Andrew:
Starting with the Old Testament, the Jews, unlike all cultures around them in the world, were the first to understand and practice ethical monotheism.
This is irrelevant. Just because a belief is in some way unique or the “first” of something doesn’t mean that it’s true.
Tell me AntiTheist, are you essentially the same in creation as an animal or are you superior to the animal.
Humans are animals. Every animal has unique characteristics, which allows us to classify them as a species. Chief among the human’s unique characteristics is higher brain functions (what is commonly called “reason”)
In the absence of a moral God who allows you to reason, why are you more worthy of respect than the chimp?
Well, we all agree that humans have higher brain functions (reason). It doesn’t matter whether a magical being gives us higher brain functions or whether such an ability developed naturally – we have that ability. By virute of it, we have established societies in which we value human life more than animal life.
And since there’s no evidence for a soul, I don’t believe that one exists. It seems to be the case that there is only a material universe, and until there is convincing evidence to the contrary, I’m happy to accept that there is only a material universe.
I used legal standards which I am familiar with and I was applying the civil law standard of balance or probabilities for the existence of God, and on a balance of probabilities I was arguing that it is more likely that there is a God than that there isn’t
Well, you’re incorect: in the absence of evidence, it’s not “more likely” that the thing you’re arguing for exists.
You’re not grasping the fact that you have zero evidence, and you are demonstrating that you do not understand what an “argument from ignorance” is. Can you define and give an example of “argument from ignorance” for me, please, in your own words?
Even in the passage you quote, the best it can offer is that “The hypothesis of God’s existence and the facts of contemporary cosmology are consistent.” Well, whoop-de-doo. The hypothesis of an invisible leprechaun waking you with a magical whistle is consistent with the fact of your waking up this morning – just because you can come up with a hypothesis that doesn’t contradict anything doesn’t mean that the hypothesis is any more likely to be true.
Incidentally, the Big Bang tells us nothing about what happened or existed before the Big Bang. It’s not necessarily true that “the cone tapering into the past must end [with the Big Bang].” We might, for example, be living in an accordian universe that has had multiple Big Bangs and Big Crunches thus far (i.e. a universe that has always existed in some form or another).
Hopefully, you can see how silly it is to say, “We have no idea what came before the Big Bang – therefore, an intelligent creator of everything is more likely.”
Josie
If a person bases their whole worldview (and life) on something you consider irrational then ipso facto the person in question is irrational.
I would agree that a person who bases his or her entire life on irrational beliefs would qualify as an “irrational person”; most believers that I know do not base all – or even close to all – of their decisions on their irrational belief in gods.
Let me clarify this. I know theists who do charitable things with their time. Now they might, in part, be basing their decision to do charitable things on their irrational belief in gods; but they also are basing that decision on many rational things – their own natural desire to help other people, the satisfaction they get from seeing someone else smile, the improvement it offers to the community, etc. These are the reasons that the atheists I know who do charitable things cite all the time.
I am firmly convinced that if the charitable theists I know lost their belief in a god, they would continue to do charitable work for all of the good reasons that I listed above.
In other words, I do not consider them to be irrational people – I consider them to have one belief that is irrational, among the many beliefs that motivate them.
What are your credentials with respect to rationality, can you define for me what “rationality” is?
Well, I can certainly tell you what one kind of irrationality is: accepting claims without sufficient evidence.
"As for “antiatheist”, I chose the name because I think atheism and all kinds of materialist world views are, generally speaking, bad for people. I’m not saying all non-believers are bad (far from it) or that no good can come from an atheist institution (far from it), but that the practice of accepting claims without evidence for them is in and of itself a harmful thing.
Evidently, you have evidence that God doesn’t exist, if that’s so, can you please provide it?
Ok, I clearly explained that by “antitheist,” I mean that “accepting claims without evidence for them is in and of itself a harmful thing.” That’s what a theist is – someone who accepts a claim (“god X exists”) without any evidence for it.
An atheist is someone who does not accept the claim that gods exist. It’s not a positive position that requires a burden of proof, any more than saying, “I don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster” is a positive position that requires a burden of proof. It’s up to Nessie believers (and, by analogy, the religious) to provide evidence for the things they believe in. Until they do, the rational position is to say, “I don’t believe you.”
In other words, atheism does not consist of accepting a claim without evidence and thus does not promote the acceptance of claims without evidence.
The culture we are presently living in is a result of a liberal and morally relativistic worldview, do you know of any religion that espouses this?
Ok, here’s the problem: you think atheism is somehow synonymous with “liberal” and “morally relativistic.”
It’s not, and I’ve tried to point this out by telling you that I know atheists who are neither liberal nor moral relativists. Atheism is not liberal or conservative; it’s not morally relativistic or morally absolutist. It’s a position on a single question. That’s it. It makes absolutely no sense to talk about various secular things, of various kinds, as “atheist.”
For example, a movie that promotes what you might consider “liberal attitudes” about a particular subject isn’t, by default, “atheist.” A movie that has a lot of violence in it is not, by default, “atheist.”
Such movies might be secular, but “secular” and “atheist” are not synonyms. For example, the United States has a secular government, but that doesn’t mean it’s an “atheist government.” The two terms are separate, and confusing them is a sign of sloppy thinking.
because I probably might be out of long posts tonight.
Everything I’ve typed so far is basically top of my head stuff unless I make an effort to track a book down and quote as I just did. Off the top of my head, you may have this book: Google covers some of Peter Kreeft’s arguments: books.google.ca/books?id=isu3dqRiqg0C&dq=Fundamentals+of+the+Faith&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=sExIWPcUb2&sig=rwy0cQIg-IXpq46U8QMhA1flooI&hl=en&ei=2ve_SorFCJGb8AaFrqihAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Do I take it then that you believe all those bright minds in our civilization who believed and studied Metaphysics to have been engaged in irrational pursuit?