wow, it's been a while since i last posted here...but...
Offline I'm actually a little shocked that this site is still up a running. I thought that the "new" atheist movement would have moved on the the next big fad, like "Heelys" or whatever you kids are doing these days. Anyway, one point, and it just a philosophical question really. Can life really be this easy? As humans we are rather complex creatures where our way of life is based on cause and effect, right and wrong, and good and bad. As an atheist, you take the hedonistic approach to life, meaning we only get one life, do with it what you like because there are no consequences. But this is a total contradiction. There are rules we live by, there are rules in the universe that we cannot escape. Death itself is a rule. So who are we to assume that all rules were not set in stone by a creator? Anyway, Ben Stein is a creationist? who knew......
"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." -CS Lewis
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As long as there are ego-driven, simple minded folk who blindly follow myths of unicorns, big boats that excape big floods and talking snakes, their deniers will surely be around. If you could somehow get beyond your "own" life and experience you would see that the earth has had life on it for millions of years, so your myth is pretty much a fad. As for the ad hominem, those w/ the aformentioned myth dogma and a picture avatar that makes u appear 14, shouldn't throw stones.
Some far less complex than others.....
Not only is this a stupid presupposition, but it ignores the fact that you can google "pastor" and "sex scandal" at any time of the year for an example of hedonism. There are consequences to most choices you make and it's pretty clear to me that atheists tend to have infinitely higher morals than their theist counterparts.
the same persons (& w/ the same logic )who deny that an alien space god left thetan spirits in earth volcanoes thousands of years ago. and yet once again, if you want a "creator" argument to be logical, who created this "creator"?
Stein has always been a kiss-ass to the far right and caters to his own emotions rather than use what little brain he has. I'm so sorry, it was the "kids" who had to tell you.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
George Orwell
Kids? ...
I think you have us confused with mainstream media. I hardly see "new atheist movement" here outside of links to mainstream stories about unbelief. We're also not hoola hoops, and dismantling organized religion isn't a fad... it's right.
And what's with the 'kids' thing again, sport?
Ooh, assigning us a position you made up so you can dismantle it. (strawman much?) Anyhow, "atheism" is just disbelief in gods. Nothing else comes with that, and people arrive at that position in every imaginable method and can mean pretty much anything to that person.
This doesn't automatically assign us a hedonism position. And why shouldn't you cherish your own life? Life seems to have more value to people who don't think they get a do over in the clouds. We'd seem less likely to want to kill people, take our own life, overindulge, etc. to prolong what we might have.
Sound like a shaving from the fine tuning argument. I'm sure deludedgod or todangst has a book for you somewhere.
Anyway, there is also no evidence these variables which you interpret as "rules of the universe" where created by any sentient "creator." So who are we to assume a magic being is what fills in all the holes?
I will see your appeal to authority and raise you an appeal to sarcasm. OH MY! Ben Stein is a CREATIONIST?! He's so dreamy! NOW I SHALL BE A CREATIONIST TOO!
I'm actually a little shocked that the people that pay for this site haven't gone bankrupt having to host 2 million versions of the same arguments.
Welcome back, Lux. We had missed your myopic, self-congratulatory tone. Fortunately, inbred mongoloids with limited perception are common in modern America; so, we didn't miss you too much.
There is only one path in life that is easy. It is easy to have a big brother always telling you how to behave and how to react. With such an overseer, you are relieved of the necessity of original thought. Now, in your instance, that is an added blessing because you've never been one to handle complexity well.
Hedonism is about pleasure. You will find few atheists who are solely after pleasure. You were looking for the word Narcissist, and that word doesn't fit well either. No, we have elected the difficult path, but it is the path on which truth rests.
Now, take your senior photo and oily skin to the door.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
"Not only is this a stupid presupposition, but it ignores the fact that you can google "pastor" and "sex scandal" at any time of the year for an example of hedonism. There are consequences to most choices you make and it's pretty clear to me that atheists tend to have infinitely higher morals than their theist counterparts."
The question is, are there any consequences to killing someone (other than prison or death)? If you kill a guy but you have no sense of morality, will you suffer any great consequence? You mentioned pastors and sex scandal, but this doesn't mean that pastors who rape little kids think that they are going to get away with it, or that their deeds will go un-punished. The question then becomes, did they commit this crime guilt-free, or without fear of punishment? There is a difference between the guy who commits a crime and thinks, who cares There is no God to judge me and the guy who commits a crime and think, crap I knew this was wrong when I did it, and now feel terrible. Why should this man feel terrible and the other have no remorse? A man's conscience is God given, an internal element that is activated by ones sense of morality. Man that fears God, And the Man who doen't believe in God. That is the difference.
"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." -CS Lewis
Senior photo? how flatering considering I'm 30 years old and the pic was taken last year. Man, i missed you guys...lol..Sorry about the oily skin, Maybe I should try some noxema or something.
The opposite of hedonism, IMO, would be humility. Very rarely have I seen an example of atheism that promotes humility or modesty. If there were any redeming qualities of atheism, i would say tenacity, because I've never heard of any atheists giving in to theist positions no matter how much sense they make. Like i said in the original post, there are rules that we all live by in which nature is the author (or God) when you apply that notion to human behavior you are left with the immpression that just as our parents gave us rules to live by (and which most of us are greatful for now as adults) so to has God given us the same rules to live by, but some refuse to see it.
"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." -CS Lewis
I live in a world where my rights end where the next person's begins. Society has come to the conclusion that we are all better off working together than alone. Working alone, we're all too busy trying to hunt or gather our next meal. Working togther, you make shoes and I garden. That guy over there herds sheep for the clothing his wife knits, etc...
So to answer your question, since you sound like the sort that needs it all spelled out, the consequence to going around killing is that it doesn't work - I don't want to live in a world where I can run around and kill but someone else can also run around and kill me.
I'm listening - or technically reading - give me a theist position and if it makes sense I'll give in. We all will. Just one rule, now. It has to make sense.
Good thing all of us listened to our parents because God told parents to kill disobedient teenagers. He also told us to stone people and have slaves. None of this really matters to me though because I have a disability and God doesn't want disfigured people in his house of worship.
it works in the animal kingdom. If one animal the a different or in the same species encroaches anothers territory then that animal will attack. Are we so different? What makes us "civil"? Where does our desire to survive come from? aside from man's law, what keeps me from killing a man that looks at me the wrong way or steps on my toes?
"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." -CS Lewis
Okay, this argument is getting old, and we're all getting tired of offering it's most obvious reply. But here you go:
If you are, as I presume, Christian, then you can live a life of child rape and theft and murder and still end up unpunished. All you have to do is honestly regret it. So are atheists really so amoral when they accept that punishment must likely come from this life, since there's probably no sky-daddy keeping score of everyone's evil actions?
Now, you're probably going to say "WHAT'S EVIL TO AN ATHEIST, LOL!!!1111" Well, the truth is, no matter what religion, or lack thereof, you subscribe to, morality is rather subjective, or at least not coming from God. You might have heard of this, but there's something called the Euthyphro dilemma, which basically begs the question, "Is what is moral mandated by whatever god because it is moral, or is it moral because it is mandated by God?" If the former is true, than God is subject to some higher morality, and is merely passing down to his subjects what is moral. If the latter is true, than morality is merely based on the arbitrary whim of God. So if God decided that it was moral to beat innocent little old ladies to death, and immoral to be compassionate and self-sacrificing, then that would be the morality that the subjects of God must follow. So your morality, though you pretend it is real and unshakeable because it comes from your god, is as confusing and precarious as the morality of anyone else.
no, it doesn't work with you guys. You have a steal curtain that protects you from theism. May I use an appeal to emotion? may a use an appeal to Fine tuning? May I use an appeal to numbers? What makes alot of sense to me in my faith, are the very things to won't argue, its taboo
"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." -CS Lewis
"If you are, as I presume, Christian, then you can live a life of child rape and theft and murder and still end up unpunished. All you have to do is honestly regret it. So are atheists really so amoral when they accept that punishment must likely come from this life, since there's probably not sky-daddy keeping score of everyone's evil actions?"
Who is better off? the man who does wrong and never sees the error of his way.
or the man who does wrong, and is willing to own up to it, the man to makes ammends to himself, and those he has offended, and to his God for giving him the opportunity to see that he's done wrong?
"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." -CS Lewis
Are you going to completely ignore the bulk of my argument?
And I think they are equally reprehensible. Most people will feel somewhat guilty if they perform unspeakable acts. Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck how a child murderer feels. He's despicable, and any God who can forgive him and let him go to Heaven, but send a virtuous, kind, charitable atheist who's never hurt anyone to Hell is a bastard.
Kids? I haven't been called a "kid" in years. However, it is duly noted that you lack the capacity to write without being a condescending dullard, who knows nothing about his opposition, cannot help but make a fallacy of false generalization, and seems to preach humility while simultaneously being an arrogant fool.Oh, and considering the number of times I counted logical fallacies which one is supposed to learn about in high school perhaps you should verse yourself in basic logic, kid. I can only assume that either you never finished high shool...or you are still there.
http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_employment_of_the_false_dichotomy_fallacy_and_its_variants_in_debate
By which you simply mean can the top of the Maslowian Heirarchy not exist? Yes.
Actually, I hate hedonistic people and look down on them with almost as much venom as I reserve for the religious.
No, there are no post-mortem consequences. But you bifurcate between "no consequences" and "no consequences after death" Oh, and this is ad baculum. Of similar vein to Pascal's wager in the heirarchy of generally mind-numbing theistic arguments which reveal a malaise of the brain.
Fallacy of equivocation.
Honestly, I could do this asleep. I am half-asleep.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
You really don't know anything about basic logic do you? An appeal to emotion is a listed fallacy. So, no you can't.
This is even worse as an a posteriori argument (since it makes a postulation to solve an apparent problem which is anathema to the scientific method, commits a stolen concept fallacy, derives an ad hoc solution in identical vein to Bentley's Paradox or Einstein's Cosmological Constant, and is really a worthless conjecture from a scientific standpoint)
The Notion of Scientific or Indeed any Empirical Proof of God Commits an Internal Contradiction
I have never heard of this a posteriori argument.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Since when do you get to make up the definition of words?
Show me a theistic position that makes sense. I've really never heard of one. Is it derived a priori or a posteriori? Very few are still a priori. The word itself (God) commits an internal contradiction anyway. How can we speak of a position making sense if the associated metaphysics is conceptually broken? Or the solution is not derived by methodology which conforms to our limited epistemology, but instead ad hoc conjecture based on inferences which are non sequitur from the data (ID is most noted for this tactic)
Probabilistically impossible. Too Anthropocentric, it would necessitate that such a being be anthropomorophic, which commits an internal contradiction. Indeed, even if such an entity did exist (it means nothing to speak of "exist" in the context of supernatural, so I will try to avoid referring to it "existing"
then there is a relatively obvious derivation that there is absolutely no reason that such an entity would be concerned with humanity, a Feuerbachian larger version of us. While there may be psychological need associated with this belief (As Maslow firmly advocated), I try to avoid believing in something ad consequentiam.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
If you want to call reason a steal curtain then fine, call it what you wish. However you're stating the obvious. You say what you believe works on faith and we say we want a little evidence, not faith. Faith is by defination belief without proof.
To paraphrase you, you said you gave arguments that made sense yet atheists don't believe you. If you have one of these arguments that "make sense" (one based on reason, that is) post it. I'm interested.
Why can't a man who does something wrong, own up to it, make reperation to his victims and change his ways period. It sounds like you are saying only God can forgive or that you can't own up to your mistakes without God.
Exactly! He's basically saying that pandering to God is the only way to be a moral person. Not to mention, he ignored my Euthyphro dilemma argument and only answered the first part of my post. This guy's definitely on my bad side.
Yes, you can't sleep at night because you feel like shit.
Really? So you can't have morality without God? But this same God tells you it's okay to enslave your fellow man and hate homosexuals? Do you realize your basically admitting that your actions are based entirly on fear of god and therefore blindly following rules and not on you actually knowing the difference between right and wrong?
I'm shocked you thought, "Ah, yes, I'll use this soft focus picture of myself squatting by a tree." Is Barbara Walters interviewing you at the Sears Portrait Studio? LOL, just f'ing around.
And who would have thought Christianity could withstand the constant undercutting of its claims about the world. Life is full or surprises.
Is that a philosophical question? It sounds like the set up for an Office Depot ad.
Even pigeons can learn cause and effect. Most religions subvert cause and effect by relying on its suspension in the form of miracles, and the assumption of undemonstrated causes.
Ask the fish about right and wrong when you get him in the boat, or ask the dead soldier from the opposing side. Transcendent/"objective" morality only works if you limit the scope of the question, because if you broaden the question to consider the fate of the fish or the humanity of an enemy it just becomes relative again.
Being concepts relative to something: species, nation, tribe, family, self. For objective morality to be rationalized to the behavior of Christians, there must be a fall guy that is excempt from consideration.
*Drops bunch of grapes while bolting up from ivory recliner*
Hedonism has nothing to do with having one life, and atheism has nothing to do with hedonism.
Of the straw-man you set up, not of any actual thing.
Death is a breakdown of a dynamic of electrochemical interactions. It's an inevitable state for life as we understand it, but there's nothing about it that suggests transcendence as implied by your "rule" statement. You may as well say toenails growing half as fast as fingernails is a rule as if it somehow implied your beliefs just had to be true. Swap that for any other inductive statement, or induction itself; as all you have is an (even more) inept version of TAG.
I don't know how that question even got into the conversation. It's not even wrong, to quote Wolfgang Pauli.
Yeah, he's going to be remembered for wearing a school uniform as an old man and advocating an empty non-theory. I don't usually respond to sigs, but,
What "meaning" would that be?
Lux,
I'm just wondering if you have any answers for any of the arguments people have made against some of your claims you've made during this thread. Are you intentionally ignoring them, or have you just forgotten that you made this post?
Just thought I'd ask.
Dr. Terwilliker
Our way of life is not based on right and wrong, it is based on survival... and that is it!! you may think that it is wrong is universal but it varys from culture to culture and even from time to time. how can you say what right and wrong is? your religion whatever it may be is just one of many. If you are right, then can people be punished if they were not taught the same thing? maybe they really just don't believe that what they are doing is wrong. I really don't believe that anyone does anything if they really fell it is wrong.
give me evidence that any rules were set in stone.... oh... you don't have any? i guess that's nothing new!
Ummm... except for what we do here to other people who might take offense and make our one life problematic.
Ummm... I'm not sure how any of this follows; might I suggest laying off the CS?
It really is a shame that the first option is the one that best describes the Christian.
"...And where there is no law there is no transgression." (Romans 4:15b)
No Law (commandments included) - no sin.
The other option (except for the part about kissing God's behind) describes most humans I've run into. The "conscience" that Ray Comfort and most other Christians tout as being from God is a natural phenomenon - no God needed.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin