Two atheist arguments that cancel each other out

[atheistgirl]

Members of the Church have been guilty of far worse atrocities… Corruptio optima pessima.

I have no faith in any Deity, but I always found it interesting that some of those who do have this faith, a faith they also want me to have, a faith where they know Jesus, where they know God exists, and receive His sacraments, and belong to His Church, have no problem committing appalling acts I would never do, and could never do, and no one I know would do either.

Their faith, their certainty of God’s existence, and judgement, is no barrier to preventing them from doing such things.

And some of these same people would contend that I, and people like me, of no faith, can not be moral, and we’re going to hell in a handcart

It does make me smile

Sarah x

 

[Gaber]

I have no faith in any Deity, but I always found it interesting that some of those who do have this faith, a faith they also want me to have, a faith where they know Jesus, where they know God exists, and receive His sacraments, and belong to His Church, have no problem committing appalling acts I would never do, and could never do, and no one I know would do either.

Their faith, their certainty of God’s existence, and judgement, is no barrier to preventing them from doing such things.

And some of these same people would contend that I, and people like me, of no faith, can not be moral, and we’re going to hell in a handcart

It does make me smile

Sarah x

 

[Qoeleth]

I have no faith in any Deity, but I always found it interesting that some of those who do have this faith, a faith they also want me to have, a faith where they know Jesus, where they know God exists, and receive His sacraments, and belong to His Church, have no problem committing appalling acts I would never do, and could never do, and no one I know would do either.

Their faith, their certainty of God’s existence, and judgement, is no barrier to preventing them from doing such things.

And some of these same people would contend that I, and people like me, of no faith, can not be moral, and we’re going to hell in a handcart

It does make me smile

Sarah x

It doesn’t make me smile. It is appalling that Christians have committed things that Christ would never do. Abuse of power in all its forms is of Satan, not of Christ.

Bad deeds deserve condemnation.
Bad deeds accompanied by profession of faith desrves, IMO, double condemnation, because it is a form of blasphemy too.

Anyway, as Jesus said, it’s not those who say “Lord, Lord”, but those who do the will of God who are saved.

Sarah has given a good reminder, that in calling ourselves ‘Christians’ we have a responsibility to live the kind of life Christ wanted.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Poseidon and others: The existence of God can eb rationally proven and the obviousness of God’s existence is known until someone deicides to question it, that would be a good starting point for faith in prayer.

Thanks. Unfortunately proof of Yahweh isn’t quit so obvious to me. Apperently there are some base set of axioms that must be known, accepted, and understood. There must also be some way of working from those axioms using some understood set of rules to the position that Yahweh exists and he is the god. Without the knowledge and understanding/acceptance of all of these Yahweh isnt immediately obvious. In otherword Yahweh is conditionally obvious.

 

[ivebeenshown]

1. It means precisely what it says:
2. The evils in nature- including death - ** are not caused by sin.**
3. The evils in nature - including death - existed on this planet before man existed.
4. Jesus told us: “Do not fear those who kill **the body **but those who kill the soul”.

Um, alright, but a direct quote from the Catechism:

"Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned"

The ‘evils in nature’ (tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, lightning strikes, and so forth) may not be caused by sin but the fact that man suffers bodily death is definitely due to original sin.

 

[ivebeenshown]

It seems to me this innocent infant is being personally punished. …] the offical position is to ‘‘hope’’ in God’s mercy. No positive affirmation. Just a ‘‘hope’’. That sure seems like a personal punishment to me, considering they did not do a single thing in their short lives except be born.

I am not interested in your feelings toward the tragedy of human suffering, and I am especially not interested in your feelings towards one degree of suffering as opposed to another degree of suffering. I am interested in logic and reason.

If authority A punishes party B and party C experiences suffering D as a result of the punishment of party B, is suffering D the result of authority A punishing party C?

Either the answer is “true” in all cases or the answer is “false” in all cases.

 

[ivebeenshown]

Thanks. Unfortunately proof of Yahweh isn’t quit so obvious to me. Apperently there are some base set of axioms that must be known, accepted, and understood. There must also be some way of working from those axioms using some understood set of rules to the position that Yahweh exists and he is the god. Without the knowledge and understanding/acceptance of all of these Yahweh isnt immediately obvious. In otherword Yahweh is conditionally obvious.

The divine essence is discernible through reason, but the persons of God are knowable only through faith.

 

[Partinobodycula]

Thank you all for the interesting discussion, but I should be going now.

But before I do, I would just like to say, Sarah, you chose your avatar well, the unique beauty in it, matches your character well.

 

[Poseidon]

Poseidon and others: The existence of God can eb rationally proven and the obviousness of God’s existence is known until someone deicides to question it, that would be a good starting point for faith in prayer.

It’s obvious until you start to question it…I’d definitely agree with that. But that strikes me as a strong argument against God’s existence, not for it. There are plenty of things that are obvious until you start to question them. For example:
The sun and stars go around the earth and the earth is stationary.
Morality is black and white.
Time is constant and unchanging.

There are others, but my point is that if you’re weighing what your gut tells you against what rational, scientific inquiry tells you, science wins every time.

 

[cc42]

Poseidon:

Scientific inquiry can only further clarify the intricacies of what is already accepted. Like we recognize that there is earth and the sun, it appears from our vision that the the sun travels around the earth, but we know through investigation that it’s the other way around. The root though of the sun and the earth and their motion is still correct though. Same with the existence of God. We know God exists we just have certain expectations of how He should manifest Himself and when things don’t work the way we expect then we may start to question His existence but that’s not the way rationally inquiry should be done. Particulars don’t nullify universals.

Here’s an argument you may have heard and I don’t think that it can be refuted.

All things exist in either a state of potential change or actualized change. But a being in a potential state has to be caused in order to reach an actualized state by something outside of itself in order to reach an actualized state, except if everything is in some potential state all change must ultimately lead back to something already in a fully actualized state. This changeless and fully actualized being we call God.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

The divine essence is discernible through reason, but the persons of God are knowable only through faith.

The first part of this comes across as being almost synonymous with what cc42 had said. It doesn’s expose any information (for me). Not sure what the second part means.

 

[atheistgirl]

I am not interested in your feelings toward the tragedy of human suffering, and I am especially not interested in your feelings towards one degree of suffering as opposed to another degree of suffering. I am interested in logic and reason.

If authority A punishes party B and party C experiences suffering D as a result of the punishment of party B, is suffering D the result of authority A punishing party C?

Either the answer is “true” in all cases or the answer is “false” in all cases.

Funnily enough, I feel the same way. I am not interested in your logic and reason when they’re trying to justify an injustice. I’m much more interested in fairness and justice.

If I fire B for stealing from me, and one of the punishments I impose is he can not enter any of my properties or face being arrested for trespass, but not only that, his wife C can not enter any of my properties because of what B did, and neither can any of his children, or grandchidren, or great grandchildren, or great great grandchildren, ad finitum, then that is unfair, and unjust.

I am imposing the same punishment on totally innocent people who did not steal from me as I am on the person who did steal from me. Because of him, none of them can enter any of my properties, even though they did absolutely nothing wrong.

That is unjust, and unfair, whether it is logical and rational, or not!

Sarah x

 

[DeepBlueSea]

1. I don’t agree that Lucifer had the Beatific Vision. We believe that angels had their own period of choice as well. Their period of choice is now over, just as ours will end at death.

I second this, citing the book “The Angels” by Pascal P. Parente, Chapter 3: The sons of God and the sons of perdition, paragraph 5 & 6:

"The exact time of the sanctification of the Angels is not a matter of faith. But Saint Augustine’s opinion on this has become the prevailing one, especially since the time Saint Thomas defended it against some medieval theologians who maintained that the Angels remained for some time in the pure state of nature and were elevated to the supernatural order some time later. Saint Augustine’s opinion has been adopted by the Roman Catechism.

Just like man, the Angels had to undergo a period of probation during which they were free to choose between good and evil. They were not yet confirmed in grace and they did not enjoy the Beatific Vision during this time. This was a period of existence like that of our first parents before their fall, insofar as they were wayfarers, living in faith and hope of those supernal truths and promises that God had revealed to them. During this time the Angels had the great opportunity to merit heaven and eternal life with God, but in the meantime they were exposed to the danger of committing sin and thereby losing God and heaven for all eternity. The Fathers and the theologians are unanimous in admitting a period of probation for the Angels. Gennadius, who disagreed with them, asserted that the Angels were created in a state of grace and glory. His opinion would suppose that sin is possible for those who enjoy Beatific Vision. The freedom of choosing what is evil or wrong does no longer exist in the state of glory."

The full version of the book can be viewed on the EWTN library.

 

[tonyrey]

Um, alright, but a direct quote from the Catechism:

"Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned"

The ‘evils in nature’ (tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, lightning strikes, and so forth) may not be caused by sin but the fact that man suffers bodily death is definitely due to original sin.

1. Death is an essential element of the biocycle.
2. Man could not survive forever in a world with tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, lightning strikes and other threats to life.
3. The Church accepts the scientific account of the** natural **origin of man.
4. The teaching of the Church has developed in the light of scientific discoveries.
5. It is not an infallible doctrine that ** natural **l death did not occur before the advent of man on this planet.
6. Sin brought spiritual death into the world.
7. **Natural **death is a ** natural **evil:

CCC 385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or** the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures:** and above all to the question of moral evil.

 

[atheistgirl]

1. **Natural **death is a ** natural **evil:

How is it evil

If things didn’t die, we’d have no natural fuels, and resources would have been depleated eons ago, so nothing could live.

Death is natural, good, and necessary.

Sarah x

 

[tonyrey]

How is it evil

If things didn’t die, we’d have no natural fuels, and resources would have been depleated eons ago, so nothing could live.

Death is natural, good, and necessary.

I pointed out that death is an essential element of the biocycle. It is natural, good, and necessary from a **natural **point of view but death is - as Camus remarked - “le suprême abus” because it destroys all that we love and cherish.

In other words we do not live by bread (or cake) alone…

 

[tonyrey]

1. Death is an essential element of the biocycle.
2. Man could not survive forever in a world with tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, lightning strikes and other threats to life.
3. The Church accepts the scientific account of the** natural **origin of man.
4. The teaching of the Church has developed in the light of scientific discoveries.
5. It is not an infallible doctrine that ** natural **l death did not occur before the advent of man on this planet.
6. Sin brought spiritual death into the world.
7. **Natural **death is a ** natural **evil:

CCC 385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or** the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures:** and above all to the question of moral evil.

1. "Unnatural" deaths are usually caused by moral evil.
2. We are not **morally evil **as the result of original sin.
3. We are the victims of original sin because it has made it more difficult for us to be morally good.

 

[atheistgirl]

because it destroys all that we love and cherish.

What we love and cherish is not ‘‘destroyed’’ by death, when we understand death is part of the natural cycles of life.

My children know I will die one day, so will their father, so will they. We see death as part of the process of life, so nothing is being ‘‘destroyed’’, rather, everything is simply following the wonderful natural order of things. All things must die to allow others the chance at life.

They also know I and their father are not ‘‘destroyed’’ - rather, their very makeup contains us and we live on in them, and through them.

Nothing is ‘‘destroyed’’.

Sarah x

 

[Equites_Christi]

What we love and cherish is not ‘‘destroyed’’ by death, when we understand death is part of the natural cycles of life.

My children know I will die one day, so will their father, so will they. We see death as part of the process of life, so nothing is being ‘‘destroyed’’, rather, everything is simply following the wonderful natural order of things. All things must die to allow others the chance at life.

They also know I and their father are not ‘‘destroyed’’ - rather, their very makeup contains us and we live on in them, and through them.

Nothing is ‘‘destroyed’’.

Sarah x

Your genes and DNA may live on in them, but I doubt it is your genes and DNA that they love.

Rather I should think they love your person and what you mean to them, your unique mind, consciousness, personality, history, etc.

Outside of mere memory, where is that to be found past death?

 

[tonyrey]

Your genes and DNA may live on in them, but I doubt it is your genes and DNA that they love.

Rather I should think they love your person and what you mean to them, your unique mind, consciousness, personality, history, etc.

Outside of mere memory, where is that to be found past death?

Irrefutable!