A Challenge to Richard Dawkins and the Atheists

[Immanuel Can]

BTW, I have a niece-in-law whose name is Shiva, but neither she nor her parents had any idea of what the name referred to.

That is quite funny. "Hi -- meet my daughter, the Destroyer."

[thedoc]

What difference does it make? I believe that God exists and that is as far as I am willing to go. If you want to quibble about the details, please be my guest. I don't know and will not argue about it.

FYI, I attach no baggage to the term, if you want to, so be it. It is only a label that I attach to an experience that demonstrates the existence of God to me.

But you said it could just as well be Odin's Will so why does this experience not make you a pagan instead of a Christian? All your experience demonstrates is how confirmation bias works with belief.

I have stated that I believe that God exists, I never claimed to know what name God goes by or how many names God has adopted. The experience makes me a believer that God exists, if you choose to call God Odin, so be it.

[thedoc]

BTW, I have a niece-in-law whose name is Shiva, but neither she nor her parents had any idea of what the name referred to.

That is quite funny. "Hi -- meet my daughter, the Destroyer."

Yes I thought it was interesting to explain what the name stood for, but I have also heard an interpretation that read it as "Shiva the destroyer of disbelief", and that puts an entirely different light on it. That puts the Hindu trinity more in line with the Christian trinity.

[surreptitious57]

Atheism is an amoral system - it has no view of ethics at all and no power to prevent any evil at all or to advocate any kind of good at all

Atheism may be amoral but atheists are not because all humans are moral beings regardless of whether or not they have a belief system
If you stopped believing in God you would still be a moral being. The link between religion and morality is therefore a superficial one as
the roots of morality actually lie in psychology not in religion. As all religion does is reinforce a particular morality but it is not its origin

[Immanuel Can]

That puts the Hindu trinity more in line with the Christian trinity.

Not seeing it, but okay.

The Hindu pantheon has characters like Shiva because it has to take in good-evil, dark-light, creation-destruction into a single conglomerate of "gods." The Trinity has no such ambivalent character.

[Immanuel Can]

Atheism is an amoral system - it has no view of ethics at all and no power to prevent any evil at all or to advocate any kind of good at all

Atheism may be amoral but atheists are not...

Yeah, I said that at the start. I'm afraid you've missed the question again. It's not CAN an Atheist be good, it's MUST an Atheist be good. The answer, as you've repeatedly said, is "No."

...because all humans are moral beings regardless of whether or not they have a belief system

This makes the word "moral" void, since "moral" as you use it here has no reference to qualities like "good" or "evil". It's just a redundant descriptor, as you are employing it. And that is exactly what Atheism does: it stultifies all conceptions of morality...rather like Nietzsche and Dostoevsky said...

Hmm...you seem to be taking us in circles here.

If you stopped believing in God you would still be a moral being.

Please define what you mean by "moral." Clearly, you can't mean "good" or "evil," or even "better" or "worse," since all those are moral qualities that Atheism simply does not have. So what can you possibly mean?

The link between religion and morality is therefore a superficial one as the roots of morality actually lie in psychology not in religion.

Historically untrue, of course. It just didn't happen that way. Every ancient culture was religious, and all started their morality from conceptions of sacred and profane. It's Atheism that's the Johnny-come-lately on the scene.

Moreover, to say that morality is merely "psychological" means it's simply a delusion, a contingent phenomenon of a brain formed (allegedly) by random processes of evolution. And the reliability of any such processes (even the mental processes implicated in science itself, for that matter) can never be established in that way, since we'd have to use our brains to do it...and the brain is the thing we're needing to show is reliable before trusting it.

So we need to trust our brain to use our brain....well, you see the problem. Trust is going to have to come first, and Atheism gives us no reason to know we can ever trust the deliverances of our own brains: after all, they too were allegedly formed accidentally, by random processes and natural forces, and nobody promised us they would actually work, since they were not the product of a rational God, but allegedly of irrational, impersonal chance.

And they say religion takes faith...

[surreptitious57]

What is deemed moral from a general perspective is determined by the harm principle. Which basically states that something is morally acceptable if it does not harm anyone else and vice versa. And this would be the basis for morality from the perspective of evolutionary
psychology ever since humans started to live together. This would have been true regardless of whether or not they had a belief system

[thedoc]

That puts the Hindu trinity more in line with the Christian trinity.

Not seeing it, but okay.

The Hindu pantheon has characters like Shiva because it has to take in good-evil, dark-light, creation-destruction into a single conglomerate of "gods." The Trinity has no such ambivalent character.

If Shiva is the "Destroyer of unbelief" or the "Destroyer of impediments to belief" it would change Shiva from a destroyer of physical reality to an enabler of belief, and thus change Shiva from a destructive force to a force for the good of the believer, much like the Holy Spirit in the Christian trinity. Though I am not a Hindu I do have some understanding of the belief system, but the good/evil, dark/light, creation/destruction, sounds like the oriental Yin Yang belief.

[Hobbes' Choice]

What is deemed moral from a general perspective is determined by the harm principle. Which basically states that something is morally acceptable if it does not harm anyone else and vice versa. And this would be the basis for morality from the perspective of evolutionary
psychology ever since humans started to live together. This would have been true regardless of whether or not they had a belief system

Not really.
The evolutionary system cannot recognise harm. It can only respond to harm to the degree that it negatively affects reproductive success. Thus it is useless as a moral measure, since a greater degree of moral sensitivity is required for societies to thrive well beyond the gross matter of fucking.
This is why moral systems do not primarily promote anything to do with reproductive success, and are often found to restrict it by encouraging fidelity to limit the production of children.

[thedoc]

What is deemed moral from a general perspective is determined by the harm principle. Which basically states that something is morally acceptable if it does not harm anyone else and vice versa. And this would be the basis for morality from the perspective of evolutionary
psychology ever since humans started to live together. This would have been true regardless of whether or not they had a belief system

And aside from the commandments about God, this is the basic commandment of the Christian belief system. I still believe that the OT stories of Gods more violent and destructive commands were an elaboration by the story tellers to impress a violent and savage people. You don't impress a savage people of how powerful God is by relating stories of kindness and forgiveness.

[Immanuel Can]

...but the good/evil, dark/light, creation/destruction, sounds like the oriental Yin Yang belief.

To quote Monty Python, "Well spotted, Bruce."

[Immanuel Can]

I still believe that the OT stories of Gods more violent and destructive commands were an elaboration by the story tellers to impress a violent and savage people. You don't impress a savage people of how powerful God is by relating stories of kindness and forgiveness.

I see it differently. The Jewish tradition does too, even though they don't have the New Testament. A key feature of God, as they understand Him, is (Hebrew) "chesed," or "lovingkindness." But they also regard God as unrelentingly holy and just at the same time. He's totally opposed to evil, but also quick to restore the lost. He's quick to forgive, but impossible to "buy off" justice. So from a Jewish perspective, both are there, and they find both impressive.

[Dubious]

Yahweh was a warrior god working for the Jews...not anyone else; he wasn't supposed to be nice and he sure as hell wasn't. Some of the stuff that's in the Bible puts Mein Kampf to shame. Evidently...and fortunately, most of these genocidal commands of the the most high weren't carried out.

[attofishpi]

Obviously thedocs experience and the very fact that this God has placed him within the grounding of a Christian upbringing explains perhaps why he merits the experience to the Holy Spirit.

So...if he had been a Greek he would have experienced Zeus? If he'd been a Hindu, he'd have seen Vishnu or Shiva?

No, he would have experienced GOD - not any particular name that man has ascribed to GOD.

Only if his experience was a delusion generated by his own mind, and hence had to partake of whatever culture he already knew. But we wouldn't know that.

Oh. You are a theist that has no direct experience of this entity God, so you join the atheists impelled to use the term 'delusion' of anyone that claims to.

[uwot]

...I'm afraid you've missed the question again. It's not CAN an Atheist be good, it's MUST an Atheist be good. The answer, as you've repeatedly said, is "No."

Once again, Immanuel Can; this is dependent on your version of the no true Scotsman fallacy, according to which a Christian isn't a Christian unless they behave in a way prescribed by you.

This makes the word "moral" void, since "moral" as you use it here has no reference to qualities like "good" or "evil". It's just a redundant descriptor, as you are employing it. And that is exactly what Atheism does: it stultifies all conceptions of morality...rather like Nietzsche and Dostoevsky said...

And this is conditional on your definition of 'moral' as acting according to god's will. But since you either ignore what the bible says, or interpret what it says in ways you find favourable, someone is 'moral' only insofar as they obey rules which, again, are prescribed by you.

Hmm...you seem to be taking us in circles here.

And this, as I have said before, is projection.

Please define what you mean by "moral." Clearly, you can't mean "good" or "evil," or even "better" or "worse," since all those are moral qualities that Atheism simply does not have.

That's only because you insist that morality depends ultimately on agreeing with you.

Every ancient culture was religious, and all started their morality from conceptions of sacred and profane.

This is you interpreting history in a way which, again, you find favourable. All ancient cultures were pre-scientific. In lieu of an experimentally demonstrable explanation, they would invent a creation myth which for political expedience would invariably cast their social group in a favourable light. This would be manipulated by the ambitious and self-righteous who would attempt to exploit mythology to create conditions which they found favourable, much as you are doing. It is the codification of the resulting rules and sanctions that turned superstition into religion.

And they say religion takes faith...

And they are right.