“Bingo. We have ample historical evidence of what a world without Christian morality looks like. It is deadly and evil.”
But Buddists are moral too. Many, many atheists are very moral. Humanity is mostly moral or has been to this point or we would have wiped ourselves out by now.
There just does not have to be a promise of an eternal life of bliss to give you strength or motivation to live happily and with charity to all mankind. I am sure there are a lot of happy, content atheists.
There just does not have to be a promise of an eternal life of bliss to give you strength or motivation to live happily and with charity to all mankind.
Just sharing this clever story:
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, “why do airplanes fly?” on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: “Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof.”
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
“First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:
1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, “that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you” and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic.”
The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.
I disagree. While many people are relatively moral, and atheists can be as well, I believe most people will cheat and break laws if the gov. enforced consequences are missing. Cultural factors have a lot to do with that, and the religion behind the culture, even in formerly religious ones, like Denmark. But take away police (and gun owning homeowners) and in populated areas will be crime ridden in a relatively short time.
To have small government in a large country then souls need to be overall controlled from within, and so they need not be controlled from without, and that is what made American an anomaly, all things considered.
While atheistic government can uphold some degree of morality, lacking a beneficial transcendent objective authority it relies upon human reasoning, which can offer no assurance it will not sanction what Mao, etc saw as reasonable. And such governments have killed more than religious ones in the last century (better weapons helped).
As far as Buddists being peaceful, it depends upon who is control. When their faith is threatened by conversions, they also resort to violence and in Burma they are trying to force Christians to convert to the state religion of Buddhism.
Despite aberrations, the Christian church was not constituted by Christ to rule over those without, or use the sword of men to spread or defend the faith, which sword the Bible sanctions the civil powers to use, while the church work to bring souls to be controlled from within Thus enabling small gov.). And for real believers, contrary to what is charged, the motivation is to be of selfless love, in response to knowing God’s love, not to escape Hell, and the charity that it has exampled is far beyond its secular non-profit counterparts. Praise the Lord.
I do not sanction all Rick Warren says, but as far as social work goes, good interview here by secular press: http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=221
Good night.
We mostly almost did. What you are looking at are the results of society ordering itself over long periods of time including deadly periods of “trial and error”.
People are moral because we’ve learned and moved toward it.
If we throw that away, we’ll return to those ages and that is my point.