Posted on 07/15/2014 9:37:28 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
While we’re still breathing, there’s always hope.
I care about them plenty. Though let’s be honest, the “moral imperative” is still utilitarian, you want to be judged by God a good person and get to go to heaven when you die. I want to be judged by myself a good person so I can look myself in the mirror every morning when I shave.
I’m in a society, and my life works better when it works better.
Everybody is in a position to contribute to the full extent of their ability. That’s the nature of the phrase. Now what that full extent is varies from person to person but we all can do something.
Malthus was an idiot.
"According to the writer, atheists tend to exhibit the same sociological, psychological dependence on the intangible as religious folk do, even if the former reject the existence of anything supernatural."
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Though let’s be honest, the “moral imperative” is still utilitarian, you want to be judged by God a good person and get to go to heaven when you die.
That's not the position of the Bible-believing Christian. We believe that we've already been judged by God to be anything but a good person, and that no matter how good we might think we are, that is not nearly enough to "get to go to heaven."
That makes much more sense than his argument.
On that we certainly agree.
However, I hope you will forgive me for pointing out that his premises look an awfully lot like those you have posited.
He just carried them to their logical conclusions.
We can?
Do so.
Tell us all step by step how they came to be starting from the big bang.
Demonstrate your hypothesis.
Oh, I think they understand about being judged by [a] god - but in their case, THEY are god, and set their standards according to the way they want to behave.
Atheists DO do “good” things, but only to justify themselves in their own eyes to give substance to their belief that “I’m a good person”.
Ah, the “were you there” argument...
Only One was there, and He told us how He did it.
Caring isn’t super natural. Caring is a chemical brain reaction that can be tracked and triggered.
His premise looks nothing like what I have posited. He came from a stupid position that reality was a zero sum game, that at some point there would be too many people and then you have to decide who is contributing enough. I come from the historically proven position that reality is NOT a zero sum game, that more people contributing fully can and do create and free up more resources and there is simply no such thing as too many people.
He started from incorrect and historically dis-proven assumptions and carried them to an incorrect logical conclusion. Interestingly his incorrect assumption bear a striking resemblance to the incorrect assumptions of Marx which lead him to communism. Zero sum basis is just plain bad thinking.
Oh look, demanding an experiment for something you know full well is outside of experimental scope. I’ll return the demand, demonstrate the Biblical hypothesis, go ahead, show me how you make a universe in 7 days.
Meanwhile, out here in the land of science we’ve got a pretty good path on how matter coalesced, made planets and stars, life came from somewhere, that one’s still a little rough but we’re a young brain on a young planet deciphering an old and large universe, things evolved, here we are. If you were actually interested in the subject, which we both know you are not, there’s a whole lotta books you can read.
Signed, Daniel Dennett.
The fact that Dennett espouses this view specifically makes me dismiss it out of hand.
Too bad for you. I don’t dismiss things out of hand. Knowledge can come from anywhere, I study and assess.
You just proved my point. He thought he got to decide based on "who is contributing enough," and you have said that you think you get to recognize rights based on your utilitarian judgment that, and I quote: "equal rights maximizes your society’s output, because you have more people in a position to contribute to the full extent of their ability."
Same premise: your opinion about what is best for you, and/or for "society."
Without God, and the in-born morality that all of us recognize in our conscience, in the equation, all that is left is your subjective, impetuous opinion. Or the opinion of Malthus. or Marx. Or whomever.
If it ain't God-centered, it will be self-centered. And, as all human history has shown, disastrous in the end.
No VASTLY different premises, which I have explained to you, multiple times. Sorry but at this point you are simply being willfully ignorant to erect strawmen. Thus there’s no reason to continue. Bye.
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars...Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle...Morality is a necessary spring of popular government...Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation?
— George Washington, Farewell Address
“We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed.”
— President Calvin Coolidge, Speech given in Philadelphia, PA, July 4, 1926, on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
Even a smart man is wrong. Anybody that thinks you can’t be moral without religion is frankly frightening. What these people are basically saying is that were they to ever lose the faith they would become serial killers. If you can’t figure out how to be moral without God you are actually evil even with God.
The very fact you have to keep coming back to them proves the article to be correct.
"According to the writer, atheists tend to exhibit the same sociological, psychological dependence on the intangible as religious folk do, even if the former reject the existence of anything supernatural."
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