Posted on 05/27/2007 9:43:00 AM PDT by wagglebee
I received a lot emails from snippy atheists after my column, Atheists had Better Pray to God Theyre Right ran the week of May 13, 2007. I had many God-deniers tell me, quite self-righteously I might add, that they lived by a high moral code without the aid of any opiate or crutch like Jesus or Moses, and they didnt need some archaic holy book giving them the skinny on how they should live.
Hey, arrogant atheists, heres an aside before I take you to task any further: that self-righteous, Im good enough without God attitude is the very sin that Christ condemned the most. But I wouldnt worry about that, since Jesus probably never existed anyway. And if He did, He wasnt the One He thought He was and said He was and thus, all He said was a load of hooey. That is, according to your wizards.
Anyway, back to my point. Did I make a point yet? Please forgive me. My coffee is wearing off. Okay, now Im tracking. . . .
In the volley of hate email hailed down upon me, one particular anti-God guy stated that he lived better than most Christians. He further patted himself on the back by saying that his Christian buddies even gave him big props for his squeaky-cleanness. Well, let me join in your hombres praise by saying a big Good for you, dude. Heres a brownie button. Ill be the first to admit that Ill take a civil atheist over an irrational and violent al Qaeda op any old day.
The problem I have, however, with the atheists and their goodness and their morality claims is that all your ethical codes of conduct sound strangely similar to the principles inherent to the Judeo-Christian traditions. As a matter of fact, it seems as if you have bellied up to the Bible and are treating it like a buffet . . . passing up on the worship of the person and work of God, while taking second helpings of His moral principles, you duplicitous, little, evolved monkey, you.
One of my old seminary profs used to say that although such muddled atheists would never verbally affirm the existence of God, they would live according to some ethical standard, some moral capital they have milked from us theists.
If I were an atheist and I believed that God didnt exist, that the Bible was a bunch of weird bunk written by religiously deluded men several thousand years ago, that Jesus was an apocalyptic, sandal-wearing, hippie forerunner of David Koresh who went around spitting out cheeky clichés who needed not to be heeded, but straight-jacketed or at least ignoredI sure as heck wouldnt be borrowing any tidbits of His wisdom to navigate my lifes glide path.
If Moses, Elijah, Abraham, David, Jeremiah, Paul and Peter were not who they claimed to be and spoke not for Whom they claimed to speak, then these dudes were certifiably psycho and you wouldnt find me (if I were an atheist) taking any of their moral maxims and making them into inspirational refrigerator magnets.
Thats what I appreciate about the atheist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Freddy is one of the few atheists who told his fellow atheistic buddies that they couldnt have their cake and eat it, too. Nietzsche understood that we can either have God and meaningful morality, or we can have no God and thus, all life is meaningless and without any trace of hope . . . it officially sucks.
Nietzsche came to the conclusion that if there is no Godor God is dead, as he put itthen hes not going to live as if God is alive and His moral principles mattered. Yes, brass-balled Friedrich said that the opposite of how the Bible says to live is the way we should live.
Nietzsche, unlike you postmodern Nancy atheists, was welded to his belief that God was dead and Christian morality was gonzo. He was not a half-hearted atheist parading around like most atheists do today, claiming the title while schlepping to Judeo-Christian principles.
Once again, if I did not believe in God and I believed that the 10 commandments were BS and that faith, hope and love is for the herd, and that I came from nothing and Im going to nothing and there is no ultimate eternal accountability for my actionsthen I am sure not going to live like I did. Why do you do so, Mr. & Mrs. Atheist?
So whats it going to be, my obstreperous amigos? Are you going to continue to blather on about there being no God and then live like there is one and that His word and will matters? Get consistent, why dont cha? Dont live by the Ten Commandments. Dont live by the Golden Rule. Dont do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Thats our stuff. Thats the Judeo-Christian way. Get your own commandments that are logically deduced from the no God hypothesis, write your own unholy book and form your own civilization. Then lets see how appealing it is, how it betters the planet and how far youll get.
The very wisdom that you speak of is evidence that God has placed in man the knowledge of moral absolutes (see Romans 1:19) . It is up to man to come to realize that the presence of this comes from the fact that we are created by Him. That Buddhism does not attribute this to the Divine in no way negates the point that Giles is trying to make—but, rather, points out that man has concocted a myriad of ways to deny the existence of God (see Romans 1:21-32 for the results of such thinking.)
I was recently on the edge of death. I was very surprised at my response to the realization that at any moment I might 'wink' out.
God knows what is in the heart of every man. The only heart that you know is your own.
And not even then: Jer. 17:9
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
The "Golden Rule" is LUKE 6:31. "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise," ...
The Golden Rule still has to be revealed to the well-armed majority at roughly the same time, and believed by that majority, or esle the first believer in the Golden Rule will also be the last.
Is it moral for a creator to destroy his creation? From the perspective of the created, probably not. From the perspective of the creator, if he brought something into existence he can remove it from existence just as easily.
If one does not believe in a creator, then the whole thought question is probably moot.
If I were to use any god as a source for my beliefs, I would defiantly not use the Christian god, or at least take the Xtian god in a literal sense.
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So what are your beliefs and what is the source of them?
Because that’s not his point.
The irony of Chesterton’s poem is that it wasn’t ONLY heathens that acted like those he described in the poem.There have been times when Christians themselves,not to mention Muslims and Hindus,acted just like heathens.
I think,however,that the sordid behavior he speaks of would have been committed with much more frequency and lack of shame WITHOUT a sense of Christian morality guided by The Bible.
And,of course,through Christ,we CAN be forgiven for our depredations.Unlike heathens.
Not a problem for me. I have no interest in religion and I don't accept the concept of some supernatural being. That aside, I have no problem coexisting with Christians and others, as long as they don't threaten me. So pretty much everyone except muslims. But when I'm on my death bed, I won't be seeking refuge in a fairy tale.
So,just out of curiosity,what WAS your response to being so close to death?
Or maybe, just maybe, your philosophical/metaphysical/”spiritual” outlook will be proven to be the fairy-tale/vain thinking. Either way, we’ll ALL be finding out, won’t we?
Much of what the bible states is true of other religions and moral codes. I don't need a bible to tell me it's wrong to steal or murder. I already know that and our laws serve to reiterate it. But I also don't need the bible to tell me it's wrong to sleep with my girlfriend. There's no law against that and I certainly never lost any sleep over it (no pun intended).
There is the gaping 40mm hole in the philosophy of Ayn Rand...
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
Rand took a premise from the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and left out the conclusion. Locke did the same thing...
(They also betrayed the logic of Aristotle.)
“Ethics of reciprocity is fundamental to Buddhism. This is partly due to the fact that Buddhism, unlike theistic religions, does not rely on divine revelation.
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No, they just won’t admit to Divine Revelation.
Why is it that you believe “reciprocity”, or, the “Golden Rule” is good rather than believing that selfishness, greed, or brutality are good? In order to call unselfishness good and selfishness bad, there needs to be some absolute moral standard on which to make this call.
And if you believe in an absolute moral standard, isn’t that the same as believing in God, with the absolute moral standard being His Divine Revelation?
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Well, it’s a good rant, but on the whole we’re all better off if the atheists steal the crums from the Judaeo-Christian table than if they all conduct themselves like little Nietzsches.
Even spilt religion is better than none.
Without the constant, eternal, revealed word of God, what is a moral code? What is the foundation of morality? Without God there is no moral code. Or more accurately, there are many moral codes. If fact, with no God there are as many moral codes as there are people on the world at any given time. Without the fixed constant of God, Hitler was just as "moral" as Mother Theresa.
But by not stealing or murdering as a non-Christian, you're infringing upon the property rights of Christians (some sort of business method patent for moral behavior, I gather), and are therefore breaking the law.
So start acting like the Christians who wrote this piece believe you should act, rather than how you think you should act, m'kay?
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do, because as a non-Christian, I have to work on a Sunday.
See?
“If I knew God I’d be Him.”
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