Posted on 11/17/2003 6:02:20 AM PST by Tribune7
The idea that he is a devotee of reason seeing through the outdated superstitions of other, lesser beings is the foremost conceit of the proud atheist. This heady notion was first made popular by French intellectuals such as Voltaire and Diderot, who ushered in the so-called Age of Enlightenment.
That they also paved the way for the murderous excesses of the French Revolution and many other massacres in the name of human progress is usually considered an unfortunate coincidence by their philosophical descendants.
The atheist is without God but not without faith, for today he puts his trust in the investigative method known as science, whether he understands it or not. Since there are very few minds capable of grasping higher-level physics, let alone following their implications, and since specialization means that it is nearly impossible to keep up with the latest developments in the more esoteric fields, the atheist stands with utter confidence on an intellectual foundation comprised of things of which he knows nothing.
In fairness, he cannot be faulted for this, except when he fails to admit that he is not actually operating on reason in this regard, but is instead exercising a faith that is every bit as blind and childlike as that of the most unthinking Bible-thumping fundamentalist. Still, this is not irrational, it is only ignorance and a failure of perception.
The irrationality of the atheist can primarily be seen in his actions – and it is here that the cowardice of his intellectual convictions is also exposed. Whereas Christians and the faithful of other religions have good reason for attempting to live by the Golden Rule – they are commanded to do so – the atheist does not.
In fact, such ethics, as well as the morality that underlies them, are nothing more than man-made myth to the atheist. Nevertheless, he usually seeks to live by them when they are convenient, and there are even those, who, despite their faithlessness, do a better job of living by the tenets of religion than those who actually subscribe to them.
Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Ummm... same reason I seek objective truth? Because we live in a world that is really there, the principles & laws by which its operation is governed are objectively true or false? The alternative would be solipsism, and IMO solipsism has not done anything for me lately. (But maybe some solipsist will pipe up and say, "it works fine for me!") <ahem>
Damn, these voices in my head are getting louder.
Because you have no objective evidence that my God doesn't exist. You are basing your belief (faith) not on proof but on what you presume to be an absense of proof as to His existience. You're belief in a non-supernatural cause to the universe is solely predicated on a emoitional certainty that God can't exist.
There is no evidence that God can't exist -- in fact -- as noted earlier -- there are paradoxes in physical laws which have historically been explained via the presumption of a Creator apart from the laws of nature.
Hey, I'm responding to your argument remember.
-- Tribune 7.
And you disagree with this because . . .?
Imagine there's no heaven purpose,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...
Please, RWP, spare me any attempt to discredit Richard Feynman. The result will be that you discredit yourself.
That you don't believe in Zeus is faith. That I don't believe in Zeus is faith. If one of us believed in Zeus it would be faith. That you don't believe in God is faith. My belief in God is faith.
Faith is the belief in things unseen, according to Scripture. For the sake of this discussion, I'd say the belief in things that can't be measured is faith.
I simply do not hold belief in things for which I have seen no evidence, and thus far your god falls into the category of "things for which I have seen no evidence".
Fair enough. But God's existence and what His will is are the most important questions one faces. How one answers that question, however, is intensly personal and I'd have it no other way.
There is a social aspect to this which is the reason I don't feel compelled to debate it -- rather than merely witness.
A few posts back I set RWP off when I asked if atheist/anybody had a purpose in response to a situation he posited.
Our rights our inherent to an axiomatic belief they come from a Creator. I am as certain as I am of God's existence that if you change this axiom our rights go away.
You wouldn't like it if I made comments about you regarding beliefs that you don't hold.
You're right, I wouldn't. I apologize.
Please, RWP, spare me any attempt to discredit Richard Feynman. The result will be that you discredit yourself.
Are you having a competition with Tribune7?
If Richard Feynman truly thought he did not understand quantum mechanics, given that he wrote books about quantum mechanics, then either he was a charlatan, or else the condition is false.
Which do you think it is, Phaedrus? Or is that still too complicated for you?
A purpose on whose part? Himself, or some postulated creator?
You're reading it wrong. Check the word "If" and the other conditions preceding the statement.
What I (and I think my atheist FRiends) are saying is that there is no purpose that's injected into us from outside - even from God Himself if he really did exist and was the Creator.Or is the point that there is no purpose to people in general?
What we end up with is a faith that there is no God and no purpose to their existence.
Fortunately, you are wrong. Unfortunately many people hold this faith.
Our whole structure of individual rights is based on the premise that each one of us decides our own purposes. Just because my parents intentionally decided to have a baby 45.75 years ago doesn't mean I was obligated to get a college degree in the humanities, marry a rich Catholic man in a nice Church wedding & then quit my secretarial job to become a good housewife to my husband & half a dozen kids like they had hoped.
Similarly, those southern blacks who were born on slave breeding plantations only existed because the slave owners intentionally had their slaves breed offspring, so that they would have more slaves to sell. Did those people have an obligation to carry out their externally-imposed purpose?
Similarly, Michael Jackson got some women to intentionally create little children for him...
(From Post 624) If an atheist concludes that he can never figure out the purpose of of his existence, he is shallow. . . .Suppose his existence actually has no 'purpose'. Surely he is then correct, and you misguided? After all, you can't give him any evidence of such a purpose; it would seem to me that he is merely being sensibly skeptical.
Since you don't believe in a creator, I take "suppose his existence actually has no 'purpose'. Surely he is then correct . . ." to mean that the "no purpose" would be determined by the laws of physics that guide the universe.
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