Science must destroy religion

[Touchstone]

Wow…I Love God not because I’m afraid of going to hell, but because He is a Good and Loving God. Have you ever read the entire old and new testaments and the catechism? If you want to learn about God these would be good sources.

I have. I was raised as a Bible-crazy evangelical Protestant, and so spent most of my early life not just immersed in Bible reading, end to end (our church preached through the whole Bible, chronologically, over and over, as a rule!), but memorization, Greek and Hebrew root and word analysis, systematic theology and integration of (approved) commentaries for Bible Study, etc. I unfortunately have the pedigree of the “whole nine yards” on that issue.

I eventually had to abandoned Protestantism, and for a couple years got into orbit preparing to “swim the Tiber”. That’s how I found this forum! I spent time talking to priests IRL, and discussing/debating/learning from others online. I read the catechism, and paid attention, as this was a big move that I was determined was going to be the “last jump” to the “faith I’d have for the rest of my days”. I read all manner of recommended books. I read a thousand threads, here, and from other Catholic blogs and forums.

I may be completely wrong, evil, mistaken, but if so, it won’t be because I’m not familiar. I’m the one with the least excuse of any atheist you’d ever find in terms of having had a rich, full immersion in the “real deal” beliefs, practices and values of the Christian faith. I’m a pain in the you-know-what because I’ve read, discussed and debated so many parts of applied Christian thought that many of my (still devout) Christian friends couldn’t be bothered by, from supralapsarian soteriology, to the Thomistic concept of esse, to the fundamentals of health-and-wealth rhema-based pentacostalism.

Maybe all that nonsense is/was part of the problem, I’ll grant. But I don’t think the problem is one of non-familiarity. I’m still surprised by how many Catholics I talk to who seem only marginally familiar with the Catechism. The Catechism reading and contemplation was what triggered the abandonment of all of Christianity. I was very “into it” for a long time, trying to get to a place where I could swim the Tiber and make it stick, and have it be a joyous, lasting conversion.

Yes, Jesus said to Love you God will all your heart mind and soul and He also said that the second and equal commandment is to Love your neighbor and your enemy. We show God that we Love Him when we Love our neighbor and our enemies. We are like God when we Love all people. We are like God when we hate evil and sin.

If you think that God is evil then please explain to me why He is keeping you alive?

It gets tedious to have to always, in every discussion about God, point out that I DON’T BELIEVE GOD EXISTS. I do point this out regularly, and the label by user name that says “Atheist” fairly announces it, as well, I think. It’s just an unbearable chore to have to qualify every statement about God with “Note that I’m referring to the Christian imagination of God; I don’t think any such entity actually exists”.

It would be great if that caveat were understood to be implicit in my posts, across the board.

I don’t think God exists, therefore I don’t believe God is keeping me alive.

If the Christian God does exist, then my understanding is that he is keeping me alive to show some measure of forbearance with my rejection of him, and classification of him as evil, before I’m condemned to hell, to receive what is on the Christian view is my deserved eternal torment. And all of this is to God’s glory, on the Christian view, of course, because God is holy, and just. My eternal torment will testify to the holiness and perfect justice of God, who is to be praised and worshiped without ceasing for all eternity.

In letting me live as long as he does, God will show a measure of tolerance, before visiting final and eternal justice upon me. So much greater is the Christian God that I’m given these moments which I don’t deserve. I am the recipient of grace from the God I openly curse in surviving through each day that I do.

Right?

-TS

 

[Qoeleth]

I have. I was raised as a Bible-crazy evangelical Protestant, and so spent most of my early life not just immersed in Bible reading, end to end (our church preached through the whole Bible, chronologically, over and over, as a rule!), but memorization, Greek and Hebrew root and word analysis, systematic theology and integration of (approved) commentaries for Bible Study, etc. I unfortunately have the pedigree of the “whole nine yards” on that issue.

I eventually had to abandoned Protestantism, and for a couple years got into orbit preparing to “swim the Tiber”. That’s how I found this forum! I spent time talking to priests IRL, and discussing/debating/learning from others online. I read the catechism, and paid attention, as this was a big move that I was determined was going to be the “last jump” to the “faith I’d have for the rest of my days”. I read all manner of recommended books. I read a thousand threads, here, and from other Catholic blogs and forums.

I may be completely wrong, evil, mistaken, but if so, it won’t be because I’m not familiar. I’m the one with the least excuse of any atheist you’d ever find in terms of having had a rich, full immersion in the “real deal” beliefs, practices and values of the Christian faith. I’m a pain in the you-know-what because I’ve read, discussed and debated so many parts of applied Christian thought that many of my (still devout) Christian friends couldn’t be bothered by, from supralapsarian soteriology, to the Thomistic concept of esse, to the fundamentals of health-and-wealth rhema-based pentacostalism.

Maybe all that nonsense is/was part of the problem, I’ll grant. But I don’t think the problem is one of non-familiarity. I’m still surprised by how many Catholics I talk to who seem only marginally familiar with the Catechism. The Catechism reading and contemplation was what triggered the abandonment of all of Christianity. I was very “into it” for a long time, trying to get to a place where I could swim the Tiber and make it stick, and have it be a joyous, lasting conversion.

It gets tedious to have to always, in every discussion about God, point out that I DON’T BELIEVE GOD EXISTS. I do point this out regularly, and the label by user name that says “Atheist” fairly announces it, as well, I think. It’s just an unbearable chore to have to qualify every statement about God with “Note that I’m referring to the Christian imagination of God; I don’t think any such entity actually exists”.

It would be great if that caveat were understood to be implicit in my posts, across the board.

I don’t think God exists, therefore I don’t believe God is keeping me alive.

If the Christian God does exist, then my understanding is that he is keeping me alive to show some measure of forbearance with my rejection of him, and classification of him as evil, before I’m condemned to hell, to receive what is on the Christian view is my deserved eternal torment. And all of this is to God’s glory, on the Christian view, of course, because God is holy, and just. My eternal torment will testify to the holiness and perfect justice of God, who is to be praised and worshiped without ceasing for all eternity.

In letting me live as long as he does, God will show a measure of tolerance, before visiting final and eternal justice upon me. So much greater is the Christian God that I’m given these moments which I don’t deserve. I am the recipient of grace from the God I openly curse in surviving through each day that I do.

Right?

-TS

Remember Matthew 25- it is those who feed the poor and cloth the hungry, etc., who go to Heaven.

Whether God ‘exists’ is a question of ontology- what do we mean by the word ‘exists’. The important thing is to follow the teachings of Jesus.

The grace of faith may come.

You don’t really curse God do you? And even if you did, one’s relationship with God goes through all kinds of stages (as I am sure you know from the Psalms, Job, etc.).

 

[wheels10]

I have. I was raised as a Bible-crazy evangelical Protestant, and so spent most of my early life not just immersed in Bible reading, end to end (our church preached through the whole Bible, chronologically, over and over, as a rule!), but memorization, Greek and Hebrew root and word analysis, systematic theology and integration of (approved) commentaries for Bible Study, etc. I unfortunately have the pedigree of the “whole nine yards” on that issue.

I eventually had to abandoned Protestantism, and for a couple years got into orbit preparing to “swim the Tiber”. That’s how I found this forum! I spent time talking to priests IRL, and discussing/debating/learning from others online. I read the catechism, and paid attention, as this was a big move that I was determined was going to be the “last jump” to the “faith I’d have for the rest of my days”. I read all manner of recommended books. I read a thousand threads, here, and from other Catholic blogs and forums.

I may be completely wrong, evil, mistaken, but if so, it won’t be because I’m not familiar. I’m the one with the least excuse of any atheist you’d ever find in terms of having had a rich, full immersion in the “real deal” beliefs, practices and values of the Christian faith. I’m a pain in the you-know-what because I’ve read, discussed and debated so many parts of applied Christian thought that many of my (still devout) Christian friends couldn’t be bothered by, from supralapsarian soteriology, to the Thomistic concept of esse, to the fundamentals of health-and-wealth rhema-based pentacostalism.

Maybe all that nonsense is/was part of the problem, I’ll grant. But I don’t think the problem is one of non-familiarity. I’m still surprised by how many Catholics I talk to who seem only marginally familiar with the Catechism. The Catechism reading and contemplation was what triggered the abandonment of all of Christianity. I was very “into it” for a long time, trying to get to a place where I could swim the Tiber and make it stick, and have it be a joyous, lasting conversion.

It gets tedious to have to always, in every discussion about God, point out that I DON’T BELIEVE GOD EXISTS. I do point this out regularly, and the label by user name that says “Atheist” fairly announces it, as well, I think. It’s just an unbearable chore to have to qualify every statement about God with “Note that I’m referring to the Christian imagination of God; I don’t think any such entity actually exists”.

It would be great if that caveat were understood to be implicit in my posts, across the board.

I don’t think God exists, therefore I don’t believe God is keeping me alive.

If the Christian God does exist, then my understanding is that he is keeping me alive to show some measure of forbearance with my rejection of him, and classification of him as evil, before I’m condemned to hell, to receive what is on the Christian view is my deserved eternal torment. And all of this is to God’s glory, on the Christian view, of course, because God is holy, and just. My eternal torment will testify to the holiness and perfect justice of God, who is to be praised and worshiped without ceasing for all eternity.

In letting me live as long as he does, God will show a measure of tolerance, before visiting final and eternal justice upon me. So much greater is the Christian God that I’m given these moments which I don’t deserve. I am the recipient of grace from the God I openly curse in surviving through each day that I do.

Right?

-TS

How is it that you don’t believe that God exists and yet you classify Him as evil?
Would an evil God tell you to Love all people? Would an evil God heal the sick, raise the dead, suffer and die for you? Would an evil God Love you this way?:

Corinthians 13:4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.

 

[Touchstone]

Remember Matthew 25- it is those who feed the poor and cloth the hungry, etc., who go to Heaven.

Yes, but come on, do you think an old Bible Thumper is going to let you get away with an observation as simple as that. In John 3:3, for example, we read Jesus announcing that “no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again”. And that was one of the cases where Jesus tosses in the “Verily” amplifier, to let us all know that this is really a truth with extra-double truthiness, as opposed to… well never mind.

In John 14 Jesus tells us that “No one comes to the Father except by me”. On its face, that doesn’t preclude those who feed the poor and clothe the hungry – we might understand that Jesus endorses these activities. But that cannot be the test or the sum of one’s qualifications if one is reading the Bible, and focusing on the words of Jesus.

I can go on, but you don’t have to be a Baptist Bible Thumper from birth to understand Jesus’ focus on his role and his Lordship and the need for salvation from our sins as the overriding consideration in salvation. This is quite clear in the Catechism, for example.

Feeding the hungry and helping the sick maybe necessary, but it’s not sufficient, per Jesus and the NT writers.

Whether God ‘exists’ is a question of ontology- what do we mean by the word ‘exists’.

As a Christian, I was never able to answer this. And this didn’t distinguish me from any other Christian, so far as I could tell. I’ve asked here many times, no one has a definition that is coherent and applicable. As a materialist, I think “extended in space/time” is a very good handle on an operational definition that holds up generally and under stress.

Christian definitions end up being indistinguishable from definitions of “nonexistant”, which is a problem.

The important thing is to follow the teachings of Jesus.

Why? Didn’t he tell me to love, more than anything or anyone else, a God who considers homosexuality an abomination? If so, then get serious, man! Don’t play me for a fool. Does Jesus commend a God to me who would visit eternal torment on those he “loves”, but who reject his Lordship, or otherwise fail to satisfy his demands?

You have to be kidding me.

I know the modern trend is to try and de-emphasize/hide YHWH and promote the person of Jesus, but it’s not even half-way clever; anyone who has a basic familiarity with Jesus and the Bible understands that not only was Jesus crazy about YHWH, he WAS and IS YHWH, trinitarian semantic nuances notwithstanding. There’s plenty more to look at in Jesus’ particular teachings that are problematic, but his association with/being YHWH is more than enough for any moral thinker to be at least gravely concerned and vexed, if not outright appalled. YHWH is a monster, and Jesus is him, and calls him his Father, who he obeys and loves.

The grace of faith may come.

You don’t really curse God do you? And even if you did, one’s relationship with God goes through all kinds of stages (as I am sure you know from the Psalms, Job, etc.).

Well, I hesitate on that because “cursing” itself strikes me as superstitious, as if there is some magical force that may attach to my words by uttering a curse. But that problem aside, the Christian God is a monster, an evil and capricious despot, yes. Not deserving of our time or consideration, if it does happen to be true that he exists, never mind actually worshipping.

The whole “stages” thing is big in my family circles, of course, with “OSAS” – once saved always saved being a point of bitter contention on one side, and not the other. Many friends pray for my eventual return to the faith, etc. One never knows what may happen in the future, but what a pathetic anti-human I would if that were ever to happen. That would be as close as I could imagine to actually deserving the kind of Hell Christians imagine that non-believers deserve, which I say no humanity-loving person would tolerate, especially (!) if it were an actual fate rather than just a religious imagination.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

How is it that you don’t believe that God exists and yet you classify Him as evil?

Please see above. I don’t believe God exists, and see no credible basis for thinking he does. But it’s not a proposition that can be ruled out with certainty, and regardless of that, many Christians obviously believe in earnest that God does, in fact, exist, even if they are stumped to tell me what “exists” actually means in that context. For the purposes of conversation, it has to be stipulated, provisionally, that God exists. And it’s a logical possibility, even if an untenable one in light of the available evidence.

So, no, I don’t believe God exists. But assuming for the sake of argument that he does, he would be an evil tyrant of the most execrable kind.

Would an evil God tell you to Love all people?

I think so, especially if that God also commanded that some of those people be stoned to death (for…, uh, non-virginal marriage, cf Deut 22). Or command the genocide of a whole ethnic group the next valley over (cf. the slaughter of the Midianites). In light of such actions, such a command just compounds the evil of God, yes.

Would an evil God heal the sick, raise the dead, suffer and die for you? Would an evil God Love you this way?:

Yes, and I’m always surprised at the superficial thinking that persists on this. Let’s grant that God “troubled the waters” in some cases and healed epilepsy, or a sore back, or in the case of the woman who touched Jesus’ coat, repaired her bleeding problem.

That’s great, no? Well, no. This is a cruel taunt for all the other millions of people who suffer from all that, and worse, people who are just as willing to prostitute their minds and believe “God can heal meal”, in the just the slim hope it might be true.

A 5 year old boy who is a son of a colleague where I work just died this past March of a brain tumor. A cruel, painful, terrible and slow death, with parents as committed and faithful and hopeful for a miracle from God that I’ve ever seen. And yet, God, in his evil genius ways, deigned it right and well that the girl Padre Pio healed miraculous had her vision restored. This monster of a god can see fit to work a “miracle at Fatima”, but this young, innocent boy is ravaged and ruined before he is extinguished by cancer.

Christians, and many Catholics among them, are quite ready to tell me of their petty, pathetic “miracles” that bring them closer to God. I have to much desire to not admit the depths of God’s evilness to believe them, because if they are right, YHWH is way more of a cruel demon than I can bear to contemplate. Frivolously wasting his supernatural interventions while so many innocent, desperate and deserving people go unhelped, alone, unanswered, forsaken by this “God of Love”.

There is really no stronger indictment of God than the miracles that are assigned to him. Far better for salvaging the acceptability of God for Christians to deny that any of the reported miracles really were miracles, and have those reflect God’s actual priorities in this world. It’s too awful to contemplate. Such a God could only be condemned, and vehemently, if the reports are true.

Corinthians 13:4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.

And God himself spectacular fails this noble picture. God IS jealous, he DOES boast, he IS proud. Rude, self-serving, easily angered, and he never forgets. All humans are stained with the defect of Adam’s Original Sin, because God is perfect and ruthless in keeping a record of our wrongs. This passage condemns YHWH from start to finish, and the Christian God cannot begin to compete with even mediocre humans on the ideals Paul is advancing here. And God is supposed to be perfect!

-TS

 

[cranster]

so why start the topic then if you are not ready to challenge it or may be you have answered your own question here in that Catholics and other people of faith are letting it stand unchallenged for the time being because like yoursel they are doing a lot of reading right now.

I want to see both sides of the debate which doesn’t require a challenge.

 

[Candide_West]

Legalization and widespread abortion has happened over the last century.

And it being considered immoral appears to be relatively recent as well. For example the ancient egyptians seemed to have no issue with doing it 3500 years ago, and the chinese 5000 years ago.

Just because the child’s scream is silent, doesn’t mean there is no pain.

No, the fact that the foetus has no nervous system and is thus unable to feel pain is what means that there is no pain.

Bottom line is that abortion is murder. It is the worst type of murder. This murder is performed by the people that should be protecting the child the most, the parents and the doctors that should be trying to save lives not destroy them.

There I must disagree with you, even if I accepted that abortion is a form of murder, then i would still judge that it is worse to torture a person to death than to simply kill a person painlessly. Would you really argue that a doctor performing an abortion is morally worse than a serial killer who hunts down, tortures and kills children?

If so then I think we must agree to differ and suggest we drop the topic as we are very far from the subject of this thread.

 

[Candide_West]

Candide,

What you stated is called “time binding”…a simple book about that is by Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity…

evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/korzybski_timebind01.htm

You actually formulated the principle by saying that information from the past is additive. This is true for all thought.

An interesting read, thanks for sending that through.

 

[cranster]

Touchstone,

You are a regular member. Candide agrees with you. I can learn from you. Here is what I hear you saying.

You find it aggravating as to the cause of what makes men moral.

You believe that there are anti-social and psychopathic individuals in any large group. You believe that the cause is that these people just lack a basic understanding of themselves.

You believe that people have empathy and a moral conscious wired into them by millions of years of adaption, the product of natural evolution.

You believe that Nature has developed a moral conscience that governs thoughts and behaviors at a basic level. You stat that if it were not so, humans would not have survived as a species to be here discussing it.

Why can hyenas who have a moral code that permits eating their young, and killing their siblings survive? If that behavior doesn’t violate a moral code in hyena’s, and is socially acceptable, then why should it be any different in humans? That behavior in hyena’s doesn’t cause a survival disadvantage, then why would it in humans?

 

[tonyrey]

It’s not magic, Tony. The materialist belief is anti-magical. It’s mechanical, law-and-chance machinery. No cosmic mid, no supernatural powers, no sorcery, no intervention in the natural process and mechanisms. This view is literally as anti-magical as a view can be

It’s subnatural sorcery to derive insight from blind particles. Matter explaining itself is the maniac’s fantasy. Mechanical machinery can produce nothing but mechanical machinery which doesn’t even know it exists, let alone understand itself. There is no such thing as “a view” in the materialist’s scheme of things. It’s just an isomorphism of inanimate objects which just happen to exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever.

Worship is a bug, not a feature. There is no one to worship, Tony. It’s just impersonal nature. None of this deprives, or even diminishes the human basis for aspiration: hope, love, beauty, art, humor, joy, and all the rest.

According to TS, worship is restricted to impersonal “nature”, whatever that may be (given that it has never been clearly defined so that it can cater for any unexplained phenomena).

The only type of aspiration in your weltanschaung is that of a vacuum cleaner! You keep forgetting hope, love, beauty, art, humor, joy, and all the rest are no more than permutations of submicroscopic phenomena moving around in space. The mysterious transmutation of matter into mind is an article of faith constantly overlooked in your process of “reasoning” - which should be restricted - if you are consistent - to strictly quantitative descriptions of material events.

It’s just living a life with these ideals and values without childish superstitions blocking a view of the world around us as it really is, in all its wonderful, terrible glory.

Unfortunately “ideals”, “values”, “superstitions”, “view”, “wonderful”, “terrible” and “glory” are meaningless terms from a scientific point of view - which is after all the only isomorphism (to which the isomorphism described as Touchstone is linked…)

In any case, the point I was making to cranster is that the whining about atheist “agression” is a manifestation of Christian conceit, a legacy of the cultural hegemony it has enjoyed for many centuries, where it’s moral framework went uncriticized, unexamined, untested. Once you’re get off the Christian bandwagon, the picture is disturbing to put it charitably when you look back at Christianity.

The foregoing is no more than a meaningless collocation of scientifically unrecognisable terms and therefore of absolutely no significance…

Christians have staked out a fabulous, and extreme, moral scaffold. They might be right, but even if so, it’s extreme, dystopian and, on humanist terms, deeply anti-human. The kind of stuff, in other words, that elicits strong condemnation from people who aren’t interested in being “aggressive”, but simply recoil from nightmarish constructs.

“constructs”! The physicalist Q.V.Quine pointed out that material objects and gods are in precisely the same epistemological category. It is worth reading “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (online) to understand (hopefully) that your entire concept of reality is vitiated by your blind adherence to a logically untenable mechanistic doctrine falsified by every rational (?) statement you utter and the occupational hazard of those whose lives are immersed in the unreal world of computer systems (the nightmarish apogee of a dystopian, inhuman elimination of persons by an amoral scaffold erected to satisfy your desire to justify your own notions of what you are entitled to believe and how to live - thereby unwittingly depriving yourself of any power to choose what to believe or how to live if you take your determinism to its logical conclusion… but then logic is unimportant, isn’t it?

 

[Candide_West]

Thanks for the explanation and yes, pure science, is a reiterative process that becomes perfected as time goes on. But it is applied science (or engineering) that directly impact our way of life, from housing, transportation, communication, to food and medicines. For example, I know from pure science that people carrying BRCA mutation is susceptible to developing breast cancer. However, this information is irrelevant to me unless applied science comes up with a way to screen whether I carry this mutation and a therapeutic treatment is made available to me to manage this risk. However, all the know-hows in making pure science into forms that enhance our standard of living, all these know-hows are proprietary and is not in the public domain. Not anyone can capitalize on these proprietary knowledge without getting patent infringement lawsuit and pay a hefty.

Indeed, the problem though is that without proprietary knowledge there would be no benefit (in a capitalist system) to leading the way in undertaking research - you’d be better off to let someone else do it, then take advantage of their work. Obviously this would tend to mean that nobody would do it. So we have patents so that we can reward the person who does do it.

Here’s the ingenius point though. Patents expire after about 20 years, less for designs. So, at worst there is a 20 year lag between something becoming usable applied science, and it becoming open for anybody to use. In terms of the course of human development, 20 years is just a blip.

My point is, there is a tendency to romanticize science as if it is free-for-all panacea to our problems. It is not and, if not, it creates more new problems that it solves.

Science shouldn’t be romanticised to be something it isn’t. Ultimately it is a process which we use to advance our understanding of the universe around us. Yes, sometimes it creates problems, but I’d argue that the general trend is to solving problems, not creating them. Just look at this amazing tool that we are using to communicate thoughts and ideas across the globe right now. Just one of the astonishing tools with which science has furnished us.

 

[cranster]

\

They are also ridiculous, which I mean in the literal sense: worthy of ridicule. The writers of the NT understood the nature of these claims, and hewed to them proudly, despite.

-TS

a number of the writers of the new testament did understand the nature of the claims and hewed to them proudly in spite of the fact they would not only be ridiculed, but murdered as well.

The most logical explanation is that they did witness Jesus resurrected from the dead. Dying for a myth or fairy tale is such an incredible violation of self preservation, and reason that it’s absurd. Dying for a fairy tale doesn’t rise to the level of a cause that is reasonable to sacrifice your life for. People die for something they believe is true, not what they don’t, unless you can provide examples of sane rational people who die for what they think is untrue. There were enough people who viewed Jesus alive after being executed that it is improbable in the extreme to think there was an outbreak of insanity in the 12 apostles, the women at the tomb, and the 500 who witnessed Jesus ascend to Heaven.

Something profound enough happened 2000 years ago in Jerusalem that it changed the course of the world, and a fairy tale doesn’t rise to the level of a credible explanation let alone one in which people were willing to died for.

 

[cranster]

What is worthy of ridicule is the magical transmutation of irrational, purposeless atomic particles into rational, purposeful beings!

You have something to be deeply ashamed of in your infantile worship of the blind Goddess - Chance - who is supposed to be the sole explanation of all that we value and cherish, reducing truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love to isomorphisms of atomic particles and thereby spreading propaganda that drives people to despair, suicide and even murder because they are persuaded that there is no reason why they exist and the finality of death makes their lives valueless and meaningless. Abandon hope all ye who fall into the clutches of the materialists. There is nothing more diabolical than wilfully depriving a person of faith, hope and love…

I couldn’t have said it any better.

 

[cranster]

[Corrected the text in bold]

You still think God is evil? Name one thing that you think Jesus or Mary did that was evil?

The concept of evil has evolved. Christopher Hitchens considered Mother Theresa to be one of the most evil people of the 20th century.

He also said it should be child abuse for a parent to teach their children that abortion is immoral.

Where did he get his moral code? from Hitler

 

[cranster]

Yes. Empathy is not a “nice to have”. It’s integral to the species’ survival. Without it, we would not have the social cohesion and gregarious cooperative abilities we have that enable us to survive and thrive.

-TS

Why is it integral to human survival but not hyena’s survival who eat their young, and kill their siblings

 

[Sair]

Why is it integral to human survival but not hyena’s survival who eat their young, and kill their siblings

Maybe because we’re actually different animals evolving in response to different specific evolutionary pressures? Just a suggestion…

 

[Sair]

The concept of evil has evolved. Christopher Hitchens considered Mother Theresa to be one of the most evil people of the 20th century.

Did you get around to reading why he believed this? It was primarily to do with her glorification of suffering and refusal to offer treatment that would alleviate the suffering of the patients in her care - she imposed on others her belief that suffering brought people “closer” to god, and used this to shore up her own failing belief.

He also said it should be child abuse for a parent to teach their children that abortion is immoral.

He certainly believed it was abusive to indoctrinate children in the worship of a tyrannical deity - again, this is the imposition of unfounded and potentially harmful beliefs, this time on innocent and impressionable minds. And if anything, he was more anti-abortion than otherwise.

Where did he get his moral code? from Hitler

Quite an ironic (not to mention ridiculous) accusation, considering that Hitchens’ anti-religion stance was largely based on his hatred of totalitarianism.

 

[cranster]

Sam understands this, better than I do. Daniel Dennett makes this point even more forcefully, but the bottom line is not a matter of eloquence, it’s just the realization that religion dies well and stays dead when it is abandoned freely, and not missed.
-TS

This will never happen and I’ll tell you why. Because people have encounters with God whether they are delusional or not doesn’t matter. There have been a whole lot of very sane and rational people who have had similar experiences to mine for the last several thousand years. For instance, when I was a teenager I had no spiritual inclination, and one day out of the blue I had a vision in my minds eye of Jesus who asked me if I would let Him love me. I said yes and, instantly found myself floating on a sea of love, I was overcome with a sense of peace, joy, happiness, acceptance, rightness of being, purpose, and a sense that it would continue with Him forever after death. I sobbed for about 20 minutes straight afterward because I was so overcome. I didn’t solicit that experience, it happened out of the blue, and it happened with Jesus. Was it a hallucination, or delusion? perhaps, who cares! It doesn’t matter because it changed the course of my life, and was enough for me as a foundation for faith in God, and specifically the Catholic Christian God. My experience, and knowledge of God has grown and developed over the last 35 years. That’s why none of your arguments resonate in any meaningful way.

If it happened to me, and many others over the last several thousand years then it surely will continue to happen as long as there are people, and no matter how reasonable the atheists arguments are they will never be enough to abandon hope. A natural explanation of some psychological phenomena is nowhere near an adequate explanation for that experience. There is also receiving the Eucharist and the peace it brings, and the peace prayer brings, there are no arguments that can nullify these experiences for me and a whole lot of other people. Call it being credulous… a fool, who cares. You have nothing to offer but hopelessness, and despair. I should abandon my faith for that… why? eternity is too long to take that gamble. In light of my experience it is not reasonable to abandon faith and hope, for hopelessness and despair.

Also there are things like this that occur. youtube.com/watch?v=WNbdUEqDB-k
There is no scientific explanation for it, and it points towards God. These things will continue to happen regardless if the majority of the planet becomes atheist. This is something atheists are powerless to stop, or reason away. You simply can’t stop something that God has set in motion.

Ridicule doesn’t matter especially when you have absolutely nothing to offer as a valid alternative.

Nothing to abandon hope for here… Either God is, or God isn’t, and science has no say in the matter, but death does, and for death I will wait to clear it up, in the meantime I will continue with hope of eternity with a loving God til the end, and I do mean a loving God because that is how I experience Him.

 

[cranster]

Maybe because we’re actually different animals evolving in response to different specific evolutionary pressures? Just a suggestion…

Evolution is not sentient, or conscious. It doesn’t have pressures nor is it guided. It is nothing more than the process of random genetic mutation in a population over generations. It’s the same process in all species. If that process can’t account for a moral code of which there is no real survival disadvantage, and is socially acceptable in hyenas, but not in humans, then the reason humans have a different moral code has to fall out side of evolution. Humans would survive just as well as hyena’s if we ate our young and killed our siblings.

 

[Candide_West]

Evolution is not sentient, or conscious. It doesn’t have pressures nor is it guided. It is nothing more than the process of random genetic mutation in a population over generations. It’s the same process in all species. If that process can’t account for a moral code of which there is no real survival disadvantage, and is socially acceptable in hyenas, but not in humans, then the reason humans have a different moral code has to fall out side of evolution. Humans would survive just as well as hyena’s if we ate our young and killed our siblings.

Really, is this intended to be a joke or just faceatious? You are as well to say that humans would survive just as well as birds if we lived in nests built in treetops. But the obvious fact is that humans are not birds, so the selection pressure on us is not the same as that on birds. So the adaptations which work well for birds would not work well for humans.

In exactly the same way humans are not hyenas so the selection pressure on us is not the same as that on hyenas. So the adaptations which work well for hyenas would not work well for humans. Equally the adaptations that work well for birds would not serve hyenas either, they’d struggle to even build their nests up there, let alone live in them.

Does this really need to be explained?