Atheism on the Rise

Because he will not admit when he is clearly wrong, on anything.Instead of admiting to the mistake in his arguement he actually said that kids are born knowing right from wrong, as if I, or anyone else on this board, has not raised children, who clearly don't know right from wrong and have to be taught.Why? Because his entire position depends on that ridiculous opinion.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

I know, and I often catch myself thinking the same thing (how can you still think...) for many arguments on this site, but this one is just so much more obvious, in a very intimate and personal way, rather than bristlecone pine tree rings correlating to Carbon-14 decay, or even mutation and natural selection, that I couldn't stop myself from expressing it.It reminds me of Bush et. al. who would never, ever admit to ever being wrong on anything, even when put face to face with errors and mistakes galore, until about the last month of the administration, and even then, it was always accompanied with rationalization.

ICANT writes:

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Without God laws of morality there is no reason for morality to exist.

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And yet, the mere existence of atheists proves this to be false.Or are you claiming atheists have no morals?

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I think Gould said it best in, "In the Mind of the Beholder", when he stated that "no factual discovery of science can, in principle, lead us to ethical conclusions, or to convictions about intrinsic meaning."

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Indeed, because science is not philosophy. There is a philosophy of science, but that isn't the same thing.Morality and ethics are derived from philosophy. Science can inform your philosophy, but it isn't philosophy in and of itself.Religion is philosophy, but do not make the mistake of reversing that arrow. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.Are you saying atheists have no morality?And on a side note, your claim that a baby crying to be held is "lying" is ridiculous. The baby cries because it wants something and the only way it knows how to get attention is to cry. That isn't lying. That's "communicating." Since when did crying mean only either "I'm hungry" or "My diaper needs changing"?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

So are you saying the Mayans or Chinese or Hindis were immoral since they had no access to your god's laws?

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

No. ICANT is claiming that those people had intrinsic knowledge of morality granted from birth by God, and that any differences between their moral structures and Biblical morality are due to wicked humans choosing to ignore their inbuilt moral sense and ignore God.It's neatly unfalsifiable and untestable. Atheists and other non-Christians can be moral because God grants everyone inbuilt morality. Different moral standards across different cultures are handwaved away as some sort of "choice" to ignore what we all know deep down.Such a position requires as an axiom that God exists, and that God does in fact write morality into the human "heart" as described in the Bible. Of course, there is no evidence to support this outside of the Bible's claim, and no way to test it with the clever apologetics ICANT has set in place that dismiss contrary evidence.ICANT's issue is that he has an untestable and unsupported hypothesis that rests on two similarly unsupported and untestable assumptions. It's a matter of ICANT's faith, and he's not going to change his mind regardless of any evidence short of proving God doesn't exist.It's a textbook example of why apologetics don't work. ICANT is not following evidence to an unbiased conclusion; he's reinterpreting evidence to support the conclusion he held from the start. Obviously, this is false reasoning. Differences in human morality across different cultures and belief systems are not evidence that people choose to ignore their universal inbuilt morality, but are rather evidence that human morality is subjective and there is no such universal inbuilt moral code.ICANT's position is similar to claiming that there is an invisible pink unicorn standing in front of the White House, everyone can see it, but those who claim to be unable to see it have chosen not to. It's unfalsifiable, it's completely unsupported, and it's the hallmark of a person incapable of rational thought.Christians love to make this claim, which is identical to the "you know God exists, deep down" nonsense. It's also how they justify the implication of Christianity that those not exposed to Jesus must necessarily go to Hell - everyone knows about Jesus deep down, you see. The fact that those who have never heard of Christianity universally do not have any idea who Jesus is is the result of their conscious choice to reject the beliefs that they've never heard of but "know, deep down."There's a reason it's foolish to tell someone else what they are thinking or feeling, or what they do or not do. Christians don't often get that memo.

Hi Rrhain,I said: "Without God laws of morality there is no reason for morality to exist."Your response was: Are you saying the mere existence of atheist is a reason for morality to exist? No.I am saying mankind has decided what was good and what was evil since the first man ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.That is the reason there are people with their moral bar set low, other with it set much higher with a lot inbetween.You are what you choose to be.No one makes you do or be anything you don't want too.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

I think that there was simply more incentive during the Inquisition to keep herectical thoughts to oneself. Modern times and the laxity of the church to not burn and excommunicate non believers has proven to bolster athiest numbers.

ICANT responds to me:

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Are you saying the mere existence of atheist is a reason for morality to exist?

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Since atheists have morality, yes, I am.Or are you saying that atheists have no morals?This is pretty much the same argument that Miss Manners has regarding etiquette: It's "restrictive," people cry. And yet, everybody seems to get upset over rude behaviour. They may not follow all the rules that traditional etiquette has, but they certainly have ideas about what is rude and what isn't and get reliably miffed when those rules are violated.Since atheists have morality and since atheists have no god, the idea that god writes morality on people is proven false by the mere existence of atheists.

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I am saying mankind has decided what was good and what was evil since the first man ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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But atheists prove that wrong.Or are you saying atheists don't understand their own philosophy? That you know better than they do about where they get their philosophy?

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You are what you choose to be.

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You realize you just contradicted your own claim. If we are what we choose to be, then god has nothing to do with it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

The question you must ask yourself is: from where does God get his "laws of morality"?Either he thinks them up himself, or they exist independently of him and he only endorses them.If he thinks them up himself he can choose anything to be morally right or wrong. In principle, murdering babies could be morally right by his fiat. That would make God an amoral - and possibly even an immoral - being.If morality somehow exists independently of God, then there is no reason why we could not arrive at it ourselves, without God's help. And this is what I think in fact happened. Societies such as ours can evolve only when certain basic moral tenets form the core of social conduct.One of the most basic moral tenets, the "Golden Rule" if you will, is to treat others as you would want them to treat you. It's a very simple rule, but it has the power to help build stable societies. And it does not mention God anywhere, if you get my drift.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Hi Parasomnium, If morality exists without God, where did it come from?Why does morality exist? So, where did the "Golden Rule" come from?Perhaps it came from the words found in the book of Exodus chapter 20.The ten commandments recorded there some 3800 years ago whether given by God, or just the product of Moses is the earliest basis I can find.The first four commandments were mankinds dealings with God.The last six was mankinds dealings with mankind.5. Honor thy father and thy mother.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.Jesus gave two commandments almost 2000 years ago as recorded in Matther chapter 22.1. Was concerning mankinds dealings with God.2. Matthew 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.So, where did your "Golden Rule" come from?God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Hi Rrhain, So why does atheist existing have anything to do with morality existing?You are just preaching that because atheist exist morality exists.The question's I have is why does morality exist?Where did it come from?Why did it begin to exist?Those are the questions Gould was contemplating.There is no scientific reason for morality to exist.So, what is the reason?God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

The topic is not about atheism and morality. There are threads that deal with this topic. If you are geniunely interested in debating this subject go and participate in them. Here are a number in a variety of different fora: Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not?
What morality can be logically derived from Evolution?
Evolutionary Explanation for Morality
Morality and GodTake a look at the OPs and consider which one might be best suited to the way you want to discuss morality and atheism.

We discussed this at great length in the Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not? thread, last posted to on 24 Apr 2009. Basically, morality are the rules and attitudes necessary for a society to function and for individuals to fit within that society and to interact successfully (AKA "get along with") other individuals within that society. Over several generations, a simple set of mutual agreements would have been added onto {*} and refined into a more comprehensive code of conduct. At the same time, those who could not abide by rules (as my ex so often put, nobody could ever tell her what to do!, when cause most attempts to dance with her to be like a wrestling match) would be weeded out, so that those who could follow rules would be the ones contributing to the society's gene pool, such that we have in effect bred ourselves to want to learn and follow the rules.So, just as with language, we are wired to learn our society's rules, but we are not wired with one specific set of rules any more than we're wired with one specific language. The specific set of rules, like the specific language we grow up speaking, depends on what's practiced by the group we grow up in.{* Footnote: For example, a co-worker had been a problem teenager and so spent time on a youth ranch. When he arrived, they only had 4 rules, but by the time he left they had 32 rules. Every time he did something stupid, they had to made a rule to keep anyone from doing it again. } A very good question, one which I believe you have not attempted to answer yourself. Do you think that morality is important? Why? What purpose does morality serve? What are the consequences if morality does not exist? If your neighbors have no morality, should that concern you (excluding claims of worrying about their immortal souls)? Many Christian spokesmen routinely express extreme concern about the morality of non-believers. Why, excluding pronouncements about concern for their immortal souls, should the morality of non-believers be any concern? I mean, if your neighbor lacks morality such that he believes that mass murder and theft are fun pastimes, why should that concern you in any way? Nu?My short answer to all those questions to you would be that, yes, we would need to be concerned because we live in the same society. Their conduct and misconduct affects me just as my conduct and misconduct affects them. Morality is crucially important.Morality exists because human societies exist. It is part of human nature to form into social groups and to try to conform to the norms of those groups, which includes learning and abiding by those groups' codes of conduct, AKA morality.This is why we cannot find any human society that does not have morality. No gods are needed to explain it. And if certain gods end up not existing, that does not in any way invalidate the existence of morality.So I am worried by that popular Christian doctrine that morality cannot exist without God (AKA JHWH) and that if God were to not exist then we would be free to do anything we want. That worries me because it's a booby trap that will spring and destroy a believer when he ceases to believe. Or pretends to cease to believe (yes, I have encountered "atheists" who were only pretending to disbelieve so that they could give vent to their adolescent hormones; one creationist activist even admits that was his motivation). Because that doctrine will lead the new disbeliever to make the tragic bone-headed mistake of abandoning morality. Sorry, Charlie, but, even though you may no longer believe that God exists, morality most assuredly does still exist. Morality is still vitally important, with or without the gods. Well, of course it's a Pharisee teaching. Given by Rabbi Hillel circa 20BCE, half a century before the traditional time of Jesus' ministry.More basically, it's an expression of empathy, which itself can arguably be considered the emotional basis for much moral reasoning.PS
Reply started before AdminModulous' warning.By all means, ICANT, take this over to the Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not? topic.Edited by dwise1, : PS

That might explain why there is a rise in Atheism, a large amount of so called Christians don't act the Part.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

ICANT, see my answer here.