Ask your difficult questions of an Atheist.

Interesting perspective!

Thanks!

 

So outline some of these ethical principles that atheists have. Offer some specific examples of ethics divorced from religion that have more basis for support than which fork to use first at dinnertime.

Please note that religion doesn't offer any explanation for its morality like you offered for ethics. God didn't say, "Thou shalt not steal because stealing is bad," he said, "Thou shalt not steal." Stealing then becomes bad because God said don't do it.

Also note that I never said anything about truth. If you write, "The world is flat," on a stone and get 101 people to worship your stone as the word of God, you have a religion and an objective basis for morality. Mohammed said to kill unbelievers and that the sun sets in a mud puddle. It's both a religion and it's false. It offers a system of morality that is objective, that you can measure whether you are doing good or bad by measuring your behavior against the system of morality that has been offered. By MY morality, based on Christianity, Islam is pure evil. But that's based on MY objective measure, the words of Moses, Christ, and Paul.

 

The UN has methods for evaluating claims, organizing enforcement, adding to and changing its own laws, etc.

It does have several weaknesses. Western powers are grossly overrepresented, for example. That leads to less respect by those in underrepresented portions of the globe.

The fact that it takes quite a bit for the UN to get involved (as per your example) should not be disturbing to US conservatives - who are leaning toward isolationism. Plus, the US and others can point to the UN charter in diplomatic efforts.

The UN is far superior to purely direct US military enforcement alone, as UN action carries the agreement of multiple nations that a situation is unacceptable. UN sanctioned action can't be easily interpreted as purely a self serving extension by US military supremacy.

The UN and NATO have given us huge support in this respect.

 

OK, there is a piece missing here.

An atheist is perfectly free to read and understand the moral and ethical principles laid out by any religion.

I don't have to believe there is a god in order study philosophy, including what's in the Bible - and the Qur'an, by the way.

 

Utter confusion.

You are unable to understand the counter arguments.

Now a cascades of contradictions: "I never said anything about truth," but is there objective ethical truth? ".My morality, based on Christianity," so its someone else's religious morality "...the words of Moses, Christ, and Paul." "Objective" and "measure" do not mean anything until the units of measurement are defined.

You are making a circular argument; "X is evil because it fits the objective measurement of what is evil which is 'X is evil'."

If true ethical statements--assuming Christianity is true--are a measurement of what is evil, then what good is it to compare system against system when both are fundamentally based on...a stone?

 

There is no objective ethical truth, no. For if there were, we would have no need to have rules and laws applying to them. We would have no need for ought, because you automatically would.

"Objective" means outside of the observer. "Subjective" means according to the observer. A ruler is not subjective because it is outside of the observer. As long as everyone goes by the ruler, you have an objective measure. The basis for the ruler being the length that it is was entirely arbitrary in the beginning (some king's foot size), but now that it exists and is independent of the observer, it is objective. Measure is to compare one thing with another. The ruler is one way to measure. Likewise with religion. It may have been arbitrary in the beginning, but now that it exists, it is objective. It can be used to measure behavior, whether you comport with the religion or not. Religion defines the measure we're looking for, morality.

It's not a circular argument. I'm not arguing for the evilness of X, I'm arguing for the necessity of religion to declare X to be evil. Without religion, there is no compelling reason to declare X evil. Ethics won't cut it. Ethics is incapable of defining "evil". Ethics is incapable of inspiring. No one ever wrote a piece of music to the glory of ethics.

There's no reason to assume Christianity is true, and I'm perfectly willing to declare (privately) that Christianity is in fact false. However, we can compare moral systems, atheism, Christianity, and Islam. Islam has given us 270 million dead in 1300+ years. Atheism gave us 100 million dead in 100 years. Christianity has given us the most successful, prosperous, productive, powerful nations on earth. Christianity has given us the end of slavery. Christianity has given us some of the most beautiful works of art on the planet. Christianity has given us the concept of the brotherhood of man. Comparing moral systems, there's one that stands out head and shoulders above the rest and that one is Christianity. Even as atheists, we should promote and support Christianity as a moral system because it is good for society. Everywhere that Christianity is in decline, that society is also in decline. Everywhere that Islam is on the rise, that society is reverting to barbarism. Everywhere that Christianity remains strong, that society is also strong. There's no real comparison.

 

I cannot take the UN seriously while this continues:

UN adopts 20 resolutions against Israel, 3 on rest of the world

https://unwatch.org/un-to-adopt-20-resolutions-against-israel-3-on-rest-of-the-world/

If anything, the Western powers are grossly underrepresented, in that we're the good guys and the Islamic world are the bad guys. Having Saudi Arabia on the Human Rights Commission makes a mockery of the term "human rights".

 

That’s exactly why Genesis Ch1:V 26 has always worried me.

 

ok so here is my difficult atheist question.

Atheists claim to base the ability to believe 'anything' requires reason, logic, and factual empirical data, no such factual empirical data exists for the 'nonexistence of G/gods' , therefore it is unreasonable to believe that no Gods exist.

Despite the aforesaid 'facts' why do atheists believe there is no God when they have no logical reason no empirical data, no facts, to support that belief? Jeopardy music playing..........

 

It is NOT EVEN CLOSE TO NECESSARY.

 

As an Atheist I do not feel "Non Belief" is in any way relevant to my life or position, it is similar to the concept of not eating dog making me vegetarian. Also the idea of placing many completely different people into any one mental or societal category simply because they think in detail is disingenuous and inherently limiting.

 

Thats no different than saying you dont like being identified as human because your name is tecoyah,

ok so you are rebelling against the 'establishment' fair enough.

Every 'ism' known to man has a set of properties or characteristics that are associated with it, its how we define the world around us.

Attempting to separate the associated identity and definition from the word doesnt answer my question which was intended to better understand atheist reasoning in terms of logic since their premise is based on logic (so they say).

Apparently thats not really the case then?

 

You, in particular Koko are one of the reasons I started this thread. I am of the opinion you have no actual interest in gaining insight into Atheism and you have just shown my opinion to be accurate. As seems your MO you have taken your interesting thoughts and attributed them to me, they are incorrect and distracting from the discussion as you intend. Please do not troll this thread into pointless diatribe as you do with most....Trolling is not appreciated.

 

Oh contrare you just proved to myself and the world that for you its pot calling kettle black, since you have just done the exact same thing as you accuse the Christains of doing.

So apparently its now fair game to poke fun of you/atheists now?

 

Have A Nice Day

 

I will, in fact I will be laughing about this all day, that you make a thread to poke fun of Christians only to have it proven they have equal standing to poke fun of you/atheists.

Have a blessed day!

 

I think that you have an excellent formulation in answer to the question of atheism

As you propose, many atheists allow for the existence of the unknown....
Including something that somehow might be described as “God”. But that god is unknown, (and unknowable) as far as we can tell.

Still, there is the question of atheism: Do we have a “belief” in the non existence of God? There is a paradox in trying to answer that question. How can you believe in about the non existence of something about which one claims ignorance?

Your phrasing seems to clarify the paradox... at least for me. What I, and I think you, are confident about is the non existence of “the gods that humans have proposed”. We are confident (as christians also are confident ) that the greek, and roman, and Hindu, and aztec gods do not exist.

Additionally, in the context of our own culture, we are confident that there is no personal god who looks over our lives; no god that cares whether we believe in him; no god that cares whether we conform to some rules that he supposedly has specified thousands of years ago to an obscure tribe in the middle east that he decided were his chosen people and with whom he allegedly set up a special covenant.

So, to answer question of atheism, I definitely and unequivocally believe that these human imagined gods do not exist

 

but thats not what makes you an atheist, your present tense disbelief is what makes you an atheist. what atheists 'allow' for is completely irrelevant.

Nonetheless t doesnt fit the atheist mantra, of 'logic' and 'reason' where in the end atheists disregard logic and ultimately and fully submit to 'belief' the same turf theists use for their religion.

The word most hated today by neoatheists is the word 'believe', which of course is understandable because 'to believe' is the foundation for 'all' religions.

 

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Then I can say the same thing about unicorns, Do you want us to prove a negative and that’s ridiculous. There are pink elephants, prove they’re not. Jesus visited me last Thursday morning for coffee, prove he didn’t

 

The entire existence/non-existence debate about a theistic deity is missing the history of the "God" and "existence" debate (italic is in original text):

“The scholastics were right when they asserted that in God there is no difference between essence and existence. But they perverted their insight when in spite of this assertion they spoke of the existence of God and tried to argue if favor of it. Actually they did not mean “existence.” They meant the reality, the validity, the truth of the idea of God, an idea which did not carry the connotation of something or someone who might or might not exist. Yet, this is the way in which the idea of God is understood today in scholarly as well as in popular discussions about the “existence of God” (Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, p. 205).

So in this sense the real atheists are the theists. Ernst Bloch wrote that only a good Christian could be a good atheist. Theologian Paul Tillich rejected this kind of debate as on the same plain as the fundamentalist atheist thinking—both are arguing an absurdity.

“It would be a great victory for Christian apologetics if the words “God” and “existence” were very definitely separated except in the paradox of God becoming manifest under the conditions of existence, that is, in the christology paradox. God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him” (Ibid., p. 205).

 

If people follow biblical morality they will end up in prison or the insane asylum.

 

If you believe in the Jesus character do what he said you can do. Walk outside and command a tree to uproot itself and to jump into the nearest body of water. If it obeys you without any outside help you will be the first person who has ever had faith in the Jesus character. But, if the tree remains stationary it shows that you don't have any faith in your favorite lich creature.

Let us know if you have enough faith to move a tree. I will bet that you don't.

 

Well, God certainly punished both Moses and the Israelites when Moses came back with the 10C and found his people not worshipping God. God forced them to wander in the desert for 40 years until Moses died - never entering the "promised land".

It's true the Leviticus is full of death penalties, but I'm not so sure that is evidence of your point.