Does Atheism Lead to Immoral Behavior?

[muhammad_isa]

Such are indiscriminate deaths by natural causes..

What is a "natural cause"?

Are you claiming that a drug addict cannot develop faulty genes that they pass on to their child, for example?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I didn't say that there WAS a global flood.
I don't think that Noah could have gone to his local airport, and fly to some big city somewhere else in the world.
The "world" as far as many people were concerned was their world .. they did not travel far and would not have known.

The Qur'an makes no claim about it being "global", but we do know that Noah lived for 950 years.

Sorry, but that age is a myth too. That is a common trait among primitive people. The Hebrews were not the only ones that made up stories like that.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Sorry, but that age is a myth too. That is a common trait among primitive people. The Hebrews were not the only ones that made up stories like that.

You cannot prove that it is not true .. what is it that causes us to die?
The average age of death is constantly changing .. it is not static.

Furthermore, Noah did not live in an artificial environment, as most of us do today.
..and when we do come out of it, we are bombarded by pollution

 

[Subduction Zone]

You cannot prove that it is not true .. what is it that causes us to die?
The average age of death is constantly changing .. it is not static.

Furthermore, Noah did not live in an artificial environment, as most of us do today.
..and when we do come out of it, we are bombarded by pollution

LOL! You have it so backwards. When a person believes in an obvious fairy tale the burden of proof is upon him. If you want to learn about again talk to an expert, but our DNA alone puts a limit on our age.

Telomeres and aging - PubMed

Now find some evidence that a man could ever live to such an age.

 

[Valjean]

Are you able to explain then, how the landslide majority of people who have ever lived on the earth, have believed in some sort of spiritual entity or another?
i.e. Is it possible that the big-bang theory produced that many delusional humans?

Do you know what an ad populum argument is?

 

[Valjean]

Billion of of both hours and dollars have been invested in theological degrees, literature, edifices, artifacts, museums, pilgrimages, crusades/wars, honour killings, factions/dissentions, debates, marriages, ordinations, charities, etc...
And you say that it's all been a figment of man's imagination?

Man has been insecure, and has sought solace, protection or magical benefit for thousands of years. Opiates can be very soothing.

Again, how did stardust and protoplasm produce such a profound and destructive aberration in man, but no other creature on this planet?

Have you never taken a social or biological science classes?
Apophenia -- perceiving patterns where there are none -- is, or was, a useful survival tactic, as was jumping to unjustified conclusions about possible threats.
This 'aberration' has only recently become destructive -- too recently to have been eliminated from our gene pool.

 

[Valjean]

I'm sorry, you are offering a very frivolous ascription to a symptom that has dominated man and the world.
Allow me offer a more viable explanation: man is created in the image of God - we are, in the most axiomatic of manners, spiritual creatures - our thoughts and disposition transcend the secular, even our own intellectual capacity - there is an influence upon man that defies pragmatism: he'll destroy himself through vice, he'll assess another man's worth by the colour of his skin, he'll start a war either unprovoked, or over an incidental issue. He'll steal, but not allow anyone to steal from him. Or, he'll help a perfect stranger which he has no vested interest in doing so. He'll risk his life for someone else. etc...

There is a spiritual warfare in the minds of all man. No other creature has this conflict, or will act in the most self-destructive way that man will.

This is unevidenced, faith-based mythology.

 

[Valjean]

You cannot prove that it is not true .. what is it that causes us to die?

An ad ignorantiam, really? Argument from Ignorance
The multitudinous causes of death are pretty well understood. They don't involve magic.

The average age of death is constantly changing .. it is not static.

Excluding childhood mortality, trauma risk, &c, the average lifespan for one who's reached adulthood is remarkably stable, cross culturally.

Furthermore, Noah did not live in an artificial environment, as most of us do today.
..and when we do come out of it, we are bombarded by pollution

No anthropologist has ever found a culture with 100+ year average lifespans, regardless of environment.

 

[muhammad_isa]

LOL! You have it so backwards. When a person believes in an obvious fairy tale the burden of proof is upon him. If you want to learn about again talk to an expert, but our DNA alone puts a limit on our age.

Telomeres and aging - PubMed

You are just attempting to blind me with science..
You have not got the DNA of Noah, in any case.

 

[muhammad_isa]

No anthropologist has ever found a culture with 100+ year average lifespans, regardless of environment.

No .. I'm not surprised.
Most people in Noah's locality were drowned.

 

[Ella S.]

No .. I'm not surprised.
Most people in Noah's locality were drowned.

Are you suggesting that there was a group of humans with multiple-century long lifespans whose genes were eradicated in Noah's flood?

 

[Valjean]

You are just attempting to blind me with science..
You have not got the DNA of Noah, in any case.

Are we not all descendants of Noah? How many generations between his DNA and ours?

No .. I'm not surprised.
Most people in Noah's locality were drowned.

There were others who were not drowned?

 

[Subduction Zone]

You are just attempting to blind me with science..
You have not got the DNA of Noah, in any case.

We don't need it. An inability or unwillingness to understand is not a refutation.

Of course I don't have the DNA of Noah, nor do you. Nor does anyone. He was a myth.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Are you suggesting that there was a group of humans with multiple-century long lifespans whose genes were eradicated in Noah's flood?

Not specifically, no.
..but it would not surprise me if people in "Biblical times" lived longer than we do today .. on average, I mean.

Most of the population was centred around favourable climatic zones, and in some cases, had reliable sources of food and water.

I wouldn't know .. but I believe that Noah lived for 950 years.

I don't know how accurate this is, but to give some idea..
Timeline of Prophets

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not specifically, no.
..but it would not surprise me if people in "Biblical times" lived longer than we do today .. on average, I mean.

Most of the population was centred around favourable climatic zones, and in some cases, had reliable sources of food and water.

I wouldn't know .. but I believe that Noah lived for 950 years.

I don't know how accurate this is, but to give some idea..
Timeline of Prophets

And I can believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Both stories are just as reliable. What matters in a debate are the claims that you can support, not fantasies.

 

[DNB]

This is an Ad Hominem argument, which is a logical fallacy. You're attacking my character because your position has been demonstrated to be untenable to reason. It's a shame, too, because our discussion was going so well up until this point.

I'm rather used to Christians forfeiting rational discussion partway through a conversation, though. If someone could demonstrate to me that Christianity was actually the most rational conclusion, I would have already converted. It seems that you can't do that and would rather insult me, which is quite typical.



I don't believe in God. I was investigating your understanding of justice to see whether it's self-coherent or not. It's quite possible that you do think that it's justifiable to condemn someone to incomprehensible and unending suffering for something completely outside of their control. That goes against the vast majority of people's moral intuitions, so I found it quite unlikely you would affirm this.

It seems that you are unwilling to address the more pertinent parts of the argument I made in that post, which is that the morality you attribute to God isn't an intrinsic property of the universe but is instead a series of rules written down by people. I think it's quite easy to contend with other people's concept of justice. God isn't on trial here because he doesn't exist; only your concept of God is.

If you can really affirm the justice of such a concept, then your approach to morality is clearly degenerate and I can't take it seriously.

Remember that your initial post stated that the evidence for God was so strong that everyone should know he exists and be able to identify his precepts. I think our disagreement here has demonstrated that claim to be baseless. You cannot provide a lick of the evidence you claim to have.

Humans are spiritual creatures, obviously (that's why there's religions in the world) - spirituality clearly does not come from stardust and protoplasm - the source of life must be a spirit, obviously

 

[Ella S.]

Humans are spiritual creatures, obviously (that's why there's religions in the world) - spirituality clearly does not come from stardust and protoplasm - the source of life must be a spirit, obviously

I don't think humans are spiritual creatures. I think humans are natural organisms. Simians, actually. Apes, to be more precise. We evolved from other animals.

Those macroscopic animals that we descended from were the product of the evolution of microscopic life. That microscopic life came to earth by way of abiogenesis, using the chemicals from the planet and maybe some from stray meteors. Both our planet and meteors are made from the left-over dust from nebulas during the formation of stars.

So, actually, yeah. The source of life is stardust.

 

[DNB]

So you dismiss my serious response as frivolity, eh.
Then I've nothing to add.

My flippin' stars, can't you people stay on topic for even a minute???
It's a frivolous response in regard to an symptom so prevalent and dominant throughout the entire world, obviously!
My solution showed the profundity of the matter - not a trite response, as yours was.

 

[DNB]

Then that entity is not a moral entity. Rather some kind of psychopath / sociopath instead.

You wouldn't know what morality was if it wasn't for a non-secular entity to define it.
My remark was to be taken in context - the Legislator is not above His own laws for the sake of justifying the laws. But, if He choses not to enact a law, then, yes, He is free to do as He sees fit. This is obviously hypothetical for I am referring to His sovereignty more so, than any sense of righteousness, at the moment, obviously.

 

[DNB]

And zero progress was made.



Sure.

Here's an illustration that you even you might understand, as an analogy to your statement above...

Newton. The dude is well known for his work in physics. In reality though, in context of his actual life, his work in physics was just a footnote. He wrote and worked LOADS more in alchemy.
He invested MUCH MUCH MUCH more energy and hours into alchemy then he did into physics.

Surely you agree how alchemy turned out to be just superstitious figments of man's imagination, right?
So.... clearly, it matters not how much money, energy and hours were invested into it.

If it wasn't for his work in physics, nobody would know who Newton was. But physics was NOT his life's work. Not even by a long shot.



You are wrong about that.
Other animals are just as superstitious as we humans are.

Here's a rebuttal that I'm quite convinced that even you won't understand - I'll even put money on it.
The landslide majority of people, cultures societies, that have ever lived on this planet did not practice, or even endorse, alchemy. Whereas religion they did.