Posts by Viviane

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

Viviane

Ruling dinosaurs did not followed altruism and they only became extinct due to external causes.

Looks like someone needs to study evolution.

John your one-word dismissal of many of my most important arguments is not conducive to a useful conversation.

John can't really "converse" because he doesn't know what he is talking about on practically any subject. Notice he can't even address morality in the Bible and has the idea that the first Christians were Catholic. He doesn't understand science, logic, history or evidence.

He could fix that if he wanted, but he doesn't want.

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

Viviane

My goal is not proselytizing but just offer another view (the oldest and majority) of Christianity.

Oldest? My my, look who doesn't know their subject material! And you said you were all for education. How precious.

Modern atheism seems like to orbit in just a denial of the concept of God provided by a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible blended with a baseless scientism

Baseless? Name one thing religion figured out about the universe that didn't involve science. Go on. I dare you.

God is not a subject to science, but God is subject to philosophy

Explain the difference between science and philosophy, please.

Atheists seems to forget that the very scientific method is a philosophical method applied to the physical world (one aspect of the scientific method is based on a philosophy created by a Catholic monk, the Occam's Razor). So it's very illogical to use scientific method to disprove God.

Atheist lack belief in god. That's it. If you want to pretend to speak of atheists as a group, that's literally the only thing you can say about them.

So, from that accurate starting point, explain explicitly the steps from "Occoam was a Franciscan" to "illogical to use". You kind of glossed over all of the bits that would make any of that make sense or form an argument. "Because Catholic" is not an argument.

With this atheistic view it's also impossible to cope with things not reached by scientific method of explanation like morality, justice, etc.

I cope with it just fine. Wrong and try again.

Consciousness cannot be submitted to the ordinary scientific method (we even don't have a definition of it) so the logical conclusion of materialism is consciousness doesn't exists at all.

Why not? Details, facts and evidence required. You've provided none. Fail and try again.

Famous atheists also affirm that the universe came to existence (Hawking talks about a strange argument that gravity is the ultimate cause) by itself so logically you have a nothing as a first cause. Ultimately our entire universe (including us) is caused by nothing.

What do you mean by "nothing"?

Nihilism says that there's nothing.

100% incorrect. You fail at knowing what nihilism is. Care to try again?

210

Morality Without Deity

by cofty in

one of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.

it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.

christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.

Viviane

It is human nature to be moral because man is made in God's image, but since humans -unlike animals- are free moral agents, they are free to fo whatever they like, even to deviate from what comes naturally, but not without consequences.

Moral like when god ordered babies cut out of women's stomachs (God, the First Abortionist!) or when he said it was OK to beat slaves to death as long as it took a day or two to die or when he said take the virgin girls and forcibly make them your wives, meaning rape them.

Which of those is the morality to which you refer?

64

Is the Bible from Men, NOT God?

by the-Question in

for those claiming that- how much thought or research have you done?.

objective or non-objective?.

ever read the other books claiming to be from god?

Viviane

They encouraged me to do research into the Background of the Bible- and being a Thinker, I figured it interesting...expecting to find all KINDS of holes and fallacies.

Your first thought was correct.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_scientific_errors

64

Is the Bible from Men, NOT God?

by the-Question in

for those claiming that- how much thought or research have you done?.

objective or non-objective?.

ever read the other books claiming to be from god?

Viviane

thank you for the condescending insult.
Baptist?

Mere observer of reality. Why are you insulted by the obvious?

74

This site should be called Anti-Jehovahs-Witnesses Cry-babies

by the-Question in

so, you left because of a bad example(s).. why all the whining?

nothing better to do with your time?.

you at least know far more about the bible than any church-goer?.

Viviane

So, if nothing else, you LEARNED about God and Christ!

So true. That part of my brain is now filled with useless information.

64

Is the Bible from Men, NOT God?

by the-Question in

for those claiming that- how much thought or research have you done?.

objective or non-objective?.

ever read the other books claiming to be from god?

Viviane

Am I mistakenly or did the-Quesrion respond to his own troll account?

401

So, the Womens March ... What Is It For?

by Simon in

it seems like mobilizing after the election, which seems pointless.

i keep hearing demands for equal rights but don't understand what rights they are missing exactly.. normally a march is to show the support (and potential votes) for a cause, but ... votes for what?

... and the election happened already.. is anyone else confused?

Viviane

This thread reminds me of exactly why I quit this site, short sighted morons that have no idea what empathy is and can't think more than two inches in front of them.

Let the reader use discernment on what the two inches aren't. (Hint: Satisfying, especially when 2" is being generous).

27

Where We Jews (and Religionists) Have Not Been So Forthcoming

by David_Jay in

because i feel some people have become confused in thinking that i am promoting religion or thinking that being jewish is some type of special gift that makes me better, i am writing to tell you that i don’t feel this way.

think of this as your christmas gift (or chanukah or festivus or whatever).. despite the fact that i too practice a religion, i also think atheism is a purposeful and noble use of the mind.

too often people with a religion have only bad things to say about atheism and atheists.

Viviane

I was very surprised by this allegation about Heartsafire who is normally only very kind and encouraging with her comments and tried to find these alleged offensive comments by her but was unable. How about you quote them or post a link Viviane?

Heartsafire said people concerned with facts were misers and sharks. This is an illustration of how it looks when you decides facts and reality are irrelevant. I purposely picked outrageous examples to highlight the absurdity of that notion.

It's also an excellent illustration that more people need to read Swift and Machiavelli.

39

Shunning

by A Believer in

you guys do know that if you just leave and never go back you wont be disfellowshiped right?

i know people who have done exactly this.

you have to commit a sin and you or someone else has to tell a elder.

Viviane

Actually, you can be DF'ed if they think you've broken their rules with zero evidence.

So, as usual, a JW is telling only the part of the story that doesn't make the JWs look like total assholes.