The new atheist just doesn’t care

National Post ^ | March 26, 2015 | John Moore

[discostu]

You can’t really prove creation. In some way shape or form there has to be a method. “Proof” would involve finding the chemical processes, which really wouldn’t show creation, it would just show step one (well, step one of life, there’s a whole bunch of step before that which resulted in our cosmically young planet revolving around a cosmically young star, which also kind of works against that whole creation thing).

I could believe in God, but I still wouldn’t worship Him. And that’s not a statement of intent, it’s an acknowledgement of who I am. The multiple times I walked away from Christianity before weren’t tied to belief, they were from an inability to worship. I arrived at the belief by internalizing the fact that for me it just doesn’t matter. Like the article says, atheism through not actually caring. For us religion is kind of like a neighborhood you never go to, not because it’s a bad neighborhood or you don’t like, just because none of your life is there, you don’t live there, your friends don’t live there, your job’s not there, you don’t go to the stores there. So even if there’s proof of God, that’s just not a neighborhood in my life.

[Zeneta]

I could believe in God, but I still wouldn’t worship Him. And that’s not a statement of intent, it’s an acknowledgement of who I am

---

Really?

How do you think you are?

[discostu]

Reality can be not random and not created. We know there are “rules”, gravity, the speed of light, chemical reactions. So a photo that says things couldn’t be random just means the rules are followed, which is good news for our folks trying to figure out the rules, but doesn’t mean somebody followed a design.

[Zeneta]

How=Who

[discostu]

As I’ve said multiple times. I’m not a worshiping guy.

[Zeneta]

As I’ve said multiple times. I’m not a worshiping guy

---

Neither am I.

Not publically.

It’s awkward, it can seem disingenuous.

[discostu]

I’m not at all. On any level.

[Zeneta]

I’m not at all. On any level

---

Not yet.

[discostu]

So far not in 45 years. While it’s theoretically possible random things could flip around in my brain, it doesn’t seem terribly likely. I think there’s a better chance of us both winning the lottery.

[Gideon7]

Yes, that’s the thing: There is no rule that requires the physical universe have cosmological structures are observable across billions of light years. It’s not an precise arbitrary physical constant that has to be have exactly the right value for life to exist (the Anthropic Principle does not apply). And yet there it is, 100 billion galaxies with 100 billion stars each, shining in the sky in all it’s glory. And we can actually see it all. It’s almost as if somebody was showing off or something..

[Diamond]

But for now, there isn't enough hard empirical evidence to suggest to me that there is a God. Because of that, I don't have a basis upon which to form any kind of a supernatural religious belief.

I would just point out that the mere fact of your presupposition of the validity of universal, abstract principles and laws evinced in your two sentences above is incontrovertible evidence in and of itself that your non-theistic world-view is not true because there is no basis for said non-material, universal, invariant entities in a non-theistic, impersonal, ever-changing, random universe of mere matter in motion.

In other words, you are not being consistent with your own world-view; you are presupposing the existence of transcendent, unchanging, non-physical entities and laws just like a theist does, except you have no way of accounting for such entities in an atheistic world-view. If the universe was actually nothing but impersonal, ever-changing, matter in motion you couldn't string two coherent sentences together or make sense of anything because in an atheist world there would be no such thing as a universal. There would be only random, ever-changing, physical particulars.

Your espoused worldview cannot make real things such as unchanging laws of logic (and thus your own rationality) intelligible.

Cordially,

[deadrock]

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

[DiogenesLamp]

I think you have your dates mixed up. Hitler took the Sudetenland in 1938. He had been in power for five years already.

What you say is true, but doesn't address my point. It would have been far less bloody to stop Hitler at the Sudetenland instead of the Bulge, and as I pointed out earlier, it would have been easier still to stop him before he came into power.

But we cannot blame them for not stopping him before he came into power. No one knew at that time he would become the threat that he eventually became.

The Sudetenland is another matter though. This was the "inch" that he shouldn't have been given before he bit off the "mile" that he took.

[EternalVigilance]

I don’t believe in atheists.

They don’t exist.

[DiogenesLamp]

No. Atheism exists because some people just aren’t into religion.

This is a statement from the perspective of a Modern American. It implies no understanding of how things looked from a Pre-Christian perspective. Would the Roman's have tolerated people denying or mocking their gods?

Plenty of non-Christian religions have established rules for folks to live by.

Sure. But what is the end result of these other religions? China was more or less unchanged for 3,000 years. They had a belief system, it kept everyone in their place, but where did their society go? Why was it stagnant and content to remain at a medieval level of existence for 3,000 years?

How about the Egyptians? The Incas and the Aztecs? Where did their civilization advance to, and how tolerant of Atheists were they? Would Vishnu worshipers have advanced? Would the Buddihsts have been content to just exist as they did for so many centuries without any change?

The modern world was created solely by the spread of Christianity. All the other religions created stagnant and oppressive societies that never improved. To be sure, there was plenty of oppression in the Christian societies, but the foundation for positive change was there. It was the belief that other people were children of God, and entitled to be regarded as equals, as members of the same family.

Which religion ended slavery? It is still practiced in Muslim countries today. How was it ended? It was that belief that they too are children of God and entitled to a fair treatment.

Your admonition that religions are interchangeable, or that Atheism can exist on a widespread basis without disrupting very fundamental ideas underpinning our society is just naive.

But I am very cognizant of the probability that I will not be able to explain these ideas to you in such a way that you will grasp how this stuff all fits together. I could show you numerous bits and pieces to point you in the right direction, but you will have to do the thinking.

I don’t think society does need to have religious beliefs. Again, there’s plenty of place to ground or moral system that don’t have anything to do with religion. Simple common sense does it for most folks.

One of the most common mistakes that people make is to believe that others think as do they. You speak as if there is only one "common sense" when in fact there are as many opinions on what constitutes "common sense" as there are people.

To people of a certain way of thinking, euthanizing "genetic defectives" is just "common sense." They argue that these people cost money, they will never have a meaningful life, and everybody would be happier if such people were done away with. Here's an example of what I mean about what some will argue is "common sense."

This poster points out how much it costs to take care of genetically defective people,(Erbkranke) and then ends with "It's your money too."

Other "common sense" is that everyone should be employed by the state. That their common work product should be shared from those according to their ability to those according to their need. This "common sense" is responsible for the deaths of 100 million people, and untold misery for the last century.

Whatever are the powers that be, I call upon them to save us all from other people's "common sense."

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

The difference between Atheism and Theism is the difference between choice and duty.

For most of human history, the organizing principles of human societies have revolved around the duties of man to a higher power. Rejection of these duties might be possible in a free society, but the preeminence of these organizing principles cannot be challenged. This is the foundation of the U.S. Constitution. Regardless of whether you choose to respect the divine nature of our freedoms, society as a whole recognizes that God has endowed us with these rights and resists the abrogation of them.

Starting with the Romantics in the late Eighteenth Century, those who rejected God sought the freedom from duty of the very children they revered as guides. Once there is no God, all behaviors become choices. Once enough people are convinced of the equivalence (or superiority) of new principles to the old, there is no justification for their preservation. If our rights do not come from a higher power, then there is no rational reason not to modify them when we (with our imperfect and arrogant human knowledge) believe we have found something better. This is what is presently happening in the U.S. Our rights are under assault because the population has been convinced that our rights are nothing more than social conventions.

Atheists are the liberals’ best friends. They provide the rationale for the liberals’ deconstruction of America’s institutions and principles.

[Diamond]

I can identify the things that need changing and change them

In an atheist world-view that's a bigger miracle than Creation. As C. S. Lewis once pointed out, a measuring stick needs to be independent of the thing measured. How is it that you and/or your measuring stick are independent of a cosmos of blind, ever-changing matter in motion, and what possibly could such a cosmos "need" of anything?

Cordially,

[discostu]

There’s no miracle to self criticism. And I don’t really give a damn what the cosmos needs.

[discostu]

Why wouldn’t there be? Why would gravity work differently a few miles away? Why would the speed of light change a few miles away? And given that there are billions of galaxies each with billions of stars it’s kind of inevitable than on at least a few the right balance would hit and life would happen.

[discostu]

Actually the Romans DID tolerate people denying and mocking their gods. They weren’t that uptight about things.

China stayed unchanged because they decided the rest of the world sucked. Really, they did quite a bit of exploring, found it not terribly interesting and went home. What’s wrong with being content?

Egypt ran into the Rome problem. Being the #2 empire in a small sea is a precarious position and eventually is always doomed.

Incas and Aztec were doing fine until the Spanish brought diseases they’d never had before.

Vishnu worshipers did advance. And again what’s wrong with content.

You ascribe a lot of our advances to Christianity and you really shouldn’t. The time when Christianity held biggest rein on society was the time when we DIDN’T advance. The Dark Ages. And most of our advancement really stems from war. A very high percentage of our technology was invented to kill people and take their stuff. Another significant percentage was invented and ignored until somebody figured out how to use it to kill people and take their stuff. Not really the product of Christian values.

Actually quite a few religions never even had slavery so they didn’t need to end it.

Atheism IS existing on a widespread basis without disrupting fundamental ideas underpinning our society.

You really need to stop with all the Nazi junk. Not only is reliance on Godwin the ultimate proof you have no facts. They were HIGHLY religious, so they really prove you wrong.