Original Sin?

Quote: buzzardknot

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 ?

Much as it sickens me to say such a thing, EvenBob and I are in pretty much total agreement regarding religion, though I express my views much more coherently, cogently, and eloquently than he does (and with far fewer spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors). So consider me as filling in for EvenBob as Resident Atheist until our favorite Trumper returns from the penalty box.

Quote: FrGamble

What moral compass could atheism possibly provide?

I already explained to you. An increased respect for life--one's own and that of others, when one realizes there is no afterlife and that sentient life is a beautiful and very rare accident. Greater abhorrence of murder--one is not merely sending a person to the afterlife, as when Catholic missionaries converted the heathens to death, but destroying them utterly--and a greater reluctance to be a soldier and kill or be killed. Personal responsibility and a respect for one's fellow humans that comes from altruism and compassion, not the fear of God waving a stick.

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Then I must continue to ask you; what happens if you didn't feel murder is wrong? If the only reason you are not doing something is because you don't want to do it then I would say your morality is much worse than those who don't do something because they fear eternal punishment.

The exact opposite is true. If you don't do wrong because you fear punishment, you are simply making a completely amoral risk/reward calculation. If you don't feel murder is wrong, that doesn't necessarily mean you will commit murder--you could simply not want to deal with the consequences. You're using a reductio ad absurdum argument, which is a cheap shot. Also, murders are committed all the time by people who feel murder is wrong.

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I thought you were taught by nuns? Surely they taught you better than that? I'm flabbergasted that with a Catholic education you would say something so false and misleading.

Sorry, but Catholic doctrine does indeed teach that the forgiven sinner--which is what the person is when he exits the confessional--is exactly equal in the eyes of God to one who has never sinned and will be treated the exact same way. Therefore, mass murderer+confessional = saint.

Is stinkingliberal suspended for some reason?

Quote: stinkingliberal

I already explained to you. An increased respect for life--one's own and that of others, when one realizes there is no afterlife and that sentient life is a beautiful and very rare accident.

You don't have to think this way if you are an atheist. I'm glad you do but it is just as reasonable to say that because life is just a rare accident and there is no afterlife then there is no real meaning or purpose to life and it is worthless and a joke. Enjoy it as much as you can and the one with the most toys at the end and avoids suffering at all cost wins. A version of this interpretation of what atheism gives us is more common than your almost Christian view of life.

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The exact opposite is true. If you don't do wrong because you fear punishment, you are simply making a completely amoral risk/reward calculation. If you don't feel murder is wrong, that doesn't necessarily mean you will commit murder--you could simply not want to deal with the consequences.

Listen to what you are saying! In one breath you write about not doing something because you fear the consequences is weak and then in the next sentence you say that you may not commit murder because you simply don't want to deal with the consequences. Why not just say that murder is wrong, objectively evil, and something you won't do because you are a good person?

The problem is that atheism robs us of the ability to talk about objective evil or what is really good. What may be evil for me could be good for you in the atheistic viewpoint. Morality is subjective for an atheist because they have nothing solid and universal and true to ground morality. Right now you think murder is wrong and even if someone got you very mad you don't want to deal with the consequences. However, someone can easily imagine if those consequences were lifted you would be all for it. This I repeat is not moral! It is selfishness and placing yourself in the place of God who for no good reason you have supplanted with yourself.

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Sorry, but Catholic doctrine does indeed teach that the forgiven sinner--which is what the person is when he exits the confessional--is exactly equal in the eyes of God to one who has never sinned and will be treated the exact same way. Therefore, mass murderer+confessional = saint.

You seem to think it is some type of magic booth. Walk in and walk out a saint? How could the good sisters fail so completely, I feel that you must not have been really listening. What about the need for contrition, a firm amendment of life, a penance? Did you forget about the difference between our culpability for sin and the temporal punishment due to sin? What about addictions and concupiscence that remain even after confession attracting us to our previous sins and temptations? Don't these too by God's grace and our conscientious efforts need to be wiped away for us to be saints?

Quote: FrGamble

I know that he knows that whatever power he might have it is not from him and it is given to him to serve others like the Lord.

All power is given by others. Even in a naked force organization like, say, the Mafia, the purpose of the threats, intimidation, violence, etc. is to get people to obey.

Though not all power is coercive, religious power most definitely is. The deity supplies the threats, the authorities the intimidation and violence.

As stinkingliberal and I have been talking I think we would both hold that coercive power is not really power at all. God alone has the power and he does not supply any threats at all - only truth, justice, love, and hope.

Quote: FrGamble

God alone has the power and he does not supply any threats at all - only truth, justice, love, and hope.

This deserves a really devastating comeback.

Quote: Nareed

This deserves a really devastating comeback.

I have to post this link to a Tim Minchin song, "Thank You God":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZeWPScnolo

And if you get that right, he just might
Take a break from giving babies malaria
And pop down to your local area...

We have to remember that when God kills thousands in an earthquake or tsunami, or makes a six-year-old girl die slowly from brain cancer, or gives trichinosis to millions of African children, he does so with love .

Quote: FrGamble

As stinkingliberal and I have been talking I think we would both hold that coercive power is not really power at all. God alone has the power and he does not supply any threats at all - only truth, justice, love, and hope.

Except for the threats of eternal damnation and suffering in agony forever if you don't follow the rules, of course.

I have heard some Christian doctrine that says that all this hell and damnation stuff is bogus and was just invented by human authorities to keep people in line, and that we're all going to heaven regardless of whether we've been good or evil. Of course, this removes the coercive element. I'm surprised it isn't used more often by Christians--it would help sell the brand a lot better.

I would say that at LEAST 95% of the population dies "unshriven," as in, per Christian doctrine, guilty of a mortal sin and unconfessed. So hell is Los Angeles and heaven is Paducah. What, exactly, was the point of creating all those lost souls? If God is about love and forgiveness, why is any soul in hell at all?

I hardly feel you have the standing or gumption to make the suffering of our broken world a bludgeon to attack God. God is the only source of hope for those who die too young from disease or in earthquakes. It is your illogical and despairing ideology of atheism that robs humanity of ultimate justice and happiness. Without God we are left without meaning and in despair. It is you who are left grasping at straws with no answers to the suffering we all experience and you offer nothing except to rub our noses in excrement and pretend it supports an athestic worldview, when in reality it makes your ideas and your argument stink to high heaven.

Quote: FrGamble

I hardly feel you have the standing or gumption to make the suffering of our broken world a bludgeon to attack God. God is the only source of hope for those who die too young from disease or in earthquakes.

1) Those who have died are beyond hope or help.

2) Apparently in the last 2000 years the most Jehovah has been capable of doing is to put images of his son on toast.