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.
Heh. Your own link buttresses my contention.
“- No church nor clergy; no teaching on the worship of God or gods, or life after death.”
http://www.religion-cults.com/Eastern/Confucianism/confuci.htm
From the perspective of the creator, if he brought something into existence he can remove it from existence just as easily.
Kind of raises a question about abortion, doesnt it.
....
Actually, I was kind of thinking about the classic scene where the father tells the unruly kid “I brought you into to this world, and I can take you out of it just as easily”.
You have a point. In may ways his teachings did parallel those of Jesus. :-)
As far as life after death goes, however, Confucius did appear to believe in it.
All you can offer to define it is an estoric hobgoblin.
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
I would suggest that you actually read the Bible so you can effective argue you points.
Of course, far better man have attempted to do such a thing and have been converted by the Logos out of their arrogance and pride
bookmark
Hooey.
In a discussion about unicorns and the Bible:
Tom, a student raises his hand and declares that there are no unicorns.
Teacher: Tom, do you know everything there is to know in the universe?
Tom: Well....err NO.
Teacher: Well Tom do you know half of everything there is to know?
Tom: NO
Teacher: Tom, lets say for arguments sake that you do know half of everything there is to know. Do you think that unicorns may exist in the half you dont know?
End of discussion. (fish hawk, how much do you know?)
How do they know they live by a 'high moral code'? Is this a code they made up themselves? If so, how do they determine it is higher than, say, the moral code that John Wayne Gacy lived by?
Evidently more than you. Can’t you come up with your own example? My example is better anyway as you can look around all over the earth and find NO unicorns, yet, the signature of God is just about everywhere.
“Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.”
I agree with your point, but the reality is that the heart of atheism is the elevation of one’s self to that higher power that defines what is correct for human behavior. In that way the presupposition of the higher power is honored in atheistic arguments.
Everyone worships God. Those that claim otherwise have only posited themselves as God.
Excellent article.
How do you know? And where do you go to find out?
And what if you're wrong?
For Atheists, there are no rules, except perhaps that man is supreme.
That’s the whole point - there is no God.
So, any moral code you choose to live by, you do so either out of cowardice or convenience. Cowardice, in that you either don’t have the courage to simply take what’s yours in the Darwinian sense, and let the weaker to their own fate. Convenience in that, since you choose to live in civilization, and you recognize that man is supreme, then government is the highest expression of that power.
The individual atheist is outnumbered and outgunned, or dependent upon others for their sustenance.
If you lived out in the sticks, you could pretty much set your self up, live off the land, and die that way.
Chesterton had a point. I wasn’t aware of that poem until I read this thread, but it sure makes the observation eloquently.
My observation is that most atheist seem to be stubborn agnostics. They haven’t enough evidence God doesn’t exist, but they have enough faith in their position that they proclaim themselves atheist.
Most aren’t sure enough to realize that they can shed the whole Judeo-Christian ethic, flinching if you will at the opportunity to actually practice what they are preaching.
In the end, you arrive in the same place - Atheism is every bit the belief system any other religion is. It actually requires more faith, and in the end few actually live its tenents.
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
I agree with your point, but the reality is that the heart of atheism is the elevation of ones self to that higher power that defines what is correct for human behavior. In that way the presupposition of the higher power is honored in atheistic arguments.
EXACTLY. Most of them just want to play "God."
Platos Euthyphro is a great illustration...
Socrates advances the argument to Euthyphro that, piety to the gods, who all want conflicting devotions and/or actions from humans, is impossible. (Socrates exposed the pagan esoteric sophistry.)
Morality is impossible, because all humans have different morals... Claims of morality is sophistry without some singular higher power defining what it is.
Likewise, morals are such a construction of idols used by the Left as a rationale for them to demand compliance to their wishes in politics, which most often are a skewed mess of fallacies in logic. Morals are a deceptive replacement for the avoidance of sin.
Today, "morals" are defined by a quasi-religious pagan philosophy based on esoteric hobgoblins. A greater number of "atheists" and "pagans" adopt the same hackneyed tenets of a faux Judaic-Christian ideal (golden calf). They also subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of "sin," but will fight to their death in denial of it. Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians with the same false hypocritical philosophy. They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice - - they replace the idea of "avoiding sin" with "morals."
Thanks for the ping!
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