Posted on 12/20/2010 10:32:51 AM PST by truthfinder9
God has permitted many of the apologetics links in your post to end up in 404 errors. I think He’s trying to tell you something...
Another problem is that you can’t have an entity create something without the entity itself being under the realm of time. Without time, eternity and an instant are one and the same, and all that happened and all that will happen, have already happened.
If a said entity has a definite moment when it creates something, then that entity, out of all eternity, underwent something that caused it to create - and that cause puts the entity under the bounds of time.
In other words, who created the creator? If no one, then why did the creator create only at a particular moment out of an infinite sea of time called eternity?
Fortunate for you as you have chosen to see it that way, but still pointless within the Atheist umbrella anyway. Same with Atheist morality. There is no absolute good and evil, only that which individuals choose as good and evil. And so Hitler, Stalin, and Mao just simply made different choices than say Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams, within the Atheist umbrella. If you are ok with that, then, again, at least you are an honest Atheist.
Speaking of Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams, what a kooky idea they had when they declared that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Kooky at least, under the Atheist umbrella anyway.
Agree completely.
People are the cause of most of the world's problems. People will do bad things, whether for religious or any other motive. Religion can create conflicts that people choose to solve by horrendous means, see for example the Catholic/Protestant fun in England. However, that doesn't mean anything else wouldn't have sufficed as the excuse for the power struggles.
In fact, atheists have been responsible for most of it within the last 100 years.
Note limiting it to the last 100 years. This is basically the period after religions lost their hold on state power. Bad guys in power like to kill people, it's a basic fact. After religion lost power, it was no longer religious bad guys doing the killing.
Certainly American statesmen who grew up in that tradition have been far better stewards of liberty than have been Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
But personally, I have never experienced even the faintest hint of anything supernatural in my 50+ years.
So even though the Christian religion has been a beneficial thing on balance, I find no indications that it is true.
Here you are trying to define what an athiest is. That would be like a baptist,catholic,lutheran,morman,protestant,methodist,muslim, hindu bhudist etc, trying to define what a chritian is.You do not know, you can only speculate.Thats like a nonsmoker that has never smoked trying to understand why a smoker won’t quit.
... hence, the word uncultured, lol.
Athiests define themselves, they profess a lack of belief in God. After that though, things get more complicated because they have a difficult time accepting the logical consequences of that lack of belief. The fact is, without a personal God who establishes absolute morality, its all simply personal choice.
The fact is, without a personal God who establishes absolute morality, its all simply personal choice......................................................................................That might be a better alternative then belonging to a cult!
That you believe that Christianity has been beneficial, means you have an idea of what things should be rather than what they are. This is the core of the Christian concept of the Fall of Man. Go with that, expand on it, dig into it. C.S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity” and “The Problem of Pain” go into great detail on that conflict.
Whatsamatter, did the definition of cult and culture upset your balance?
Actually, I have read them both. You would probably be surprised to learn how many books of apologetics I have read. Probably more than books by atheists, I think.
one thing he comes back to again and again in his writing is "what we must answer is not whether Christianity makes you a better person (clearly, sometimes, it does not) but whether or not it is true."
Whether Stalin was or was not a better person than Washington (was Torquemada a better person than the Dalai Lama??) is really not relevant to the question of whether Christianity is true.
If atheism is true then there is no such thing as "moral standards" because there is no objective basis for morals or "right and wrong". There is only personal preference and social convention, both of which are relative and purely subjective. Without God the normative becomes the personal.
Your unintentionally hilarious admission that you’re uncultured nearly made me fall out of my chair, if that’s what you mean.
f atheism is true then there is no such thing as “moral standards” because there is no objective basis for morals or “right and wrong”. There is only personal preference and social convention, both of which are relative and purely subjective. Without God the normative becomes the personal.
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Me biting my tongue till the blood runs outta the corner of the mouth. This is pure bilge to put it mildly. Its OK till the piousness spills over.
“I am so much ‘gooder’ than thou”. Pleeeeeezzzzzzzzz!!!
None of that has anything at all to do with my post. I wasn't judging anything or asserting any understanding of the universe. You completely avoid the point I raised. You said atheists can have high moral standards and I pointed out that is impossible if there is no God because objective morals are impossible without a God. I note atheists almost always avoid addressing this point because they can't.
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