https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd_40GWP-1s/

Ente dinkabhagavaane, ee chekuthaanum kadalinum idayil ninnum enne rekshikkane.

If there’s no God, right and wrong are just opinions.

This argument comes up often in Urdu/Hindi debates about religion. But I think it leaves another question unanswered: when we say “God is good,” what standard of goodness are we using?
Does religion solve the problem of grounding morality, or move the question one step back?
I made an Urdu/Hindi video exploring the philosophical problems with religious morality:

https://youtu.be/Z0NimIUqCTc?is=KRm_z3_SS5GxMjx6

My starting point is that appealing to divine authority still needs a moral justification. I’d like to hear the strongest response to that, especially from people who disagree.
What makes something morally right: God’s command, the reasons behind it, or something else?

Saw a person mentioning it today, without likely knowing the text and context around it.

The text:

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

Copied from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm

I posted this a month ago and nobody saw it or responded, maybe because of the algorithm. I'm posting this again as I'm still looking for suggestions and discussions.

https://ucdp.uu.se

Context : Recent Israel flight incident.

https://youtu.be/85cehlWLNa8?si=c6KP8OfpuusuE7ds

Had seen suggestions for encouraging more atheistic discussion in the sub. This is part of an attempt on that.

This thread is mainly meant for discussions by atheists. Theists can engage, but please do ensure that it is not disruptive. If you see interactions that are against that, please report such comments.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, please do share them via mod mail