Without God(s), what is the point?!

[Sheldon]

Of course it does. If you are just an accident vs being a loving creation that changes everything.

A "loving creation"? Have you never watched a wildlife programme showing nature, red in tooth and claw? Or visited a hospice for terminally ill children. Tell those children and their parents about this loving creation...

 

[Sheldon]

Of course I am a bit biased but I do not believe that life has much purpose without God, since I believe that we were created to know God and observe His commandments.

“The beginning of all things is the knowledge of God, and the end of all things is strict observance of whatsoever hath been sent down from the empyrean of the Divine Will that pervadeth all that is in the heavens and all that is on the earth.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 5

Do you have any objective evidence, or is bias for a belief you favour all you can offer?

My life has meaning to me, and to those I care about and who care about me. This can be easily demonstrate with a lifetime of objective evidence, not anecdotal subjective claims.

 

[Sheldon]

No... which supports my point.
Without a higher authority placing value on us, we would not have value.

It doesn't support your point at all, it undermines it by demonstrating humans value things subjectively, as you just admitted with the example of gold.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Wow, the deity you imagine is a comparable image of Hitler?

I never said that anywhere. You just made it up.

 

[Wildswanderer]

It doesn't support your point at all, it undermines it by demonstrating humans value things subjectively, as you just admitted with the example of gold.

Yes humans value things subjectively, because we are limited by our veiw of reality. God has no such limits.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Try again....so it's firstly an individual choice, and nor does it deliberately kill people, it terminates a pregnancy,

What a crock. Of course it deliberately kills people. What do you think that fetus is, a fish?

 

[Wildswanderer]

You don't think dogs can learn the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviours? Leaving aside the hilarity of that claim for a moment, how would that make Hitler better? I'm sensing that irony isn't something theists are good at spotting.

Dogs aren't capable of moral reasoning. They react to stimulus. My dog learns that if she barks I'll open the door. If she shakes hands, she gets praised, etc. That's got nothing to do with morality, in fact it's completely self centered.

 

[KWED]

Of course. They are here by the millions. God still loves the unloved.

Yes, you already made the claim. I asked you to support that claim. Simply repeating the claim doesn't work.

 

[KWED]

The aborted.

1. They are not "people".
2. You and @leroy seem to care about them, so your argument fails on 2 counts.

 

[KWED]

As living, eternal souls.

So as they get to heaven immediately, with untarnished souls without sin, and they miss all the pain and suffering and temptation and evil of this life - then surely it's a good thing?

 

[Wildswanderer]

1. They are not "people".
2. You and @leroy seem to care about them, so your argument fails on 2 counts.

Of course they are people. They have human DNA and form human brains and limbs and human organs.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Yes, you already made the claim. I asked you to support that claim. Simply repeating the claim doesn't work.

The claim is supported by God offering salvation to all regardless of status.

 

[KWED]

I never said that anywhere. You just made it up.

You said that god made Hitler "in his image, capable of great good or great evil".

So you admit that your god is like Hitler and is capable of "great evil".
Yikes!

 

[KWED]

Yes humans value things subjectively, because we are limited by our veiw of reality. God has no such limits.

So you admit that life can have value and meaning for atheists.

Is the value and meaning of your life derived from yourself and those around you, or is it simply imposed by god?

 

[KWED]

What a crock. Of course it deliberately kills people. What do you think that fetus is, a fish?

One of these foetuses will grow into a human and one into a fish. Care to tell me which ones?

 

[KWED]

Dogs aren't capable of moral reasoning. They react to stimulus. My dog learns that if she barks I'll open the door. If she shakes hands, she gets praised, etc. That's got nothing to do with morality, in fact it's completely self centered.

How is that any different to you learning what is "good" and "bad" from a higher authority based on reward and punishment?

 

[KWED]

Of course they are people.

Of course they aren't. (We can do this all day, but the law and medical science says they are not, so I win).

They have human DNA

My poop has human DNA.

and form human brains and limbs and human organs.

Why does that future possibility make an early-stage foetus "a person"?
Is a cell that can be used to clone a human also "a person", because it has the same potential?

 

[KWED]

The claim is supported by God offering salvation to all regardless of status.

Meaningless platitudes are not explanations.

You said there were "people that no human loves". I asked you to support that claim. You have been unable to do so.

 

[Sheldon]

The aborted.

Not the kiddies with terminal illness though, so that's a strange deity you imagine, that cares about an insentient clump of cells, but not about children or suffering.

 

[Tinker Grey]

A human corpse is not a person, though human.