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Havard
Guest
My best friend is a sola fide Christian. In other words, his belief is that he is assured salvation. His behavior pretty much negates your hypothesis.
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SonCatcher
Guest
Sad. That brand of sola fide is easily debunked from scripture:
[BIBLEDRB]Matthew 7:21-23[/BIBLEDRB]
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SonCatcher
Guest
This statement seems to disregard those atheists who nevertheless do good because it is good.
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Cristiano
Guest
They do good because God does exist, they simply do not acknowledge His existence, natural law is at work whether you believe in God or not, natural law is at work because God does exist.
I am not going to buy into the straw man that says: “God does not exists but things are still the way they are now, how do you plan to behave?”
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Anniejoe
Guest
I loved God and wanted to please Him long before I had any palpable belief in Hell (or Heaven for that matter). I wanted to become Catholic so I could obey Him more perfectly; it brings me joy to feel I am walking on the road He has laid before me. I had only vague notions of Heaven and Hell before I became Catholic. My spiritual life long preceded any understand of those two places.
On the other hand, I think if fear of Hell is the best you do for a motive to try be a better Catholic, than that’s good enough until a more pure motive develops.
Love the comment about Aslan. It reminds me of Dostoevsky who said something similar: if it were proved to me that Christ stands outside of reality, then I would step outside of reality, and stand with Christ.
On the other hand, I think if fear of Hell is the best you do for a motive to try be a better Catholic, than that’s good enough until a more pure motive develops.
Love the comment about Aslan. It reminds me of Dostoevsky who said something similar: if it were proved to me that Christ stands outside of reality, then I would step outside of reality, and stand with Christ.
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Safia
Guest
I would, yes, because I love God in the depths of my being, and I’ve encountered Him and His love for me personally. For me Heaven isn’t a “reward.” To do anything with a reward-or-lack-of-reward framework isn’t genuine. I can’t bring myself to think that way, not to mention that my mind can barely comprehend the wonder of an eternity with God. We would die with joy if we knew what God has planned for us.
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Havard
Guest
Perhaps, but that’s irrelevant to the topic at hand.
What matters is that he’s proof that one doesn’t need a fear of hell to be upright.
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Nicea325
Guest
I disagree with your analysis of religion. It does not boil about self interest,but in the interest of God. Only God alone knows what it is best for us due to our fallen nature.
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Jeanne_S
Guest
Yes,moving from servile fear of God,to filial fear.Because we love God we strive to please Him in our thoughts,words and deeds.Jesus is the Life,The Truth and the Way!
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kch86
Guest
When I was an atheist I tried to be good simply for goodness’ sake. Nowadays, I don’t even understand why. I always considered myself fairly rational, and yet I was just convinced it was the right thing to do regardless. Maybe because I thought it was good to be good? It’s been a while now. It’s a mystery. I wish I could have a chat with my former self.
Of course, my conception of what “good” was was different and more relative and lax, but it still required me to abstain from doing some things I wanted and I was still tempted to go against my own principles, though I would strongly resist, even if there were no negative consequences for me that I knew of. For example, I wouldn’t steal even if I knew I’d never get caught.
Even though I did things that were immoral, I didn’t really know they were, and I valued truth, honesty, loyalty and goodness towards my fellow human beings. It’s almost as though, somehow, deep down, I was trying to be Catholic even though I didn’t know it. In fact, my situation was very similar to the scenario in your post - a person trying to live a moral life even though he didn’t believe in a God, heaven, hell or any sort of afterlife. Why did I bother? God’s grace, maybe.
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Rhuarc
Guest
No I am not religious because I am scared of hell, I just want to be one with my creator. I have always had a mystical outlook on life since I was about 8. Even before I knew about God, I mean sure the name Jesus was thrown around a bit but I didn’t know much about that. I can’t really tell you why I am how I am if anything the environment I am in would have me become an atheist, I am really going against the flow here. But as Bob Marley once said in a song “Give thanks and praise to the Lord, and I feel alright”, when I worship God I do feel alright. If there is no god and religion is a lie, lets face it, it’s a comforting lie and if it makes me weak I don’t really care what others think. Especially atheists because all they think they are is a meat sack destined to die and return to oblivion, so what kind of opinion can a sack of meat form and how can it affect another sack of meat? If it were proven that there was no god absolutely 100%, I would probably commit suicide. Why wait for the inevitable, why waste my time here? I mean sure if I become a hedonist that might be fun for a while but once your dead it will have been as if you hadn’t ever had a pleasurable life.
As far as I am concerned it takes a lot more faith to be an atheist that it does to have a belief, and much harder at that. You have to constantly lie to yourself that your existence has worth as an atheist. You have to shield yourself from death and refuse it’s existence in hope that your death will come quickly and surprisingly, quite a miserable life. Those who say that it is not like that are already lying to themselves because, lets face it, that IS how it is.
As far as I am concerned it takes a lot more faith to be an atheist that it does to have a belief, and much harder at that. You have to constantly lie to yourself that your existence has worth as an atheist. You have to shield yourself from death and refuse it’s existence in hope that your death will come quickly and surprisingly, quite a miserable life. Those who say that it is not like that are already lying to themselves because, lets face it, that IS how it is.
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SweetVerda
Guest
I do not fear Hell, I do not expect Heaven, I do not look for a future. Right now, there is just the present. And I believe that doing the right thing is the best way to live, and the reward isn’t in some far off dream. The reward to living like a human being is living like a human being. That is all.
Those who seek the truth because of what the truth can do for them do not deserve to find it. Those who seek the truth for it’s own sake will find they want nothing else.
Those who seek the truth because of what the truth can do for them do not deserve to find it. Those who seek the truth for it’s own sake will find they want nothing else.
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Rhuarc
Guest
Yeah it’s funny how hypocritical this guy is, he was obviously fishing for this comment to place atheism on a moral high ground when it has none to begin with. Like I said previously in the atheist view point we are just a meat sack, just a bunch of atoms and molecules slapped together. Is there a moral code in the atomic world? No, no there is not. So tell me how does it change just because we are a whole LOT of atoms and molecules? It simply doesn’t. A lion does not care if it eats it’s own cubs there is no morality for the lion it just does it. Atheists need to quit fooling themselves, if there were no temporal laws and everything were up for grabs I would love to hear one say they would not lie, steal, or cheat a random stranger.
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kch86
Guest
I didn’t want to commit suicide as an atheist, but I too thought it was logical to do so, as there was no point in delaying the inevitable, since once life is over, it’ll be as though it never had happened. I still would go out of my way to be good for no reason other than to be good, merely because I believed that it was good to be good. At least for me, the fear of punishment or expectation of a reward somehow wasn’t necessary.
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Rhuarc
Guest
I would like to see a statistic on how many atheists “do good because it is good”, I wouldn’t expect it to be particularly high. Now a I may be going on just one case here but I have had atheist “friends” who said if they had the chance to rape a woman with no repercussions they would do it in a heartbeat. Thank God we do have laws and police in this country…
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sw85
Guest
Well, yes, I would. What’s good for me is what’s good for me, and what’s good for me is to act according to my nature. I don’t need a reason or reward for doing good. Doing good is its own reward.
I admit I’m not like most people. The vast majority do not / will not / cannot behave rationally or decently without reference to the divine.
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Rhuarc
Guest
I mean of course you will have to get over that feeling of fear of dying but once I was over it I would just say jump right off the building. As much as atheists like to claim they are moral just because they want to be don’t realize that moral sense was planted in there by God. I mean why would we feel bad if we beat some random guy we have no emotional connection with senseless? I mean on an evolutionary sense we would have no reason to feel bad it doesn’t affect us or any beings we have a connection with so why would it matter?
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kch86
Guest
Well, I’m no longer an atheist, but if I still were, I’d be saying just that. I would be saying that I would not lie, steal, or cheat a random stranger. I valued honesty and goodness for its own sake, even though it was all ultimately relative and inconsequential. I’m sure I would have been trying to justify it rationally somehow too.
I’ve had Christian “friends” say similar things, both in reference to temporal consequences and in reference to hell.
Many who say they are moral aren’t. But some are, or at least try to be. And I don’t know why atheists sometimes strive to be moral. I did, and I must have had a million reasons trying to justify it rationally, even though in reality it made no difference.
You can’t put all atheists in the same boat. Like you said, suicide is quite logical for an atheist, so atheists don’t follow all their philosophies to their logical conclusions. And part of the reason for that might be that many atheists don’t want to be bad, even though the philosophies some of them subscribe to are telling them to be. And while the majority might follow current cultural norms and agendas, personalities and philosophies differ from atheist to atheist.
There are even atheist pro-lifers out there, you know. One of my friends is just that, in a country where most self-professed Christians support abortion.
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sw85
Guest
Yes, it is true that most atheists are not in fact scumbags.
But this is not because non-scumbaggery is compatible with atheism. It’s because atheists are not in fact intellectually honest with themselves about what they believe and why they believe it.
You yourself, I suspect, know this. I suspect this because I knew it when I was an atheist. I could not transcend natural law – I could not do certain evil things no matter how strongly I convinced myself of atheism, and it wasn’t mere cowardice or conditioning (on the other hand, there were some evil things I was perfectly willing to do and which atheists defend all the time, which is evidence that they are in fact at least somewhat morally deficient). The contradiction was for me (and apparently for you) unsustainable, and I had to confront it. I confronted it by rejecting atheism. Some very few people (my brother included) confront it by intentionally ignoring moral law through an act of will until their consciences have died. Most just don’t confront it – they refuse to think about it, or they enact elaborate rationalizations.
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ASimon
Guest
Where are people getting this idea that suicide is logical in an atheistic worldview? Even if there is ultimately no afterlife, what makes suicide a logical option? If you enjoy your life, wouldn’t you necessarily want it to continue for awhile?
At the risk of seeming uncharitable, this is what religion does. It convinces healthy people, living in relative affluence, with only occasional inconvenience and difficulties, that none of it would be worth anything if they didn’t have a God watching over them, or a perfectly blissful afterlife to go to after they die.
At the risk of seeming uncharitable, this is what religion does. It convinces healthy people, living in relative affluence, with only occasional inconvenience and difficulties, that none of it would be worth anything if they didn’t have a God watching over them, or a perfectly blissful afterlife to go to after they die.
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