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Rocinante
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this is a fake question or at least a secondary one. no one who loves really thinks that love needs some rational justification in order for it to be worth doing.
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irishpatrick
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Love means nothing without God. Morality means nothing without God.
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Rocinante
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i think its sad the believe your capacity to love is a hostage to belief in any specific religious dogmas.
but be honest, what came first in your life, your love for others, or a convincing reason why you ought to love others? for those that do not love, do you think a rational argument could ever be to the point? if you became convinced that god is not what you thought or did not even exist, do you really think you would love your children any less?
rocinante
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Impertinens
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Easy.
“What must I do?”
or, if I am feeling silly,
“Is ‘No’ the answer to this question (Yes/No)?”
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irishpatrick
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I did not say there is no love without God; rather, I said love is meaningless without God. Just as morality is meaningless without God. There is no lasting value to either if there is no God and there is no basic need for either without God. There is also no real consequence to a person’s life if they do not love or if they are immoral (if there is no God). People can love without God, there just is no meaning to that emotion without God and it is simply dust in the wind in terms of any lasting value…worthless really.
In a universe with no God, morals can be whatever we want and love can mean whatever we want and we can cast aside our opinion of love and morals for whatever whim takes us away…love and morals become meaningless stuff when there is no God.
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irishpatrick
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But, why is that the most important question in your view?Easy.
“What must I do?”
or, if I am feeling silly,
“Is ‘No’ the answer to this question (Yes/No)?”
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lizaanne
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What do I need to do to change my life so that I get to heaven?
I don’t see that anything else really matters, does it?
~Liza
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irishpatrick
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I agree it is very important; however, in order to ask that question one has to first ask “is there a God.” One also must deal with the reality of Jesus, for the claims made by and for Jesus are not weak.What do I need to do to change my life so that I get to heaven?
I don’t see that anything else really matters, does it?
~Liza
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lizaanne
Guest
I see this as all the same question. If my end goal is heaven, then I need to align my beliefs and actions in accord with what it takes to get there.
~Liza
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irishpatrick
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Yes, I agree, but it means you first covered the question about God. If you had not yet asked yourself about God, then Heaven would mean nothing to you.
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Rocinante
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it sounds like you are a razor’s edge away from complete nihilism.
meaning, values, morality, purpose, etc. don’t depend on any particular beliefs that i have about ultimate reality. it is a shame that you feel that all this is held hostage to intellectual assent to religious dogmas. i think such things run deeper than the yes’s and no’s we attach to creeds.
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Impertinens
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Are you talking about my “serious” question (what must I do)?
Well, if I knew for certain the answer to this I would know for certain what my duty is, and could devote all my effort into fulfilling it. Or, at least, I could have the certainty that the answer isn’t “nothing”, which is what I dread the most…
As for my “silly” question, it’s just your standard paradox: a yes/no question which has no possible answer. Indeed, if the answer to “Is ‘No’ the answer to this question?” were ‘yes’ then it should be “no”, so the answer cannot be ‘yes’; and similarly, if the answer to “Is ‘no’ the answer to this question?” were ‘no’ then the answer could not be ‘no’.
If I was somehow granted a certainly truthful answer, I would be really tempted to ask that, just out of sheer silliness…
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irishpatrick
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Without God, your sense of what is moral and immoral can be remarkably different than your neighbor. You might think theft is wrong, while your neighbor feels theft is perfectly fine. There is no “true” right and wrong in that universe because it falls to simple humans to make their own choices. Btw, passing laws does not make a given action moral or immoral (example: abortion is immoral despite it being legal).
Without an ultimate source or an ultimate accountablity, morals and love become essentially worthless…there can be as many different definitions of each as there are people living on the planet. In that case, today there are nearly 7,000,000,000 people living on the earth, so without God there can literally be nearly 7,000,000,000 different definitions or opinions of what is right and wrong and what constitutues “real” love.
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chaunceygardner
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“Why am I?”
I have thought about this since childhood. This is not a question about why “we” as people exist or why “we” were born, but why 'I" was born, me and each of us specifically. Some people state it as “What is my purpose?” I expand it beyond purpose but at the same time narrow it down to a single human being. Since “I” exist, there must be a reason.
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irishpatrick
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Great…awesome…question. It willl lead to questions about God.
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Rocinante
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this is of course true among those who believe in god as well.
i assume you believe that what god commands is what is good for us. if so, what is good for us serves as the objective basis for morality. this is he same objective basis for morality that non believers can claim
but this just as true with or without god. there is no settled agreement on what the will of god among those who believe in god.
believers disagree with one another to whatever degree they disagree with nonbelievers. for example, there are pro-life and pro-choice atheists, and according to gallup, even catholics are nearly even split on the matter.
belief in god is no guarantee of moral agreement, and moral agreement is no guarantee that what has been agreed upon is what is true. people’s opinions about what is right and wrong can be wrong.
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irishpatrick
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**==> Without God there can be no real authentic binding morality. There can be plenty of people we would call “good” because they try to live “good” lives. Yet, without God morality can be anything people say. **
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colmcille1
Guest
Hi irishpatrick,
Thank you for your reply.
I was jumping the gun in terms of the vital question. After we have reasoned our way to believing in Him, the independent questions begin.
The questions posted by scoobyshme are the starting point of our active journey to Him.
Things get done, goals are achieved, love is sown because of these questions.
We would ask those questions first because they contain God.
God Bless,
Colmcille.
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Rocinante
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what specific commandments are you talking about. i suspect that for any examples you cite there is as much agreement among theists as there is among atheists.
people can only change their view if they are convinced that their previous view was held in error. this applies to theists and nontheists.
which commandments are you talking about? there is none i know of where there is greater agreement among theists than nontheists. (nontheists are just as likely as theists to believe that it is wrong to murder or steal etc. they are also just as likely to agree in opposition to the view that there is a sin called blasphemy as theists are to agree in support of his view.)
we aren’t talking about whether what people think really is right or not. we are talking about your objection concerning agreement.
again. people who believe in god also can believe wrong things. this is obviously true since there are so many different religions.
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lemondiesel
Guest
What needs to happen to insure the human race lives on?
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