Posted on 05/04/2014 12:34:25 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Legendary conservative columnist George Will says he is an atheist. […]
“I’m an amiable, low voltage atheist,” Will explained. “I deeply respect religions and religious people. The great religions reflect something constant and noble in the human character, defensible and admirable yearnings.”
“I am just not persuaded. That’s all,” he added. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Well, when they create God in their own image, it's pretty easy.
Those are characterizations. That’s as intellectually dishonest as characterizing all atheists as socialistic/communistic, with all due respect.
No, not “historical fact”. Unless the historians have time machines? It’s historical conjecture, if not outright revisionism.
That’s funny. Nowhere in the Koran does it say that Allah and mankind share the same image or form. I thought you read the Koran?
I wouldn’t be worried about lying to the Nazis. But a lie is a lie.
“I recognize the real world reasons for acting in a moral way.”
What are they?
You denigrate your own “point” now (whatever it is) with invective and argumentum ad hominem. It’s crystal clear that “boiling beef/goat in milk” is not the same as the specific act of boiling a baby goat in it’s own mother’s milk—in context, that was an act associated with idolatry of the time.
You do not become “right about” anything by asserting the absence fallacy. Never mind your being deliberately mendacious about the scriptures not saying “a word against rape” when it clearly does.
BTW, what does any of this have to do with George Will? Surely you are not presenting yourself as representative of Mr. Will’s personality.
There is less evidence that anything is setup your way.
Do you believe that consciousness exists or not?
It’s a simple question.
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Yes.
Nonsense. It was a list of foods that were permitted and not permitted. Which was apparently, far, far more important than squeezing in a sentence or two about rape. Why? Because that’s the Middle East. That’s them then and that’s then now. To take them as your guide is as foolish as looking to the Mayan calendar for signs as to the end of time.
It doesn't have to: they claim descent from Abraham, therefore what Abraham's God has already said doesn't need to be said again. But like you, they choose what they accept and what they don't accept, and interpret it to please themselves.
Yes it does have to. Claims of descent from Abraham does not mean adhering to the same ideology that was developing from Abraham. The descendants of Esau (Abraham’s firstborn grandson from Isaac) certainly did not; nor did the descendants of Ishmael, who most Arabs claim descent from.
That’s your opinion. Several billion Muslims already consider the matter settled. And it’s bizarre that you find arguing about the Koran not describing something already covered by the OT more important than any holy book of morals outlining clearly and specifically that raping a child, a young, unbetrothed girl, a slave, your wife, or a widow utterly unworthy of mention. But it says a great deal about you.
Thanks for more admission of not reading the Bible. The injunction of not boiling kid goats in their own mother’s milk has nothing to do with the list of clean and unclean animals, especially since goat meat was in the list of clean animals—even to the point of a kid being an acceptable substitute for a lamb for a Passover sacrifice.
One sentence about violent rape was “squeeze(d) in”; denying the record after reading it is more mendacity, never mind the deliberate attempts at deceptive backtranslations.
The opinion of Muslims seems more important to you than that of Christians—or possibly Jews. That seems to imply a more approving slant towards them on your part.
It’s not the Bible that describes women as “field(s)” to be “plow(ed)” at the man’s pleasure. Only the Koran proclaims this as law, in essence.
Tell me again about that verse that says you shouldn't rape an unbetrothed virgin? Oh, that's right, you said there wasn't one. Apparently recipes and such took up all that extra space.
By the way, do you eat bacon? Just curious.
But little as I like any religion, modern-day Judaism irritates me the least because, unlike the others, they don't try to recruit.
So what’s your definition of consciousness?
That doesn't mean it's immutable, only that reasonable, rational people can make determinations on these sorts of things.
Please note that in my first response to you I noted that your belief in argumentation itself assumes, without justification, that there are prescriptive, abstract, universal, unchanging laws of logic and reason. I wasn't referring specifically to laws of morality, but those can certainly be included along with logic and reason as unjustified and unaccounted for in an atheistic worldview.
If I may parenthetically answer your assertions about morality, I have read all of your posts in this thread up to this point, and it seems that in #212 and #223 you offer as a justification or account of morality a utilitarian description of morality as a system for homo sapiens to live with each other, in which it is obligatory that people seek to minimize or eliminate pain and suffering as much as possible.
One criticism that could be leveled at this description of morality is that announcing a utilitarian standard of morality concerning the well being of sentient beings doesn't justify it. If simply announcing a standard justifies it then the Taliban can stipulate their own standards just as you have. Fair is fair. If you are free to stipulate your own moral standard then I am free to stipulate a different one. For example, I could include other mammals, which you exclude.
When you point out that societies based on rape, murder, torture, and slavery do not last and eventually fail, as do those who base their lives on such, the deeper problem is that evolutionary assessments of moral behavior are only descriptive of past conduct. If I ask, why should I not be selfish and you reply that when I am selfish I hurt society and I reply, why should I care about society and you point out that societies based on rape, murder, torture, and slavery do not last and eventually fail, I can ask, so what? Why should I care about societies failing? If you reply that I ought to care about societies failing then you are simply presuming some prior moral notion that I ought to care about societies failing, which is not to account for moral incumbency, but to assume the very thing in question.
The preceding is parenthetical. What I want to know is, how you can have ANY kind of abstract "laws" at all in an atheistic system, i.e., a naturalistic, materialistic, ever-changing and contingent universe governed by chance. When you say, "that doesn't mean it's (morality) immutable, only that reasonable, rational people can make determinations on these sorts of things" you are also assuming prescriptive laws of logic and rationality. So, my question is, do you mean that the "laws" of morality, as well as the "laws" of reason and rationality are subject to change? Are they universal or are they conventional?
Cordially,
That is, what are the real world reasons for acting in a moral way?
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