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a_priori
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And vice versa?
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jam070406
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Perhaps if you became terminally ill it would be less, silly?
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blortog
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Sorry if you misinterpreted what i was saying about the last laugh, I’m not talking about anyone laughing at Christians or Christians laughing at people not getting into heaven, I’m talking about life itself as being a long joke and when one dies the butt of the joke is on them. Becoming terminally ill wouldn’t change how I feel since all the ideas about death outside of the physical characteristics are human fabrications, I can’t help but laugh at anyone who claims to know what happens when you die, since the only way to find out is to die.
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j1akey
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Atheism is just a lack of belief in a higher power, nothing more and nothing less. If people want to get together and have a pow wow and talk about how much they don’t believe in something then that’s their decision but I don’t see it as another type of organized religion just because people get together and talk about stuff. Personally I’ve never heard of an atheist convention and I’ve never known someone who has either.
I probably should have also more clearly defined what I was talking about here. I didn’t say atheists were right. What I was trying to get across is that all the religions of the world think all the other religions are wrong so why bother to believe in anything. Religions are a creation of man so basically even if I did follow one of them I’d just be taking someones word on it.
Who said anything about Richard Dawkins being “my pope”. I thought this way LONG before I even ever heard of Richard Dawkins. In fact the only reason I even know about who he is now is because a couple years ago my brother started ripping into him so I had to look him up. No atheist I know considers Richard Dawkins their “leader” like any kind of pope. We may agree with what he has to say but he’s no leader.
Religion doesn’t advance science, people do. The fact that a Catholic made a discovery in anything doesn’t mean that religion is the cause of the discovery. Props to those people, not the religion. Either way I was referencing creationists/creationism, not the catholic church.
I wasn’t trying to compare atheism vs whatever religion. Either way I see alot of great examples of people making discoveries but that’s all. Also most of the people you’ve listed lived in a time where you were burned at the stake for not believing in god or the church so of course people that have made discoveries or great works of art back then were men of faith.
There aren’t many atheists out there at this point so if we were the largest charity then I’d say there is something wrong here.
I know there were many leaders that happen to be atheists that did some really bad things but I don’t remember any wars being started in the name of atheism, unlike countless wars that have been started in the name of god.
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AnotherAtheist
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Well then let’s contextualize my reply. The original post was:
This was followed in post number 2 with:
And the OP clarified the intent of their original question by replying with:
So why did I reply the way I did. Well I agree with post number 2. I would very much like to believe in a “if wishes were horses god.” I just don’t believe one exists. However, like the OP I don’t feel the Judeo-Christian-Islamic Abrahamic god fits the “if wishes were horses god” paradigm. I feel the undesirable aspects of the Abrahamic god as depicted in the Christian versions of the Old Testament far outweigh any positive aspects.
I give credence to the hypothesis that many of the myths of the Old Testament starting with creation and continuing through Noah were lifted directly from the Sumerian epics. I also think that most of the story after Noah and through Moses and the Exodus was probably a fabrication of the scribes who wrote the original document while in Mesopotamia. I find the evidence supports the conclusions that the the Davidic Empire was an invention of Jerusalem-based priests in the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. who were eager to burnish their national history. That Jewish monotheism did not coalesce until the period between the Assyrian conquest of the eighth century BC and the Babylonian conquest in 586.
I personally find the possibility that Jesus, if he existed at all, was the son of God to be practically zero. I also feel that if he existed then the church as we know it today has distorted his original message by so much that the original intent has been lost. So I ask you, why would I want to believe in something I find so much fault with?
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StrawberryJam
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josie_L
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Did it ever occur to you that some of the stories present in the Bible are more allegorical as opposed to literal? And how much bible studying did you do before renouncing Christianity (I assume you were a Christian)? And furthermore, a few of those (although I didn’t get a chance to look up all the scriptures posted) were taken out of context. The one for example about God deceiving men, was completely misunderstood by the original poster (Thessalonians). And if God is never changing/constant, than the God of the NT is the same as the God in the OT. Is there something you may be missing or rather misunderstanding?
Creation Story and Cosmology
Main article: Sumerian creation myth
The Sumerians envisioned the universe as a closed dome surrounded by a primordial saltwater sea. Underneath the terrestrial earth, which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld and a freshwater ocean called the Apsu. The god of the dome-shaped firmament was named An; the earth was named Ki. The underground world was first believed to be an extension of Ki, but later developed into the concept of Kigal. The primordial saltwater sea was named Nammu, which became known as Tiamat during and after the Sumerian Renaissance.
The primordial union of An and Ki produced Enlil, who became leader of the Sumerian pantheon. After the other gods banished Enlil from Dilmun (the “home of the gods”) for raping Ninlil, Ninlil had a child, Nanna, god of the moon. Nanna and Ningal gave birth to Inanna and to Utu, god of the sun. [5]
Gods and Goddesses
The Sumerians practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic deities representing cosmic and terrestrial forces in their world. According to said mythology, the gods originally created humans as servants for themselves but freed them when they became too much to handle.
The majority of Sumerian deities belonged to a classification called the Anunna (“[offspring] of An”), whereas seven deities, including Enlil and Inanna, belonged to a group of “underworld” judges known as the Anunnaki (“[offspring] of An” + Ki).
The main Sumerian deities are as follows:
An: The god of heaven/the firmament.
Ki: The goddess of the earth at the E’saggila temple.[citation needed]
Enlil: The god of the air (from Lil = Air); patron deity of Nippur.
Enki: The god of water, fertility and knowledge; patron deity of Eridu.
Inanna: The goddess of sexual love and female fertility; patron deity of Uruk.
Ninlil: An air goddess and wife of Enlil; one of the patron deities of Nippur.[citation needed]
Ninurta: The god of war, agriculture, one of the Sumerian wind gods; patron deity of Girsu and one of the patron deities of Lagash.
Utu: The god of the sun at the E’barbara temple of Sippar.[citation needed]
Nanna, The god of the moon; one of the patron deities of Ur.[citation needed]
**How in tarnation is this similar to Judaism? **
Why do you believe his message was distorted?
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AnotherAtheist
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josie L:
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. – Numbers 31:15-18
So, what part of kill all the male children and any female that is not a virgin have I taken out of context?
AnotherAtheist:
Bishop John Shelby Spong:
Your assumption would be incorrect.
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. – Numbers 31:15-18
So, what part of kill all the male children and any female that is not a virgin have I taken out of context?
josie L:
This about sums it up for me:
Bishop John Shelby Spong:
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Eleve
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Absolutely, but because of the structure of the question I was more worried about theists speaking for atheists.
And, of course, none of this means that I won’t be disagreeing with theists, as I am about to:
Just because it’s your honest opinion doesn’t mean that you aren’t implying exactly that. All you have to do is actually look at real-life atheists (and I don’t mean outliers like Stalin) to see that they do not exempt themselves from moral behavior.
I was referring to the common belief that the soul exists in a fetus at the moment of conception. If I were God (a scary thought!) I would hold off until a later point, so that if an abortion became desirable during pregnancy no loss of life would have to occur.
I can’t say with certainty that he does not, but I can say with certainty that a lot of bad things do happen that would be preventable with boundless power. I don’t think that it would be contrary to free will for God to, say, protect a murder victim from a bullet. There are various miracles approved by the Church in which people have been protected from harm by God, so it’s certainly not considered an abrogation of free will for God to intervene in those cases.
I believe that you’re genuinely asking the question in good faith, but I was nevertheless upset the other day to realize that my answer to this question means that, even if God does turn out to be real, I have rejected his authority (and, by some theological conflations, his mercy and love).
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phoenix3212
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What standard of morality can atheists adhere to? Without a universal and totally objective standard for morality and perfection (ie. God) then every action is relative. Therefore, an atheist could not consider himself objectively “moral” because morality wouldn’t even exist.
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AnotherAtheist
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What a crock. Just because fear of eternal damnation is the only thing keeping you from lying, stealing, raping and killing doesn’t mean some of us can’t be good because being good is the right thing to do. My parents didn’t need fear of god to teach me morals and I didn’t need it to teach my children. I don’t even use negative reinforcement to train my dog much less teach my children.
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StrawberryJam
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Just be glad no one has accused you of being capable of eating babies here. In real life, that has happened to me.
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phoenix3212
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What makes the right thing to do, the right thing to do? Your opinion? If so, it’s totally relative and completely useless to integrate into society.
Unless there is a universal standard by which to measure goodness, it doesn’t actually exist.
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Eleve
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Isn’t your morality derived from your understanding of God’s opinion? I realize that he’d be pretty good at figuring things out, but that’s still a subjectivist theory of ethics; it’s just subjective to one specific ethical judgment.
Here is a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaethics#Semantic_theories) of meta-ethical theories. Note that only one of them is the divine command theory, which is what you are advocating and what you indeed seem to believe is the only one that could possibly be formulated.
As if theists don’t disagree on matters of morality. And, seriously? Atheists don’t integrate to society? Refer to what I said about looking at real atheists and how we behave, instead of just telling us that we don’t have a moral standard.
A standard derived from self-evident principles of non-harm. I actually find it a bit strange that theists think that the unilateral demands of God would be a superior guide to actual reason. To me, that isn’t a standard of morality; it’s a standard of What God Wants.
You seem to think that it is impossible to even assign meaning to the word “morality” without presupposing God’s existence. If this is true, how are you even able to discuss morality with us who do not believe in God?
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AnotherAtheist
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What makes it a universal standard? Your opinion? Society doesn’t need god to set morals. We are perfectly capable of making those decisions without help from above.
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phoenix3212
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“Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.” – Aquinas, Summa Theologica
To explain this further (this was written as a rebuttal to objections made by Richard Dawkins):
“Let us note first that Aquinas is not in fact trying to argue in the fourth way that everything that we observe to exist in degrees (including heat, smelliness, sweetness, etc.) must be traceable to some single maximum standard of perfection . . . Rather, he intends to use the principle in question to explain truth, goodness, nobility, being and the like specifically . . . Aquinas is mainly concerned in this argument to show that to the extent that these transcendental features of the world come in degrees, they must be traceable to a maximum . . . Since Aquinas is not in this argument concerned with heat, cold, sweetness, sourness, fragrance, smelliness, and other mundane features of reality, Dawkins’ objection simply misses the point.” – Edward Feser, Aquinas,
This isn’t simply my opinion. This is philosophy.
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AnotherAtheist
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Ummmm, veal……Just be glad no one has accused you of being capable of eating babies here. In real life, that has happened to me.
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Eleve
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Nevertheless, if some genuses are admitted to be exempt, how is it shown that those which Aquinas is talking about are “traceable to some single maximum standard of perfection”?
I frankly just don’t feel like tracking down “Metaph. ii.”, so I’d love to see how it’s shown that “those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being.”
Utterly false. There are various things that are hotter than fire; in fact, there is indeed no maximum temperature, which returns to my first point. But, also: not all things that are hot are derived from the same source. Some are from fire, some are from being rubbed together, and some are from nuclear fusion. The existence of degrees, or even of a hypothetical absolute maximum, does not imply origin or subsistence in a maximum.
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AnotherAtheist
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It is apparently your philosophy but it is by no means the only or even the correct philosophy. In The God Delusion Dawkins maintains that our morality has a Darwinian explanation: altruistic genes, selected through the process of evolution, give people natural empathy. He asks, “would you commit murder, rape or robbery if you knew that no God existed?” He argues that very few people would answer “yes”, undermining the claim that religion is needed to make us behave morally. In support of this view, he surveys the history of morality, arguing that there is a moral Zeitgeist that continually evolves in society. As it progresses, this moral consensus influences how religious leaders interpret their holy writings. Thus, Dawkins states, morality does not originate from the Bible, rather our moral progress informs what part of the Bible Christians accept and what they now dismiss.
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StrawberryJam
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Dominion over animals argument.
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