As one of those tolerant nonbelievers, agreed. Funny that no one in the thread, pro or con, seems to be interested in following up on the point.
Which reminds me of the old joke about the believer on the roof of his house in a flood. How do you know that God doesn’t want you to use the same tools the atheist would use to assuage the situation as much as possible? Or do you think you can remove yourself from any responsibility because whatever happens is God’s will?
Correctamundo. If something to all intents and purposes does not exist, it is absurd to plan your life around it. It makes more sense to act as if it doesn’t exist until such time it decides to show up. That’s what atheists do.
As far as the universe goes, maybe we can’t discount intelligence but that’s the way to bet. The universe looks very natural, not planned, and it certainly doesn’t look designed for us or any other being.
Reaching out to the big daddy and mommy in the sky is very natural. The question is whether these gods ever reached out to them. They all claim the gods did and told them something about the nature of the universe - and every single one of these gods was wrong. Totally wrong.
Science fiction writers write about the future all the time. Some of them get it part right part of the time, but none of them get it all right all of the time. That is okay because they are acknowledged fantasists (excepting Elron). If they claimed they knew the future, we’d call them kooks.
Well, it’s not much of a point to follow-up on. Aside from posting something not-especially-contributory like “Yeah, tom’s right” or “welcome to the board, badger”, what can a tolerant nonbeliever actually do with such a premise?
It’s a bit like saying “most people are okay with that”, followed by a few “I’m okay with it” and “me, too” posts.
I learnt recently here about an actual example of this. It happened in South Africa during the 19th century. Some ethnic group or another was facing starvation caused by a disease killng their cows. Fortunately, a prothetess appeared in time, and told them what to do : they should kill all remaining cows and and also burn their crops as an act of faith, and whatever god(s) they had would provide new cows and food in abundance. In an act of probaly unmatched religious stupidity (believers aren’t that confident in their deity, usually), they actually did exactly that. The result is easy to guess.
Some poster will certainly be able to provide the name of the tribe and a link to the event.
Do we? I’ve never been very interested in philosophy and my “ethical system” is basically “whatever feels right”.
We have general rules in society but most of them seem also to be “whatever feels right to most people”. I’m not sure what higher principle led, for instance, to prosecuting homosexuals or banning pot or forbidding lewd activities conducted in public. I don’t see some obvious ethical system at work when a country decides on controversial issues like limiting or not freedom of expression, implementing or not death penalty, deciding on their healcare system, allowing euthanasia, allowing abortion, etc…
Real answer: yes, people unrestrained by any type of morality have resorted to things like genocide and forced sterilization for far less noble reasons than “saving the world.” It’s happened before, it will happen again, it has nothing to do with altruism or public-mindedness or lack of religion.
Sarcastic answer: you seem to be telling us that you want to do horrible things to others but can’t help yourself. So you’re kind of a scary person. Not everyone is like you, and the rest of us keep people like you locked up in institutions unless somehow you’re able to put together the German army.
I hang out at a coffee shop near a university. A small group of aging skinheads hangs out there also. They are friendly enough but very volatile so most of us tend to avoid them. Sometimes only a few show up and I will find myself in a conversation with one of them. Real scary people and they somehow profess to have Jesus on their side. I have a hard time believing that they believe this because they don’t appear to be very ethical in any of their decisions. By far the majority of Christians, Moslems, Budhists etc do not wear their religion on their shirt sleeve and operate pretty much the same way any decent person operates. I imagine their religion is a source of meditation and prayer for them and I respect that as being an important part of their well being.
I’m guessing you don’t want these people having their beliefs, no matter how comforting they find them personally, being used to justify hassling others or (to hassle everyone) to have their beliefs written into civil law. As long as it remains a strictly personal thing, you’re okay with it.
Well, we feel the same way about you.
I probably should start another thread to answer this one. I like the idea of preserving many traditions from various cultures. I believe traditions add to ur own sense of identitiy which I feel is more difficult to establish and maintain in todays society. My mother brought some traditions over from Italy we still practice in the family almost 100 years later. My fathers family has been in America as long as we can trace and seemingly has no traditions besides the southern sunday go to church thing.
Suppose I move to a town that is 80% budhist or Moslem, they have statues up in public places ( no courthouses, schools or post office) but possibly near the shopping district in the parkway to show the character of the town. I have no problem with this even though it is illegal. I think tradition is healthy until it starts to infringe on others.
Are you stating that when God intervenes(as he has said to have done in the flood story) because he regretted creating humans,then one can look at today and see that human nature hasn’t changed over all the centuries,and wonder why he didn’t alter his plan in the remaking of the human race?
No, I don’t recall stating that.
(emphasis added)
What? Could you explain? Statues are illegal? Or Buddhist/Muslim statues are illegal?
Maybe it’s just me but am I the only one grasping (or maybe failing to grasp) his intent?
Is the ultimate point that somehow logic will dictate over reason, in people?
Like Spock, only without the conscience. I think it’s a weird position to take simply because we are all human, not Vulcan.
Logic drives us, reason checks us.
Perhaps you’ll understand an atheist’s suspicion of a person who chooses a belief structure in part because it absolves him of guilt.
badger, I’m still not sure what your point is. I have a feeling, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that maybe you don’t actually have a real point, but that you’re just sort of spitballing—thinking out loud, so to speak, “What would it be like if I were an atheist? Wouldn’t that be different! I wonder what I’d do!” but that you haven’t actually thought it out and come to a conclusion.
As a result, I’m still not sure where you stand on several issues:
- Do you think the world right now would be better off (barring divine intervention) if millions of people were killed?
- Do you think there is some plausible situation in which the world would be better off if millions of people were killed?
- Do you think being an atheist would make you more or less likely to kill millions of people, and in which circumstances?
- Do you think your answer to 3 means that you would be a better or worse person if you were an atheist? Would the world be better or worse off if you were an atheist?
Just Muslim statues are illegal. It’s against the statue of limitations.
badger, one reason I’m asking is that at some places you seem to be saying that it would be easier to make a tough decision to kill lots of people, but in other places you say that being a believer would make to easier by helping you deal with the guilt. And sometimes you seem to be saying that killing lots of people is a tough but necessary decision that would make the world better, and other times you don’t. And sometimes you seem to say that it depends on whether there’s a god or not.
What I get from all this is that Badger is in the last stage , so to speak, of becoming an atheist.
He has already shed his Catholic conditioning, doesn’t trust the bible anymore and even doesn’t know anymore what this God thing is actually supposed to be and do.
Yet there remains this feeling that there is something and he kind of misses the big daddy in the sky that watches over him.
I too miss that comfort sometimes. Having been raised and, to put it bluntly, brainwashed with all this loving god stuff.
Sometimes I wish I could just believe it all again and feel safe and don’t have to worry that it is me that has to put in effort to make my life work. That it will all be taken care of.
Then I remember it is just a vestige from my indoctrination. Maybe coupled with a yearning back to childhood, when there really were a father and mother that actually took care of me.
Am I far off badger?