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The idea that he is a devotee of reason seeing through the outdated superstitions of other, lesser beings is the foremost conceit of the proud atheist.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 ...
I assume you are talking about the same one they taught us in Sunday School.
The only other "golden rule" I know of is "he who has the gold makes the rules", but that isn't what people generally mean.
Most people are ignorant of game theory. Since I know that I can't ask forgiveness from mathematics, I follow it religiously.
Can you articulate it?
Is it so ambiguous that you need it articulated? I think not. But since you insist on being pedantic, Matthew 7:12 is one of the best expressions in the Bible (there are some expressions in Luke, Leviticus, and a few other places that vary slightly for better or worse, but I prefer Matthew). I'll let you pick the translation.
My father is Protestant theologian, currently preaching (in semi-retirement) in a small conservative farming town. I am quite fluent in all things Christianity, seeing as how I was immersed in it for most of my childhood, under the tutelage of someone who was a genuine expert in it. I am also a mathematician, though, and can speak very literately about a great many things mathematical.
The relationship between the Biblical "Golden Rule" and IPD has been well-known for a long time. Nothing I have said should seem shocking, unusual, or even arguable. So I don't really know what your point is or even what you are questioning precisely.
You claim that “there’s less than a one in a trillion-trillion chance that all existence an illusion”. First: how precisely do you arrive at those odds? Second: I never said that all existence is an illusion. I assume the existence of external reality as a matter of faith. What I said was that there is no objective way to determine that what we perceive via our senses corresponds to reality. You continue to fail to address that point.
Descartes put it this way: dreamers believe that what they are experiencing during a dream is really happening. Given that fact, how can one certainly know that what they are experiencing at any given instant is really happening and not a dream?
I never said that existence is a leap of faith. On the contrary: I pointed out that even in the absecnce of any sensory perception at all (e.g. an anesthetized man in a sensory-deprivation tank) one can certainly know at least one thing: that oneself exists. My question to you is how anyone can claim objective knowledge of anything outside of that self-evident fact?
Quit dodging the issue. Either explain how one can certainly know that anything outside oneself exists, or admit that every one of us takes the existence of the universe on faith alone.
Is there a common transient theme?
It would appear that we have five statements of rhetoric and one rhetorical question.
Can you do it?
How many atheists these days have you heard of flying planes into buildings killing thousands of people, or strapping explosives to their bodies and blowing themselves and as many other people as they can to smitherines.
Yep, those are my words, alright. Not bad!
Hank
I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.
Fellow citizens, we'll meet violence with patient justice -- assured of the rightness of our cause, and confident of the victories to come. In all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may He watch over the United States of America.
-President Bush
Scripture teaches us that it's something man can reason out for himself:
Genesis
18:23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
18:24 Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?
18:25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Yes. I can distinguish good from evil. Can't you? I think it's something virtually everyone can do.
So the author is saying the reason to follow the Golden rule (and presumably the rest of religious ethics) is because God commands us to?
Why must we obey God's commands?
It didn't seem it to me. How do you figure that?
Yes.
Why must we obey God's commands?
Because God wants us to.
You don’t…
In fact, you can choose not to obey any commands from anyone.
Quit dodging the issue. Either explain how one can certainly know that anything outside oneself exists, or admit that every one of us takes the existence of the universe on faith alone."
“Dodging the question”, please… Off the top of my head:
1) Life is long while dreams are brief.
2) Reality in life is consistent while dreams vary.
3) Life is detailed and documented in virtually any direction that we investigate while dreams are superficial.
4) Dreams are consistent with all that we know (which is consistent with itself), while lifelong masterfully composed illusions are not.
5) There is no evidence of such an illusion.
6) The complexity of managing a factious reality (like in the Truman Show) would be many times greater and more spectacular than the managed reality itself.
7) We do however possess a fertile imagination and curiosity that’s inevitably going to consider such a thing, and that explanation is consistent with what we know. Coupled with a little borderline paranoia and inexperience or just a strong desire for it to be plausible, and some people will argue that it’s more than one in a trillion-trillion chance.
Anything is of course possible if we include the infinitesimally unlikely. But since the evidence outlined above indicates that we are able to perceive reality rather than existing in an illusion, dismissing the completely unsupported claim is not accomplished through “faith”.
I think some people who are uncomfortable with the recognition that the evidence supporting their faith promote the most far fetched examples of conclusions drawn without mathematical proof in competing beliefs in an attempt to label them all as “faith based”. I think that they do it in hopes of canceling out what they perceive as a weakness in their own beliefs. Too me it just looks sad and desperate.
I trust that you’re better than that, and that you’re not trying to misrepresent my ideology in order to feel more secure in your own. (If I’m mistaken in that regard, please don’t expect me to read extensive inline commenting challenging each of the above bullets. I consider that kind of silly tedium beneath adult dialogue.)
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