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john_doran
Guest
neither. just different.
it’s like asking which weighs more, love or courage?
- Status
it’s like asking which weighs more, love or courage?
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AnAtheist
Guest
Tantum ergo:
@1) some morals are part of our genetic makeup, thus have evolved, as they are a survival advantage.
@2) Funny, there is one society, which someone in this forum used against what I said in answer 1, where lying and stealing are considered good deeds. I can’t find a proper link right now, forgot the place and the anthropologist who researched that society.
Yes,
@1) some morals are part of our genetic makeup, thus have evolved, as they are a survival advantage.
@2) Funny, there is one society, which someone in this forum used against what I said in answer 1, where lying and stealing are considered good deeds. I can’t find a proper link right now, forgot the place and the anthropologist who researched that society.
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trogiah
Guest
I don’t want to put words in your mouth (or on your computer screen?) but I still am not sure about the first statement. Is the world, in broadest terms, acceptable or not? Or perhaps I should rephrase, Do you accept the world (in its broadest sense) or do you reject it.
To draw out my main point in all that, I think everyone has to make a fundamental decision, to accept reality or to reject it. I suppose I am just trying to define in this discussion that accepting reality means calling it fundamentally “good” and rejecting reality means calling it fundamentally “bad”
Regarding the last part. I would agree that it would be nice if reality revealed itself to all people equally. My observations of people and reality seem to clearly indicate that some people are more in touch with it than others. That is a fact that I accept.
I would agree that the examples of many Christians could leave many objective viewers with the thought that Christianity is far from self-evident. Even the outstanding examples of such people as Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul ll fall short of perfect inspiration. The more I read of the life and words of Jesus, the more it seems that He did have a clear understanding of reality, of human nature, of what results in lasting happiness. Clearer, as far as I can tell, than any other.
I don’t believe that Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Mohammed, or other great souls are burning in hell because they didn’t proclaim the name of Jesus. Many of their writings indicate they also understood reality very well and I believe they rest very well.
I do believe, as stated above, that Jesus knew reality as a son knows his father. As intimately as a person can know reality. I give the name “God” to reality because I think that is the definition used by the people who were inspired to write the Old and New Testaments.
I don’t know why some people are given a straighter road to understanding reality than others, but I accept that it is true and try to find a straight road myself.
peace
-Jim
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exoflare
Guest
I was about to post the same thing before I read this.
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exoflare
Guest
That’s why I stay on this board, and avoid going to athiest boards trying to “convert” people. Otherwise, this description would be dead-on.
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eptatorata
Guest
You do not visit atheist boards, because you don’t want to try to “convert”, or you do visit atheist boards, but without such an ulterior motive?
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Strider
Guest
It’s called Freedom of Speech, and I believe AnAthiest’s questions are sincere.
AnAthiest,
When I first read your recap in post # 1, I thought. like fidelis, that you were caricaturing and ridiculing because the text sounded so bereft of any real attempt to get it right. Then one possible reason struck me.
To say that God “waited 12 bln years,” or “4 bln years,” ignores the fact (at lest for me and many of us, it’s a fact) that God not only created matter, He also created time. He exists outside of time, therefore all history is always before Him. God does not “wait.”
Given that perspective, it doesn’t sound so artificial. And for the Jews, or any group of people He would have chosen as His own, the growth from primitive, bronze age hunter-gatherers to the point of living in cities with a complex culture takes not only time, but concptual growth, which is what is going on in the Old Testament.
That’s why God did not become one of us until the “fulness of time,” or until civilization, or some small segment of it, was ready for Jesus’ message.
I’ve done my best to address some of your questions. Would you return the courtesy?
I’ve always wanted to ask an athiest, and since you are indeed AnAthiest, two questions:
Whence came matter? Did it always exist? Is the Big Bang just recycling a yoyoing mass of matter, or is there an alternate universe where matter exchanges places?
Whence came life? If life evolved on earth in complete randomness, the first collection of nucleic acids and amino acids and proetins that were surrounded by a fatty acid “skin,” what animated the nucleic acids to begin assembling aminio acids, what was the genesis of the enzymes and how did the genetic code become assembled just right so that all needs of the cell were produced. And what IS life, that spark of energy and activity that allows the cell to metabolize energy and the spark that animates me and that leaves me at the moment of my death. What is it, where did I get and where does it go when I die? I snuck that third question in there, but it’s inseparable from the second.
AnAthiest,
When I first read your recap in post # 1, I thought. like fidelis, that you were caricaturing and ridiculing because the text sounded so bereft of any real attempt to get it right. Then one possible reason struck me.
To say that God “waited 12 bln years,” or “4 bln years,” ignores the fact (at lest for me and many of us, it’s a fact) that God not only created matter, He also created time. He exists outside of time, therefore all history is always before Him. God does not “wait.”
Given that perspective, it doesn’t sound so artificial. And for the Jews, or any group of people He would have chosen as His own, the growth from primitive, bronze age hunter-gatherers to the point of living in cities with a complex culture takes not only time, but concptual growth, which is what is going on in the Old Testament.
That’s why God did not become one of us until the “fulness of time,” or until civilization, or some small segment of it, was ready for Jesus’ message.
I’ve done my best to address some of your questions. Would you return the courtesy?
I’ve always wanted to ask an athiest, and since you are indeed AnAthiest, two questions:
Whence came matter? Did it always exist? Is the Big Bang just recycling a yoyoing mass of matter, or is there an alternate universe where matter exchanges places?
Whence came life? If life evolved on earth in complete randomness, the first collection of nucleic acids and amino acids and proetins that were surrounded by a fatty acid “skin,” what animated the nucleic acids to begin assembling aminio acids, what was the genesis of the enzymes and how did the genetic code become assembled just right so that all needs of the cell were produced. And what IS life, that spark of energy and activity that allows the cell to metabolize energy and the spark that animates me and that leaves me at the moment of my death. What is it, where did I get and where does it go when I die? I snuck that third question in there, but it’s inseparable from the second.
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SamCA
Guest
I’m not AnAtheist, but I’m an atheist, so I might as well drop an answer or two in.
I have no idea.
I find the Yoyo Universe concept (note: I’m stealing that term for my own use) to be plausible, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I believe it. Or any of the other explanations. I find the Big Bang evidence pretty compelling, but I wouldn’t be shocked to the core of my being if I found out it was wrong – folks were pretty sure of the Steady State once upon a time, too. Heck, for all I know, there really was some form of organizing intelligence.
The reason I identify as atheist, rather than agnostic, with a viewpoint like that is that although I’ll readily admit the possibility of intelligent origin, I don’t find the idea particularly likely. I find the idea that any of our human religions are anywhere close to the truth even less likely. And even if such an organizing intelligence could be shown to exist, I see no reason to do something like worshipping it.
Regardless, the fact that I have no real clue where the universe comes from doesn’t particularly motivate me to assume that God did it.
The answer that seems the most plausible to me, out of the options, is, “Darned if I know. But after several billion years of chemical interactions across the length and breadth of the universe, it was bound to happen somewhere.”
As near as our science can tell, life is less a quantifiable thing, and more a process. There’s no “spark” or “life force” that is present in a living organism and vanished from a dead one (or, at least, if there is we have yet to find evidence of it). What we have found is that living organisms undergo a number of physical processes; when these processes cease, you are left with a dead organism.
Asking where the “spark” goes when a creature dies is much like asking where the animating force for a motor goes if I smash it with a sledgehammer.
Yes, this is a mechanistic view of human beings that reduces us to little more than machines made of meat. Based on what I’ve read of the discoveries of how our brains and bodies work, this is the view I have come to find most plausible.
I could be totally wrong, though. I’m wrong about loads of things, on a pretty regular basis.
(And let me add that I still think we’re conscious, self-aware machines and as such you shouldn’t just go around smashing us with sledgehammers. Not because it’s wrong in any objective, absolute sense… mostly just because most of us agree that it’s a mean, unpleasant thing to do, and don’t want it done to us or our loved ones.)
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Gilbert_Keith
Guest
AnAtheist
As to being plausible, science has established no such thing for a godless universe. The chances are wildly improbable of a universe bursting into existence with all the ingredients waiting to form and produce the human race. In fact, science has no clue as to the natural laws that produced the Big Bang. It is just as plausible that the reason it has no clue is that the secret of the Big Bang is forever hidden in the mind of God.
Your desire to see atheism as more plausible than faith arises from your desire not to be logical, but to flee God.
What you have got to figure out is why you are fleeing God.
Or, as I think Chesterton said, does an atheist look for God as a thief looks for a policeman … hoping not to find one?
As to being plausible, science has established no such thing for a godless universe. The chances are wildly improbable of a universe bursting into existence with all the ingredients waiting to form and produce the human race. In fact, science has no clue as to the natural laws that produced the Big Bang. It is just as plausible that the reason it has no clue is that the secret of the Big Bang is forever hidden in the mind of God.
Your desire to see atheism as more plausible than faith arises from your desire not to be logical, but to flee God.
What you have got to figure out is why you are fleeing God.
Or, as I think Chesterton said, does an atheist look for God as a thief looks for a policeman … hoping not to find one?
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Gilbert_Keith
Guest
SAM
(And let me add that I still think we’re conscious, self-aware machines and as such you shouldn’t just go around smashing us with sledgehammers. Not because it’s wrong in any objective, absolute sense… mostly just because most of us agree that it’s a mean, unpleasant thing to do, and don’t want it done to us or our loved ones.)
I think you have got this backward in extremis. In America you are free to be an atheist with impunity. You can even attempt to demolish Christianity in these forums with impunity.
But if you were a Christian and lived in Russia under Stalin through much of the twentieth century, or in Germany under the atheist Hitler, you would have stood a good chance of being smashed with real sledgehammers by real atheists.
Get a grip on your history book and READ!
(And let me add that I still think we’re conscious, self-aware machines and as such you shouldn’t just go around smashing us with sledgehammers. Not because it’s wrong in any objective, absolute sense… mostly just because most of us agree that it’s a mean, unpleasant thing to do, and don’t want it done to us or our loved ones.)
I think you have got this backward in extremis. In America you are free to be an atheist with impunity. You can even attempt to demolish Christianity in these forums with impunity.
But if you were a Christian and lived in Russia under Stalin through much of the twentieth century, or in Germany under the atheist Hitler, you would have stood a good chance of being smashed with real sledgehammers by real atheists.
Get a grip on your history book and READ!
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Gilbert_Keith
Guest
And here is another example of an atheist starting to come to his senses with respect to scientific plausibility at any rate.
abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976
Note that Flew became an atheist at 15. I’ve observed that many famous atheists remained locked into that mindset at an early age with rigid inflexibility all their lives … but they are the first to insist that believers are the ones who refuse to grow.
Antony Flew at last is out of his nest. May he rise up to the Son…
abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976
Note that Flew became an atheist at 15. I’ve observed that many famous atheists remained locked into that mindset at an early age with rigid inflexibility all their lives … but they are the first to insist that believers are the ones who refuse to grow.
Antony Flew at last is out of his nest. May he rise up to the Son…
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Dph
Guest
The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good.
-Psalms 14:1
-Psalms 14:1
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SamCA
Guest
Gilbert Keith:
Yes, and for more than a millenium, I would have been killed by the Church for daring to voice my views. But I don’t hold that against modern Christians, any more than I hold Stalin against modern atheists.
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SamCA
Guest
Gilbert Keith:
The same is true of nearly every other religion on Earth, or lack thereof. The beliefs we gain in childhood tend to stick with us, Muslim, Christian, atheist or Asatru.
Virtually every Christian I ever met became one before they were even old enough to tie their shoes, and most have not really examined the belief since.
The same is true of nearly every other religion on Earth, or lack thereof. The beliefs we gain in childhood tend to stick with us, Muslim, Christian, atheist or Asatru.
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Gilbert_Keith
Guest
*Virtually every Christian I ever met became one before they were even old enough to tie their shoes, and most have not really examined the belief since. *
*How do you know?
*How do you know?
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Gilbert_Keith
Guest
Yes, and for more than a millenium, I would have been killed by the Church for daring to voice my views. But I don’t hold that against modern Christians, any more than I hold Stalin against modern atheists.
In the millenium you are talking about, there would have been precious few atheists to kill for voicing their views. Whereas there were plenty of Catholics, Protestants and Jews for Stalin and Hitler to kill.
I would be the last to deny that members of the Church persecuted the enemies of the Church. However, I don’t see any atheists getting smashed in these forums. That was the point you were raising earlier.
So would you quit the melodramatics … PLEASE!
In the millenium you are talking about, there would have been precious few atheists to kill for voicing their views. Whereas there were plenty of Catholics, Protestants and Jews for Stalin and Hitler to kill.
I would be the last to deny that members of the Church persecuted the enemies of the Church. However, I don’t see any atheists getting smashed in these forums. That was the point you were raising earlier.
So would you quit the melodramatics … PLEASE!
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Scott_Waddell
Guest
I’m a little skeptical (yes, the religious can be skeptical) about your powers to discern the inner workings of these people’s conscience, but let’s grant that they have not examined their belief. What of it? This is judging something by looking at its worst practitioners. As Gary Hoge put it, it is like saying aspirin is no good because it does not cure the headaches of the people who don’t take it.
If someone is really interested in truth, he looks at the best thinkers on a subject and critiques them, not just the random lamers one runs across.
Scott
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Contarini
Guest
Well, it’s not specific errors so much as that you have the whole picture wrong, because you leave out the most central aspects and you use loaded language.
Fair enough.
That God creates a universe.
Wrong. God does not “wait.” Why would you use this language? Rather, the entire history of the universe is a process initiated and guided by God–God is present in every moment of it, and is directing it toward its final purpose.
Again, “wait” is not an appropriate word for what God is doing–if we’re to speak of him as being in time at all (which most Christians historically wouldn’t), then He’s keeping quite busy! And the guiding influence is not an option in the Christian view. Without guidance–indeed, without participating in the life of God at every moment–nothing could exist, much less evolve.
The soul is not “eternal” in the strict sense, since it has a beginning. And historically Christians have denied that the soul is naturally immortal–rather, it is created by God who gives it immortality. Furthermore, Christians believe in the resurrection of the body, and one of the most influential classical Christian theologians (Thomas Aquinas) would say that the soul is not a full person without a body. Many Christians today would question whether the soul is immortal without the body (though Catholics believe that it is). I would argue that there’s nothing to prevent us believing that the soul is an emergent property of the body. Immortality of the soul would mean that once it has emerged the soul can (in some form) survive the body. But the soul is not something extrinsic to the body. A soul without a body is a ghost, not a full person.
Well yes, the whole person (to speak of the soul as having duties on its own is odd, since the soul without a body is not a full person) is expected to behave in a certain way, because God created us in a certain way and with a certain purpose in view. That purpose is to be united with God forever–to share in the life of God Himself. Certain behavior makes us the kind of people who are full of God’s life, and certain behavior shuts us up in the prison of ourselves.
Yes, with the caveat that since “follow the code” is another way of saying “share in the divine life,” we can only do this insofar as God is working in us.
Sure, but again you’re using extrinsic language, as if God just chose to attach a certain reward to certain actions (this has been maintained by a school of theologians named “nominalists,” and some people think that they have had a devastating effect on Christian theology. Certainly you seem to think that nominalism is the only, or at least the dominant expression of Christianity.)
Your way of putting things is rather as if I were to describe eating like this: “God has given us a code according to which we’re supposed to manipulate certain organic material with our hands (or tools) and our mouths, and if we fail to do so God will punish us by starving us to death.” One can put things that way, but why would you do so, unless you were trying to make eating sound silly? (Granted, it is silly from a certain point of view . . . . )
No, that is not true. There are Christians who speak this way, but they are wrong. We haven’t “broken the code” just because Adam and Eve did. That’s why “code” language is so inadequate. The first human beings chose to cut themselves off from the divine life (insofar as it lay within their power to do so), and yes, this had an effect on the entire human race.
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Contarini
Guest
It is necessary for us to turn away from our self-imposed imprisonment in our own egos, and to receive the gift of union with the life of God. Which is another way of putting the same thing. But a fuller and more accurate as well as more attractive way.
No. Again, some Christians may believe this, but I certainly don’t, and it’s not the best way of expressing historic Christian belief. We believe that God has never left Himself without witness. In particular, the moral code has always been written on people’s hearts (though not perfectly). God’s revelation to the Hebrews is not the first encounter between human beings and God–it’s the culmination of everything that had happened up to then.
Actually this is where your implicit critique breaks down. You clearly think it’s absurd that God would reveal Himself to only one tiny group. But the reason the Jews rejected (and reject) Christianity is that the Christian message looks too “pagan” to them–that is to say, it looks way too much like the ways most people throughout history have related to God. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t mock Christianity for believing that the Jews were right (over against the rest of the human race) to worship one transcendent God, and also mock us for believing that they were wrong to deny the belief of much of the human race that the divine is capable of taking flesh among us. The Christian belief is that God was preparing the way for Christ by teaching the Hebrew people the truth of His transcendence, and that He was a radically different kind of being than the gods worshipped by other ancient peoples. But that discipline, ultimately, was more for our sake than for theirs, because many of them found it impossible to see that the truth they had taken so long to learn was not the whole truth. (Probably many of them did become Christians–it’s just that they stopped being counted as “Jews” eventually. So it’s not true to say that Jews as a whole rejected Christianity. Some would argue that large numbers of them probably did–it’s hard to tell for sure.)
By his death Jesus destroyed the power of death. Human beings had cut themselves off from the life of God. By voluntarily submitting to death, Jesus ransomed us from the power of death and overcame it.
He did more than reappear. He smashed death and hell into little fragments, and all that remains is for us to pick up the pieces. Admittedly, 2000 years ago there are still lots of pieces lying around. If you know of a better way of doing the job, then good luck to you.
More adequately, to spread the divine life through word and example. I don’t know if your obsession with rules is of your own invention or the result of the shoddy way Christianity has been explained to you (I suspect the latter). But it’s a caricature of the real thing, either way.
I can think of many reasons why someone would reject Christianity (the continuing power of evil, and its manifestation within Christianity, chief among them). But at least do yourself and us the favor of rejecting the real thing and not this pale, withered mockery of our faith.
Yours truly,
Edwin
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Dph
Guest
Evolution is a myth, a fairy tale. And I don’t care what the Catholic Church says.
- Status