Question on Atheism

[tonyrey]

I have difficulty with the notion that everything must be a natural entity!

That very difficulty undermines all your speculation about the supernatural! The demarcation line has never been clarified to anyone’s satisfaction.

At least your pantheism implies rejection of the positivist’s criterion of observability.

You are presupposing that everything is subject to natural limitations but the mind clearly is not. A supernatural entity is defined by its rationality, self-awareness and self-control - which natural entities lack.

The mind is not subject to natural limitations? That’s certainly news to me. Rationality, self-awareness and self-control are features of natural entities - human minds - which behave in accordance with natural regularities, cause and effect being one such. In the probably not too distant future, there may be computers or robots that have the features of rationality, self-awareness and self-control. Would these count as supernatural entities on your view?

Your speculation is based on the assumption that human minds are “natural entities” - whatever they may be… One thing is certain : if we are subject to the law of cause and effect we must be incapable of self-control - and therefore rationality.

Your appreciation of the value and beauty of nature suggests that you recognise the limitations of natural explanations. .

On the contrary, value and beauty are natural, being concepts conceived by natural entities like us.

What are “natural entities”?

 

[Sair]

That very difficulty undermines all your speculation about the supernatural! The demarcation line has never been clarified to anyone’s satisfaction.

Which is why it doesn’t make much sense to appeal to ‘supernatural’ entities to explain observed phenomena.

At least your pantheism implies rejection of the positivist’s criterion of observability.

How does it imply this? We can’t directly observe atoms - but we can say with a great deal of confidence that they exist, and even that they are made of subatomic particles. All these inferences are made on the basis of specific, though indirect observations. The trouble most often encountered when appealing to ‘supernatural’ causes is that their definition is so vague that no meaningful observation or inference can be made of them, directly or indirectly. Perhaps the difference between the two is that natural entities are susceptible to definition and at least some level of understanding, whilst supernatural ones are not.

Your speculation is based on the assumption that human minds are “natural entities” - whatever they may be… One thing is certain : if we are subject to the law of cause and effect we must be incapable of self-control - and therefore rationality.

Only if you understand cause and effect as a one-way street, with no feedback loop between the mind and the extramental world. The fact is that a theory of cause and effect is actually essential to any kind of rational thought - it enables us to infer connections between experienced phenomena, including the operation of our own brains.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

It would be as valid to state that there is no other possible state of reality than existence, especially if you equate God with the act of existing.

Thats what we mean when we say the word G-d.

Who’s to say that the universe is not logically necessary…

The universe is not logically necessary because we can imagine possible worlds without it. We cannot imagine possible worlds without G-d, the act of existence.Therefore G-d is logically necessary and the universe is not.

Metaphysics and logic must have some empirical grounding, otherwise they can only deal in imaginary entities. Arguing about the nature of some being without objective grounds for supposing that such a being even exists is just tilting at windmills.

No, they need no empirical grounding at all. We deal with logically necessary beings. Not imaginary ones. Cognito is a sufficient basis to begin reasoning from. I believe that Helen Keller in a cave could reason her way to the existence of G-d.

1. I doubt anything exists.
2. I now know that doubt exists
3. I know there is something I am not, doubt.
4. If things exist apart from me, I am not logically necessary.
5. If I am not logically necessary, I am contingent
6. If I exist contingently, that demonstrates the need for a necessary being.
7. Therefore there is a logically necessary being.
8. No being can be logically necessary if it is contingent.
9. Every being is contingent on the act of existing.
10. The Act of Existing therefore is the Necessary Being.
    Or something like this. No empirical grounding seems necessary. The natural/supernatural dichotomy is entirely a product of wishful thinking. There is no logical reason for it. We cannot conduct the scientific method in regards to the supernatural. That’s just a plain fact. It does not amount to justification to believe that only the information available to our physical senses represents everything that exists. That’s really no different than claiming that nothing exists outside of this room because I cannot currently sense it. Remember, metaphysics is an exercise in logic just as mathematics is. Empiricism is essentially meaningless to us.

 

[tonyrey]

That very difficulty undermines all your speculation about the supernatural! The demarcation line has never been clarified to anyone’s satisfaction.
Which is why it doesn’t make much sense to appeal to ‘supernatural’ entities to explain observed phenomena.

Atoms fit into the physical scheme of things whereas mental activity does not. Pantheism cannot be explained scientifically.

All these inferences are made on the basis of specific, though indirect observations. The trouble most often encountered when appealing to ‘supernatural’ causes is that their definition is so vague that no meaningful observation or inference can be made of them, directly or indirectly.

There is no vagueness about the claim that a person makes a decision but it is not inferred from sense data but known by direct experience.

This where the demarcation limit is obscure… How do you define the mind?

Perhaps the difference between the two is that natural entities are susceptible to definition and at least some level of understanding, whilst supernatural ones are not.

Supernatural entities are not susceptible to scientific definition but neither are natural entities susceptible to metascientific definition, i.e. the principles on which science is based and the minds from which science is produced. You cannot understand yourself scientifically but that does not mean you cannot understand yourself in any way at all.

Your speculation is based on the assumption that human minds are “natural entities” - whatever they may be… One thing is certain : if we are subject to the law of cause and effect we must be incapable of self-control - and therefore rationality.

Only if you understand cause and effect as a one-way street, with no feedback loop between the mind and the extramental world.

A feedback loop implies that the mind is a distinct entity related to the brain. It also seems to suggest that the brain is the initial cause to which the mind responds, but there is plenty of evidence that the mind can initiate activity.

The fact is that a theory of cause and effect is actually essential to any kind of rational thought - it enables us to infer connections between experienced phenomena, including the operation of our own brains.

I agree but rational thought is based on belief in mental as well as physical cause and effect. Otherwise we are impotent observers incapable of controlling our thoughts and conclusions…

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Since atheism cannot corroborate itself, it has always seemed odd to me that it is ever presented as a logical position, and even more odd that it is offered as a scientific position, though scientists are more likely to be atheists than anyone else.

Agnosticism would seem to be the preferably logical position to take. But once that position is taken, even agnosticism is more vulnerable. If we cannot be certain or uncertain as to the existence of God … Why live as though God does not exist? Why not live as though God does exist?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Sair

If a supernatural entity is defined by what it isn’t - that is, subject to any natural regularities or limitations - I’m not sure how we could even begin to approach an understanding of its behaviour and purposes.

You could say that Revelation comes into play here. One of the first things that God tells us about himself is that He made us in His image and likeness. That gives us a clue to the nature of God, that he is personal rather than impersonal. All the major religions have taken that approach … that God or the gods reflect an image of man, or man reflects an image of God or the gods.

 

[tonyrey]

Since atheism cannot corroborate itself, it has always seemed odd to me that it is ever presented as a logical position, and even more odd that it is offered as a scientific position, though scientists are more likely to be atheists than anyone else.

Agnosticism would seem to be the preferably logical position to take. But once that position is taken, even agnosticism is more vulnerable. If we cannot be certain or uncertain as to the existence of God … Why live as though God does not exist? Why not live as though God does exist?

Some would answer that the probability is so low that it is not worth considering - without explaining why it is “so low”. The real reason - even when they are aware of the fact - is that they would lose their independence if they had to take the “possibility” of God seriously. Instead of Big Brother they would have to cope with the all-knowing Father - which is a ghastly prospect for some. You can imagine why…

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Some would answer that the probability is so low that it is not worth considering - without explaining why it is “so low”. The real reason - even when they are aware of the fact - is that they would lose their independence if they had to take the “possibility” of God seriously. Instead of Big Brother they would have to cope with the all-knowing Father - which is a ghastly prospect for some. You can imagine why…

 

[Charlemagne_II]

tonyrey

Instead of Big Brother they would have to cope with the all-knowing Father - which is a ghastly prospect for some. You can imagine why…

Yup.

In a Feminist Age patricide is all the Rage.

 

[CollegeStinks]

The argument atheists typically advance, or at least the argument I seek to advance is NOT that God or theology can be disproven or “dispelled”. That’s an impossible task, as the hallmarks of such theology and the God idea itself is that it is utterly impervious to falsification. You can’t prove a universal negative like “God does not exist”. It’s not possible in principle. And this is the reason a Catholic can be a scientist as easily as a plumber; so long as the Catholic does not admit of propositions that are accountable or even relevant to scientific analysis, then no problem; one is trafficking in non-falsifiables, safely out of searchlight beam of science which illuminates through falsification.

Instead, science just makes Catholic theology (and all theology) more and more superfluous, irrelevant, extraneous, notional. That is NOT disproof, but rather just “hemming in the magisterium” bit by bit, so that theology has less applicability and relevance. Rather than falsify religion, science just tends to render it inert, impotent.

That’s why evolution is such a bogeyman here. One of the great “deep questions” that religion used to speak to was “how did we get here, how did we get the forms we have?”

That used to be a compelling question, asked in a big enough knowledge vacuum that religion could opportunistically jump in and say “Why, Goddidit, of course!”

Since Darwin, the relevance of religion and theology has shrunk way, way done, and now must confine itself to live in the “God of the gaps” spaces of ignorance around abiogenesis and points prior. But the creationist idea, which was hard to contend with 300 years ago, given the dearth of knowledge we had then, is laughable now, to think that man and the other species were just “poofed” in some kind of cartoonish way, across six days of creation or even billions of years. Darwin’s dangerous idea hasn’t disproven God, it has just banished God from the discourse on how the species diverged and developed. God isn’t disproved; he’s just not interesting or needed to look at the question in a serious way.

That resonates with the quote from your professor, above. It’s a fool that supposes the God idea can ever be disproved, even rationally, let alone for people emotionally invested in such beliefs. Instead, the more serious we get in looking at these particular questions, the more ridiculous and irrelevant such concepts are. There’s just no interest due to such claims any more.

None of that should or will interfere with your Catholicism. You can maintain your non-overlapping magisteria in perpetuity. But where science goes, God retreats even further. He’s not refuted, he’s just ignored, because God adds nothing to the knowledge base on those questions.

-TS

I was going to reply to this piece by piece but after reading the remainder of your comments I’m not going to bother. Your philosophy on science is a colorful artistic over-analyzed interpretation of the work done by professionals such as myself, and a bogus interpretation at that. It isn’t applied at all in a real life scientific environment, despite what you might think. I can’t decide if I’m flustered or humored. I understand that you’re searching for some sort of stable tangible system in your life, and by denying religion the best candidate left to manipulate and relentlessly over-analyze is science, but trust me you are wasting your time. It is not what you think.

 

[Sair]

Some would answer that the probability is so low that it is not worth considering - without explaining why it is “so low”. The real reason - even when they are aware of the fact - is that they would lose their independence if they had to take the “possibility” of God seriously. Instead of Big Brother they would have to cope with the all-knowing Father - which is a ghastly prospect for some. You can imagine why…

We tend to judge probability by the regularity with which certain events occur, and the familiarity of the phenomena involved. Let’s take the case of the resurrection, for an example - substitute any miracle you like, but this will do for the present purpose. People coming back to life after properly dying is not an event that happens often, in our experience. If it had happened even once since it is reported to have happened in the gospels, the news media (or the gossips and chroniclers) would be all over it. Thus far, we have one, at most two, claimed historical instances of this happening.

If we enter into the realms of imaginative fiction, people coming back to life after dying is a fairly common plot point. We also know that humans have an inbuilt propensity for telling and responding to stories. Narrative is in our blood, part of our human psychological make-up. The probability of the resurrection of Jesus being a story that was made up, told and retold is far higher, considering how we tend to judge probability, than it having actually happened.

Not to say that we’re always correct in our judgements of probability, but I suspect this is where the remark comes from.

As for the judgement that many people reject the idea of a personal God from a desire for independence, this may well be the case for some people, and who knows? The fundy evangelicals might also be right that many atheists are so because they don’t want to be morally accountable to God. But there are good reasons for this. Being morally accountable to the God described in the Bible strikes a lot of people as a thoroughly immoral choice. My suspicion is that many atheists have no problem with moral accountability - to other people, to other animals, to the environment, and to themselves - but just have no desire to invest belief in a God who, if the Bible is taken seriously, is liable to order massacres (including of children), who participates in torture of a man for the sake of a bet, who damns children for their parents’ sins, who destroyed the entire living population of the world, and who sacrificed his own son rather than forgive a debt without a payment of blood…and who, to top it all off, might not even exist.

I am inclined to think that the reason atheists are atheists isn’t because they are immoral or selfish, but because they feel no need to believe that a remarkably human-like being made the world for humans; they don’t think their lives depend upon magic in order to have value or meaning; in short, they think this life and this world are enough to be going on with. God is irrelevant.

As a possibly illuminating aside, I once heard - can’t remember where or from whom - a perfectly plausible, but probably no less miraculous, explanation of the loaves and fishes miracle variously reported in the Gospels. The traditional interpretation has it that Jesus was handed five loaves of bread and two fish and magically multiplied the quantities thereof, breaking them into pieces, then more pieces, then more pieces, until there was enough to feed 5,000 people and lots left over. The account I heard suggested that, when Jesus asked if anyone had any food, and the small boy offered him the loaves and fishes he had, and Jesus accepted them graciously and began sharing them out, this inspired the people gathered to hear him to take out their own food and share it amongst themselves; prior to this, they had been keeping their food to themselves, maybe thinking they didn’t have enough to share. When everyone who had food was minded to share it, there was plenty for everyone. Anyone who’s ever been to a pot-luck lunch knows that when everyone brings what they judge to be enough for themselves, there’s almost always more than everyone can eat. To my mind, this plausible, naturalistic explanation of the loaves and fishes miracle is far more beautiful than the magic-man interpretation, and no invocation of anything ‘supernatural’ is required - just the inspiration for generosity and cooperation.

 

[ndeparis88]

I would just like to point out, that G.K Chesterton said " Without a God, There would be no Atheist". He’s right. It’s like prohibition, without alcohol we wouldn’t have had prohibition. The same can be said for anything that is going to be prohibited. I think we get stuck with Atheist who spend a lot of time rationalizing the non existence of God. They do this mostly for themselves, at least the Atheist I know do. Mostly because if they did believe they would have to work harder and actually care more in life. But I say to them, If you can see God only when your dead, and you are still here how do you know he isn’t there. I have not died yet and you ask me how I can know. Well I haven’t died yet either, so how can I ask myself the same question. Just because you can not rationalize something does not mean it is true no matter what science does. Did you know that science does not have an answer for the conscience. A table does not know it is a table, nor a lion know that it is a lion. But we know we are. We re aware of ourselves, and when you open the brain there is no evidence that tells us why like our consciousness is an invisible force. Or when they say we do have electrical impulses in our brain that make us think certain ways and make certain decisions. Well then why is it that when you touch live wires together and they make the same electrical action they don’t respond “why are you doing this?”. There is no spot that my soul is held in, it;s not in my brain or the synapses, or the neurons, or the chemical reactions. Even as much as those things are part of the natural make up of human beings. We have finite minds, and that’s the way it will always be, we are limited on this earth but our souls, well they just ain’t from this place. Like free will, it’s not found in nature. No Horse or ape says, “I’m getting out of the plains, or the jungle I’m not sticking around and raising these kids” they don’t know or are they aware of themselves. No evolution is going to explain free will. Plus at the end of the day, when Atheist see that white light what will they do, what will they say. don’t count your eggs before they hatch.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Sair

Being morally accountable to the God described in the Bible strikes a lot of people as a thoroughly immoral choice. My suspicion is that many atheists have no problem with moral accountability - to other people, to other animals, to the environment, and to themselves - but just have no desire to invest belief in a God who, if the Bible is taken seriously, is liable to order massacres (including of children), who participates in torture of a man for the sake of a bet, who damns children for their parents’ sins, who destroyed the entire living population of the world, and who sacrificed his own son rather than forgive a debt without a payment of blood…and who, to top it all off, might not even exist.

Oh, right, there’s again that atheist stench of moral superiority.

Gee whiz, then where are all those atheist funded hospitals and charity organizations throughout the world? Where are all those atheist Mother Teresas? Where are all those atheist organizations opposing nuclear weapons, the slaughter of the unborn, and the unspeakable lunacy of same-sex marriage?

Never heard of one!

 

[tonyrey]

We tend to judge probability by the regularity with which certain events occur, and the familiarity of the phenomena involved.

Not always. There has been only one Big Bang…

Let’s take the case of the resurrection, for an example - substitute any miracle you like, but this will do for the present purpose.

The probability of miracles is based on the probability of God which is immensely greater than the probability that all life and development are ultimately fortuitous, valueless and purposeless.

The probability of the resurrection of Jesus being a story that was made up, told and retold is far higher, considering how we tend to judge probability, than it having actually happened.

The probability of the Resurrection does not depend on the regularity with which certain events occur but on the probability that the teaching of Jesus is true.

Being morally accountable to the God described in the Bible strikes a lot of people as a thoroughly immoral choice.

Your identication of the Bible with the literal interpretation of the Old Testament undermines your entire argument!

I am inclined to think that the reason atheists are atheists isn’t because they are immoral or selfish, but because they feel no need to believe that a remarkably human-like being made the world for humans; they don’t think their lives depend upon magic in order to have value or meaning; in short, they think this life and this world are enough to be going on with.

They prefer to believe in the magical power of inanimate matter to create rational beings!

God is irrelevant.

Because inanimate matter confers no obligations or responsibilities whatsoever…

 

[Sair]

I would just like to point out, that G.K Chesterton said " Without a God, There would be no Atheist". He’s right. It’s like prohibition, without alcohol we wouldn’t have had prohibition. The same can be said for anything that is going to be prohibited.

Of course - just like if there was no such thing as Buddhism, there would be no meaningful designation “non-Buddhist”, or if there were no stamp collectors, it would make no sense to refer to someone as a non-stamp-collector. Any concept defined by what it isn’t tends to imply that there is actually something for it not to be.

I think we get stuck with Atheist who spend a lot of time rationalizing the non existence of God. They do this mostly for themselves, at least the Atheist I know do. Mostly because if they did believe they would have to work harder and actually care more in life.

I suspect a lot of the atheists to whom you refer probably grew up in some religious denomination, so the concept of a universe without any gods is a significant intellectual departure from the ideas they absorbed as children. In any case, I would not imagine that they spend any more time rationalising their belief in the non-existence of God than religionists spend rationalising their belief in the existence of God. On the contrary to your second remark here, most of the nonbelievers I know are very caring and responsible; I think there is a very real sense in which the ritual observances of organised religion can detract from other concerns in life - and at worst, can give a person a distorted sense that they are morally upright because they worship ‘correctly’, even if they’re not paying much attention to other aspects of their lives.

But I say to them, If you can see God only when your dead, and you are still here how do you know he isn’t there. I have not died yet and you ask me how I can know. Well I haven’t died yet either, so how can I ask myself the same question.

Except that the God most religionists believe in is one they claim to have experienced in this life.

Just because you can not rationalize something does not mean it is true no matter what science does. Did you know that science does not have an answer for the conscience. A table does not know it is a table, nor a lion know that it is a lion. But we know we are.

That’s a pretty sweeping claim - do you know that a lion is unaware of its existence as a lion? It can certainly recognise other lions. It seems odd to suggest that it does not have at least some awareness of itself as like them.

We re aware of ourselves, and when you open the brain there is no evidence that tells us why like our consciousness is an invisible force.

There is nothing that indicates the existence of gravity in the absence of physical objects. Take away the physical objects and gravity is not apparent. It is an invisible force, one that only exists in relation to physical objects.

Or when they say we do have electrical impulses in our brain that make us think certain ways and make certain decisions. Well then why is it that when you touch live wires together and they make the same electrical action they don’t respond “why are you doing this?”.

That would be because the electrical wires do nothing except conduct electricity - they are not a whole organism with complex neural pathways, nor do they have the wherewithal to actually communicate anything about their condition.

There is no spot that my soul is held in, it;s not in my brain or the synapses, or the neurons, or the chemical reactions.

Then what is it? How does it interact with matter? What effects would you specifically ascribe to the soul, and how might you find out about them?

We have finite minds, and that’s the way it will always be, we are limited on this earth but our souls, well they just ain’t from this place. Like free will, it’s not found in nature.

What exactly do you take to be free will? Do you have conclusive evidence that it doesn’t exist in nature?

No Horse or ape says, “I’m getting out of the plains, or the jungle I’m not sticking around and raising these kids” they don’t know or are they aware of themselves. No evolution is going to explain free will.

First, you’re comparing apples with oranges. Other animals don’t communicate the way humans do, but that doesn’t mean they don’t communicate. And their actions, as observed, appear self-directed and purposeful. It seems rather arrogant of us to assume that the actions of other animals are qualitatively different to our own, in regard to being motivated by both internal and external factors. And do you have conclusive proof that evolutionary theory - or neuroscience, for that matter - will never be able to account for the phenomenon we call free will?

Plus at the end of the day, when Atheist see that white light what will they do, what will they say. don’t count your eggs before they hatch.

That if God is indeed rational and good, he, she or it will understand why a person would withhold belief on the basis of such scant and equivocal evidence.

 

[Sair]

Not always. There has been only one Big Bang…

For which there is objective empirical evidence.

The probability of miracles is based on the probability of God which is immensely greater than the probability that all life and development are ultimately fortuitous, valueless and purposeless.

False dichotomy.

The probability of the Resurrection does not depend on the regularity with which certain events occur but on the probability that the teaching of Jesus is true.

And how would you determine such probability? Do you have any evidence other than what amounts to hearsay and hagiography?

Your identication of the Bible with the literal interpretation of the Old Testament undermines your entire argument!

First of all, what you seem to be claiming is that people made up stories about God in the Old Testament - like the various massacres, the trials of Job and so forth - but were telling the absolute truth in the New Testament. Odd claim. Secondly, you missed my reference to the New Testament. One of the defining doctrines of Christianity - that of vicarious atonement - is considered by many to be not only immoral and unjust, but downright weird on the part of God.

They prefer to believe in the magical power of inanimate matter to create rational beings! Because inanimate matter confers no obligations or responsibilities whatsoever…

We’re not inanimate matter - in fact, from the point of view of particle physics, there’s pretty much no such thing. And the whole point is that anything that occurs naturally, within the regularities of the natural universe, isn’t magical - it’s empirically explicable.

 

[Sair]

Oh, right, there’s again that atheist stench of moral superiority.

Pot, meet kettle…

Gee whiz, then where are all those atheist funded hospitals and charity organizations throughout the world? Where are all those atheist Mother Teresas? Where are all those atheist organizations opposing nuclear weapons, the slaughter of the unborn, and the unspeakable lunacy of same-sex marriage?

Hmm, let’s see. Red Cross and Oxfam spring immediately to mind as worldwide secular charities. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, both atheists, are two of the most philanthropic individuals in the world in terms of charitable funding. Those are just the ones that spring immediately to mind. There’s no telling how many unbelievers are involved in charitable works and donations under their own steam, without the need for any official organisation to motivate them. Atheists are atheists because they don’t believe in supernatural gods - that’s the only thing all atheists have in common, so getting them organised is a bit like herding cats.

Where are the religious groups opposing the War in the Middle East and the abuses in Abu Ghraib? Where were they to oppose the Vietnam War?

Where are the religious groups opposing factory farming? That causes far more suffering on a far greater scale than abortion, but supernaturalist religion often teaches that humans are intrinsically more important than any other sentient creatures, even when the humans in question are not sentient. And I doubt any atheist ever bombed an abortion clinic, or for that matter, withheld medical treatment from a child because of some item of dogma.

And only the twisted doctrines of organised religion would make someone describe a loving relationship between people of the same sex as “unspeakable lunacy”.

And why aren’t prisons filled up with atheists if unbelievers are such a nasty lot?

In short, playing the moral card won’t get you anything but animosity and virtual fisticuffs when arguing about belief or unbelief. (Which is probably why discussions of atheism were banned in the first place…) There are plenty of examples of goodness and wickedness on both sides.

 

[tonyrey]

Not always. There has been only one Big Bang…

There is subjective empirical evidence for the existence of the mind - ** without which there would be no knowledge** of the Big Bang - or anything else!

The probability of miracles is based on the probability of God which is immensely greater than the probability that all life and development are ultimately fortuitous, valueless and purposeless.

False dichotomy.

What other explanation do you have in mind - apart from Design or non-Design?

The probability of the Resurrection does not depend on the regularity with which certain events occur but on the probability that the teaching of Jesus is true.

And how would you determine such probability?

By its fertility: “By their fruits you shall know them…” What is the rational basis of your values? How did you obtain them and what results have they produced?

Do you have any evidence other than what amounts to hearsay and hagiography?

The evidence of reason - which is the most compelling evidence of all. What rational basis do you have for your beliefs? Your pantheism implies that you find science an inadequate explanation of reality.

Your identification of the Bible with the literal interpretation of the Old Testament undermines your entire argument!

First of all, what you seem to be claiming is that people made up stories about God in the Old Testament - like the various massacres, the trials of Job and so forth - but were telling the absolute truth in the New Testament. Odd claim.

Misrepresentation. The basic teaching and prophecies of the Old Testament are true even though the Jews were a primitive tribe subject to the limitations of their era. The onus is on you to prove that the facts and values of the New Testament are false.

Secondly, you missed my reference to the New Testament. One of the defining doctrines of Christianity - that of vicarious atonement - is considered by many to be not only immoral and unjust, but downright weird on the part of God.

Your version of the Atonement is a distortion of the truth because it ignores the objective reality of evil and love - which you discard as a product of the sexual instinct…

They prefer to believe in the magical power of inanimate matter to create rational beings! Because inanimate matter confers no obligations or responsibilities whatsoever…

We’re not inanimate matter - in fact, from the point of view of particle physics, there’s pretty much no such thing. And the whole point is that anything that occurs naturally, within the regularities of the natural universe, isn’t magical - it’s empirically explicable.

Pleas explain precisely how particles are not inanimate and how they account for the existence of rational, purposeful beings with obligations and responsibilities.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Sair
**
And why aren’t prisons filled up with atheists if unbelievers are such a nasty lot?**

They ARE filled up with atheists. I define atheist as a person who has no connection with God. I am in the prison ministry in Texas, and I can tell you for a fact that the vast majority of prisoners NEVER attend religious services. Atheist translates as “without-god.” It doesn’t matter what you call yourself, or what religion you identify as the one you were born into. If you want NOTHING to do with religion, and that is the mind-set of most crimiinals … you are an atheist … you are living AS IF there is no God.

**In short, playing the moral card won’t get you anything but animosity and virtual fisticuffs when arguing about belief or unbelief. **

Then why did you play it with such seeming relish in your fourth paragraph of post #111?

How about reading your own posts before you submit them?

And why not think about the godless horrors of Stalin and Mao before attacking the Christian God with such venom?

You evidently have no respect for religion nor for the views of religious people toward their own religion. When you slam religion and then someone answers you, why go ballistic? You brought these answers on yourself.

Stop attacking the Christian God in this forum. This Forum was not created for you to spew your vicious venom.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Sair

What exactly do you take to be free will? Do you have conclusive evidence that it doesn’t exist in nature?

Do you have conclusive evidence that it does? Or is this a “someday science will discover the free will gene” argument? Ah yes, the free will gene … no doubt as far away as it can get from the same-sex attraction gene.