I take every person individually. If you do not consider Stalin's USSR an atheist driven mind set and you will be consistent then I won't use it as an example. However if you use it as an example of atheism (as I believe you did) then they are back on the table. So, please chose a position, but just one. Its the same thing with evolution, people keep claiming what it produced if it is convenient, but deny what it produced if inconvenient. I don't care which just be consistent.
Bad people do bad things. Many Nazi officers, maybe Hitler included, were Catholics. And their church, which is by definition made up of God believers, never excommunicated them. They prefer to excommunicate a doctor performing an abortion on a girl risking her life because of her pregrancy, rather than people killing crying Jewish children in the face. I am sure they need to work on their epistemology, too.
True, you are not Catholic. But they do believe in God. So, do you expect me to buy the idea that religious belief provides a better support for morality?
And what about the reformation? Have you read Luther? Have you read his booklet titled "on the Jews and their lies"? How is that distinguishable from a treatise written by SS Reichsführer Himmler?
Is this what we should expect from believers in God? Can I use these cases? If not, why not?
Now, take your defense, if any, and apply it to Stalin and his atheism.
Why do we spend hours debating this only to wind up right back where I started. It seems we agree that moral nihilism is justifiable on atheism. IOW the ontology of moral values and duties given atheism is non-existence. I would also agree that most atheists are on average morally on par with theists. So the only thing left to discuss is moral epistemology which is another subject entirely.
Exactly, there is nothing to debate. There are only two inescapable "if then" conditions which digitally determine the nature of moral ontology.
And here you switch to epistemology. I always assumed you knew the difference between the two but let me give a brief description.
Ah, but not everyone would agree with you. Some believe that it is nonsensical to postulate an ontology without an epistemology. Mathematical constructivists are like that.
In other words: it is not difficult to make up the existence of X without a way to validate it in a non question begging way. You can try to validate yours without assuming the existence of God given morality in the premises. Let's see where you land.
So you can see how the nature of a thing is independent of how we come to know about it. Things get blurry when you do not keep both properly compartmentalized.
Yes, and probably there is an ontology concerning the standards of beauty that come from the nature of the invisible fairy. Don't ask me about the epistemology, for the two things should not be confused.
We keep stepping on each other. Here again you have gotten what atheism can justify with what do atheists do or believe. Atheists do and think a great many things, but not much of what they do or think is consistent with or can be based on atheism. I am pretty sure atheism is a net loss of epic proportions. Can you name anything you can erect on the foundation of a lack of belief in God that can't be better erected on some theological foundation? The only thing I can think of is atheism, alone. BTW are you a positive atheist (what until now has been called simply atheism or hard atheist), or are you an a-theist (what has been called agnostic or soft atheism)? These days you can't define an atheist by atheism.
I am a naturalist. I reject any teleology, or ultimate purpose, in the Universe, intended as the set of all things that exist.
True, I do not believe that anyone will play harp in Heaven for all eternity. Or that Gods can spawn themselves so that they can die for a while for our sins. But I do not choose my beliefs because they might cause a loss or do not exactly correspond to my wishful thinking, or to my human mundane needs to extend my life, and life of my dear ones, and have justice eventually applied.
What I would do or you would do is not relevant. What two foundations would justify is.
So, atheism can theoretically justify nihilism, ergo it is wrong. Right?
Which worldview on average would result in less murders?
1. Human life has inherent sanctity, has an eternal soul, has infinite value, and infinite worth. We will all face absolute justice for our actions eventually.
2. Humans are merely biological anomalies, lacking a soul, no ultimate value or worth. Hitler and Billy Graham's ultimate fate was the same.
Again, I don't care. Even if atheism would cause the annihilation of humanity, that woukd not entail that God exists. It would entail that we just slightly increase the percentage of of all species who got extinct. Too bad. I am sure that will not cause the galaxy of Andromeda to weep.
I am more interested in what I consider true, then in what I consider safe.
But relax. Real secular democracies do not seem to present any of the malaise you seem to anticipate. So, empirically, your angst can be dismissed out of hand.
Then why didn't the non-Christian Jefferson actually do so? He literally cut the core doctrines out of his bible but could not find another source for the rights of man that nature's God.
Well, since Jesus was a man, it is not surprising that he, allegedely, understood what is good for us. Wouldn't you, if you never heard of Jesus? Really?
You seem to indicate that the divinity of Jesus is the only explanation for Him to have discovered the golden rule. Oh, well. A miracle! Only a God could have undesrtood that it is maybe a good idea to treat the other as we would like to be treated. All those other miracles He performed were just superflous and uninteresting show offs.
As your favorite scholar once stated:
Thus, for instance, I was much moved by the eloquent attack on Christianity as a thing of inhuman gloom; for I thought (and still think) sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. Insincere pessimism is a social accomplishment, rather agreeable than otherwise; and fortunately nearly all pessimism is insincere. But if Christianity was, as these people said, a thing purely pessimistic and opposed to life, then I was quite prepared to blow up St. Paul’s Cathedral. But the extraordinary thing is this. They did prove to me in Chapter I. (to my complete satisfaction) that Christianity was too pessimistic; and then, in Chapter II., they began to prove to me that it was a great deal too optimistic. One accusation against Christianity was that it prevented men, by morbid tears and terrors, from seeking joy and liberty in the bosom of Nature. But another accusation was that it comforted men with a fictitious providence, and put them in a pink-and-white nursery. One great agnostic asked why Nature was not beautiful enough, and why it was hard to be free. Another great agnostic objected that Christian optimism, “the garment of make-believe woven by pious hands,” hid from us the fact that Nature was ugly, and that it was impossible to be free. One rationalist had hardly done calling Christianity a nightmare before another began to call it a fool’s paradise. This puzzled me; the charges seemed inconsistent. Christianity could not at once be the black mask on a white world, and also the white mask on a black world. The state of the Christian could not be at once so comfortable that he was a coward to cling to it, and so uncomfortable that he was a fool to stand it. If it falsified human vision it must falsify it one way or another; it could not wear both green and rose-coloured spectacles. I rolled on my tongue with a terrible joy, as did all young men of that time, the taunts which Swinburne hurled at the dreariness of the creed—
“Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilaean
Orthodoxy - Christian Classics Ethereal Library
I think I am going to run out of room and maybe time, so I will continue below:
My favorite scholar of Christianity is Karlheinz Deschner. I am not sure if that is taken from his books.
Ciao
- viole
