The atheists best argument?

[Bradski]

Huh?

Are you of the opinion that telling someone, “Hey, there’s a washed out bridge down the road” is a threat—yes, or no?

It’s not an apt analogy.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It’s not an apt analogy.

Why not?

 

[Cheiron]

Huh?

Are you of the opinion that telling someone, “Hey, there’s a washed out bridge down the road” is a threat—yes, or no?

A better analogy would be someone telling us that he would personally throw us in the river if we don’t do exactly what he says. And yes, that’s a threat.

 

[Bradski]

My point being, again, that both fear of hell and fear of embarrassment or shame do not constitute proper grounds for morality. They are negative and inadequate in the sense that they do not supply a positive vision of what needs to be done to find moral, spiritual or personal fulfillment. Because they do not provide anything like a groundwork for what to do or to become a moral person or find fulfillment as a moral person, they are insufficient in terms of providing a reasonable answer for why we ought to be moral.

There aren’t just negative emotions. There is pride, honour, bravery and many more beside. Would you prefer to be thought of as honourable and brave or dishonest and a coward?

The answer to that question gives you the basis of morality.

But you are correct in saying that he threat of hell (for it is a threat), is no justification for acting well. Notwithstanding that all Christians ignore it it in any case. If it was more believable it might carry some weight. But no same person thinks there’s any chance of them ending up there. If you did, you wouldn’t actually be able to remain sane.

 

[Bradski]

Why not?

For the reason I already gave.

 

[Peter_Plato]

A better analogy would be someone telling us that he would personally throw us in the river if we don’t do exactly what he says. And yes, that’s a threat.

Well, not exactly because someone who merely threatens to throw you in the river does not stand in the same position vis a vis you as God does.

God is the Author of all that exists including you. Ergo he has created the essence of what it means to be you, and all of reality as well, in the first place.

This means that God knows and promises and has the wherewithal to bring you through to the most perfect possible ending if you do as he says, but if you choose to go your own way at your own peril, then you bear full responsibility for the outcome.

The difference between someone who merely threatens to throw you in the river and God is that that person does not create you as who you are to begin with and therefore has no authority or power to determine your final outcome. Such a person does not create the whole of reality within which every eventuality occurs.

Neither do they underwrite your free choice.

Essentially – and this is another shortcoming of your analogy – abiding by God’s determinations or path he sets out leads to our perfection and perfect freedom whereas not doing so takes away the possibility of arriving there. The person who merely threatens to throw you in the river has no power to create the entirety of all possibilities in front of you; they can ONLY threaten a negative if you don’t do what they say. They cannot alter the nature of fundamental reality if you do do what they tell you. Huge difference.

A more fitting analogy – though still imperfect – is a very powerful and wealthy emperor who would give you all of your heart’s deepest longings if you do as he says because the journey is fraught with dangers, or will leave you to journey on at your own peril – and surely end up in the river – if you continue on your own way. The fact that you don’t know the way ahead – but the emperor (aka God being omniscient) does – but you choose to go your own way regardless, makes the analogy comparable to our situation here on earth.

Your analogy presumes ill-will on the part of God even though neither you nor your river troll have complete knowledge of what it means to exist in the first place and get through to the end unscathed.

 

[Peter_Plato]

For the reason I already gave.

Not a convincing one.

 

[Peter_Plato]

There aren’t just negative emotions. There is pride, honour, bravery and many more beside. Would you prefer to be thought of as honourable and brave or dishonest and a coward?

Still a negative motivation to be “thought of” any of those. It is possible to be none of them and still be “thought” to be all of them.

My preference would be to actually be honorable, brave, honest, etc., regardless of what others think.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s not an apt analogy.

Why isn’t it?

Oh, because you’ve decided that there is no such thing as the washed out bridge.

But IF there’s actually a bridge that’s washed out, then we can all agree that telling someone that he’s headed in the wrong direction wouldn’t be a threat but a nice thing to do, yes?

 

[Bradski]

Not a convincing one.

The river is hell, or in other words the end of your life. The analogy assumes that you have taken a path that leads to hell and you continue along it despite being told where it ends up. The implication being that there is another path. One that leads to a bridge which will get you to the Promised Land.

Well, that type of imagery might have worked for some yokels sitting in a tent listening to a blood and thunder preacher rail against demon drink and the Road To Perdition but it doesn’t accurately reflect how people live their lives.

We are all on the same path and some of us do good now and then and some people (quite often the same ones) do bad now and then. You might do one bad act and then live a faultless life full of good works. And you might live that type of life until your last days and then screw up at the curtain call. It only takes one act to get you a lifetime (oops, sorry – an eternity) of hell.

So the analogy doesn’t work. Hell is a threat. Commit a mortal sin and that’s where you are bound. Well, unless you play the Repent card. So if you slaughter, murder, rape, torture and hack your way through life, yet reach a merry old age, look forward to lazing around on the back porch playing with the grandkids and see the folly of your past actions, you miss out on hellfire and damnation. Divine justice, eh?

Still a negative motivation to be “thought of” any of those. It is possible to be none of them and still be “thought” to be all of them.

My preference would be to actually be honorable, brave, honest, etc., regardless of what others think.

That’s the standard answer which we all give. Except, as I said, it isn’t true. As you said, it would be your preference. I don’t think that many people would be able to say, hand on heart, that it is any other way. You are affected by what others think of you in every respect. It possibly has more impact on how you live your life than any other aspect of the human condition. It’s hard wired so it’s difficult to fight it.

Although psychopaths manage to do so.

 

[PRmerger]

The river is hell

No.

Let’s just take it without the analogs.

Let’s say you meet someone and she says: “Hey, mate. Best not to go down this here road. Why? Because the bridge is washed out about a mile out”.

Would you respond with, “Thanks, but I don’t respond to threats”.

Yeah?

 

[Peter_Plato]

You are affected by what others think of you in every respect. It possibly has more impact on how you live your life than any other aspect of the human condition. It’s hard wired so it’s difficult to fight it.

Although psychopaths manage to do so.

Perhaps if it is possible for psychopaths to manage to do so, it is also possible for saints or even merely good moral agents, no?

Which implies that being “hard-wired” isn’t really being “hard-wired” – except in some thin and attenuated sense – correct?

This isn’t so far-fetched because your presumption that social pressure ought to be given-into presumes that society itself isn’t or can’t be psychopathic. Yet, history and current events teach that many societies in the past and present have been and are precisely that. Which means that managing to do what psychopaths seem able to do – ignore or overcome societal pressure to conform – might just be a positive trait under a variety of circumstances.

Which means that any morally good person, minimally, should be ready and able to resist pressures to conform if sound moral reasoning dictates that they ought.

Would you have “conformed” under National Socialism in Germany, circa 1941? Should you have?

 

[Peter_Plato]

The river is hell, or in other words the end of your life. The analogy assumes that you have taken a path that leads to hell and you continue along it despite being told where it ends up. The implication being that there is another path. One that leads to a bridge which will get you to the Promised Land.

Well, that type of imagery might have worked for some yokels sitting in a tent listening to a blood and thunder preacher rail against demon drink and the Road To Perdition but it doesn’t accurately reflect how people live their lives.

We are all on the same path and some of us do good now and then and some people (quite often the same ones) do bad now and then. You might do one bad act and then live a faultless life full of good works. And you might live that type of life until your last days and then screw up at the curtain call. It only takes one act to get you a lifetime (oops, sorry – an eternity) of hell.

So the analogy doesn’t work. Hell is a threat. Commit a mortal sin and that’s where you are bound. Well, unless you play the Repent card. So if you slaughter, murder, rape, torture and hack your way through life, yet reach a merry old age, look forward to lazing around on the back porch playing with the grandkids and see the folly of your past actions, you miss out on hellfire and damnation. Divine justice, eh?

Your whole point misses the mark because I wouldn’t suppose it is what we do necessarily that leads to hell, but, rather what we turn ourselves into by what we do.

Hell isn’t “a threat.”

It is a state of being, much like being dead from drowning, from which even murderers, rapists, and the like, might – with God’s grace – be extricated or resurrected until a “point of no return."

The “point of no return” is what we are being warned about, which is why a bridge out or steep cliff are apt analogies. It isn’t like only one warning has been sounded. More like a constant barrage of alarms and neon signs to which we might make ourselves blind or deaf, but what they portend – the final state – will eventually come to pass if we continue to dismiss or ignore.

 

[Tomdstone]

Hell isn’t “a threat.”

It is a state of being,

In addition to hell, there is Purgatory. AFAIK, if you have an unforgiven venial sin or there remains something after your mortal sin has been forgiven, you will go to Purgatory. What is Purgatory? EWTN has posted on its website, a book by Father Paul Sullivan which explains Purgatory. This book has the approval of the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon and is titled “Read Me or Rue it”:
" It is very possible that some of our own nearest and dearest ones are
still suffering the excruciating pains of Purgatory and calling on us
piteously for help and relief."
“People do not realize what Purgatory is. They have no conception of its
dreadful pains, and they have no idea of the long years that souls are
detained in these awful fires.”
“WHAT IS PURGATORY?
It is a prison of fire in which nearly all [saved] souls are plunged after
death and in which they suffer the intensest pain.”

“So grievous is their suffering that one minute in this awful fire seems
like a century.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the Prince of Theologians, says that the fire of
Purgatory is equal in intensity to the fire of Hell, and that the slightest
contact with it is more dreadful than all the possible sufferings of this
Earth!”
“the fire of Purgatory inflicts the
keenest, most violent pain, but never kills the soul nor lessens its
sensibility.”
"St. Cyril of Alexandria does not hesitate to say that "it would be
preferable to suffer all the possible torments of Earth until the Judgment
day than to pass one day in Purgatory. “”
Hell of course, is much worse than Purgatory, because there is no chance of getting out and your suffering, torment and pain are eternal.

 

[Bradski]

Perhaps if it is possible for psychopaths to manage to do so, it is also possible for saints or even merely good moral agents, no?

Indeed it would be. In fact, I had added saints to my original example (but then took it off as they obviously aren’t equivalent to psychopaths). But there’s nothing to say, and I am certainly not saying, that you cannot overcome these natural feelings.

Which implies that being “hard-wired” isn’t really being “hard-wired” – except in some thin and attenuated sense – correct?

It is most definitely hard wired. In the sense that it is part of your wiring from the go get. It’s not something you might or might not have or could develop later. And it’s far from being ‘thin and attenuated’. Quite the opposite in fact.

This isn’t so far-fetched because your presumption that social pressure ought to be given-into presumes that society itself isn’t or can’t be psychopathic. Yet, history and current events teach that many societies in the past and present have been and are precisely that. Which means that managing to do what psychopaths seem able to do – ignore or overcome societal pressure to conform – might just be a positive trait under a variety of circumstances.

Psychopaths don’t overcome it. They don’t have it in the first instance. It’s an example where the wiring is missing. And don’t confuse immoral behaviour with psychopathic tendencies. They are utterly different. So there have been zero examples of psychopathic societies. The term itself is nonsensical. Any society that was psychopathic wouldn’t be able to operate. Imagine a desert island where you placed a few hundred psychopaths. What fun…

So that in itself indicates why we have these tendencies in the first place. It encourages social behaviour.

Which means that any morally good person, minimally, should be ready and able to resist pressures to conform if sound moral reasoning dictates that they ought.

Agreed. No problem with that. Just because we are programmed to eat fats and sugars doesn’t mean that you will do so at every meal. Just because men have a strong sexual urge doesn’t mean that you have to have sex with the nearest available female.

These urges and emotions were required to keep the species ticking over. That doesn’t mean that you have to bend to them at every turn. But it explains why you have them. And just in regard to diet and sex, you can see what problems they cause if you give in to them too easily and how difficult it is to resist them.

Quite the double edged sword, isn’t it…

Would you have “conformed” under National Socialism in Germany, circa 1941? Should you have?

If you were to transport me back there with my current understanding of human nature, then almost certainly not. But if I had been brought up there, then I’m afraid that there would have been a very good chance of me conforming…knowing what I know now about human nature.

 

[Bradski]

Your whole point misses the mark because I wouldn’t suppose it is what we do necessarily that leads to hell, but, rather what we turn ourselves into by what we do.

Hell isn’t “a threat.”

It is a state of being, much like being dead from drowning, from which even murderers, rapists, and the like, might – with God’s grace – be extricated or resurrected until a “point of no return."

The “point of no return” is what we are being warned about, which is why a bridge out or steep cliff are apt analogies. It isn’t like only one warning has been sounded. More like a constant barrage of alarms and neon signs to which we might make ourselves blind or deaf, but what they portend – the final state – will eventually come to pass if we continue to dismiss or ignore.

Gimme a break, Peter. It’s a threat. If you are bad, or do something bad, which are two different things, then off to the fiery furnace you go. Or whatever metaphor you would prefer to make it the easier to contemplate. And if you are good, or at least repent of being bad, which are two different things, then it’s the keys to the Pearly Gates.

This idea that you and PR are peddling wants to suggest that if you continue down a certain road, then you are doomed. Which is not the case for two reasons.

Firstly, you can be travelling the Road of the Righteous as opposed to the Highway to Hell and commit a one off immoral act. Tough luck. Taking that particular road counts for nothing. Gets you no bonus points.

Secondly, you can be on the Highway to Hell all the way to the riverside. And when you see the bridge is down, when you get an inkling of your punishment, when you get an opportunity for some self reflection, then right at the death (literally), you can repent and the keys are yours.

You can be the most evil sob on the planet right up to your last breath. And should that last breath be a genuine attempt at repentence, then the good Lord will rip the pages from the ledger listing your atrocities and welcome you with open arms.

That’s Christian justice.

 

[PRmerger]

This idea that you and PR are peddling wants to suggest that if you continue down a certain road, then you are doomed. Which is not the case for two reasons.

Stop getting stuck on the metaphor of a road.

Just take my example as it was given.

Would you take it as a threat if someone said, “There’s a bridge washed out down there. I wouldn’t stay on this road”?

Heck, it doesn’t even have to be a road. Let’s change the scenario altogether:

Let’s say someone is getting off an elevator and says, “Hey, the elevator doesn’t sound right going down. I wouldn’t get on it and press the “down” button”.

Would you say, “Don’t threaten me!”

Shoot. I just realized that you’re going to go the with the “hell is down below” and run with that.

So let me change it to: the elevator doesn’t sound right going up. So don’t press the “up” button.

Hopefully, you won’t get all caught up in the directional element and will just answer my question.

(UP doesn’t reference any choices towards heaven, either, BTW).

 

[Tomdstone]

Firstly, you can be travelling the Road of the Righteous as opposed to the Highway to Hell and commit a one off immoral act. Tough luck. Taking that particular road counts for nothing. Gets you no bonus points.

Secondly, you can be on the Highway to Hell all the way to the riverside. And when you see the bridge is down, when you get an inkling of your punishment, when you get an opportunity for some self reflection, then right at the death (literally), you can repent and the keys are yours.

You can be the most evil sob on the planet right up to your last breath. And should that last breath be a genuine attempt at repentence, then the good Lord will rip the pages from the ledger listing your atrocities and welcome you with open arms.

That’s Christian justice.

That is a question because AFAIK according to the Roman Catholic religion, one unrepented mortal sin can send you to eternal damnation in hell, but if you had many mortal sins and repented and confessed at the last moment, you would be saved. Some other religions don’t have that and say that it is your whole life that will be judged. They might deny the difference between mortal and venial sins.

 

[goout]

Gimme a break, Peter. It’s a threat. If you are bad, or do something bad, which are two different things, then off to the fiery furnace you go. Or whatever metaphor you would prefer to make it the easier to contemplate. And if you are good, or at least repent of being bad, which are two different things, then it’s the keys to the Pearly Gates.

This idea that you and PR are peddling wants to suggest that if you continue down a certain road, then you are doomed. Which is not the case for two reasons.

Firstly, you can be travelling the Road of the Righteous as opposed to the Highway to Hell and commit a one off immoral act. Tough luck. Taking that particular road counts for nothing. Gets you no bonus points.

Secondly, you can be on the Highway to Hell all the way to the riverside. And when you see the bridge is down, when you get an inkling of your punishment, when you get an opportunity for some self reflection, then right at the death (literally), you can repent and the keys are yours.

You can be the most evil sob on the planet right up to your last breath. And should that last breath be a genuine attempt at repentence, then the good Lord will rip the pages from the ledger listing your atrocities and welcome you with open arms.

That’s Christian justice.

I’m curious: were you a fundamentalist Christian before you were atheist?
Your ideas of morality seem fundamentalist and irrational, focused on the negative and the arbitrary.

Morality should point a person to his beatitude. Please don’t take religious offense at the word “beatitude”. It can be applied to anyone’s life. You could also use the word fulfillment.
By beatitude we mean a transcendent fulfillment that can be commonly experienced, but only in reference to some objective good. Personal happiness is not transcendent. Vague notions of prosperity and order are not transcendent. “Avoiding hell” is not transcendent.

In Christian morality we enter a relationship of love and freedom.

Consequences like the shame you referenced earlier do not have the last word.
These consequences you referred to point us to a higher good.
The shame you referenced is not an end in itself. The fear of deprivation (aka "hell) is not an end in itself either. If fear has any role (that’s a whole debate in itself), it’s role is to point us to the pursuit of the higher good.

It’s an easy and old canard to point to Christian morality as fearful, intimidating, and devoid of joy. It’s bunk. But it’s easy thinking for sure. Fundamentalist Christians make this easy for atheists by taking fear and punishment waaay out of rational context.

Hence my question whether or not you might have been a fundamentalist Christian in the past.

This is why it would be helpful if you and Tomdstone would give us the secular system of morality in some specificity, so we can know what it is specifically your morality is talking about, aside from the shame you referred to, and aside from some vague notion of popular sentiment.

PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST

SECTION ONE
MAN’S VOCATION LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

CHAPTER ONE
THE **DIGNITY **OF THE HUMAN PERSON

ARTICLE 3
MAN’S FREEDOM

1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is **master **over his acts.27

By employing morality our

reason recognizes and judges an act to be or not to be in conformity with the true good. Objective norms of morality express the rational order of good and evil, attested to by conscience.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The embarrasment is not a threat. It’s a natural ocurring emotion. No-one says: ‘If you do something wrong I will occasion you to feel unpleasant emotions’. The threat of hell is just that. A threat.

It seems like God decided that if shame and embarrassment don’t do the trick, then He’s going to add a little something to the mix to help you make the right call. Whoa, did I say a little something?

But if that really bothers you, the announcement of a policeman carrying a gun and threatening to use it if necessary must drive you nuts, since you don’t believe hell is real yet have no choice to believe or not believe that death is real.