Original Sin?

In a naturalistic world morality is a human construct and therefore fluid and malleable. In a religious world view morality is absolute and unchanging whether or not it's a human construct. Either way morality is determined by brute force and majority rule. On the third hand, if God is real He gets to determine moral standards for us humans and in that case like it or not (and most people don't) there's nothing we can do about it. P.S. I am making a distinction between religion and God.

Quote: Nareed

So it's not different from religion?

At least in every religion I know of you have to break it's major tenets and core beliefs to do evil things. I maintain that atheism taken seriously offers no resistance to your decision to be evil. Thank God very few people actually take atheism that seriously.

Quote: FrGamble

At least in every religion I know of you have to break it's major tenets and core beliefs to do evil things.

How so? Things like the inquisition, the Crusades, the religious wars between Protestants and Catholics, were all undertaken with full sanction by religious authorities, with the express purpose of doing the deity's work on Earth.

Quote: FrGamble

Okay this does not fly only in the face of Christian dogma it flies in the face of reason and logic. What you are positing has no proof and is actually impossible. You cannot have a "real" infinite of anything made of matter or subject to time. The reasons are well...infinite.

I wish I had anything figured out. Do you suppose that the Universe may be so queer as to actually have been created by an allpowerful and loving God who loves you and created you full of meaning, dignity, value, and with an eternal destiny?

Actually, if you understood quantum mechanics (and I freely admit that my understanding of it is rudimentary at best), you would see the proof of that. Yes indeed, it flies in the face of "reason and logic" as formed by humans who live in a three-dimensional world and are not equipped to comprehend such things as quantum mechanics. But many of the most profound concepts of science are deeply counterintuitive. And as far as the presence of infinite things is concerned...I present to you the number "pi," which is an infinitely long number. Or the number 0.9999999..., which does not end (and is a real number used to express a number of mathematical concepts). For that matter, there are an infinite number of ways that you or I could live the next five minutes.

And yes, the universe may indeed be that queer--but that is only one of a huge (not necessarily infinite) number of possibilities and therefore, an intellectually honest person must treat it as a hypothesis with an extremely small probability of being correct.

And by the way, if God loves me but will cast me down into a pit of eternal torture and suffering if I screw up (or simply end my existence, per Judgment Day mythology), I'd rather he ignored me and decided to love somebody else. In fact, here's a conundrum for you: if God knows the future, then he would know if a soul he created was going to wind up in heaven or hell. So why would he create a soul that is destined to live a brief existence on earth and then suffer in hell for eternity? It seems like the cruelest thing imaginable. And you can't answer that problem by saying that we have free will. In a supposed deterministic universe run by an omnipotent, all-knowing creator, we actually don't.

Quote: pew

In a naturalistic world morality is a human construct and therefore fluid and malleable. In a religious world view morality is absolute and unchanging whether or not it's a human construct. Either way morality is determined by brute force and majority rule. On the third hand, if God is real He gets to determine moral standards for us humans and in that case like it or not (and most people don't) there's nothing we can do about it. P.S. I am making a distinction between religion and God.

Actually, one of the biggest problems I had with Catholic mythology (I was educated by penguins) was that God supposedly expected us to conform to a moral code that he himself didn't observe. I only ever got lame explanations like "we're not capable of understanding." Then I countered with, well, if we're not capable of understanding, maybe we have it all completely wrong and only mass murderers are actually going to heaven. At least, we should be strangling bunnies or something. One hour detention, blasphemer!

Quote: FrGamble

At least in every religion I know of you have to break it's major tenets and core beliefs to do evil things. I maintain that atheism taken seriously offers no resistance to your decision to be evil. Thank God very few people actually take atheism that seriously.

Actually, less than 30% of Europe's population reports having religious beliefs, to give you just one example. I don't know the proportion here, but it's not insignificant. Whatever the exact number (and it's been estimated at over 1 billion), atheists are hardly some kind of insignificant fringe group. Thank God there are so many people who actually don't take religion seriously.

Your premise that being an atheist provides no moral compass is absolutely incorrect and in fact, as an atheist, I kind of resent it. Religion does not have some kind of exclusive franchise on goodness. In fact, I feel that my moral code is superior to that imposed on followers of most monotheistic religions because I don't fear punishment if I break it and have no authority figures to scold me if I do. Aside from the civil punishments, I don't murder someone because I feel murder is wrong, not because I think God will send me to hell for it. And by the way, the doctrine that I could gun down 100 people in a shopping mall and all would be hunky-dory as long as I ducked into a confessional and said a few Hail Marys afterward is somewhere between risible and loathsome.

And yet you are in large part responsible for Evenbob not being able to enlighten us. Fr Gamble may forgive you, but I will not.

HAVE YOU LEFT NO SENSE OF DECENCY ?

Quote: Nareed

How so? Things like the inquisition, the Crusades, the religious wars between Protestants and Catholics, were all undertaken with full sanction by religious authorities, with the express purpose of doing the deity's work on Earth.

Religious authorities are very different than God.

Quote: stinkingliberal

Actually, if you understood quantum mechanics (and I freely admit that my understanding of it is rudimentary at best), you would see the proof of that.

So are you saying quantum mechanics proves an infinite number of universes exist?

Quote:

Yes indeed, it flies in the face of "reason and logic" as formed by humans who live in a three-dimensional world and are not equipped to comprehend such things as quantum mechanics. But many of the most profound concepts of science are deeply counterintuitive.

So are you saying we need to put aside our "reason and logic" as we understand it in order to comprehend something? As a skeptic yourself this should have your alarm bells blaring. Counterintuitive is one thing, against reason and logic is another.

Quote:

And as far as the presence of infinite things is concerned...I present to you the number "pi," which is an infinitely long number. Or the number 0.9999999..., which does not end (and is a real number used to express a number of mathematical concepts). For that matter, there are an infinite number of ways that you or I could live the next five minutes.

I'm glad you brought up math, it is not material or bound by time. There are an infinite number of numbers that we can think of in our heads and we can keep listing the numbers of Pi forever but this only exists in our thoughts.

There is NOT an infinite number of ways that you or I could live the next five minutes. I can't fly or turn into jello, I can't visit Rome in the next five minutes or go to Jupiter. Infinite means infinite and once again there is no possibility of there being an infinite number of anything that is material or bound to time. This might be counterintuitive, but as you mentioned early most profound concepts are.

Quote:

And yes, the universe may indeed be that queer--but that is only one of a huge (not necessarily infinite) number of possibilities and therefore, an intellectually honest person must treat it as a hypothesis with an extremely small probability of being correct.

And an intellectually honest person would also see the accumulation of probabilities based on evidence of a certain possibility increasing its chances of being correct. An intellectually honest person may also have a personal experience of the truth of a hypothesis being correct confirming it as correct in their lives.

Quote:

And by the way, if God loves me but will cast me down into a pit of eternal torture and suffering if I screw up

If this is what you think believing in God is then rest assured I would join you in not believing in such a God. God loves you and will never cast you away, He will only draw closer to you especially if you screw up. Hell is real, but you must chose it over love and happiness. You will not be sent there.

Quote:

And you can't answer that problem by saying that we have free will. In a supposed deterministic universe run by an omnipotent, all-knowing creator, we actually don't.

We do have free will and a very limited perspective. How does God knowing what you will do effect you doing it? You are no less free to make whatever decisions or choices you would like just because someone not bound by time sees the past, present, and future as one.

Quote: stinkingliberal

Actually, one of the biggest problems I had with Catholic mythology was that God supposedly expected us to conform to a moral code that he himself didn't observe.

What are you talking about?