Do Christians feel that athiests are amoral or unprincipled?

Great Debates
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Would someone report my previous post so that it can be deleted? Thanks!

Once more with proper quote tags:

I guess it would depend on which conviction you were speaking of as “Christian.” I can see why you might say that belief in the Virgin Birth is 1) a Christian conviction of some Christians and 2) possibly neither moral nor immoral. But other “Christian convictions” do have to do with morals. I use the quotation marks because these same convictions are often found in teachings outside of Christianity also. An example would be: “Love they neighbor as thyself.” I would be surprised if you found that conviction amoral.

For the same reason that most atheists are moral. We are compelled by our natures to be compassionate. We all mess up a lot too, but ultimately, most human beings don’t desire to be unkind.

BTW, many Christians have said that they would be Christians even if there were no promise of eternal life. The cosmic Get Out of Jail Free Card isn’t the point.

I don’t think you are being offensive. I do wonder if you are keeping an open mind about the huge differences in Christian beliefs. Trying to pin down what a single Christian believes in a single statement is like trying to describe the “typical American.” For example, I don’t know that all Christians believe that “God is in control.” Certainly opinions differ on predestination and free will. Some Christians don’t even think about it one way or the other. Or perhaps they dealt with it so long ago that they see it as irrelevant to their view of the God they worship now.

God quit being definable and measurable and arguable and small and capturable for me about twenty-five years ago. I’m okay with others not being okay with that.

I don’t feel smug or absolutely certain, but I am at peace with myself about my beliefs.

I also believe in social, political and economic equality for all and separation of Church and State.

Pax

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I understand that. By way of example. Let’s say in a small but predominantly Christian community of people decide to put a nativity scene in the town square along with all the other decorations. Someone would cry foul. I understand the principle but it seems unnessecary to me. However, I would also aslo support something representing another religion’s holiday in their community. I’m not so sure the nuetrality we’re hoping for is realistically possible but it’s worth a shot.

Glad to hear it. We’ve had discussions here before which recounted stories of rights being violated. A student told he couldn’t read his bible in school. A teacher told she couldn’t wear a cross on her clothes. Things like that. It’s a fine line and not always clear.

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There is a major difference between a student being told he couldn’t read his bible in school (assuming it was study hall or lunch time) and a teacher being told she can’t wear a cross! One is preventing a student from participating in his religion when the activity in question is otherwise legal (i.e. reading). The other is preventing a teacher from displaying on his or her person an object of veneration to some. The student has no instructive status among the students. The teacher on the other hand has. No one will stop the teacher from wearing a cross such that it can’t be seen. No one will stop the teacher from exercising his or her religion in general, but not while he or she is acting in an instructive capacity!
Do you see the difference?

The same thing holds for your town square example. If it’s official city property, no go. Bear in mind (in a thread about atheists it shouldn’t be too difficult) that freedom of religion includes freedom from religion. How are you going to visually celebrate that - by showing a bunch of sheep and wisemen turning their backs on a baby while stomping on a menorah and yelling “Allah sux”? As appealing as it sounds, I doubt the city council is going to go for it.

This is the thing. Freedom of religion means that you aren’t allowed to have anyone or anything in an official governmental capacity (which includes public schools in this context) doing anything that indicates a preference for a particular religion or for religion at all. You can do whatever you want (subject to local laws) as a resident, but not when acting as a representative of the government.

This is a very simple concept; I don’t understand why people seem to have such a problem with it. It’s not that anyone objects to religious displays per se, but you’re not allowed to have them in any way that could indicate government sanction. There are few things if any that more uniquely define the US system of governance, and yet the people who claim the most patriotism seem the most eager to violate it (as long as it’s in the direction of their beliefs!). And the moderates often don’t seem willing to recognize that a toe in the door here can be dangerous. The introduction of religion can be done in small, incremental steps, with objections to each one being written off as ridiculously extreme. I don’t think you can deny at this point that there are people who would like to do exactly that. Personally, even if I were Christian, I don’t think I’d want to let them.

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The problem with this, Sarahfeena, is that a child that loves you won’t want to hurt you and will probably put up with it - even if they don’t believe it - because they don’t want you to feel bad. This was the case with me and my mother - having considered it from all angles and searching in me for a core of belief (and finding none), it is safe to say that I am an atheist.

However, I didn’t tell my mother that until many, many years after I’d left home. Not because I was frightened of her reaction (I knew she wouldn’t reject me because of it) but because I knew it would hurt her. I didn’t want her to bear the burden of ‘knowing’ (and for people of Faith, they really believe it is ‘knowing’ rather than ‘believing’) that her child was doomed to Hell.

In the end, she found out because I messed up Good Friday - having gotten into the habit of seeing it purely as a long weekend - and mentioned going out for dinner with my husband’s family (an eclectic mix of agnostic, non-practicing Christian, and probable athiest) for dinner. Naturally the question of ‘what did you have?’ came up, and I was sprung.

Really, it’s a giant guilt trip, but there’s no way around it. An athiest (but loving) child of religious parents is always going to carry guilt that they’re hurting their parents by ‘voluntarily consiging themselves to hell’. Given that, I really do think that forcing your kids to go to church even if they declare they don’t want to - and forcing them to make that declaration of athiesm, knowing how you’ll feel about it - is a bit rough all over, really.

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Dang, the post went through before I caught the persistent ‘athiest’ typo. The problem with being a tired typist is that my fingers are determined to go with good old ‘i before e’ regardless of what my brain tries to tell them… :smack:

I’m off to bed.

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Judaism doesn’t offer a cosmic Get Out of Jail Free Card. There isn’t a consensus among Jews about what happens to you after death. Some believe in something like heaven, some believe in reincarnation, some believe that you live on through your descendants and your deeds, and some don’t think about it much at all. The only well-known Jewish teaching about the afterlife comes from the Talmud, and says that the righteous of all nations (ie, not just Jews) have a place in the afterlife. We also have a tradition that hell is for a limited time (up to a year), no matter how evil you’ve been.

Judaism doesn’t teach that praying or fasting or anything like that can make up for sins that affect other people. You have to make amends to the person you harmed before asking God to forgive you would do any good. (This is a central theme of services around this time of year)

Given all that, I’d certainly believe that some people are Christians for a reason other than a cosmic Get Out of Jail Free Card.

There is a tradition in some branches of Christianity (certainly not all) that people can’t choose to be good people on their own, because of Original Sin- they would say you need God’s grace to be a good person. I can understand why someone who believed that might think that atheists can’t be moral (though I don’t agree with them, of course).

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Sorry, that’s not relevant. If I lived in a very Christian town, and most store owners were closed on Sunday, I wouldn’t complain. If the state of Israel forced Christian shop owners not to stock ham, that would be a better analogy, and indeed something to complain about.

A store owners individual morals and religious preferences take precedence - (unless they are truly discriminatory, like not serving certain classes of people.) That’s what free enterprise corrects. I only object to government enforcement of a subset of the populations religious preferences, which is exactly what blue laws do.

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It would be jolly nice if you tried to address the point, just once. We’ve already acknowledged that not all religious people try to inflict rules based on their morals on others. We haven’t even claimed that those who do are narrow minded bigots. Those who are so convinced that God commands (their) Sabbath that they pass blue laws are not doing so out of bigotry, and are no doubt convinced that everyone benefits. Their thought processes might very well be identical to those who opposed slavery for religious reasons only.
The point is that if you are doing something that affects others because you think God commands it, you’ve got an inappropriate reason whether or not the action is evil or just annoying. Unless you can demonstrate that there is a god giving these orders, you need secular justification. Whether works are good depend on the view of the recipient - no doubt those who forced conversion on the heathen were convinced they were doing the best of good works. The Boy Scout who helps the old lady across the street really ought to be sure she wants to go.

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I thought I WAS addressing the point. I guess I just don’t care that much about motivation. As I said, politically, I am generally Libertarian. I disagree with just about any kind of law that infringes on the freedom of individuals. In my mind, even a lot of secular justifications overstep the bounds, so whatever people’s reasonings are don’t usually impress me too much. For example, the town I live in is dry. Back when they passed the laws 100 or so years ago, it was probably for religious reasons. You are right that this is inappropriate. These days, the laws are held onto for some kind of vague “quality of life” purposes. In my mind, this is equally inappropriate.

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And some Christians believe that even though a person is a Christian, she or he will continue to generally mess up a lot and not be the good person that is their goal, but because of God’s grace, they are forgiven.

That is such a beautiful idea and scary and humbling. Do many people really do that? Do families that have become estranged attempt to overcome their differences? Is this what is known as the Day of Atonement?

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That is what you’re supposed to do. Being human, we fall short of that ideal just like a lot of people of other religions fall short of their ideals. What people actually do, of course, varies all over the place.

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I have read assertions by several theist posters to the effect that “I can’t prove that God exists and you can’t prove that he doesn’t so we are are even.”

This is completely wrong. The rule in human logic and reasoning is “He who asserts must prove”.

Unless theists can prove God exists then it is logical to withold belief in such a being. Just as it is logical for me to say that I do not absolutely deny the existence of Bigfoot, but that without any real evidence better than a grainy film, I am justified in witholding my belief.

There is another rule that you cannot prove the non-existence of something anyhow, although I must admit you CAN prove certain forms of non-existence in very limited circumstances.

For example, I can probably prove that no adult Elephant exists inside the snuff box on my desk. As long as we are agreed on the size of even the smallest possible adult elephant, and if we are agreed that my snuff box measures 3 cm by 4 cm by 2 cm high, and if I open the snuff box and show you what is inside (nothing) then we can reasonably conclude that I have proven the non-existence of something.

But if you ask me to prove that Leprechauns do not exist in Ireland, I must confess that I would be unable to do so. Even if we agreed on what a Leprechaun is and looks like, I would have to have the supernatural ability to see every single spot in Ireland both above and below ground at once, so that I could declare that there are no such tiny beings anywhere in the Emereald Isle.

Shoooore and Begorrah, it is up to those who allege that Leprechauns exist to prove to me that they do. Find one of the little beggars and bring them for us to see, or at least find a tiny skeleton of one.

Now as far as God is concerned, it is true that I cannot prove he does not exist and that theists cannot prove he does. But it is not up to me to prove the non-existence of such a being. It is up to theists to prove that he DOES exist. If they cannot, then the only course open to a logical person is to keep an open mind that is ready to receive further evidence, but to withold belief until such evidence is produced.

So why is the universe here? Where else should it be, honey?

To answer that we can invoke the principle of Occam’s Razor whereby we must favour the simpler explanation.

Putting togetrher what we know about the laws of physics, the universe, galaxies, time, speed, etc. the most reasonable supposition we can make is that that the Universe exists because it exists, period. The concept of nothing existing at all is probably not possible. It is just a construct in our minds. Matter exists because it exists. It cannot NOT exist. We probably live in an uncreated universe that had no beginning and will have no end. The Universe may eventually stop expanding, collapse on itself and undergo a series of big bangs, but that it what it does.

Now then, if this sounds illogical to you theists, consider this. I postulate an uncreated universe that has always existed. You postulate a universe created by an uncreated God who is himself uncreated and has always existed.

Under the rule of Occam’s razor, my supposition is more reasonable than yours. Material existence is all around us. We know that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change form. In other words, I have a fair amount of scientific backing for my postulate of an uncreated, etrnal material universe. An eternal and uncreated universe would seem to be the most logical explanation, pending further evidence.

What scientific proof do you have of the existence of your supposed God?

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Demanding scientific proof is irrelevant.

I just wish it ran both ways and matters of faith would never intrude on science.