To cofty
Re TTWSYF
You have all your
work ahead of you to explain why christianity is true. You might persuade me it
is useful but certainly not true. Atheism is nothing more than the honest
confession that the claims of christianity are unconvincing. Science,
rationality and humanism is responsible for all of the progress in society
since the Enlightenment. Religion had centuries and failed. The hungry are
being fed, the sick are being cured and its all thanks to abandoning old
superstitions.
Cofty you seem to be an
atheist and naturalist. Now let’s put
atheism and naturalism under the microscope.
First may we
define our terms. The word Atheism comes literally from the Greek, alpha the
negative and theos [for God], therefore “negative God” or there is no God. It
is not saying, “I do not think or believe there is a God”, rather it affirms
the non existence of God. It affirms a negative in the absolute. Anyone who
took philosophy 101 knows you cannot affirm a negative in the absolute. It is a
logical contradiction. Therefore it is self defeating. It also breaks the rule
of non contradiction by ascribing to itself a divine attribute while at the
same time denying the existence of the Divine. Atheism not only denounces the
existence of God, but by its own definition denounces the principle by which it
criticizes the reality of God. To make an absolute statement in the negative is
similar to saying that nowhere in the universe does there exist a flying
spaghetti monster. For the atheist to make such a claim he must have unlimited
knowledge of this universe. What the atheist is fundamentally saying is that he
has infinite knowledge of this universe to affirm that there exist no being
with infinite knowledge. It is self defeating.
You are better
off taking the position of Agnostic.
But let’s
continue.
A purely
naturalistic account of morality.
Socially inclined
individuals beget other socially inclined individuals the younger generation is
equally likely to pass on those same traits, and so on.
If morals evolved over time then we cannot have any
confidence in them because evolution aims not at truth but at survival,
therefore the morals would have been selected on either pragmatic or
utilitarian bases, because that view aims at survival and not truth.
Morality is ultimately the result of an
implicit agreement among civilized people.
When Trog want
something Og have, Trog hit Og on head and take it. When Og want thing back, Og
get big club, hit Trog on head, and take thing back. Og take things too. After
much thinking Trog and Og sit down and forge an agreement. Trog and Og agree to stop swinging their clubs
at each other’s head, for the liberties, such as the right to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness.
Trog and Og will
be motivated to keep the terms of their agreement only as long as they believe
that doing so is ultimately what serves their interest. When it serves Og’s
interest he will hit Trog overhead again. There is no ‘ought’ in the agreement.
No moral obligation. If there is no
immortality then all things are permitted. There is no objective reason why man
should be moral unless morality pays off in his social life or makes him feel
good. If there is no God, then there is
no objective standard of right and wrong.
Meaning of Life.
If each individual person passes
out of existence when he dies, then what ultimate meaning can be given to his
life?
Mankind is thus no more
significant that swarm of mosquitoes or a barnyard of pigs, for their end is
all the same.
The same blind cosmic process that
coughed them up in the first place will eventually swallow them all again.
Since modern man ends in nothing,
he is nothing.
Man needs more than just
immortality for life to be meaningful. Mere duration of existence does not make
that existence meaningful. If man and the universe could exist forever, but if
there was no God, their existence would still have no ultimate significance.
Life can go on and on and still be utterly without meaning. It is not
immortality man needs if life is to be ultimately significant; he needs God and
immortality. Thus if there is no God, then life itself becomes meaningless. Man
and the universe are without ultimate significance.
DESTINY
If life ends at the grave, your
destiny is ultimately unrelated to your behavior, you may as well just live as you please.
There is nothing special about
human beings. They are just accidental by products of nature that have evolved
relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust call the planet Earth,
lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe, and which are doomed to
perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time.
PURPOSE
We are here for no purpose. If
there is no God, then your life is not qualitatively different from that of an
animal. “There is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity.
All go to the same place. All come
from the dust and all return to the dust.” Eccl 3:19-20.
Without God the universe is the
result of a cosmic accident, a chance explosion. There is no reason for which
it exists.
Man is a freak of nature a blind
product of matter plus time plus chance, a miscarriage of nature, thrust into a
purposeless universe to live a purposeless life.
Since this is
your worldview, why are you arguing morals, according to your worldview man is
nothing but the result of time plus slime, with no significant value. Man came
from nothing, is returning to nothing, therefore is nothing. So why care if
someone owns slaves, or kills children, More people were killed in the 20
century in the name of atheism and naturalism than in all the centuries
Christianity existed. What is the difference? The Christian atrocities go
against the teachings of Jesus, the atheist atrocities are a logical outworking
of its worldview. Being an atheist and naturalist why do you care? According to your worldview all those little children that Hitler gassed were nothing more than accidental byproducts of nature.
