The boasts of atheists (Atheist self-deception)

"Doesn't it make you want to puke?", said Cocky Robin."Yeah," said Joe.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The author used himself as an example to disprove this premise: Just because you don't know anyone with a moral character worth imitating (exemplary), doesn't mean that those people don't exist.His statement also doesn't mean that he's never had to weather life's storms. He's not saying that everything always works out perfectly for him.So why do you feel the need to regurgitate because someone claims:

---

"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

Robin's nausea and Robin's philosophical point may be getting hopelessly confused in this thread. The idea that without God there could be "no ultimate standards of morality" does not contradict the idea that atheists may have high moral standards of their own, as I believe Robin has acknowledged many times. In fact since he himself is an atheist who considers himself to have high moral standards, that *can't* be what he is saying. It's just that unless there is a God those standards cannot be "ultimate" but personal and subjectively chosen. I don't think Robin is questioning the truthfulness of any of the "boasts," just that they are personal choices, and that makes them subjective, and to brag about them fails to grasp this fundamental point he keeps trying to make. There's got to be more to the GI upset than that but I don't know what all he has in mind. I hope Robin will explain what he means by the nausea, but rather than treat it as merely a reaction to boasting, maybe more can be made out of the overall context of this discussion as an expression of what the Existentialists were trying to say, which is what it brings to mind for me. Jean-Paul Sartre for instance wrote a novel titled Nausea which is all about the problem of existence, and that problem for the Existentialists began with the Death of God in the 19th century: Basically the meaninglessness of human life without an ultimate purpose or cause. Doesn't mean that people don't invent meanings and moralities and happiness, but does mean that they do so in spite of this lack of ultimate meaning, and the very necessity of doing so is felt by these philosophers as a sort of plague."The freedom that man is condemned to," the "absurdity" of life, etc., are the preoccupations of the Existentialists. Freedom to do whatever you want, no God to tell you what to do, no objective moral underpinnings, you have to make them up yourself, etc. etc. etc. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905—1980) Nausea Summary & Analysis | SparkNotesFunny, though, the existentialists do a terrific job of describing the moral and every other kind of emptiness of life in the absence of an ultimate or objective purpose, but yet they go on to propose their own morality, rather dogmatically and stridently, as if it were in fact objective and absolute, as if they'd forgotten they'd already declared such an objective absolute morality impossible and nonexistent. Only Nietzsche, an earlier Existentialist, was completely consistent about the death of morality as a result of the Death of God.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : changed sentence about Existentialists' dogmatic morality for clarity

Unprovable, religious rhetoric?

Do those Christians who really maintain high personal moral standards feel that those standards would melt away without God or the bible? Is God the only thing keeping them from ripping off their clothes and performing live sex acts on a stage before throngs of cheering fans?

Maybe not having throngs of cheering fans is a bit of a deterrent.

This is not the point. Nobody has said nonChristians don't have moral standards. All that has been said is that without God there are no ABSOLUTE or ULTIMATE or OBJECTIVE moral standards, but only ones we choose, subjective standards.

And so far no one has shown that there are any ABSOLUTE or ULTIMATE or OBJECTIVE moral standards if there is a GOD, so what is the point? This thread like all the others robin has started seems to be a stream of unfounded assertions based on fallacious reasoning. It's a humorous escapade into the realm of nonsense and fantasy.None other than Robin said "Except in a practical sense, it will not do to speak of such things as happiness and morality." That pretty much sums up the options, the practical world of those he quotes compared to some impractical world of chimera he inhabits.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I disagree. Rape and murder are wrong, absolutely. It doesn't matter if God is there or not, they're still wrong. Christians, Buddhists, Moslems, agnostics and atheists can all easily understand that rape and murder are always wrong. You may argue that we need God for many reasons, but surely we don't need him to show us that rape and murder are wrong. Those strictures are self-evident and absolute.Sometimes there may be problems in determining whether a given act really is rape or murder, but if it is the moral rule applies with or without God's help.

And what are those objective and ultimate morals? Can you show these are?

And there in lies the problem. Whether it is rape or murder will depend on the culture, the era and the ethics of the community.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

jar writes me:

quote:

---

And there in lies the problem. Whether it is rape or murder will depend on the culture, the era and the ethics of the community.

---

That may be, but it's beside the point. If we know that a murder has occurred then we know that a moral absolute has been broken. We may make a wrongful determination about whether a rape or murder has occurred, but that doesn't change the absolute fact that rape and murder are wrong.Standards do indeed change as we go from one society to another, but moral absolutes don't. If a man in some remote third-world village commits a rape that isn't viewed as rape in his culture, to my mind he still has broken a moral absolute. I may not have a God I can sic on him to make him pay for what he's done, but I know in my heart that he's done wrong.So when I say moral absolute, I don't mean a standard that can be readily applied flawlessly in all situations. I just mean that I know that rape or murder are absolutely wrong whenever they occur.

No, this is a hypothetical logic problem. Nobody has even SAID there ARE objective, ultimate absolute moral standards. What has been actually SAID is that there are none UNLESS there is a God. Logically speaking, in other words, just following through on this hypothetical situation, even if there WERE a God there MIGHT not be any. Sticking to the logic of the proposition, there is no call to try to specify what the standards might be IF there were a God and IF He gave absolute standards. That is not what is being discussed. This is a complete misreading of what he is saying. He has over and over said he personally inhabits that practical world in which in a practical sense one speaks of such things as happiness and morality, and this, he says, is because he doesn't believe in God, and this is all that anyone can do who doesn't believe in God, subjectively invent a practical kind of happiness and morality. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

How can I misread what he says when I quote his exact words?Did Robin not say, "Except in a practical sense, it will not do to speak of such things as happiness and morality." as posted in Message 1? Did he not go on to immediately follow that statement in Message 1 with: It sounds like he is saying quite the opposite of what you claim he is saying.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No. There is a difference between one's practical life and one's philosophical life. I would never speak of my nihilistic views to my peers. I could be fired for that. One must be very positive on one's job, of course.But here I feel I can be honest.