Of course we can
Only the intellectually challenged would concluded that failure to believe in some "God" assures that a person is bad.
Its just too funny!
[...] In America conservatives believe that sin is effectively redirected to the common good through the market. The alchemy of capitalist competition transmutes sin into virtue. But it is difficult to see how any Christian who fully grasps Christian principles can be an unqualified supporter of capitalism. [...]
Anyone who believes in the golden rule would qualify their support for capitalism. since different people define it differently.
Well, it wasn't atheists who flew those planes into the WTC towers.
[...]
In America conservatives believe that sin is effectively redirected to the common good through the market. The alchemy of capitalist competition transmutes sin into virtue. But it is difficult to see how any Christian who fully grasps Christian principles can be an unqualified supporter of capitalism.
[...]
Atheists and Humanists insist man is inherently good. Anyone with a brain and eyes knows this is absurd. We are born with a sin nature. Look at little children. Notice how un-self-centered and sharing, they are. Notice how they never tell lies, never take from others(steal), etc., etc. No, you didn't notice this?! Me neither until and unless their "good" parents teach them to act in ways other than their natural born sin-full nature.
"All great political causes have failed."
I don't believe that our cause, that of a Constitutional Republic, - has failed, - yet.
Most of the human race lives in crushing poverty because they ignore the political lessons of our society "where industrial abundance undergirds a preoccupation with material comfort and an atmosphere of spiritual inanity"
. -- Religion has no direct role to play in our government, by the choice of our founders, who knew its political dangers.
Let us all pray that it stays that way.
Of course we can
Only the intellectually challenged would concluded that failure to believe in some "God" assures that a person is bad.
Its just too funny!
It is the same with a human being. Until a person is connected to the Holy Spirit, his will to selfishness cannot be overcome with the need to do things pleasing to God. He cannot see things from God's point of view, he cannot be communicated with, or communicate himself with perfection of thought, choice, and action.
Christians believe "all things in moderation", it is the same with Capitalism. There is a perfect balance between honest profit and greed that is rarely attained, much less maintained. Speaking only for myself as a Christian, I believe that truth should be sought after like miners seeking after gold. Once truth is attained it should be the basis for fairness, and justice afforded to each individual in the most perfect way possible.
Government should be bound with the fear of terrible punishment should justice not be afforded it's citizens by enemies of justice and freedom no matter the source. People should be bound with fear of terrible punishment for injustice, and so should Corporations and those who run them.
Truth, justice, and fairness should be the goal, the terrible teeth of laws that insure punishment, should mankind's basic nature of selfishness and corruption trample on the justice, fairness, and freedom that is the due of the individual, should bite down with remembered pain.
We attempted this with the Constitution of the United States, but not enough punishing teeth and chains of justice were placed on those that would govern us. Those that would run for office should do so full of fear and trembling of the awful price of abusing the Constitution. It may be too late to add those chains and that punishment given that no agency, court, or arm of the government fulfills it's mandate to punish and guard against the abuse by the other branches of government.
The Constutition left that event open to armed revolution by the people. The Founders did not forsee our conditions today, how could they? A time when revolution is pretty much precluded by enemies who will not sit back and wait for an internal squabble to be settled, and a population of people that have no moral compass, and whose personal life styles have not suffered enough to enrage them to revolt.
At least half of the country's population has turned it's back on government, the man on the street can't identify a picture of VP Cheney, most understand there is corruption in D.C. but feel distanced from it's effects. That will not be the case eventually as more people are feeling the heavy hand of the abuse of their property rights, privacy rights, and abuse of their children by government schools.
That leaves it to those of us who are watchful and vote to attempt to keep this corrupt monster in line, to try to be a force for good and to cast our votes wisely, rewarding and punishing those that would govern us. I don't see how that can be successfully accomplished without God's guiding hand.
Not only is the answer "no," but more importantly... without God, the concept of "good" is meaningless.
Possibly, but it's easier to be good with Him than without Him.
by Ravi Zacharias from his book "Can Man Live Without God"
The following is from the questions and answers taken from the Veritas lectures at Harvard University, upon which parts of the book are based.
Let me narrate an interaction I had with a student at the University of Nottingham in England. As soon as I finished one of my lectures, he shot up from his seat and blurted out rather angrily, "There is to much evil in this world; therefore, there cannot be a God." I asked him to remain standing and answer a few questions for me. I said, "If there is such a thing as evil, aren't you assuming there is such a thing as good?" He paused, reflected, and said, "I guess so." "If there is such a thing as good," I countered, you must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil."
I reminded him of the debate between the philosopher Frederick Copleston and the atheist Bertrand Russell. At one point in the debate, Copleston said, "Mr. Russell, you do believe in good and bad, don't you?" Russell answered, "Yes I do." "How do you differentiate between them?" challenged Copleston. Russell shrugged his shoulders as he was wont to do in philosophical dead ends for him and said, "The same way I differentiate between yellow and blue." Copleston graciously responded and said, "But Mr. Russell, you differentiate between yellow and blue by seeing, don't you? How do you differentiate between good and bad?" Russell, with all of his genius still within reach, gave the most vapid answer he could have given: "On the basis of feeling-what else?" I must confess, Mr. Copleston was a kindlier gentleman than many others. The appropriate "logical kill" for the moment would have been, Mr. Russell, in some cultures they love their neighbors; in others they eat them, both on the basis of feeling. Do you have any preference?"
So I returned to my questioning student in Nottingham: "When you say there is evil, aren't you admitting there is good? When you accept the existence of goodness, you must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But when admit to a moral law, you must posit a moral lawgiver. That, however, is who you are trying to disprove and not prove. For if there is no moral lawgiver, there is no moral law. If there is no moral law, there is no good. If there is no good, there is no evil. What then is your question?"
There was a conspicuous pause that was broken when he said rather sheepishly, "What, then, am I asking you?" There's the rub, I might add.
Now, I do not doubt for a moment that philosophers have tried to arrive at a moral law apart from the positing of God, but their efforts are either contradictory in their assumption or conclusions. I might say this is particularly true of David Hume. More on that later. I have gone to great lengths to use this illustration from the Copleston-Russell debate because your question, sir, was an echo of Russell's philosophical attack upon theism. When someone said to him, "What will you do, Mr. Russell, if after you die you find out there is a God? What will you say to Him?" Russell said, "I will tell Him He just did not give me enough evidence." Russell, in stating that, took a position diametrically opposed to scriptural teaching. The Scriptures teach that the problem with human unbelief is not the absence of evidence; rather, it is the suppression of it. "Nothing good can come," said Professor Richard Weaver, "if the will is wrong. If the disposition is wrong, reason increases maleficence." George MacDonald rightly argued that "to explain truth to him who loves it not is to give more plentiful material for misinterpretation."
Let me summarize:
1. To justify the question, God must remain in the paradigm; without God, the question self-destructs.
2. God has created us in His image. Part of that image is the privilege of self-determination.
3. The greatest of all virtues is love.
4. God, in His love, has created us, and in response, love from us has to be a choice. Where there is no choice, it is coercion, which means it is not love. In the Christian message alone, love precedes life; in every other world-view, life precedes love. Therefore, in the Christian framework, love has a point of reference, God Himself.
5. God communicates to mankind in a variety of ways:
a. Reason (philosophical),
b. Experience (existential),
c. History (empirical),
d. Emotions (relational),
e. The Scriptures (propositional), and
f. Incarnation (personal).
Take these six areas that are open to serious critical thinking, and you will find that the problem is not the absence of evidence; rather it's the suppression of it. May I add that it was in this very school that Simon Greenleaf, professor of jurisprudence, said of the documents of the New Testament, "You may choose to say I do not believe it all, but you may not say there is not enough evidence."
"Can Man Live Without God" by Ravi Zacharias can be found in Christian book stores.