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]

Hmmm.

Drawing a distinction between everyone on the planet and the one thing you are advocating for. Have you heard of the logical fallacy called " Special pleading"?

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/too ... l-Pleading


We are discussing the MORALITY of God's actions, and you try special pleading.

Nonsense. I am merely saying there is a difference in taking orders from human beings and taking orders from the Supreme Being of the universe...and I make that statement whether or not I believe in this Being or not.

If you don't see/understand the difference, then we just simply disagree.

1. Why is God a special case, or in other words, the one exception to the rule?

Because if objective morality does exist, then its foundation must lie with a "special case" Being from whom is the source. I don't see any way around that.

Now, if you want to make a long story short, then just simply say you don't believe in objective moral values and then we can call it a day.

However, if you DO believe in objective moral values, then there is no way you can justify it on naturalism (and if you can, go right ahead).

2. How does absolute MIGHT confer MORAL GOODNESS?

I am not sure that it does (necessarily). However, since I believe that the evidence for Christian theism is overwhelming...absolute might kinda comes with moral goodness.

Kinda like a good package deal. Plus, with absolute might/moral goodness; this ensures that laws will be enforced one way or another, and that justice is always coming.

[Blastcat]

Hmmm.

Drawing a distinction between everyone on the planet and the one thing you are advocating for. Have you heard of the logical fallacy called " Special pleading"?

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/too ... l-Pleading


We are discussing the MORALITY of God's actions, and you try special pleading.

Nonsense.

YIKES.. I would not like to be talking nonsense. I hate to be wrong.. help me out

I am merely saying there is a difference in taking orders from human beings and taking orders from the Supreme Being of the universe...and I make that statement whether or not I believe in this Being or not.

Hmm do you believe?
Because I'm wondering if you do or not.

And then.... how does SUPREME BEING of the universe get to be GOOD by default?

Any ideas?

[Divine Insight]

Plus, with absolute might/moral goodness; this ensures that laws will be enforced one way or another, and that justice is always coming.

In this system, "justice" amounts to nothing more than revenge.

So then the question becomes, "Is revenge the same thing as justice"?

If someone comes into my peaceful life and brutally destroys my loving family and hard-earned possessions, but I am able to brutally destroy them after the fact, "Has Justice been achieved?"

Personally I wouldn't consider that to be justice at all. But there may be some twisted emotional satisfaction in having experienced the extremely hateful vengeance I took out on the perpetrator.

But if that's the case, then who needs to have this experience of hateful vengeance? God or men? And even after they have experienced the release of all their hatred toward the perpetrator, has any justice truly been achieved?

I think not.

Christianity is a religion that is built on mankind's emotional desire to seek vengeance. All they do is imagine that God will carry out their vengeance for them and that somehow makes everything super duper.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 94 by For_The_Kingdom]

In a pre-amble, I can define you in such a way that you necessarily exist, but once you are plugged in to the syllogism, the truth value of whether or not you actually necessarily exist will show its ugly head...and it will be proven to be FALSE after all.

Just because you are "defined" with a necessary existence does NOT mean that your existence will magically become necessary based off of the definition.

Dude...this is what YOU did in your MOA thread. You defined your God as necessarily existing (to be precise, in your preamble, you said it could not fail to exist), plugged this god into your argument and what do you know? You claimed that this proves God exists.

Now all of a sudden I'm hearing that if FtK defines rikuoamero in a preamble as necessarily existing and then plugs rikuoamero into the argument...somehow it is possible for the argument to return a FALSE value?
How the heck does that even work? I'm running through the argument in my head right now and no matter how I try to spin it, a necessarily existing rikuoamero in P1 leads to the conclusion that rikuoamero does in fact necessarily exist (in other words, the conclusion is in the premise and it's still a cheat, an invalid logical argument).

Before the presentation of the argument, I simply defined the relevant terms as it related to the argument. You guys (atheists) are known for needing to be spoon-fed every single term...such as "define what you mean by God"...."define what you mean by life".

And now when I go through the trouble of actually defining terminlogy before the argument is presented...it is still a problem?

SMH.

Yes, because the goal of the MOA, for the Christian apologist, is to 'prove' the existence of God. You quite simply cannot cheat by defining God as being necessary in his existence BEFORE the argument. The existence of God is what is in question here, it is that attribute that is under investigation.

Jesus is God in the flesh...who lived life on Earth without sin.

Great, so you agree with me. Jesus Christ was/is not human. I'm sure plenty of other Christians will agree with you...

Makes no sense. If humans were not sinful, we wouldn't need to offer any sacrifices for sin atonement, would we?

So then Jesus was sinful then? He apparently had to be sacrificed, so it would only make sense if it's something he's atoning for.
Unless you want to get into the realm of human A sacrificing human B to make up for something A did...but still a problem there, because in Christian theology, sin isn't necessarily anything to do with what a human actually does themselves.

Again, I don't expect you to understand how Job could be ok with what happened after finding out that God orchestrated it. It is something that only a believer would understand.

As others have said, this shows the massive confirmation bias in your thinking. I don't ever say that to anyone else. I don't ever say to someone (whether talking about religion or some other topic) anything along the lines of 'you'll only understand if you believe the same thing I believe'.

It isn't about what I suggest...it is about what the Bible clearly teaches...a Resurrection of the dead with the righteous going to Paradise/Heaven.

Which isn't present in early Jewish belief. Jews don't believe in a heaven/hell. They don't accept the concept of a resurrection of the dead, of meeting loved ones.
Even in the hypothetical model where the Christian God exists, this concept of a conscious afterlife wasn't present in the Jewish belief system at the time Job supposedly lived in. Indeed, to quote from Job itself, chapter 3

If I had died then, I would be at rest now,
14 sleeping like the kings and rulers
who rebuilt ancient palaces.
15 Then I would be sleeping like princes
who filled their houses with gold and silver,
16 or sleeping like a stillborn child.
17 In the grave wicked people stop their evil,
and tired workers find rest at last.
18 Even prisoners enjoy peace,
free from shouts and harsh commands.
19 Everyone is there, the famous and the unknown,
and slaves at last are free.

You can conjure up any scenario you want, brethren. The fact of the matter is, if objective morality exists, a transcendent lawgiver is necessary.

Like with Blastcat, I have to point out that simple assertions do not an argument make. Your assertion is based on a condition anyway (it has an IF), and I'm not convinced by you that objective morality even exists, or that it requires a lawgiver.

What if you saw a certificate at your neighbors house from a "higher learning" institution which states that your neighbor is a certified teaching instructor of the language of Swahili?

If I'm curious about the matter, I can investigate and try to find evidence to support the existence of this institution, or ask them if they did indeed give such a cert to my neighbour.
Where can I find evidence to support that your God is good? Oh wait...I can't. You've already disqualified yourself as being someone I can ask by admitting that you don't know.

I have arguments based on undeniable evidence that there exists a Supreme Being of this Universe who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

That doesn't tell me that this being is good. In fact, what can you say at all to indicate to me that this God is good? Again, you've disqualified yourself from doing that.

Um, the Bible is clear that Jesus died for the sins of mankind...and it doesn't matter if you are Black, White, or Candy Stripe...if you are accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, you are saved.

Precisely what I said. MANKIND. And as for the Bible being clear...didn't you just say that there are things in the Bible that only a believer will understand?
It seems strange that in one part of your reply you try to pass the Bible off as being incomprehensible unless one already believes it, and yet, in this other part, the Bible is seemingly clear on some aspect of the Christian theology.
Those personalities I mentioned wouldn't agree with you. They'd also say the Bible is clear that redemption is for humans only, and they'd rattle off chapter and verse to support their position.

I have no idea as to how to verify whether or not God spoke to someone or not.

DING DING DING DING DING! We have a winner!
No, I mean no disrespect, but this is literally the most important thing any Christian can say.
When you, as a Christian, admit that you have no way at all to verify whether this God character spoke to someone or not, this means that you have quite literally NO justification to believe this God spoke to anyone at all.
He may have or he may not have. But any claim by anyone throughout history, from Abraham to Paul, is now unsustainable.
Indeed, doesn't this blast a hole in what you said earlier, that you have arguments based on evidence that God revealed himself in Jesus Christ?
Which is true here? You cannot verify whether God spoke to someone, or the earlier comment?
Both cannot be true. For your earlier statement to stand, you'd have to have some way to verify with whom God has spoken.

Why don't I just be a serial killer, after all, there is nothing objectively wrong with such actions...that would be no different than a lion deciding "you know what, these hyenas are a thorn in my ass...so let me just go on a rampage and exterminate every single hyena, one by one".

Literally, no difference (on naturalism).

I'm commenting on what you said here to DI, to point something out.
I am an atheist. I used to be Christian. According to what you're saying here, if one goes naturalist (which I guess I am too...), then MY moral view should be that there's nothing wrong with being a serial killer. In fact, I should be out right now pillaging and raping. What's holding me back?
Think about that for a moment. Given your view of what it means to be a naturalist, why isn't this naturalist out serial killing?

I implore you to take some time to think about why this naturalist and others on the forum aren't out killing, or doing any number of horrible deeds. In fact, in the almost twenty years I've been an atheist, the number of horrible deeds I've done is shockingly low. You might be surprised at just how elliptical the number is.

[Divine Insight]

And I would like to comment on a few things that FtK posted to Rikuoamero:

I have arguments based on undeniable evidence that there exists a Supreme Being of this Universe who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

Where? Where is your "undeniable evidence"?

I have no idea as to how to verify whether or not God spoke to someone or not.

Exactly. That hardly constitutes "undeniable evidence" for anything. In fact, it's a confession to the contrary.

Not only can you not verify whether or not God spoke to anyone, but you also cannot verify that any of the claims made about Jesus in the Gospels ever actually happened or not. Including the claim that God spoke from the clouds proclaiming Jesus to be his Son.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 96 by For_The_Kingdom]



[center]Necessary vs. Contingent existence
Part Three: Things that already exist exist necessarily.
[/center]

Hope I got this part right.
What comes next?

Next up: Is it possible for Blastcat to have a necessary existence?

Of course it's possible. HELLO... I exist.

If it's not possible, why would you DEFINE someone as necessary?
It seems to me that you are lost in the mess of these posts.

From Post 71:

"So, if I defined YOU as a necessarily existing being...does it follow that it is possible for you to exist necessarily? No, not at all. "

These are your words.
IF you define someone as necessarily EXISTING.. why say later that it's not even possible?

Why would you DEFINE something as a necessary being if it's not possible from the get go?
Weird.

But, of course, it's worse for you than that.

I DO "necessarily" exist, of course.

I happen to exist, so it's not only POSSIBLE that I exist, but my existence is something that is NECESSARILY TRUE.

If I ACTUALLY exist, i must NECESSARILY exist .

If I didn't exist, I wouldn't have to exist "necessarily".


What's next?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 74 by For_The_Kingdom]


[center]I don't know but I do
Part Two: Objective morality vs. running amok[/center]

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.

So basically, what you are saying is; once we know the reasons,

Well, no, not really. It would be IF WE COULD KNOW GOD'S REASONS.

I don't know if you claim to be able to know "God's" reasons or not.
Unless you can, there will BE no "ONCE WE KNOW THE REASONS".

All we have is the assurance from some Christians that "God is good".

we will then be able to determine if the are good or bad.....cool.....

Yes, that's very cool. It's also the only way we can decide if the god is good or bad. If we do NOT know the reasons, we can only GO by the actions. If the god kills almost everyone on the PLANET, that ain't particularly good, now is it?

If he orders genocide.. that ain't good either... and if he has his SON die on a cross to ... forgive or whatever... that's not so great.

You may insist that the god is good IN SPITE of those actions.. Like saying that Hitler was a nice guy once you got to know him.. in spite of his ordering mass murder.

Well.... most people would say no about Hitler.. but "God"... yeah, he's probably a nice guy once you get to know him so .... give him a pass.

He is a special case... let's do SPECIAL PLEADING, shall we?

Special Pleading:

"Description: Applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other people or circumstances, while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria, without providing adequate justification. Special pleading is often a result of strong emotional beliefs that interfere with reason."

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/too ... l-Pleading

.but once we DECIDE whether it is good or bad, what will we be basing it off of? Our own personal/subjective standard for what is good or bad, right?

Yep.
We base our morality from our shared sense of empathy, fair play, logic, reasoning, discussions and so on. 'Fraid so.. God or no God.

Only humans can construct moral theories.
And.. well.. we do.

From where does this moral landscape/foundation come from?

Human thoughts, concepts and ideas come from humans, my friend. We.... think them up as we go along. It used to be ok to own slaves. Then we thought better.

Thinking really helps.
Critical thinking helps more.

And how do we even know if THAT is even right or wrong?

We have to take the trouble of discussing that.
Try: "Moral Philosophy" , try "Ethics", try "Law", try "Humanism".

There is just no answer to this on naturalism...

Thanks for that assertion, but "Naturalism" has nothing at all to do with ethics or morality. But I've heard that kind of thing from apologists for a long, long time now.

Apparently, I just don't have any BASIS for morality without your god. I beg to differ. I do have a very SOUND basis for my morality, thank you very much.. no god needed.

and if you don't believe in objective moral values..you have absolutely no basis for being judgmental about anything...

I believe in some kind of "objective" morality, BUT, then again I have a special definition of "objective" when it comes to morality. I think that most modern moral philosophers think that morality is subjective... BUT... but but but... I agree but.. I also agree with Sam Harris that we just might be able to establish a new science of morality. Science Can Determine Human Values is a book by Sam Harris. And science isn't subjective at all..

This is speculative, of course.
Harris is controversial as well as very convincing.

HOWEVER... it's not at all true that if I don't believe in objective morals that I have NO basis for morality. That just isn't born out in real life... Sorry.

Apologists use fallacious reasoning.

sure, you can certainly express your opinion, but so can every else. So it is one big cosmic stalemate.

Not in the real world with real people, it's not.
People's opinions DO matter...

We have laws that reflect most people's opinions.
You have to remember that laws are decided... we have "legal opinions".

You seem to see morality as an objective "thing" that exists independently of humans. I think that's really weird.

But rest assured, even though I don't necessarily think that morality is OBJECTIVE.. I'm not running amok or anything. I can somehow ANYWAY.. figure out what's right or wrong.

God or no god.

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?

Or, don't give him anything..no worship, no praise, no acknowledgement..no nothing..and continue doing whatever the heck we want. That is an option too, ya know.

Yeah.. it is.
That's what I do. I don't pretend to "know" God or worship it or anything at all like that... So?

What's wrong with that?

But still, worshiping your god or not, I'm still not running amok in the streets.. I don't know what you imagine atheists to BE like, really.

EVIL?

SOMEBODY'S got to speak up for the guy.

We want to.

Ok, you want to. Sure...
Good point.

So, you want to stand up for your GOD because........

That all powerful being needs your ... help?

I don't get it.

In any case, I don't think the god depicted in the Bible is a good guy. I think he is portrayed as an evil bloodthirsty psycho. You have your opinion, and I have mine.

Our moral opinions are different.


____________

Questions:

• 
  1.[/b In your opinion, can we know the mind of God?
  
  2. Is it possible to know God's reasons for any particular action?
  
  3. Generally, what are God's reasons for genocide and ordering killing of innocents?
  
  4. When judging someone, do we take in consideration more his character or his actions?
  
  5. When we judge Hitler, do we so so based on his character or his actions?
  
  6. When we judge Rev. Jim Jones, David Koresh, Joseph Kibweteere, Luc Jouret, Shoko Asahara, Marshall Applewhite by the nice things they say, or by their actions? A lot of people thought these people were REALLY good.
  
  7. Are you judging God on different criteria than anyone else?
  
  8. Why did you say that: " if you don't believe in objective moral values..you have absolutely no basis for being judgmental about anything" ? I HAVE to have "OBJECTIVE" moral values in order to evaluate moral issues? You think I can't have moral opinions that are LESS than "objective"?
  
  9. Are you still equating the word "objective" with "absolute"?
  
  10. Are you saying that if we don't believe in absolute standards of some kind of another, we can't even make moral decisions?
  
  11. If you have, how did you discover that what you take as absolute or objective standards are correct?
  
  12. As an agnostic and a skeptic to your faith, I "do whatever I want". Do you consider me to be an immoral person because of that?
  
  13. Do you consider people outside your faith who do NOT think that God is the basis of an objective morality are EVIL?
  
  14. Are you saying that people who don't believe what you do are EVIL?
  
  15. If I made a moral decision of some kind, would you immediately DISCOUNT it just because I don't believe what you do about morality?
  
  16. I would use compassion, fair play and critical thinking as the basis of my moral decision. How is that a bad method?
  
  17. What is your method for arriving at a moral decision?
  
  18. How do you defend yourself against the charge of special pleading?
  
  19. What does "Naturalism" have to do with ethics or morality?
  
  20. Have you heard of secular moral philosophy?
  
  

____________

[Divine Insight]

Apparently, I just don't have any BASIS for morality without your god. I beg to differ. I do have a very SOUND basis for my morality, thank you very much.. no god needed.

This is what theists seem to miss entirely. They just claim that their God is "good" but at the very same time they claim to have absolutely no ability to determine what is "good" themselves.

This is also extremely problematic when it comes to religion in the real world. If I claim that "God" decides what is "good" and that I have no say in the matter, then I can use Christianity to kill non-Christians and proclaim that what I'm doing is GOOD according to the God of Christianity.

Christians wrongfully try to argue that Jesus does not allow for this, but that is blatantly false. Jesus teaches us to love "our" enemies, but he doesn't teach us to love "God's enemies". To the contrary, Jesus supports that every jot and tittle of the Old Law of the prophets shall not pass until heaven and earth pass.

Well the Old Law of the prophets clearly states that heathens and those who teach of other God's are to be killed. And since God has commanded this it must be GOOD.

Therefore if I am a Christian I must kill any heathens I meet, and especially those who blaspheme against God or teach of other Gods. I am not to "turn my other cheek" to them or "love them" because they are not "my enemies". They are "God's Enemies" and God has instructed that is is my duty as his followers that they are to be killed. Jesus never spoke out against this. To the contrary he supported every jot and tittle of it.

Thus me (being a Christian) and being completely unable to decide for myself what constitutes "good or bad", it's not my place to even try to make a judgement on what's good or bad. God commanded that I must kill heathens and blasphemers, therefore to do so must be GOOD!

Obviously Muslims feel this way about their Allah and Muhammad. But there's really no excuse for a Christian to not feel this way about Yahweh and Jesus.

What Christian could say that it was "bad" for Hitler to commit mass genocide against the Jews? The Jews had renounced Christ, the Son of Yahweh, and therefore they are the "enemies of God" and must be killed by God's own decree.

Therefore Hitler killing Jews by the thousands can only be said to be "GOOD" in light of Christianity. Who could argue that it's not "GOOD"? The Jews rejected the Son of Yahweh, therefore they are heathens and the enemy of God. Not "our enemy", but the enemy of God. Therefore they must be killed by God's own GOOD decree.

No Christian can use the Gospels to renounce this view. Jesus never taught that we are to love "God's Enemies". He only taught that we are to love and forgive our own enemies. And he also stood by every jot and tittle of the Old Laws, and in those laws God commands that heathens and blasphemers are to be killed.

So how could any Christian argue that we aren't supposed to be out there killing the enemies of GOD just like Muslim extremists are doing?

Seriously, how could a Christian argue against this?

You certainly can't use Christ as an argument against this. Christ said nothing about loving the enemies of God.

And since a Christian can't have a clue what constitutes the basis of good or evil, they can't even argue against it on those grounds either. God commanded that heathens and blasphemers are to be killed. Therefore it must GOOD to kill them.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 107 by Divine Insight]

The Zealots advocated killing God's enemies, in this case the Romans who oppressed the Jews. Jesus was not a Zealot, nor did he advocate violence against the Romans.

There is no record of anyone seeking justification to kill Romans (God's enemies) based on Jesus' advocacy of the Law.

In fact, Jesus did teach "resist not evil" and to "go the extra mile". Given the context of those remarks, and the enviroment of occupation, it is safe and reasonable to assume he had Romans in mind as those who are "evil". "Not resisting" is the opposite of fighting and killing them.

[benchwarmer]

Well the Old Law of the prophets clearly states that heathens and those who teach of other God's are to be killed. And since God has commanded this it must be GOOD.

I think the real kicker is that WE have to do the killing since apparently God is unable to do it Himself if He feels that one of His laws has been broken. God is all powerful, yet requires us to do His dirty work?

Perhaps maybe these 'laws' were written down to justify putting down dissidents rather than actually being the word of God?