Gregor on April 24, 2007 at 12:27 PM

Well said. I suppose the atheist is sort of backed into a corner. No wonder so many come out fighting… it’s only natural, huh? I’ve heard it said that perhaps it takes more faith to be an atheist than to believe in God. For me, to NOT believe, I’d have to squeeze my eyes shut, plug my ears, and sing “la la la” so I wouldn’t hear anything else. Have a great day!

BNCurtis on April 24, 2007 at 10:19 AM

I agree totally, but that explanation doesn’t work with those who have no belief in God. When arguing with these people, you have to avoid using Scripture. I’ve seen people debate moral issues with non-believers by quoting text from the Bible, which is really senseless … being that they’re arguing with someone who sees the Bible as fiction.

Those of us who believe, know that God gave us the knowledge of good and evil. But I try to put myself in the position of someone who does NOT believe, and if you use someone like Allah, you can then argue that even without God … a person is aware of right and wrong. Allah does not believe in God, yet he understands that it’s wrong to murder and steal. My guess is that Allah would agree with the Ten Commandments, even though he does not believe they came from God.

Based on THEIR belief that there is no God, atheists must then come to the conclusion that God is not needed to understand what is moral, or what isn’t.

Non-believers love to tell us to keep our religion to ourselves when we speak of morality. My point is that even if you don’t believe in God … you’re still well aware of what is right or wrong. I happen to believe you’re right, that this instinctive knowledge was ingrained within us at creation. But an atheist will not accept this explanation, even while having no explanation for their own instinctive morality. Do they believe that if mommy and daddy had never told them what was right or wrong, that they would not have known?

Some would suggest that morality is relative and based on your environment. How do they explain Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was raised in a society where children are taught that murder is acceptable? She is also an Atheist who lectures on morality. She seems to have a pretty strong grasp on the subject for someone who doesn’t believe in God. It certainly didn’t come from her “environment.”

How does one know that murder is wrong, if not for God?

To me, it makes no sense without God.

BNCurtis on April 24, 2007 at 8:53 AM

My point is that morality is sometimes thought to be restricted to those who believe in God. I happen to believe in God, but even if I didn’t, I’m 100% sure that I’d still know that murder is wrong. Allah does not believe in God, but I can tell by his writing that he knows murder to be wrong.

I believe morality is a common sense issue. There are those without common sense, and there are those who are mentally ill (or pathological) who might not grasp morality due to some mental flaw, but for the most part … to know if something is right or wrong, all a person need do “sincerely” think.

Is it wrong to steal?
Is it wrong to murder?
Is it wrong to cheat on my wife?

Do you really need God to know the answers?

Why do so many believe you have to be religious to have morals? Do you have to believe in God to know that murder is wrong?

Gregor on April 23, 2007 at 9:13 PM

Not sure where you were going with that, but it prompts another serious question on my part. How does one know that murder is wrong, if not for God? Is it programmed into the human psyche? If so, how? Is it a cultural development? How, why, and on what basis? To me, it makes no sense without God.

Salvation is a gift. The act and redemption paying for your sins and mine was completed on the cross of Calvary.

But each person CHOOSES to accept or reject that gift. That’s free will. Believe, or don’t. To think anything else while believing in the existence of God means you think that everything which has occurred in history since Eden is God playing out exactly how He wants things to be. How horrendous a thought.

It makes far more sense to look at it this way. Imagine yourself as God, and nothing else exists but you. Having the power to create, you do so. And whatever you create surely is meant solely to please you, because who else is there to bother about? You are “all that”, but what of love? You can love what you’ve created, but can it love you back? Really love you? So you create something that is designed specifically to love you. You make sure that it can only obey you, only serve you, and only love you. Is that really loving you, or is that a pre-programmed automaton? The only way to be CERTAIN that your creation really loves you, is to give it the option not to, and let it choose. Ahh, but that option means that it can choose to love and obey you, or choose to defy your wish. And the possibility of evil exists.

At the end of this universe’s time, God will grant EVERYONE their ultimate wish. Those who in their lives discovered how much God loves them and accepted the gift, will live in His realm for eternity. Those who don’t believe in Him, or in His gift, or in His love, will live eternally without Him. That’s fair, wouldn’t you say?

So God invented pain so we’d realize how nice he is to us? I guess we deserve it then.

PeteRR on April 24, 2007 at 1:42 AM

I’m sure you learned this in first grade Pete. The purpose of pain is to warn you when something is wrong with your body. You know? Like when you stick your finger in a bed of burning coal? It’s a defense mechanism. What an amazing concept and almost impossible to believe that the entire nervous system in all living creatures was somehow designed and created by mistake, or by fluke while forming in some pool of pond scum. Don’t you think?

God is either a manipulative busybody sadist or he doesn’t exist. Take your pick.

PeteRR on April 23, 2007 at 10:46 PM

You just contradicted your own point. Your previous comment suggested that if there is a God, then all evil is his fault for allowing it to take place, and for basically allowing humans to have the option of free will to participate in that evil. In other words … it’s God’s fault for NOT being a manipulative busybody.

And then of course, you suggest that the only other possible option is that there is no other God.

It couldn’t possibly be that God created all that exists and than allows life to follow it’s own path? Do you need him to hold your pecker while you pee? Who’s fault is it when you miss?

See Natural Evil is not the same as Moral Evil. We do not reflect upon Moral Evil, it is only upon having Natural Evil that we actually reflect on Moral Evil. In fact I would say that Natural Evil is very much limited compared to Moral Evil. How many times have we thought in our heart of hearts for evil for someone, yet since we never actually did that evil, there was no Natural Evil for the Moral Evil we commited when we thought of wishing Moral Evil on someone.

Ask yourself, when is the last time you apologized to someone for thinking evil toward them (not saying something, but just thinking it)?

So Natural Evil is a call back. It calls us to God about our fallen state. When someone is murdered, we reflect on that evil. We seek for an answer to it. We seek for a way to solve that Moral Evil.

From the philosopher Gangadean:

If evil is removed abruptly the revelation will not be deepened and if evil is not removed the revelation will not be seen.The solution is to remove evil gradually. Evil (unbelief) in every possible form and degree of admixture and conflict with the good is allowed to work itself out in world history. In that process good is eventually and fully realized.

Natural evil (every form of human misery) serves to remove moral evil by restraining, recalling and by restoring mankind. It calls a person to stop and think about the root cause of misery.

Also, for someone to claim it is unjust for God to allow us to suffer and for him to not suffer is a false assumption.

The reasons it is false is because:

*Natural Evil was caused by Man’s Moral Evil (specifically Adam), therefore we created it so we must live with it.

*We do not know the pain that God feels when we reject him for our own pursuits.

*Natural Evil (Pain, suffering and Death) was experienced by God.

When Christ was on the cross, he experienced pain. Having studied the medical aspects of the Cross I can’t think of a worse death than that. If you just want to imagine how painful, watch The Passion of the Cross. The nail in the hand actually went just behind the wrist and pierced the nerve that runs to the hand. If you want to imagine how painful that is just poke at it with your hand. Now imagine it being a nail. That isn’t even talking about the lashings and such. So as awful pain and suffering is for us, God did not spare himself that same pain.

So God did not hold himself to a different standard, not only that, but he did accept the worse pain man could give. No person would call a parent evil if that parent made the child get a painful shot. One of the reasons is the greater good, but beyond that it is because everyone knows that the parent would go through the same pain themselves, if it was for the greater good. God did not make man suffer and absolve himself from it himself.

When we suffer pain, we reflect on our fallen state and I can give you example after example. I know a pastor who didn’t intend to become a pastor. He actually was planning on being a businessman. He accidentally ran over his toddler with his car. During that time he said he called to God and called to God and ultimately felt God was calling him to serve others in need. The pain he felt in his heart called on him to reflect on his (and man’s) fallen state and he decided to try to work to with others who were suffering.

During my times where I was bed ridden for a month at a time, I can honestly say that it was probably some of the closest times I was with God. I reflected upon suffering, because I was suffering (literally). I helped a couple of philosophers on their philosophies and used the time to reflect on meaning. I probably prayed more in my life during that time, because I couldn’t sit up and read much of the time. When I could sit and read I did, when I would have probably spent the time arguing and posting stupid things on the net.

I recall the saying, “Man is at his best, when Men are at their worse.” While in Nazi Concentration camps Corrie Ten Boom struggled with man harming her, yet when reading her book, I was amazed at how she talked about how close she was to God. She was literally suffering with those Jewish women and yet saw a purpose in her suffering at saving Jews (which was was NOT one) and it brought her closer to God.

Ultimately, no matter how offensive the above seems, the Atheist has less answers for pain. In fact, he has no answers.

In your heart of hearts think of the point of pain and suffering in Atheism. There is no answer, pain does not call for man to reflect on God or man’s fallen state, in Atheism. Pain is hollow meaningless and ultimately futile.

In Atheism there can be no point to pain, there is only the red herring that it is a survival technique. Sure in Atheism pain is meant to help survival, but ultimately it has no other purpose and fails when it comes to the largest pain in Natural Evil. The pain that comes in the physical manifestation of Moral Evil. There is no purpose in Atheism to the pain someone feels when their loved one is murdered. In Atheism there is no purpose or answer for the pain a woman feels when she is raped.

Search for an answer for Pain in Atheism and you will only be left with an unanswerable void.

As Rabbi Akiva taught in Ethics of the Fathers, “Everything if foreseen yet free will is given”. Judaism accepts the seeming paradox of an omniscient God and free will. Ultimately, though God is intimately involved in everything, Judaism is not deterministic and comes down on the side of free will. Without free will, any kind of service to God is meaningless.

The world, as it is, is the contemporary result of all that striving. I think that opinion and its overt expression merit thoughtful examination.

Entelechy? Do you have an opinion on the matter?

Kralizec on April 23, 2007 at 2:07 PM

Kralizec, a.k.a. the Voltaire of HOTAiR, I saw this earlier and smiled reflectively. Been thinking about it ever since.

If by “the matter” you meant “result of all that striving”, then Entelechy is disappointed because the results, after all these billions of years, are dismal. Of course you knew exactly to ask Entelechy, which means, among so many hard-to-explain things, constant striving, without ever arriving.

If by matter you meant the religion versus atheism topic, all I know is that I don’t know. However, on this subject I’m very uncomfortable getting into a debate, as most end up being futile.

I respect people who believe, and I respect people who don’t. I don’t believe their morals, lives, values are less valuable/good, either way. My father was agnost and my mother very religious. Both parents did not influence the children. One of us became very religious and one of us didn’t. We were taught, however, to grant all others the same right and freedom of belief.

I love it when in such threads invariably Plato and Socrates are mentioned. You posted much today. Great ideas.

Here is one of my all/old time favorites – the planing (as in carpenter) song. Marlene Dietrich sang it well.

The people quarrel to no end
about what’s happiness,
call stupid one another and
keep knowing less and less.

Anyway, I hope you get to read this, even if you’re the only one. Just like in Socrates’ time, or even Voltaire’s, it would be fun to roam a market with you and philosophize, to stop for tea/coffee, walk, talk, stop, talk, walk, drink and philosophize some more. Nothing would get solved, but we’d continue to search. Btw, in Paris today, there still is a coffee-house called Voltaire. Regards,

You can dash yourself against the rock of the fact that He is God and you are not, or you can find shelter in the rock of the fact that He is God and you are not. Those who know Him have realized both His sovereignty in suffering, sometimes His silence, and yet can know His very real and very present sustaining care and grace and love in the midst of pain.

There is an aspect of mystery to suffering and evil that we will not fully know until we see Him face to face. One book that has helped me tremendously is Os Guiness’ book Doubt (I believe it’s been reprinted as God in the Dark). In it he says, “We may not know why, but we know why we trust God, who knows why.” The sum total of God’s love for me was demonstrated in the death of His Son. That laying down of His life tells me that He won’t leave me in the dark, but has a good purpose I cannot see and that He will walk with me until I am safely home.

I can testify that He is true.

It’s only embarassing if you assume I believe in God. I don’t.

Believers have all the answers when the credit’s being passed around, but tragedy brings out the, We-don’t-know-what-God’s-plan-is when the going gets tough. “Benevolent God” and “Virginia Tech” should never be used in the same sentence.

God is either a manipulative busybody sadist or he doesn’t exist. Take your pick.

This, I suppose, is where it may get touchy. There was no rebuttal of the notion that Zeus at Olympia served as the model for Christ images. No rebuttal that Mary simply took over the role of Artemis. I hope that means a concession on your part.

Your description of God was trumped by Zoroastrianism. The point is that there is nothing new in what you wrote.

As I mentioned earlier, Christianity did more than a smidgen of “fair use” when bringing it all together. There’s a reason for that, as well. The history of the stuff is what’s fascinating.

As for the description of Greeks, I think that is more a matter of opinion than a matter of fact. It can also be applied to Christians, as in “Hi, I’m Robert Schuller and welcome to my Crystal Cathedral which I built to make God happy”. We could also apply that to the Catholic Church, who make some pretty neato churches for the greater glory of God.

Serious question: How can one be Atheist and Conservative?

As I see it, certain morals and values lie at the heart of conservatism (political, economic, social, etc.), which originate in a Judeo-Christian ethic that has God at its center.

BNCurtis on April 23, 2007 at 1:44 PM

Why do so many believe you have to be religious to have morals? Do you have to believe in God to know that murder is wrong? It’s a common liberal reaction to respond to any mention of morality with … “don’t push your religion on me.” It’s also another example of someone not wanting to feel guilty for their actions. Erase God and ignore morality and suddenly, in your own mind, you’ve done nothing wrong.

He created the universe. He created the physical laws we live under. He created Man with all his flaws. He created Lucifer with his tempting ways. And he created evil, which snares so many. And yet somehow it’s our fault when we screw up.

PeteRR on April 23, 2007 at 2:11 PM

We have a winner. That’s got to be one of the most embarrassing comments I’ve seen since HotAir’s creation.

The definition of victimhood. It’s all God’s fault. Nothing is my fault. I would have never murdered the cashier if they had simply given me the money. I would have never robbed the bank if someone would have given me a job. I would have never dropped out of school if they hadn’t punished me for bringing drugs on campus. I would have never done drugs if the dealer hadn’t pressured me. And the dealer would have never been there if God hadn’t created the dealer’s product.

It’s all God’s fault.

Speaking of HotAir’s creation …

God created Michelle, so if not for God, you would have never been able to post such a comment, so don’t feel too bad. That’s God’s fault too. You’re simply a helpless, brainless form, unable to think for yourself or make your own decisions.

Krydor on April 23, 2007 at 6:01 PM

Ever wondered why the Greeks never got beyond a basic agrarian society? It wasn’t because of a lack of mechanical aptitude. It was their separation of existence into spiritual and physical realms, where only the spiritual realms contained truth. Reason did not apply to the physical world, beyond the scope of one’s immediate surroundings. Why? Because they did not believe in a universe ordered by a rational God. Their physical reality was determined by arbitrary, capricious deities, each with their own divine bureaucracy and each requiring homage in their own way. They could lie, cheat, and modify reality to suit their whims.

Induction did not apply to the Greeks’ physical world, only to the worlds in their minds. It couldn’t, since the universe and the gods which controlled it were under no requirement to maintain the causal succession necessary for induction. Certainly they achieved feats of application of reason in their architecture and aqueducts etc., but the overwhelming majority of these feats were for what purpose? To placate the gods they so feared.

The Judeo-Christian world-view did away with that. Not only was reality ruled by a single deity, but that deity is both omnibenevolent and fully rational. God, by His nature, cannot lie. No other religion on the Earth has that defining characteristic of its deity. Allah is as capricious as any Greek or Roman god; his will is absolute, inscrutable, and arbitrary.

Not only is the Judeo-Christian God incapable of lying, He has made it a point, through His Son, to communicate to each man individually the will of God. No more priests but the High Priest. Every man is free to worship God in spirit and in truth, and every man has a right to expect that a rational God’s universe to behave rationally. In fact, it is incumbent on men to understand God’s universe to better understand God himself.

In effect, the massive and complete decentralization of both God’s communication to men and men’s understanding of His rational universe is what opened up the world to the explosion of learning after the last vestiges of Roman autocracy finally died away during the Reformation. Christ came first to free mankind from bondage, then that emancipation eventually led to prosperity, but only in those places that esteemed Christ’s gospel and its liberty, i.e. Europe and America.

Act of God?

Or, one might google “Zeus at Olympia”. Early Christian history is replete with this stuff. For instance, you really don’t want know why people are so enamoured with the Virgin Mary. Think “Artemis”…

I didn’t go hunting for this story because I was bored.

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But when you start your post with:

Looks like a slow news day. Might as well see if we can get a 500-comment thread going.

I don’t think you can accuse me of jumping to a wild conclusion.

I’d also stick by my statement that the reactions in the piece you linked were primarily ones of shock. The first line of the article is:

The tissue boxes were neatly laid on every wooden pew, but there were none on the pulpit, so Tommy McDearis wiped his tears away with the back of his hand.

Even in the bit you excerpted, there’s this:

“I didn’t see anything beautiful,” she said. “My heart had been numb since Monday.”

Weeping and numbness-of-heart aren’t “thoughtful” reactions they’re emotional ones. I’m not suggesting one couldn’t reach the same place through reason, but that’s not what this article is about.

I’m certainly not claiming to be an oppressed minority, but the fact is there is prejudice here and I take exception to trying to blame the victim.

I think you’ve been very fair in the past about pointing out some of the more outrageous attacks on Christians, but the fact remains that there has been a wave of high profile publishing by atheists over the last couple years. Literally dozens of books warning of the coming theocracy or directly attacking Christianity, several of which have become major bestsellers.

Atheists are certainly a minority, but they’ve been a very vocal one recently. Nothing wrong with that, but there is with some of the things they’re saying. Dawkins has equated Sunday school with child abuse both in his book and in a two hour TV special for the BBC. Dennett dubs atheists “brights” as a not-so-subtle way of saying that Christians are rather dim.

So when it comes to that poll that you mentioned, I don’t think it’s prejudice at all. Christian voters look at the question and ask themselves: “Would I vote for someone whose fundamental affiliation is with a group that hold me in open contempt?” NO. What’s surprising about that?

I can, if you want, explain why Jesus appears as a white dude with a beard.

Did Jesus appear to you? Or do you mean why people who make up a painting out of their own imaginations depict Him that way?

Perhaps because he was a jew?

Jews, being semitic, are fairly light-skinned in the grand scheme of things. And the beard? Pretty sure that can be chalked up to Judaism too.

No mysticism required.

Rejection of Greek and Roman mysticism? Don’t want to throw a caveat or two in there? You know, because from what I’ve read it was the embracing of certain Greek philosophical ideas that provided the foundation of modern science. Couple that come to mind are Empiricsm and Skepticism.

When Issac Newton was talking about standing on the shoulders of giants, he certainly was not talking about Christian philosophers or Biblical stuff.

Then again, if we are going in the direction of those crazy pantheists, hardly any of that was rejected and was instead co-opted. I can, if you want, explain why Jesus appears as a white dude with a beard. The history is fascinating, absolutely and unequivocally amazing. However, it did not rise up from a vacuum and stole from a whole bunch of extant myths and religions. No, really.

This can become a discussion of the existence/non-existence of God. That is an absolute waste of time. This might become a discussion of the nature of religion, which is way more fun (for me).

one’s thoughts naturally turn to what that being was doing while Cho was busy plugging innocent kids.

And that’s where you make the fundamental mistake. Christian belief is that ALL (that’s means everybody) has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Thus, there is no such thing as an “innocent” kid. There are those who have been redeemed by accepting the work of Jesus Christ and there are those who have chosen to reject the work of Jesus Christ.

And, guess what? God, being omnipotent, already knows whether you are one of those who has/will or has not/will not, accept His free gift. Christians also trust God to do the right thing, as His creations we do not presume to judge the creator.

Oh, and then there is that whole – life is just the beginning of eternity – thing. So our brief time here followed by a death which is NOT an end, just a transition may not be as all important as an athiest’s beliefs require it to be.

Fortunately, we do not get to define God, regardless of how hard we try.

Why does a perfect God allow pain? Why does He not prevent evil? Fundamentally, of course, the question of free will emerges, as laid out above. God only rarely intervenes, though He will on occassion (He’s no blind watchmaker).

Why the Garden of Eden? Why allow a paradise to be screwed up by two idiots? It’s because it was meant to happen. This life is a schoolground. We are intended to feel pain, to fail, to understand sorrow–so that we can also understand the sweet, appreciate the joy. In a word, we are here to gain knowledge. Events happen in our lives, each of us–and we are left to decide how we react. Will our hearts be hardened (we “curse God and die?”), or will we be softened and look for a good result. It is how each of us react to these horrible events (and good events, too) that is what is important. Was the VT tragedy horrible? Yes, it was–but who knows, maybe one of those students would have been killed in a car accident on the way home from class. Either way, they are dead, and their friends still grieving.

How do we react–that’s the rub. God will only test us to make us grow, to progress,–in fact, that is a lot of the reasons why sometimes horrible seeming things happen to us. Will we grow harder, or softer? Will we become more like God ourselves, or retreat from Him?

“Know this, that all these things shall give thee experience and be for thy good.”