, 20 June 2009 (EDT)

::I could have, but I figured that people would pick that up from "'''I might be wrong...'''". I never had any beliefs that my opinions were supported here, as I had to make an effort to "vocalize" them. Generally people on and off of the internet don't support my opinions.

:::What I meant was that you made a claim of bias without providing any examples to support your claim.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 22:02, 20 June 2009 (EDT)

::::Ah. [[http://www.conservapedia.com/Che_Guevara]] "Ernesto "Che" Guevara" "became a cultural icon for" "'''dumb white teenagers'''." [[http://www.conservapedia.com/Communism]] "Communism is an atheistic political system" Although extremely hilarious, I think that those articles are somewhat biased and detract from Conservapedia's accountability. I have not seen Wikipedia style hijackings yet though.

==Tau ceti to Tau Ceti==

I created an article called [[Tau ceti]], but it should be Tau Ceti, is there anyway the name can be reset as the latter? Thank you. -- [[User:BMcP|BMcP]] 16:00, 24 June 2009 [EDT]

:Yes, there [[Tau Ceti|'''is''']]. --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 16:17, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

:: Thanks! -- [[User:BMcP|BMcP]] 16:22, 24 June 2009 [EDT]

==Alger Hiss==
I just tried to link to The Encyclopedia of Ukraine at and got this message:

::Spam protection filter

::The page you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to a blacklisted external site.

The spam filter apparently mistook part of the URL for an obscenity.

Is there any way to fix this? Thanks![[User:FOIA|FOIA]] 21:40, 3 July 2009 (EDT)

*You can give the URL without making it a link, so that people can copy and paste the link into their own browser, but I am not inclined to unblock any part of that corner of the world, for pretty obvious reasons. --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 21:44, 3 July 2009 (EDT)

==Kapteyn's star to Kapteyn's Star==

The article I created called [[Kapteyn's star]] was created with a lower case s for star, it should be upper case, could someone with the rights change the title to Kapteyn's Star? Thank you. -- [[User:BMcP|BMcP]] 15:00, 8 July 2009 [EDT]

== Double Redirects ==
All three of the current [[Special:doubleredirects|double redirects]] are protected. Could a Sysop fix them, please? Thanks. ~ ''[[User:Mdotley|Webster]]'' ([[User talk:Mdotley|talk]]) 22:18, 17 September 2009 (EDT)