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.