Debate: Is belief in God for the GREATER GOOD?
Side: No, for the greater good.

Yes, there can be no good without God. With out an author, everything then becomes a matter of personal preference and interpretation. There is no objective standard by which to judge things.I disagree. I don't have a god, and am quite an exceptional person if I do say so myself. My objective standard is 1. empathy, what I would like for myself given I were in another's situation - a perfectly natural, and completely human emotion which in no way depends on a creator. 2. what knowledge and empirical evidence has shown us to be the nature of the world in which we live - which again is in no way dependent on a creator.You can't ask the maker of the product how it should be used. It means man has no purpose for which he was made and therefore there can be no deviation from a norm.Which product has any god in the history of mankind shown how to use? And what is this purpose you speak of? I mean, everyone has their own "purpose" and the world hasn't ended in fire and brimstone thus far.But worse than that is if there is no life after death, then justice becomes a sham. Those who go on shooting sprees and then take their lives escape justice. Hitler escaped justice and got off.Or, if there is no life after death, life becomes even more important. I would submit that most every mass murderer in the history of the world had some belief in some god, so this entire statement is simply incorrect.But the worst thing is that our lives become pointless and without meaning or value. If we come from nothing and return to nothing, folks we are nothing. Our lives have no value. Then there is no difference between gassing termites and gassing 6 million Jews.Again, as one who does not believe in any god whatsoever, I can promise from experience that I still find plenty of points to continue living. And again, it makes those lives lost even more tragic as I'm pretty sure they're just dead, and not floating around somewhere as magical spirits.That ought to scare any sane person. Because then you become a commodity for the state to use and consume for it's purposes. There is a correlation between Communism and atheism. For further proof pick up a copy of The Guinness Book of World Records and check out the greatest mass murderers of all time: Atheistic regimes, Stalin, Mao etc etc. There is a reason Russia is experiencing a surge in religion. This question is not a theoretical one for them; they know the answer from first hand experience.That's just dumb. I am firmly against communism, as atheist as I am. Further, Hitler referred to himself as an Evangelical in his speeches on Mien Kempf. The crusades killed around 6 million people (5 million in the first four and another 1 million in the Albigensian Crusade.) Terrorism from the middle east is under the banner of religion, as is much of the ethnic cleansing in Africa. Of the two; god's hands are far bloodier than any atheist's. I do however think the greater question is why do we have to protect ourselves from ourselves. Take the Ten Commandments, it ought to stagger us that God has to tell us not to murder and steal. Wow!!Agreed. Did it ever occur to you that god had nothing to do with the ten commandments? But that some smart person said, "these people are idiots, we need to figure out some way to control them." This sounds more like an argument for education than against atheism.that ought to be a given. We shouldn't have to be told not to do those things. And then to be threatened with punishment knowing we will do those things.Agreed. And again, of the 18% of the human population that identifies them self as atheist or agnostic, you will find about the same proportion within that population as in the religious population who follow the relevant commandments such as don't kill and steal, all without the fear of eternal damnation.Something is amiss at the very core of who we are. Laws can't help us because as soon as they get in the way of what we want, they get broke. And it's painfully obvious religion can't help either; it just becomes a facade we hide behind to justify our actions. Others simply turn to atheism, they close their eyes, cross their fingers and hope no one is home in the universe and proceed to do what they want, when they want. Others still will try to plead ignorance: " I really want to do this and If there is a God I'll just tell Him that I didn't know that it was wrong"So you're saying, it doesn't matter if someone believes in a god or not, they're going to do what they do. Agreed again, so how is this an argument for god being for the greater good? It would seem to be an argument for it not mattering... which happens to be a very atheist and free-thinking argument by the way. Odd... btw, I'm not crossing my fingers and hoping no one is home. That's a ridiculous view of atheism.Folks, we need to be saved from ourselves, we are the problem. And when you are lost in the forest the worst thing you can do is ask yourself for directions.When man began, we lived in caves, died when we were in our mid twenties of violence or hideous diseases, spent all of our time starving half to death, rape was the general family structure, we smelled bad and were exceedingly harry. Where was god then? That most have since our short advancement from that brutish existence, used religion in one way or another, it seems to me we've come this far quite on our own. Every advance in our existence, from medicine, to exploration of a round world (as opposed flat) has been fought by religion nail, tooth, stake in the ground, and fire.