UK: 70% of young people are 'not religious' according to a report - Sensationalist Headlines

But there are a lot of situations where murder is acceptable, such as self-defence. I don't think there is a single act that is completely evil in all possible circumstances.

That's not what your quote says, though? It says "that YOU can also will that it would become a universal law." Even if we go with your interpretation, then we can only act on extremely specific things that are consensus. A lot of things in our lives are subject to controversy. Your interpretation of the maxim is unenforceable, otherwise we wouldn't have a need for political parties.

Killing in self defense has been acceptable everywhere as far as I can tell. Murder is different from self defense.

And then you start getting into an argument about what exactly is murder. People are more than happy to attach a giant list of exceptions of what constitutes as murder and what doesn't and at that point it is no longer a universal law.

Or use the golden rule and stop pretending there's any universal truth

I don't believe there are a huge list of universal laws. I don't see why there can't be only a few "extremely specific things"?

That doesn't suffice to build the entirety of your moral compass, though. You're not going to go very far with just "don't murder". I think the correct interpretation of Kant's maxim is much more useful. Basically a more generalized version of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Which has the particularity of being relative to the person who uses it, like any moral statement, really.

Oh so you just use your opinions to like tell us how self defense isnt murder? Did you know i could use mine to tell you how murdering someone for your own life or property is immoral? Where is your attempt at universal truth now? Try getting a real basis for morality like sentient harm or something REAL.

"Don't murder" was just one particular example. And I still think it fits with the "do unto others" concept. I am pretty sure it's universally accepted that no one wants to be murdered and so it is morally imperative to not murder others.

Obviously if everyone wants it to be a universal law then that includes the person following the maxim. But if the person following the maxim wants something that isn't universal consensus to be made universal law, not everyone does. Your interpretation is far more restrictive than the "do unto others" one.

Lack of restriction just opens it to being subjective, which boils down to moral relativism.

And be too restrictive and you end up with an incomplete moral compass. I really don't see how you can build one based on consensus alone.

the god particle has nothing to do with god god particle is an abbreviation of "that goddamn particle, where is this stupid little fucker"

We live in an intelligent universe, surely that 'superior being' can't be discounted? The most basic fundamental axiom, that you can try for yourself, is 'truth'. Try to tell nothing but truth for the day, and see if you can tell the truth to yourself, without self deception. If you don't have honesty, you don't have integrity, or anything else. "As for the existential crisis......' When it comes to choice, you can never be a puppet of anyone, once you realize the power of choice. The way around the superior being, is intellect. Ancient Mythology has influenced your Archetype already, you haven't come to your current line of thought by yourself. "I'd rather exist for no explicit purpose, and come up with my own, than end up realizing that some higher being already made that choice for me and I'm just the puppet of destiny" You basically described Nietzsche's 'Ubermensch', in order to "come up with your own virtues" and live a fully virtuous life. Nietzsche discussed this in 'Thus spoke Zarathrustra' and came to the conclusion, that you need to be more than human, which we're uncapabable of. The ideaologies that you do create, are false and missing alot of parts. In attempt to create virtues, we create idealogies. We ended up with marxism, and fascism, and how did that end? Atheism is still a belief system, to not believe in anything, is still to believe, paradoxically enough.

We live in an intelligent universe, surely that 'superior being' can't be discounted? No we don't and yes it can? The most basic fundamental axiom, that you can try for yourself, is 'truth'. Try to tell nothing but truth for the day, and see if you can tell the truth to yourself, without self deception. If you don't have honesty, you don't have integrity, or anything else. Maybe try a bit of that yourself. The way around the superior being, is intellect. Ancient Mythology has influenced your Archetype already, you haven't come to your current line of thought by yourself. What's your point here? That someone may have conceivably reached a similar conclusion to something before I did. You basically described Nietzsche's 'Ubermensch', in order to "come up with your own virtues" and live a fully virtuous life. Nietzsche discussed this in 'Thus spoke Zarathrustra' and came to the conclusion, that you need to be more than human, which we're uncapabable of. The ideaologies that you do create, are false and missing alot of parts. In attempt to create virtues, we create idealogies. We ended up with marxism, and fascism, and how did that end? That's got to the the most tenuous, shoehorned connection I've heard since Glenn Beck's "Nazi's used empathy" Atheism is still a belief system, to not believe in anything, is still to believe, paradoxically enough. It's about as much of a belief system as disbelief in any other unfalsifiable thing that could be conceived.

there are ~4200 religions practiced around the world. how does it seem rational to put your faith in one religion? why does there need to be a "better" alternative to religion? the universe doesn't need a purpose to exist, it just does.

i'm hedging my bets by worshipping every god simultaneously

How about we just ditch the Bible, and think of what's good and bad based on reason and discussion?

I'd argue that the prevalence of depression in younger people has more to do with the current socioeconomic position many of us find ourselves in as opposed to a lack of religion. Young people are studying harder for qualifications that don't get them where they used to so they just end up working shit jobs harder than ever for less for less than ever, if they can find a job at all, because employment is more scarce than ever. And then they get told they are lazy and need to knuckle down and work harder. It's unfair to say that these people would be happy if only they believed in god and stopped thinking so damn hard about everything. I'm not saying you are wrong here, It probably helps if you believe there's some rhyme or reason behind your life, and that everything will work out in the end if you just keep in line and wait for absolution. But it doesn't help if you know what I mean? Idk maybe i'm just being optimistic, but I can't help but feel that more people coming to terms with the fact this life is all there is, and there isn't anything better waiting at the end of it, could lead to more people making an effort to improve the way this world works. There's a reason even the faithful often sneer at organised religion. It keeps you in line, keeps you unquestioning, makes you easy to control. Ignorance might be bliss, but that doesn't mean ignorance is a virtue.

Uh, no? And yes? Can't make any sense of this part. Can't help but read it in Wiseau's voice. And so are religions. What's your point? Ah, yes, marxism and fascism, the only two ideologies in the world. You realize religions are ideologies too, ones that often give bad advice and serve as tools to legitimize bad deeds? Nope. Lack of belief due to an absence of convincing evidence isn't the same thing as belief despite a lack of evidence. The latter is called "faith", and leads to people not changing their minds on things that are evidently not true, the former is called "the scientific method" and is a tool that serves to approach the truth.

Was raised agnostic and given the choice of being religious, parents were agnostics, I'm full atheist now as I can only believe the thing that requires the least assumptions, which in my case is that there's no god and the universe is on a natural cycle of expansion and reduction. My sister turned religious, quite heavily religious in fact.. she died 2-3 months later. Religion has done nothing for me :V

I don't even think religion qualifies as an answer, because it has nothing to back up its statements. To me it's as accurate as pure guess work. Yeah, it does make many people feel better, and I don't blame anyone for finding peace with what religion offers (especially people in tough living conditions, victims of trauma etc.), but firstly it's pure wishful thinking, as you rightly said, but also it leads to other problems such as other cretinous religious beliefs (patriarchal values, anti LGBT, preaching hate etc.). If the belief limits itself to deism, then fine, but most of the time it doesn't, and it just tends to poison the individual's view of the world and therefore their actions. And, personally, I find the "crucial piece of the puzzle" offered by religion to be an insult towards humanity. I don't want to get into it too much, but in short it demeans all of us by giving credit to a god for our morals and society etc., and most religions (if not all) are longing for the apocalypse, and hate on unbelievers and people of different faith (some more than others, but it's pretty much always present in each religion). The concept of god itself is primitive, and has so many totalitarian echoes to it that if a god actually existed I'd probably have a crisis because of it. There is just a massive dark side to religion that outweighs anything else it could possibly offer. Religious people fall into existential crisis' all the time, so it's role as a psychological "safety net" is limited. Atheists can find an infinite reasons why to enjoy life and not fall into a crisis, god isn't the only explanation that can comfort us. I, personally, find the existence and its mystery awe-inspiring, and exciting in a way. Life doesn't need an ultimate meaning to be enjoyed and experience to its full potential, and to many people (me included), god is an archaic and thoroughly uninteresting concept.