Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
And you never will.
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"No evidence of God" = Is a bad argument against God
- Thread starter Starlight
- Start date
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
I do remember a few posts where he (she?) did make sense, however, they seemed to be rather ticked off with me at the time.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Which is obviously false. They think morality is something animals possess.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Here is the joke about true and false. What I do is false, yet I have been doing all my life
Tiberius
Well-Known Member
You think that "atheists tend to understand morality" is obviously false?
If so, you have been unable to show it.
You attempt to speak for atheists often, trying to guess what they ought to believe based on your limited understanding of living outside of Christianity and what a Christian is taught about atheist by other Christians.
And there you go trying to guess how atheists think. Of course human life has value, and apparently, you can't imagine why an atheist would think so. It's called a conscience, the thing people who don't get their morals from a book use as a moral compass.
Moral intuition does for the secular humanist what the book does for believers, but in my opinion, much better, since the book crystallized centuries ago and hasn't kept up with moral evolution. That comes from the rational ethicists, the ones that apply reason to empathy to decide what is good and right. The Bible reflects an age when slavery was acceptable, and thus condones it and even gives rules for owning slaves. The Bible's last words on government were that the believer is to submit to God's chosen ruler, an alien concept in the post-Enlightenment age that cast off authoritarian government and converted subjects without rights into autonomous citizens with guaranteed protections. And on it goes, as secular ethics update biblical morality time and again, and the believer just assumes it came from his book, when one claims that America was founded in Christianity despite the fact that the Bible and the Constitution have almost no overlap (maybe none at all) and frequent contradict one another. Where the Bible commands worshiping a particular deity, Americanism permits it along with all other gods and no gods at all.
My ethics regarding the value of human and other life is not like yours. I do not think of man as separate from the beasts, God's favorite, made in God's image, or imbued with a literal immortal soul that enters and leaves the body. So, it's not that I value human beings less than Christians who believe those things, I value the beasts more than the believer who sees them as soulless meat bags of no value to their deity except to have dominion over for their labor and as food. I would say about the believer, there is no reason not to treat animals kindly unless he grows a conscience and it overrules the dogma.
Human beings have no more innate value than that baby goat. They are no more entitled to kindness and consideration. You see that as a defective view of humanity, but I see it as an enlightened view of life.
Human beings have more practical value than the beast, which is I why I married one of the former. We can do things for one another that our dogs can't do. We have conversation. We help, protect, and encourage one another. And if I lost her, I would be lonely in a way the dogs couldn't fix.
But that's practical value, not innate value. The dogs have the same innate value to me.
And there you go again projecting your Christian outlook onto the people you just said you don't understand because you're not one.
And yes the Christian frequently claims or implies that they are more moral you are doing now. I understand what you mean by the atheist has no grounds for morality. I expect you to take the position that you didn't call atheistic morality inferior when you called it groundless, but that's the Christian message in many cases, and that's the message you send despite your denials to the contrary ('I didn't say immoral, I said no basis for morality').
How often do we see the Christian claim that his moral beliefs come from an absolute and perfect moral source? What do you think the implied message is there?
How many times do we see atheism characterized as rebellion, establishing oneself as God, or an excuse to go wilding and attend orgies? What do you suppose those theists are thinking about the relative morals of the Christian and the unbeliever?
You know my position on abortion (pro-choice), and though you didn't explicitly call it immoral, of course you think it is that, just like that American archbishop who just excommunicated or whatever Nancy Pelosi for supporting choice. That's a moral judgment even if the words, "you are immoral" weren't explicitly spoken.
So the claim that Christians don't claim to be more moral may be strictly correct if the words "you are immoral" aren't included in the moral judgments, but Christians are continually asserting moral authority implicitly in the many ways I just outlined, which is fine with me. It opens this door, the one where the humanist can argue that, "Now that you've brought it up, let's look at the quality of your moral values and compare them to those of humanism."
That's his MO, but not just his. I'm sure you know that if you've been doing this awhile. It's pretty common among theists. They want to be seen as reasonable in their beliefs, as if they utilize evidence to reach them. They either ask for evidence or begin by saying the strict empiricist has none, you copy-and-paste and/or make evidenced arguments to them that they dismiss out of hand if they respond at all, you provide them links that they never look at, and then come back telling you that you have no evidence, as if that were a deal breaker for a faith-based thinker.
This is half of a two-pronged effort to establish parity for religion in a secular state, which I believe was spurred by the losses the church suffered when it lost public school prayer and then creationism, being told that it was pseudoscience and had no place in a liberal education. One does this by boosting faith by giving it the veneer of science ('you have no evidence, that's mathematically and statistically impossible'), and simultaneously demoting science to just another religion and form of faith ('that's your religion, you believe in miracles'). 'I don't have enough faith to believe that' combines them by implying that the theist needs something substantial before believing what the humanist has accepted by faith.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Sounds like a good argument for cannibalism. I'm assuming you don't eat? Because you know all forms of growing food kill many animals.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Where's that come from? I can not see any reason for a conscience in a world created by chance... or in life forms created by evolution.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Oh it's definitely immoral.
Then I pity you.
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
"No evidence of God" = Is a bad argument against God
The OP is requested to quote one's scripture from G-d, for claims and reasons for all the good points mentioned:
Regards
The OP is requested to quote one's scripture from G-d, for claims and reasons for all the good points mentioned:
- "This life is a test from God.
- This life is like a school. That is the reason God is hiding.
- Because if God showed himself to all humans then this life would not have been a test anymore.
- "No evidence of God" is because of this a bad argument against God.
- I believe in God without evidence because God is hiding on purpose."
Regards
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
I know God by dreaming. I know God when I first open my eyes and see my bedroom. I know God when I make my coffee and let it cool. I know God when I do my daily tasks. I know God when I walk outside to enjoy the fresh air. I know God simply by existing and replicating my DNA to experience time. I don't have to make up stories in a book to believe in God. I already know God.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Actually, it was an argument for being kind to animals. Is that concept difficult for you to grasp? It seems so. When I equate the value of man and the beasts, you see that as denigrating man.
What you can see is not a good basis for deciding what is the case, since you don't do evidence. It's evidence because it's evident, but only to those who look.
Your comment had been, "We don't claim to be more moral for the 47th time." My reply was that of course you do.
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Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
Good for you and I hope it works for you.I do it differently.
But of course. I don't expect everybody to be pantheist. And I do not claim to know the whole or even understand it; I know fractions upon fractions of fractions of reality. I was simply pointing out from my view point it's easier to acknowledge God because my experience becomes part of God rather than reading questionably fictional books to believe, rather than know. That's all.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
No, I'm sure there's atheists who oppose abortion on moral grounds also.
vulcanlogician
Well-Known Member
I think cows and sheep also deserve some moral consideration. Cruel treatment in factory farms, for instance. I'm on the fence about this issue, but vegans have made good arguments to me in the past that animals are just as deserving of moral consideration as humans are. There are vegan atheists out there. I'm not one of them, but they exist.
Moral consideration doesn't have to be "inborn" (though I'm not entirely sure what you mean). It could be based on a basic principle. For example, "Pain and suffering are bad. Happiness and pleasure are good." From that basic premise you can derive an entire moral system. No God needed.
There are differences from atheist to atheist about the status of morality. Some are realists, others are relativists, and yet others are nihilists. You can't paint them all with the same brush.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Using that template: if I happen to believe that the pain and suffering of other people are good, I can also base my entire moral system on that. Some people get great pleasure from the pain of others.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Well if you believe we are just animals then you would not kill so much as a bug, I would think. Of course that goes against everything your ancestors did to survive.
I happen to be a hunter... I literally stabbed a fish this morning just to tan his skin. I don't feel any regrets...if that were a human being it would be a far different story.