Athiests and Agnostics

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I’ll see your naturalistic fallacy and raise you one theory of ethical non-naturalism :p.
 
Eleve said:
I’d like God to be real, but not the exact same God that Catholics worship. I’d favor a God that readily intervened for peace and well-being, manifested his will and reason sooner than his wrath, waited until birth to endow people with souls (obviating problems with abortion). These aren’t the only objections I have, but I think they show my general line of thinking: I think the Christian God would have a lot to offer the world, but if he truly exists then he’s not really living up to his name.

Theists, please don’t presume to speak for atheists and tell everyone how bitter we really are.
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I immediately thought, why not just have God make it unnecessary to get abortions… I’m not saying that to taunt you or anything. I think that getting an abortion can be a disturbing event for a woman no matter what she believes.
 
AnotherAtheist said:
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.
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Good? In a purely mechanical universe the word has zero meaning other than being a utilitarian social construct. The planets are silent on moral matters. You have no basis to proclaim anything “good” or “bad”. Whatever is, is right. We are Darwinian animals and there is no moral difference between kissing someone or killing them. What is right or wrong? To whom or what do you appeal? The Founding Documents then are dead letters based on arbitrary absolutes.

You want to enjoy inalienable rights. Yet, because there is no Creator to endow them, they cannot exist. Morality is reduced to merely an evolutionary selection pressure. You can stack particulars up to the sky and never derive a universal.

You want your cake and to eat it too. This would be a pretty nasty (nastier?) place without a Creator and the rights we enjoy as His image-bearers. That’s the problem with philosophical discourse. Many people could never live in a world that is the logical extension of their worldview. This is the classic “being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple”. We are special because God made us that way, not because we worked ourselves into such special creatures.
 
authenticity said:
I immediately thought, why not just have God make it unnecessary to get abortions… I’m not saying that to taunt you or anything. I think that getting an abortion can be a disturbing event for a woman no matter what she believes.
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Good point. Even if you remove the moral cost of abortion, the mother still gives up a lot. But how would God make it unnecessary without stepping on free will and the other considerations that are usually used to explain why he doesn’t intervene more directly?
Good? In a purely mechanical universe the word has zero meaning other than being a utilitarian social construct. The planets are silent on moral matters. You have no basis to proclaim anything “good” or “bad”. Whatever is, is right. We are Darwinian animals and there is no moral difference between kissing someone or killing them. What is right or wrong? To whom or what do you appeal? The Founding Documents then are dead letters based on arbitrary absolutes.
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Not this again. Take this argument back to the thread where it actually belongs. We’re talking about whether atheists would like God to exist here.

(By the way, you’re somehow simultaneously accusing atheists of being utilitarians, ethical naturalists, nihilists, and cultural relativists. What gives?)
 
StrawberryJam said:
Let me comment from my view only. I won’t admit to denying “God” until I can be sure what we mean by “God” to begin with. If I can understand that “God” and then make a decision to chose or deny him that’s one thing. But denying christians claims of who “God” is or what his specific attributes are, is not the same thing as denial of God unless your claims are correct. That’s what I am here to do. To see if your claims are correct. So far, all I have is “take my word for it” “the church is right” and other “defenses”
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That’s fair enough. I’d never looked at it quite from that angle.
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StrawberryJam said:
blortog;5366593 said:
Who would “laugh” at a christian being wrong about God? Besides, who can be around to laugh about it if we simply die anyway? I hardly think people in heaven are going to be laughing at anyone who did not make it in (assuming they are correct) nor do I think a dead person can laugh at anyone (assuming they are wrong)
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Just for clarity, I did not post the above comment. It was posted by blortog
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a_priori said:
Good? In a purely mechanical universe the word has zero meaning other than being a utilitarian social construct. The planets are silent on moral matters. You have no basis to proclaim anything “good” or “bad”. Whatever is, is right. We are Darwinian animals and there is no moral difference between kissing someone or killing them. What is right or wrong? To whom or what do you appeal? The Founding Documents then are dead letters based on arbitrary absolutes.

You want to enjoy inalienable rights. Yet, because there is no Creator to endow them, they cannot exist. Morality is reduced to merely an evolutionary selection pressure. You can stack particulars up to the sky and never derive a universal.

You want your cake and to eat it too. This would be a pretty nasty (nastier?) place without a Creator and the rights we enjoy as His image-bearers. That’s the problem with philosophical discourse. Many people could never live in a world that is the logical extension of their worldview. This is the classic “being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple”. We are special because God made us that way, not because we worked ourselves into such special creatures.
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Murder was generally accepted as immoral long before Moses received the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai. Even then he had no trouble ordering the murder of the male children of an entire rival tribe after he personally received the law of God. I guess that means that your universals only apply to God’s chosen people and that it’s OK to kill anyone that is not like you as long as you can justify it by wanting what they have.
 
What I find funny is that Christians are going to respond to what you just posted by coming up with some reason God might need for killing. If they really thought that morality is meaningless without reference to God’s will, all they would have to say is “there is nothing wrong with this killing because God’s Will is by definition right.” But everyone understands that killing, God-ordered or otherwise, needs to be for a very good reason in order to be justified.
 
Eleve said:
What I find funny is that Christians are going to respond to what you just posted by coming up with some reason God might need for killing. If they really thought that morality is meaningless without reference to God’s will, all they would have to say is “there is nothing wrong with this killing because God’s Will is by definition right.” But everyone understands that killing, God-ordered or otherwise, needs to be for a very good reason in order to be justified.
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You mean like how He so loved the world that He sacrificed His only Son?
 
Sure, whatever. The point is that when you say “God is good” you recognize the sentence as having meaning beyond being a tautology.
 
AnotherAtheist said:
Murder was generally accepted as immoral long before Moses received the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai. Even then he had no trouble ordering the murder of the male children of an entire rival tribe after he personally received the law of God. I guess that means that your universals only apply to God’s chosen people and that it’s OK to kill anyone that is not like you as long as you can justify it by wanting what they have.
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If you hate God so much why do you talk about him so often? And please don’t pull that B.S. that “I don’t hate him because He’s not real”. You are obviously expending much energy to prove otherwise. And furthermore, it does you no good to speak of things you should be letting go of.
 
josie_L said:
If you hate God so much why do you talk about him so often? And please don’t pull that B.S. that “I don’t hate him because He’s not real”. You are obviously expending much energy to prove otherwise. And furthermore, it does you no good to speak of things you should be letting go of.
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Because I take issue with the fact that some jerk is telling me that I can’t be moral without believing in their god. That is pure unadulterated BS.

My non belief in an invisible genie that created everything, interacted with human’s for a little while then threw up his hands and said that’s it you are on your own now is set. No questions there what so ever. What is not set is how I respond to someone who’s argument is, “it is true because the bible says it is.”
 
a_priori said:
Didn’t you say…

I guess a little reciprocity was too much to ask?:rolleyes:
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Oh, clever you, you trapped me :rolleyes:

Maybe I should stay then that it has been said in the past, and it is a common pattern in apologetics that is likely to be applied in the future, that God had some reason that justified the killing, rather than proclaiming that the killing is automatically justified by definition. The point of what I was saying still stands.
 
AnotherAtheist said:
Because I take issue with the fact that some jerk is telling me that I can’t be moral without believing in their god. That is pure unadulterated BS.

My non belief in an invisible genie that created everything, interacted with human’s for a little while then threw up his hands and said that’s it you are on your own now is set. No questions there what so ever. What is not set is how I respond to someone who’s argument is, “it is true because the bible says it is.”
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I’m not saying you’re not moral, but can you define what moral is?

Edit: Why subject yourself to arguing on a Catholic forum is what I meant?
 
josie_L said:
I’m not saying you’re not moral, but can you define what moral is?

Edit: Why subject yourself to arguing on a Catholic forum is what I meant?
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I never said you said I couldn’t be moral.

Morality is a code of conduct that is held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong. Morals are created and defined by society, philosophy, religion, or individual conscience. An example of the descriptive usage could be “common conceptions of morality have changed significantly over time.”

I’m here to improve my debate skills and strengthen my arguments in defense of my non belief.
 
AnotherAtheist said:
I’m here to improve my debate skills and strengthen my arguments in defense of my non belief.
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I am agnostic ( I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist), so I find the CAF website interesting and I don’t automatically reject the truth statements made here.

As an atheist though, what specifically brings you here? If you just want to sharpen your debating skills, why not start posting on a Hindu, Buddhist, Judaic, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Baha’i, Daoist, Shinto, or Sikh message board?
 
Well, for one, how would you expect a debate on the existence of God to go between atheists and Buddhists or Daoists?

“Hey guys I think maybe God doesn’t exist.”
“You know man I’ve kinda been feeling that way myself.”
“Hmm. Well. Interesting that we agree.”
“Have a beer?”
 
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