NEED Help with an Atheist

[Kevin_Stephen]

Below in black are questions asked to an atheist. The red text is the Atheist’s reply. Can any body help with responses that can be made to their responces. Even if you have a responce for one of the issues, please do so. I am turning to my Catholic brothers and sisters for help here. Thanks!

I’m specifically talking about objective, or absolute truth. You say that science forms your beliefs and lifestyle, so since science is ever-changing, ever-evolving, are there really any objective truths?

So by objective truth or absolute truth you mean that no matter what we believe to be the case, some things will always be true and other things will always be false. Our beliefs, whatever they are, have no bearing on the facts of the world around us. That which is true is always true — even if we stop believing it and even if we stop existing at all.

What I mean by science is ever-changing, ever-evolving is that we are constantly building on our knowledge. So we are always adding to what we know or changing it, which doesn’t mean that what was true was not always true, just means we were once wrong (like the earth circles around the sun and not the other way around, we once thought the opposite in science, we were wrong and so we changed our way of thinking when we discovered otherwise). But yes there are some objective truths and one of them for me is that god or gods do not exist.

You also said, “usually these core beliefs/foundational truths are very similar to religious beliefs like not killing people, loving your neighbor etc… The only difference is that I don’t need to belief in god or gods to feel that I should follow these beliefs.”

Where do these core beliefs of not killing another human being and loving one’s neighbor originate, and who maintains them? The government? Natural law? What constitutes natural law, like a social contract, i.e. “Don’t kill me and I won’t kill you”? When you say you don’t believe in killing humans, what sort of humans?

There are sorts of humans? I am confused about your question? Is this in reference to the race or nationality of a person? Or do you mean this in reference to abortion? If this is in reference to abortion then I don’t believe a human is a full human until they are born.

Yes, I guess my beliefs of not killing another human being and loving one’s neighbor originate from natural law for example:

•Theft is wrong because it destroys social relations, and man is by nature a social animal
The government and other social institutions (school, work, family etc) maintain these laws. And yes, natural law is like a social contract built on 200,000 years of human history.

Ultimately the question boils down to: why do human beings have value?

Human beings have value because they are alive just like plants and animals etc…
You mentioned government protecting “civil rights.” Where do these rights come from? If they are based solely on what a government chooses or “the people” choose, can any “choice” be a “wrong” choice? I think, more accurately, we can attribute many atrocities in history to governmental allowances. Take the example of Nazi Germany. Hitler came to power and formed a society to believe that Jews were not fully human, or even more so, were not considered persons, and should be eliminated from the face of the earth.

These civil rights come from a social contract that is ever-changing to fit the current world view. So 40 years ago blacks were not considered equal to whites now that has changed and the law reflects that change unlike most religions that still treat women as mostly inferior.

The form of government that I am speaking of is democratic in the sense that the majority rules, obviously that does not always work because the majority can be wrong ie the case of Nazi Germany. But this will always happen with a democracy, unfortunately or fortunately that is the best form of government we currently have… but it is always changing with the times and opinions of the majority. What is a wrong choice? An abortion is a wrong choice for you, but not for me. It is relative and constantly fluid. Who is to decide? For you god decides? But I don’t believe in god.

You do not help your point of view to use the atrocities of WWII as an example. Most of the teachings of Hitler came from an extreme from of Christianity.

Hitler wrote: “I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord…”

The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognized the Jews for what they were"… I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the church and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.

-Adolf Hitler, 26 April 1933, [cited from Richard Steigmann-Gall’s The Holy Reich]

And the quotes go on and on and on…

As a boy, Hitler attended the Catholic church and experienced the anti-Semitic attitude of his culture. In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler reveals himself as a fanatical believer in God and country.

Was Hitler right?
So no Hitler was wrong and he was not representing a democratic government but a crazed dictator who was staunchly Christian and believed that his religion allowed him to exterminate the Jews, blacks, and gypsies.

 

[mfj]

This sounds more like a drafted conversation where the christian is portrayed as knowing something of philosophy.
So the atheist has better answers than the christain has questions and he can’t refute the atheist,so the atheist is more intelligent and wins his evangelizing effort.

To me the “human value” thing is not a good arguement or strategy.
The law of natural selection and a species propagating itself would give value to humans. Like herds, prides, primate families. They would also give rise to wars of course.

The atheist, (if you argue from his world view), actually said nothing that one could make a good aguement against except the born having more value than the unborn.

A much better case could have been laid out aginst the evolving moralities issue.
And every apologist has argued subjective, objective, absolute truth.

Since a forum style arguement doesn’t follow a specific pattern it’s hard to give you proof.
You should familiarize yourself with the matters.

Here is Peter Kreefts essay- peterkreeft.com/topics-more/pillars_kant.htm
Here is his search(for essays)- peterkreeft.com/search.htm

I like this protestant teacher Rovi Zacharias- rzim.org/
He has many teaching on the subjects.

CA has it’s thousands.!!!

 

[Tybourne]

In a forum style debate, you are better off to ask more questions than you provide answers. This keeps the onus on the atheist to defend and explain his thinking . Sooner or later he or she may make an error in reasoning or refute one of his own principles. You are best off using philosophical examples and arguments rather than theological ones. What is the point at issue? Be clear about that and stick to it, point out attempts to blow the conversation off course. Hope this helps a little.

 

[kage_ar]

Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

 

[surritter]

Oh man, the easiest one to pick apart is “in reference to abortion then I don’t believe a human is a full human until they are born.”

If he acknowledges that our knowledge of science is always changing, can he admit that medically, a fetus is most definitely human? He says that life begins at birth. What is it about birth that imparts humanity to the baby? Is it merely the separation from the mother? The ability to breathe on its own? If that is his criteria, then he obviously should believe that folks confined to an iron lung are not human.

Most pro-choicers not admit that a fetus is indeed a human, from a biological/medical point of view. So their tack now is to say that yes, the fetus is human, but it is not a person. The fatal flaw here is that there can be no definition of a person apart from being a human. So guess what – if they wish to make that distinction, then obviously it is up to someone to decide which humans are persons. This is exactly what the Supreme Court did in Roe vs. Wade.

Now, all this doesn’t really get to the point about atheism (whether there is a God), but if he can concede some ground on the role that logic plays in religion and philosophy, then you may work toward the other topics such as “human beings have value because they are alive just like plants and animals.”