Question for Atheists/Naturalist

[For_The_Kingdom]

It has happened often, within the past 100 years, that if you ask an atheist if he believes in God, he will often say something like "No, I don't believe in God, but I also don't believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy". So, the belief in God is compared to the belief in fairy tales and such. My question is, do atheists really believe that belief in God is the same as believing in Santa Claus, or is such a statement just an over-the-top, facetious quip?

When you ride past a Church on Sunday, and you see dozens of cars in the parking lot as members are gathered inside for Sunday services as they worship their God...is that equivalent to riding past a dentist and seeing cars parked in the parking lot as the members inside share stories about a geniune belief that they have of the Tooth Fairy?

Now, if I saw cars outside the dentist and the people gathered inside for such...I would probably think they are crazy, or at least, childish in their thinking. Why? Because I don't think a rational adult with common sense can believe in such a thing.

BUT, is that the same way that someone with an atheist perspective will look at us (Church members) who are gathered inside a Church to talk about/worship a geninue belief in God?

Like, if you are an atheist who doesn't believe in God whatsoever...what do you think about those that do? Do you look at them as lost, crazy, duped, all of the above?

Some of you on here are probably former believers? Do you sometimes think, "Man, thank goodness I don't have that "God" umbrella over me anymore. I can't believe that I actually BELIEVED that nonsense".

I don't want to fuss or fight...I just want to see your thoughts.

[For_The_Kingdom]

Do you imagine that you case would be advanced by vaguely defined terms?

Preferred, not required.

So, are you saying that no god is needed for morals to exist of any kind?
I can't decipher your thoughts.

God is needed for conscious agents, PERIOD. Morality would essentially be the byproduct of consciousness...but what would consciousness be the byproduct of? Can't be the brain.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 59 by For_The_Kingdom]

If it is possible for God to exist, then God must exist. Remember that one?

I remember you having a thread where you were supposedly giving an argument, a logical argument (i.e. something with premises labelled P1, P2, etc, and then a conclusion) with the goal of proving God exists...but in a preamble before the argument proper, you defined God as necessarily existing.
A cheat, in other words.

Children are guaranteed eternal life

Are they? Why should I accept this claim?

you see, the salvation of the children is already clinched

Oh, it is? Because FtK says it is? So should I go about killing children? If your answer to this is no, then clearly there has to be something wrong with the idea of killing children, and this ends up creating a problem with the Biblical god, who at one point or another called for the killing of children.

so instead of worrying about the children that are probably playing Ring around the Rosies right now in heaven..I would worry about my own salvation.

So...what? Be selfish? Be self-centered?

Human sacrifices were never permitted by God

*cough* Jesus *cough*

and if you are talking about animal sacrifices

nope

Job didn't seem pissed off when he found out that God orchestrated his entire ordeal. So why are you more upset than Job?

Because I imagine myself in Job's shoes and being pretty ticked off at the whole ordeal. I imagine being ticked off at doing everything God says I should do and as a 'reward', my livelihood is destroyed, I'm infected with diseases, and my loved ones die.
As someone who has lost contact with siblings for years (currently standing at 20 years for my oldest sister ), I am well aware of the pain that absence of loved ones causes.
If a specific man violently beats his wife, but that wife isn't personally upset over it (or says she isn't), does that mean that wife-beating is now okay? I can beat my wife now if I want to, because I can point to a story where a wife didn't seem pissed off at being beaten by her husband?

Yes.

So tormenting a man is objective morality. Gotcha. Therefore, there is no reason why I shouldn't go out and torment men right now. If it's objective morality, it's moral to do so.
Be right back...

And whether or not it is or it isn't, is something for God to determine..not finite, created human beings that can barely see past an hour into the future, must less the entire future of the world to the very end.

You're a human aren't you? A finite created human being aren't you? So who are you to say that something is objective morality or not? Just up above you said something I said was objective morality, but now here you are saying that humans can't determine such.
The only way I can see out of this logical contradiction is if For_the_Kingdom isn't human at all, but I don't think you're going to say that...are you?

Why not? If there are no objective moral values...then live your life as you see fit. Once the universe dies, nothing that happened on Earth will matter anyway. So yeah, go for it.

Readers, please remember that when I asked are these actions objective morality, I included tormenting men in that list of examples, and that FtK said 'yes'.
And yet somehow...it is not an objective moral. Somehow. It seems to me here that FtK is saying that A = not-A. A clear contradiction.

I will wait for you to do another Google search of the terms, but this time, put "objective/subjective morality" in the search bar.

Telling me to do a Google search doesn't strengthen your argument, because you have no control at all over what results I might receive. For example, it is possible that I might get a list of results that all agree with what I previously posted.
Next time, I suggest you give me things that you actually agree with, instead of just lazily saying "do a search". Saying to me to do a search sounds to me like putting the burden of evidence on me, telling me to do the work to defend your arguments.

No.

God is the judge...jury...and executioner. There is a difference murdering, and "killing"...you do know that the difference depends on context, right?

So what is the difference between murdering and killing? If a society has rules against picking up sticks on a particular day of the week, and attributes that rule to their god, is that murder or killing?
What you've just done by pulling the 'murdering vs killing' card is allow ANYONE to cause the death of another human, and for that first person to have the defence of "God ordered his death".
How can you argue against that person? For all you know, God really did tell him to kill. If you do end up arguing against that person, all you've got are your subjective religious beliefs. That other person could be an ISIS member, who believes quite strongly that God ordered the death of a gay person. That God too is judge, jury and executioner.
(Besides, wouldn't God being all three mean that God would have to do all three actions himself, and NOT have to use humans as proxies to kill other humans, like in the Joshua Conquest stories?)

Or are you just conveniently taking things at face value and you think the Bible authors were foolish/naive enough to contradict themselves within mere paragraphs of each other?

Since logical contradictions seem to be built into the Christian belief system (such as the contradiction of an all knowing and all loving God who punishes people for exercising the free will he gave to them...), I honestly wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if the Bible authors actually were that foolish/naive.
I'm not saying that they definitely were...just that I don't discount the possibility.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 59 by For_The_Kingdom]



[center]Presuppositional apologetics:
If I can even IMAGINE the possibility that I'm absolutely right, I am.
Part One[/center]

If it is possible for God to exist, then God must exist. Remember that one?

Oy!

How can we ever forget !
That's not an argument, it's a bald and very bold assertion.

Big deal.
Anyone can make those up.....

If it's possible that necessary beings exist, then they must.
If it's possible for matter to exist, then it does.

If it's possible that you are right, you must be.


If you imagine that presuppositional apologetics makes any kind of sense, it does.
Hey, it's at least POSSIBLE.

It's also possible that you are completely over your head.
So by your reasoning, you must be.

All we have to do is to throw in the word "NECESSARY", and were good.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 1 by For_The_Kingdom]

he will often say something like "No, I don't believe in God, but I also don't believe in Santa Claus,

I wanted to get back to this for just a quick moment. It seems to me that Santa Claus and God serve as the primary motivators for many people.
Earlier last week, I was at my mother's house and my youngest sister was making noise, and mother was telling sister to stop, or Santa wouldn't deliver presents. Sister kept on doing so anyway, because she saw the threat as a moot point. There are presents already underneath the tree.
In recent weeks, I have been debating certain people on this forum, and at least one or two of them have said that God's objective morality is about punishing and rewarding behaviour.
Just like Santa Claus.
What if my mother had said something to my sister like "God will be angry at you" or "God will judge you" or some words to that effect?
Notice that in the bit about 'rewarding and punishing behaviour', there is no qualifier as to what behaviours are rewarded or punished. So even if I was to accept this line of reasoning, exactly which behaviours get rewards or punishments is still up in the air. According to an ISIS member, throwing gays off roof-tops is a behaviour that will see one rewarded.
Are we to view the morality of certain actions purely in the realm of reward vs punishment?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 60 by For_The_Kingdom]





[center]Definition of Morality: No "God" required.
Part Three: No clarity required[/center]

Do you imagine that you case would be advanced by vaguely defined terms?

Preferred, not required.

Oh, right. MY BAD.
Some people don't require clarity.
Forgot about that.

__________________

FOR THE RECORD:

Some people have no requirement for clarity.
I stand corrected.
__________________

So, are you saying that no god is needed for morals to exist of any kind?
I can't decipher your thoughts.

God is needed for conscious agents, PERIOD.

___________________________________

INTERESTING FACT ABOUT BLASTCAT:

Do you know what doesn't convince me in any way? What doesn't convince me in any way is when someone presents the word "PERIOD" as their main argument, that's what doesn't convince me in any way.

As an agnostic and a skeptic, I will need a BIT more evidence than the word "PERIOD" in big bold beautiful letters plunked at the end of a bold and baseless assertion.

____________________________________

Morality would essentially be the byproduct of consciousness...but what would consciousness be the byproduct of? Can't be the brain.

"Can't be the brain" is the entirety of your argument?

Yeah... bit thin, in my opinion.
I remain, as always, extremely skeptical of your claims.

[For_The_Kingdom]

People like me ask why were the people enslaved in Egypt in the first place, if this God loves the Hebrews so much?

I don't know.

Doesn't the narrative have Joseph having his brothers move into Egypt and then suddenly its a few hundred years later and now all of a sudden the Hebrews are enslaved?

It sure does.

Genesis ends with the death of Joseph, with Exodus opening with the new Pharaoh just out of the blue

Out of the blue? You just said yourself that there was a few hundred years in between the ending of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus. So what do you mean, out of the blue? Do you expect the same Pharaoh to be in power after 480 years?

, seemingly, deciding to enslave the Hebrews.

Yup...people can be evil, can't they?

I'm curious about this because elsewhere, you talked about how God only punishes the Hebrews if they're disobedient. Well...where is the disobedience here?

First off, I never said that God "only" punishes the Hebrews if they are disobedient. I merely said that the entire theme when dealing with the Hebrews was simple...obey and be blessed, disobey and be punished.

And who said that the enslavement of the Hebrews was a punishment from God? Did I say that? No.

I don't know why God allowed the Hebrews to be enslaved..but what I do know is, according to Christianity...God has a good reason for everything that he does...even if we can't see it.

If I am to believe the standard Christian narrative, then God wanted Joseph and his brothers in Egypt and given that he is all powerful...then their subsequent enslavement is entirely on him.

Maybe their enslavement was entirely on him...but if God had a morally justified reason for allowing their slavery, then it is what it is.

Also, you'd want to re-read Exodus anyway. Moses is sent by God not to ask for freedom for the Hebrews but asks merely that they be allowed to go into the wilderness for a few days to worship God at a feast.

Maybe you need to re-read Exodus, because God clearly said..

"7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.�

Exo 3:7-10

I don't see anything about a feast. Nor did God "ask" Pharaoh for anything, he DEMANDED him. And sure, maybe a feast was implemented in the "getting the f out" process...but the plan was for God to get his people out of Egypt and their enslavement...feast or no feast.

[For_The_Kingdom]

And how do we tell for sure, in some objective way, what this God desires or approves of?

The Bible is the Christian manual for determining what God approves of. Now, of course, the "B" word doesn't do much for you..but I am just answering your question.

Some hard core ISIS members might say to you that God desires and approves of them throwing gay people off of roof-tops. If you personally disagree with them, then what's happening is that you are arguing for your own subjective morality against theirs, and neither you or they can actually show for sure which of you (if either) is actually doing what God approves of.

I have evidence that is grounded in good argumentation which justifies why I believe what I believe. Can't say the same for Islam.

You said earlier that Hitler would stand by his standards, just like DI is, and we're at a stalemate. Well...so are you in that situation, with the ISIS members, from what I can see. From where I'm standing FtK is saying "God desires X!" and the ISIS member is saying "God desires Y!"

Then we would have to examine the evidence for the truth value of Islam, and do the same for Christianity...and simply go where the evidence takes us.

[For_The_Kingdom]

So why are you arguing that God is good, necessarily good, if you don't fully understand God or his ways?

Because the two aren't necessarily incompatible.

To me, saying "X person is good" is the same thing as handing that person a moral blank cheque. That person can then do anything at all and you will have practically disarmed yourself of any means to criticise them.
At that point, what is the difference between what you're doing and slavery? Slavery of the mind?
I am loath to grant anyone or anything a moral blank cheque. I don't want to end up in a situation where someone I call good ends up doing destructive or painful things to others, and all I can then say is "He's good".

See, that is the difference between me and you...we look at God or the concept of God (Christian God) in entirely two different ways.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 65 by For_The_Kingdom]




[center]I don't know but I do
Part One[/center]

I don't know why God allowed the Hebrews to be enslaved..but what I do know is, according to Christianity...God has a good reason for everything that he does...even if we can't see it.

Even if Christianity doesn't know what God's reason IS, Christianity CLAIMS TO KNOW that it is "GOOD".

That's not the greatest argument for believing in something that I've ever heard. because it contradicts itself. If we don't KNOW the reasons we can't TELL if they are naughty or nice.

BUT "Christianity" seem to be able to TELL anyway.
Hey, let's give good ol' God a break, here, good ol' benefit of the doubt, why not?

SOMEBODY'S got to speak up for the guy.

Nobody knows, but everybody knows.


Interesting bit of reasoning.
Quite fallacious, of course.


Those Christians.. whatayagonnado?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 66 by For_The_Kingdom]




[center]English not easy be
Part One[/center]

See, that is the difference between me and you...we look at God or the concept of God (Christian God) in entirely two different ways.

Sorry, but Blastcat noticed that your statement is ironically NOT representing a difference but a similarity, instead. You say that you BOTH look at God in different ways. If you both do something the same way, that's not a difference, that's the SAME.

Using the English language...

Whatayagonnado?