Here’s what I read:Poseidon:
I’m surprised you didn’t read my post.
God bless,
jd
Ok, I see my mistake. You were an atheist but converted because there wasn’t evidence to convince you that there was no God. Still, that’s an appeal to ignorance (from what I remember from my philosophy class last semester) to say that something must be true because there is no evidence against it.I was open to any and all of the evidence to reject God’s existence for more than 25 years. I was immersed in the sciences, particularly biology and astronomy. I had my ears open the whole time. Nothing ever came along that was sufficiently compelling to make me remain an atheist. So, ever so slowly (much to my chagrin now), I came home.
QualiaSoup was talking about this yesterday. He referred to arguments of that form as “burden shifting.” If you are interested: youtube.com/watch?v=KayBys8gaJYYou were an atheist but converted because there wasn’t evidence to convince you that there was no God. Still, that’s an appeal to ignorance
No they are not based on emotion at all. They can bring about emotions, but Faith Hope and Love are based on an objective reality larger than (but also partially comprehendable by) one’s reason and senses. They point to something or someone that provides an objective standard, rule, causation… to be believed in, hoped in. loved. Something other than an individuals own standards, beliefs, etc… These things spring from a relationship with something outside ones’ self (God), to reduce them to emotion is to rid them of substance.Faith, hope, and love are all good, but they’re all based on emotion.
It is chaos, history demonstrates it. (USSR being the most obvious example). You are not subject to any objective standard. Any standard is as good as another, because you believe the individual determines his own world with no accountability. Jeffery Dahmer’s beliefs are every bit as valid as yours…his reason tells him so.Emotion doesn’t tell us anything reliable, except maybe when dealing with things such as faith hope and love. If we want to discover the truth we have to use our reason and our senses. Otherwise we come up with faulty conclusions based on what we want to believe, not what actually is true.
I’m not saying that what is of greatest pleasure or use to him is what he should do. Obviously a purely selfish behavior like that would lead to chaos, because everyone would only be acting in their own short-term self-interest. I was just trying to point out that even a godless person doesn’t necessarily act like a spoiled child. They can still be motivated by love, kindness, charity, compassion, and all the other good human traits that exist.