Chuchulainn vs. the Wishful Thinkers, err, Atheists

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How many on WP, just as a percentage?



If so, why make us doubt his existence, through reason, hmm?



Science, an aberration? Need I remind you that there are scientists that are the most devout Christians, regardless? Theistic religion is like Einstein's original cosmological cosntant, a fudge-factor to fill in gaps of knowledge.



I serve nobody except humanity itself.



I could argue that theistic religion leads the gullible into a fate worse than hell: oblivion. No experience, no thought. Nothing. Hell would be a relief compared to oblivion.



And yet Christianity promotes the death of unbelievers rather than their redemption, and yet Christ was all for forgiving one's enemy and turning the other cheek.



I have faith in humanity. It is all I have, and it is as good, and certainly more real and solid than God.



So-called divine revelation could easily be the work of the Devil, or of a deranged byproduct of your brain.

I tend to view extreme religion, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, all extreme forms of institutionalised religion with contempt, bemusement and not a little righteous anger. Conflict between religion and ideologies have caused so much trouble throughout time, and it is the exclusivistic nature of many of these religions, not to mention their attitude of "we're the only ones who are right". Satanists sicken me, but at least they're honest about their sickening nature. Christianity, Islam, Judaism.... I'm not a communist, but their phrase about religion being an opiate of the people is particularly apt all around the world.

God, as Nietzche put it, is dead. The only thing we can do is make sure that we look after each other, and make sure what time we have on Earth is happy and pleasant.

The best number I could find was fifty-one percent, from a poll in the adolescent board. Think of it what you will


Becase science never did anything good for anybody. It's not like it made modern society possible or anything, and it certainly didn't open up new avenues for communication which could certainly be used to reach out to the lost. Nope, didn't do any of those things.

According to atheists, don't we all share that fate?

Yeah, I'm sure your philosophy is perfect to. And NeantHumain, shut up. Please. You're making marginally sane Christians like me look bad.


I disagree with both of you. Atheists can have faith. After all, we all have to have faith in something. And I'm Christian, so I'm sure you can find my beef with your claim Quatermass.

My two cents.

Actually, I would say that the common Christian response would be that pure reason lacks the sufficient strength to define the world. That idea is found in presuppositional apologetics. Ultimately the doubt in their framework comes from a tainted nature, one that according to some of the presuppositionalists is so depraved that divine intervention is necessary to cure the flaw.

There are definitely some. I think his attack was going to scientific epistemology and how scientism is being used to reject other world views. Theistic religion is not so much of a fudge-factor but rather a completely alien framework to view the world.

Remember that within the Christian framework there are 2 major spiritual forces, God and the devil. Who doesn't serve God is a slave to sin, who serves God isn't. Also, in the Christian framework, God is the best thing for humanity, therefore a non-Christian will inevitably lead people to damnation and thus harm them rather than helping them.


Oblivion is better than hell. This fact can be seen from many suicides, pain engenders a desire to leave it for any other fate. But then again, we are arguing coulds, in order to make any argument we have to define better and worse.

If Christianity is a body of the followers of Christ then your criticism is really that Christians aren't Christian and thus that many of them are liars.

Actually the framework you promote is slightly incomplete, I think it is mostly because you haven't posited the existential elements of your beliefs because of your desire to show a pure, logical framework. No matter what we find an element of the irrational.

Yes, as could everything else. That is why we walk forward with faith in our suppositions.

Ok, why? Righteous anger implies a righteous and your following quote is bigger than you quoted. "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?..." The quote ultimately claims that by killing God, we kill the Christian morality, and ultimately there is a problem of how we kill righteousness itself. Obviously Nietzsche is an existentialist, but Christians ultimately agree with Nietzsche that if their framework collapses, nihilism confronts the men who go that direction. The ultimate problem is that there is nothing beyond faith and ideology, some faiths we hold higher than others, and Christians claim that their faith completes men and thus is the greatest, but still, there is not a meta-epistemology or any way to know metaphysics in totality.

That is not the only thing we can do. We can do anything actually. What we do is what is and thus there is the dodge used to fake completeness and neutrality. There is an underlying statement of proper morality without any that morality is X. Utilitarianism is something that Nietzsche also did not support as a truth either "Ye Utilitarians--ye, too, love the UTILE only as a VEHICLE for your inclinations,--ye, too, really find the noise of its wheels insupportable!"-Beyond Good and Evil. If God is dead, then more of our reality has died than we recognize, and the ultimate goal of presuppositional apologists such as what I assume NeantHumain is trying to be, is to show how terrifying the world is with a dead God. You say "God is dead. God remains dead." and apologists will end up rebutting saying "And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?", they want to force the 1st statement to be rejected based upon the conclusion of the 2nd, but what is often found is that the acceptors of the 1st statement do not truly recognize the nature of the 2nd.

blah, blah, blah, blah...
Same old arguments all around....
peace j

Heck yes, you have just summed up a large element of what most people consider reality there!

quote:
the ultimate argument is that the emotional framework for reality makes little sense without underlying element of the soul...

Sure it does. The fact that emotions come from chemicals rather than 'soul' does not make them any less meaningful or important to humanity. Emotions allow us to function in a social network; they are essential for social species to cooperate and survive. The fact that you cannot see a reason for emotions to make sense without a soul does not mean that a reason does not exist.

...we do not act as if our loved ones are only the results of chemical processes...

Only? Why is emotion less valuable to you if it comes from chemicals?

...it really relates back to the entire underlying element of human irrationality and our inability to derive ourselves from a purely material world...

We are understanding more and more of ourselves from a material standpoint every year. The fact that we do not yet know everything - that we will never know everything - is merely a 'soul of the gaps' argument.

The issue is that an atheistic world view is incompatible with all other world views...

As is any world view. The idea that we all start off with our own world view does nothing to validate or invalidate anyone's arguments. I think that people (scientists) who are formally trained to recognize and control for their own assumptions are, even if not always successful, more likely to come out with accurate answers than people (theologists) who are trained to embrace their assumptions.

It certainly reduces the case for rationally assessing emotions as part of the human existence. If it is merely a chemical then it is merely something to changed and manipulated as one wants just as all other material things.
Because there is nothing special about it. It is merely a natural causal reaction to certain events. We do not see glory in the fact that rocks fall, we do not exult in the existence of the chair, there is a slight issue of valuation involved here, valuation relates back to metaphysical elements of reality and if the metaphysical is almost assumed away then there is no proper rational mechanism for valuation.

We are learning that framework quite well, but that is not my argument at all. My argument rather is that this framework removes essential elements of the human existence if it is the only element in existence. We are creatures, but we are thinking creatures and are more than the molecules that make us up, we value, we judge, we need purpose, we exist and are aware of it.... but there is no why for us to do any of that. A value must be created to allow us to act as if we have purpose, to allow us to value things, to allow us to judge. There is more than the chemicals, there is the thinking man and his actions. Note, I am not positing a soul or anything of this, but rather that man seeks more than material existence.


Exactly. I was not denying that or making it special or not so. Actually, it does a lot to invalidate all persuasive attempts to change world views. Scientists??? No, philosophers. Scientists work within a set of assumptions and a good number of scientific people have no strength in the abstract reasoning needed to undermine such common viewpoints. Assumptions cannot be controlled though, and that is where you fail to truly address my point. You keep on positing the neutral viewpoint, and I argue that such a viewpoint is an impossibility as nothing can exist outside of the assumption of its existence. Really theologians are probably better at looking through assumptions because they argue assumptions all of the time and examine philosophical thought whereas scientists argue data and often are relatively concrete thinkers trained in math. To illustrate my point: Kierkegaard, a theologian, was also the forefather of existential philosophy, something that is very important in assessing man's position in the world. I think that the theologians actually have some advantage in viewing assumptions there, as even though they throw themselves into assumptions, as it has been stated, all human beings have faith in something but theologians study that element whereas scientists try to assume their bias away.

I wonder whether you meant your statement to be as offensive as it looks. Demons are not human. Not a big problem for me. Any thinking, rational being with the ability to make moral decisions deserves respect in my eyes. But in the context of Christian theology, demons are always evil. As far as people's moral obligations towards demons are concerned, demons are definitely subhuman. So as far as I can tell, you are saying that atheists are subhuman. If I got you wrong, please correct me and tell me how I went wrong.

If I interpret you correctly, I find your statement as offensive as a Nazi calling Jews subhuman, or the Interahamwe calling Tutsis subhuman, for much the same reason. The last time Christians acted concertedly on the belief that demons act in the world, they burned "witches" at the stake. If that is the fate of people accused of consorting with demons, what treatment can the alleged demons expect? You can see why I would like to know whether I interpret you correctly or not. What is your intention when you call people demons?


Willing servants? If you mean by Satan the great supernatural adversary of the God who created the whole universe and (directly or indirectly) all beings in that universe, then your claim is logically impossible. You can only willingly serve someone who you believe exists. If you don't believe God exists, then you can't logically believe that Satan exists, Satan being a supernatural entity created by God. So if you don't believe Satan exists, you can't willingly serve Satan, even if you should be mistaken and both God and Satan exist. If you want me or any other atheist to respond to that accusation, you really should make it logically coherent. I can say that I would not willingly serve Satan if I thought Satan existed. If you think I would, I ask you to prove it or to retract your claim.


I have stated on WP that I find it unlikely that any god exists. My religious view is best described as atheist. You did not even hint at any exception to your all-inclusive statement, so you included me. I say categorically I do not knowingly lead anyone to hell, even if hell is interpreted as a metaphor. I ask you to either prove that I do, or to retract your claim. If you interpret hell literally, your claim is again logically incoherent, for the same reason as before. How could I knowingly lead people to a place that I don't think exists?

I'll skip most of the rest of your claims for now (we can discuss them at length if you wish), but there is one that makes me curious:

I was not aware of flag-respecting patriotism being a central feature of Christianity. Is it? If it is, which flag must a true Christian respect, would you explain what you mean by patriotism, and what makes it Christian?

Yes but your revelation cannot be observed by anyone other than yourself. Therefor it comes down again to believing rather than to real evidence. Real evidence is something nobody can prove wrong, like fingerprints in a police case or so. Evidence experienced by one person only and without visable proves of it, is no evidence.

I respect your religious believes but I wish that the believers would respect atheists too rather than to call us "idiots" or linking us to demons from hell.

I hope that was irony.



I meant ignorant oblivion. Surely that is worse than knowing there is nothing?



I never stated mine was perfect. After all, it is the work of man.



That you have faith in God? And you think he's real? I'll be polite....



I still view it as a convenient "fill-in-the-gaps" substance, a bit like phlogiston.



But I do not owrk in the Christian framework, so this is irrelevant.



People do not understand, really, what oblivion is. I saw the abyss. Eternal nothing. No experience, no mind to experience.... It scares the s**t out of me. It also forces me to be more compassionate towards people.



Hypocrites is the word I would use. Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor."I see the right path and approve, but I continue to take the wrong path."






Hey, I don't do metaphysics. I haven't studied them as much as you obviously have.




In other words, another guilt trip to compound the ones religion forces upon us.

You can do so if you want, but it is really at some level a different framework, depending on how far one takes it. I mean, fideism is hardly a fill-in-the-gaps belief as it posits the belief in God as a defining part of the world and superior to reason or other evidence.

The best way to go about that isn't to accept and deny his framework, but rather deny it then posit your own.

I cannot even get what you speak of, if you put forward the statement more logically I could get where the connection is. I do not know if you speak of an actual experience that sounds impossible, or some spiritual revelation. I also do not get where the position of morality is derived from through this.

Either way, hypocrisy isn't a Christian doctrine.

I haven't studied metaphysics a lot, but philosophy is very important for a discussion of religion. If I have time, I hope to study metaphysics and things of that nature more as philosophy is starting to interest me more.


A guilt trip? Guilt implies wrong. The idea I speak of is the abolition of wrong and therefore guilt. What is implied there isn't guilt, but rather... I suppose oblivion. When God dies, all of his values die as well, and Nietzsche was concerned about man's struggle with nihilism with the death of Christianity. Some Christian apologists want to thrust those who leave Christianity into this nihilism so that they will return with the horror found in a world with a dead God. Those apologists tend to be the presuppositionalists, not the classical apologists(think of the proofs of God like Anselm's or others) or the evidentialists(who seek historical Christ)

You're both wrong. Although I read Angelus-Mortis's thoughtful post and had some ideas for a response, I lacked the time to properly address each point. I don't have a whole lot of free time most days. Believe me: All challenges can be answered.

I await your responses. I'd love to see you try to weasel out of all this!

You counter a bald assertion with a bald assertion. I am more skeptical that you exist than that God exists (cf. Descartes), so this makes it more absurd for me to believe morality derives from you or any other particular individual! Religious faith is not always some ascetic thing, you know; my Christian faith provides me sound principles to live by. I have not seen any such first principles come from science!

Mind you, I do not oppose science. I oppose that brand of science which puffs up its chest and declares itself to be all truth and the very measure of man and the universe; I call this science grand science. I call that science which recognizes God's preeminence and its origin as a heavenly endowment humble science.

God endowed man with the faculty of reason. Reason enables us to deepen our faith and know the Lord better along the lines of St. Augustine. However, Satan can deceive our reason with his tempting rationalizations.

I fear a world where the individual defines his own subjective brand of morality, but your diabolical reasoning thinks it ought to be so? Sir, faith brought the soldiers together on Christmas during World War I: Germans and Frenchmen! Faith has saved many in their hour of greatest need. Faith has fueled outrage against the world's sinful injustices. Just consider Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.! All this tells me faith is more significant than some computers, electrical power, or the atomic bomb! Please don't tell me you rank worldly comforts above social justice and righteous living!

I am more interested in saving Christians who may be shaken in their faith by other arguments posted here.

You beg the question. You expect me to provide evidence in the form of scientific investigation and logical inference when this is not the basis of faith. Your demand is akin to, "Show me why the religious perspective is better than the scientific-materialistic one using the means of coming to the scientific-materialistic perspective but not those for coming to the inspirational one. That is a nonstarter.

More and more, I am convinced that the atheistic wills not to know God in His presence in everything and everywhere at all times. The atheistic mind is cold and methodical, unable to feel the zest of divine awe and reverence. Without the ability to feel these religious feelings, perhaps all attempts to proselytize can only fall on deaf ears.

In other words, to be atheist is to be halfway dead.