How To Tell Right From Wrong

[Arising_uk]

Yes they would, how else would they get to church?

Which is a damned irony as Christians are not supposed to pray in a church.

[Arising_uk]

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When you get into an elevator, you're never 100% sure it won't plunge to the basement and kill all occupants. Such things have happened, and just because you rode the same elevator yesterday does not mean it's impossible for it to fail today. Your certainty about that is not 100%. But you believe the elevator won't fail, and so you trust it. And you're perfectly rational to do so.

How much wiser is it to believe God than to trust in an elevator?

Not very wise at all if it pertains to dropping down a few floors. As the trust in the elevator is based upon evidence and knowledge, i.e elevators in the main do not fall anymore because technical failsafes have been installed.

Christian belief is not some different species of belief. It's exactly the same kind everyone has every day. It's just belief based on what you already know to be true, extended into a new application. That's all.

It is different as the 'known to be true' is not based upon any actual knowledge or physical fact. In fact this 'known to be true' is the belief in the first place so it's really 'I believe what I believe is true because I believe it'.

[Arising_uk]

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It can be very soothing to believe that there is no God, and one can behave as one wishes; that there will never be a Judgment, and God will never call any of us to account for all the things we say and do, and that there is no Eternal State to follow. It makes everything here so light and temporary. I can easily see how that would fit a psychological yearning to escape apprehension and guilt. ...

A few points here, the main one being that your own arguments against the atheist apply to you here, how can you know that this is what an atheist thinks unless you find out for yourself? Do you think that if you lost your belief in 'God' you would behave immorally? I think what you express is what the theist wishes it to be like to be an atheist as my experience is that being an atheist is a difficult path as one is completely responsible for ones moral actions and it is no easy path to walk.

If one is an atheist why would one have any apprehension and guilt in the first place? Are you saying morality does not need a religious base but is instinctive? The judgement upon the atheist is where its always been, with the reaction and actions of others in response to ones behaviour.

[Arising_uk]

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This was untrue when it was said, and hasn't become any truer since you borrowed it. I would have to do very little to prove to you the extraordinary claim that pigs can fly. If I showed you any actual evidence of just one flying pig, you lose.

Yes, but to do this you'd have to show me an actual flying pig. So go ahead, show me this 'God' in the same way.

[Obvious Leo]

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This was untrue when it was said, and hasn't become any truer since you borrowed it. I would have to do very little to prove to you the extraordinary claim that pigs can fly. If I showed you any actual evidence of just one flying pig, you lose.

Yes, but to do this you'd have to show me an actual flying pig. So go ahead, show me this 'God' in the same way.

I tried to make the same point but it was ignored and then buried in semantic obfuscation. I made the point that to say " I don't believe there is a god" is not the same statement as to say "I believe there is no god". These are not equivalent statements. Likewise to say "I don't believe that pigs can fly" is not the same statement as to say "I believe that pigs can't fly". The former is a logical conclusion derived from evidence and the latter is a statement of belief. If you show me a flying pig then I can change my stance without batting an eyelid because all this means is that evidence must exist which I have failed to take into consideration.

However for this particular example a more likely explanation would be that I really should stop smoking that shit.

[Arising_uk]

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However for this particular example a more likely explanation would be that I really should stop smoking that shit.

If you've got some smoking shit that'll let me see flying pigs mail me some please.

[Obvious Leo]

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However for this particular example a more likely explanation would be that I really should stop smoking that shit.

If you've got some smoking shit that'll let me see flying pigs mail me some please.

Fortunately the home-grown in these parts doesn't produce such interesting side-effects but I was a research biochemist in a previous life working on the effects of the lysergides on human cognition. Since we had access to the finest quality chemicals from the Sandoz labs I decided that it would be grossly unscientific not to include myself as a research subject on my days off. In my own case I can't claim to have seen either flying pigs or gods in these experiments but such things were by no means unheard of from other subjects. The human mind is nothing if not creative.

[artisticsolution]

And so my thread goes to the same ol argument or theist vs. Atheist. I knew it... oh well...I figured as much...as Christians never want to back up their beliefs with the scriptures. It's because their beliefs are on shaky moral ground when held up to what their very own bible says.

Of course they would make this about how wrong the atheist is...it's the ol' fucking smoke and mirrors to take the spotlight off them.

God I am so sick of same ol same ol...is there not one original thinking Christian out there?

Hate to admit it atheists. ..but you are totally right about how you view Christians. ..they are incapable of moral scrutiny.

I have yet to find an honest one among them...and I am just discouraged.

[Obvious Leo]

.is there not one original thinking Christian out there?

This question is an oxymoron. "Original thinking" and "Christian" cannot be used together in the same sentence because Christianity is a specifically prescribed way of thinking the world. Luckily it's a dying ideology and nowadays more and more people in educated societies have come to the conclusion that living an examined life implies that one is required to do one's own thinking.

[artisticsolution]

.is there not one original thinking Christian out there?

This question is an oxymoron. "Original thinking" and "Christian" cannot be used together in the same sentence because Christianity is a specifically prescribed way of thinking the world. Luckily it's a dying ideology and nowadays more and more people in educated societies have come to the conclusion that living an examined life implies that one is required to do one's own thinking.

I don't believe that all Christians are so closed minded. You may be right...but I just can't believe every single one can't think for themselves. Unfortunately, I don't have any proof of this belief...lol.

[artisticsolution]

In fact this 'known to be true' is the belief in the first place so it's really 'I believe what I believe is true because I believe it'.

You hit the nail on the head. That is exactly what IC is saying.

[Immanuel Can]

a) a burden of moral accountability actually exists,

I accept that all human beings are morally accountable to each other for their actions.

Okay, but WHY must we "accept" this?

Obviously this eradicates such notions as an "absolute" morality.

No, it presumes and denies...yet it does not "eradicate" anything. "Eradicating" would assume something has been rationally demonstrated to show that absolute morality does not exist. And this we have not yet seen: just a lot of affirmation to the contrary, but no demonstrations.

b) that it's "immoral" to "transfer" such burdens,

Are you suggesting otherwise?

No. But you don't win by default, just by saying you don't believe the other side. If you want to win, you have to show that we bear such a "burden," and that it's a "moral" one; because those are your claims here.

c) that belief in supposedly "non-existent" beings is even, in any moral sense, "wrong."

At no stage have I ever suggested that a belief in a non-existent being is wrong. I merely regard it as infantile and unworthy of an examined mind.

"Unworthy" is, of course, a pejorative characterization. And all such value judgments must be justified, or they are indistinct from childish name-calling...which, of course, would also be "infantile." So can you justify your claim?

[Immanuel Can]

It is different as the 'known to be true' is not based upon any actual knowledge or physical fact.

So please, show me your disproof of the existence of God, or of objective morality.

Wait...never mind about the second one, because if you do the first you've got the second too.

So just do the first one. I believe your claim here is something like, "no one has any actual knowledge or physical facts" pertaining to God? How do you come by that universal knowledge you profess?

[Immanuel Can]

...the main one being that your own arguments against the atheist apply to you here, how can you know that this is what an atheist thinks unless you find out for yourself?

Immaterial to the point in hand. It is only necessary to show that atheism CAN be had by wishful thinking, and the charge that religion can be had the same way becomes a moot point. It means the argument no longer works, because it works for any position.

Do you think that if you lost your belief in 'God' you would behave immorally? I think what you express is what the theist wishes it to be like to be an atheist as my experience is that being an atheist is a difficult path as one is completely responsible for ones moral actions and it is no easy path to walk.

I get that...believe it or not, I actually do. And in someways, yes, the path of an atheist can be harder. Credit for that. But why does it have to be harder? Why need an atheist bother with morality at all? Nothing in their assumptions requires it. They have no reason to feel they have to be good...or bad...they can be radically evil and good, just a suits their particular aims...and that does look quite easy. So why are they making it hard for themselves by being moral?

My answer? Because I think that many atheists are better than their own assumptions. They're not particularly wicked people. In fact, some are very nice. Some are angry atheists, some are bitter, but some have just never been offered a reason to take any other position, or have followed someone they admired into it as a creed they hardly bother to grasp. There are many reasons why they arrived.

Likewise, being an atheist is not necessarily coextensive with "nihilist." They do have consciences, and even if they don't recognize them as God-given and don't really know why they must obey them, still they do. Christians point out how much secular Western atheists depend on Jewish and Christian morality, even though they extract it from its roots and deny its real purpose. There's still something God wrote deeply into human nature that reminds us that however tempted we may be to imagine we can go radically evil without consequences, it's just not true. And many atheists are sensible -- and sensitive -- enough to realize it.

But still, nothing in their atheism causes this to be so, for atheism offers them proof for no positive moral claims...just the bald negation of the idea of God. So if they're morally-"good" people (and I think a lot are) it is obliged to come from a place other than their atheism itself.

If one is an atheist why would one have any apprehension and guilt in the first place?

Stunningly great question. I like it a lot. What do you suppose the answer is?

Are you saying morality does not need a religious base but is instinctive?

I think that has to be somewhat true. I don't suppose that has to mean that all of us are equally possessed of all moral precepts or anything. Some of us are doubtless more criminally-inclined than other people. But I do think all people kind of "know" in a sort of visceral, instinctive way, that things like slavery or date rape are really "wrong" in some sort of profound sense...and I do think that's very widely distributed in the human population. But I don't think everyone is quite convinced of WHY those things are wrong. And that's got to worry all of us a little. For we (atheists and theists alike) have got to be troubled by the lack of durability of any moral prohibitions that are not well grounded in a legitimative base: some people do have reasons and motives for things like slavery and date rape. Some people even like them, or think they're good. So we all have an interest in seeing the prohibitions against those things bolstered, and the encouragement and rewarding of "good" activities likewise promoted for good reasons.

The judgement upon the atheist is where its always been, with the reaction and actions of others in response to ones behaviour.

That can't be enough, though, can it? You can see the hole in that argument, I'm sure. For what if others "react" or "act" in ways we don't expect? What if people in different times or cultures "act" or "react" in ways which our deep consciences really tell us are immoral?

How will we judge among "actions" and "reactions," since we lack any universal standards for so doing?

Thanks for chiming in. Good value.

[Immanuel Can]

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This was untrue when it was said, and hasn't become any truer since you borrowed it. I would have to do very little to prove to you the extraordinary claim that pigs can fly. If I showed you any actual evidence of just one flying pig, you lose.

Yes, but to do this you'd have to show me an actual flying pig. So go ahead, show me this 'God' in the same way.

The "way" must be appropriate to the subject. You can measure rainfall depth in a graduated cylander...but you can't get the Atlantic Ocean into a teaspoon. A "flying pig" is a manipulable material object -- and surely you don't suppose that Christians think their God is that.

But if there were just one miracle. If there were just one genuine revelation. If there were one real prophet. If there were one actual intervention of God in the history of the world. If there were just one actually-answered prayer. If there were just one real vision. If there were any objective moral standard at all. If there were any words inscribed on tablets, printed on pages or delivered by inspiration of God. If there were, in short, any piece of any kind of evidence, then all warrant for disbelief in God would shatter like china for every person and for all time.

So only if you deny the reality of everything that every religious person has ever experienced or deduced since the dawn of time, and only if all religions are complete fictions -- at least on their claims of the real existence of a Supreme Being and any manifestations of the same -- would your atheism be reasonable to maintain. But then, if there were powerful philosophical arguments that indicatively show the presence of God to be the best rational explanation for certain features of the Creation -- such as, say, the Kalaam Cosmological Argument or the Argument from Design, or any of the other dozen or so current philosophical arguments, then you'd still find your atheism in jeopardy.

The Moral Argument imperils atheism above all others, I think. For I have never met a single atheist who has been able to give an account of a single moral precept he/she could legitimize. And yet all human beings are powerfully intuitive of the moral realm. In fact, the existence of any morality is really pretty inexplicable without some objective basis...and the old "it helps us with out evolution" idea falls apart at the first example of a moral precept that is actually not evolutionarily useful...sexual restraint looks like an obvious one. But there are others, too.

But let me test that: let me put it out to every atheist who is reading this. How do we really tell "right" from "wrong"?