Why Would Any Logical Person Be An Atheist?

He was being rational. I've found it very useful on this forum to play with a full deck. Some choose not to. You'll have to be the judge.

 

And contradictions.

 

He would say that it's completely objective...from his perspective. That of course is a contradiction in terms. Anybody that not only embraces, but then relies on extreme pretzel logic in attempts to justify obvious contradictions, I have to put on ignore. Trying to pound a square peg into a round hole to protect a belief, only creates a disaster in a genuine discussion. There's no possibility of a normal or rational debate. If we can't accept the most basic reality common to all rational humans, there's always the ignore button. Personally...that was my choice.

 

I suppose this depends on the person. I was brought up to know fear. To fear death suffering and to look forward to eternal life as long as I followed God and trusted his rules and did not question him. I placed a barrier in my mind to hold in this idea, and keep out opposing ideas, and the strength of the barrier came from emotional fear. For me it was ignoring my emotional needs for a greater cause and then to accept the idea that the Truth will prevail any questioning and testing and that God loved me and would not let my faith falter when I open my eyes to what I am being taught by the church. I sought to find the truth and found something that I never knew I would. I found truth by ignoring the teachings and fear in my heart when questioning my faith. So how does one do this? I suppose they simply have to choose to not fear God and to instead pursue a life of passion without fear of finding the truth. The truth is obvious, it is just ignored and Christians are taught to ignore it. Their emotions are used against them.

The pivotal point: I suppose that the moment I recognized my fear of hell and death, I realized that I did not love God unselfishly. I thought that I had to love God without fear and want of heaven in order to love him fully. The bible claimed that love is unselfish. I deemed my want of heaven to be selfish. I decided that if I could not truly love god without fear I would not go to heaven anyways and the only option left was to not fear hell or death. The moment I did, things changed. My view had shifted and the barrier began to weaken without fear to support it.

 

I'm sorry to hear about that. Fear is the greatest sales tool. Professional Sales people are taught that. It's a great motivator to play on the fear of others. We were sold fear as a motive for going to war in Iraq. Politicians sell fear to undermine programs that are designed to help the poor. If you do that, this is what will happen to you...as if people can suddenly predict the future with total accuracy. When we're taught not to question God, we're being told not to question authority, by other authority figures. We're taught to love God...or we will suffer agony. Imagine telling somebody; "love me or I'll see to it that you suffer". What kind of love is that? Can you force someone to love you through threats?

I thought it would be dangerous to allow my mind to question things. Again, it was fear of the unknown consequences. Eventually, I outgrew that fear, as things in my life demanded answers to questions that authority figures simply avoided with words designed to placate. Contradictions were being ignored without ever being resolved, and my mind told me that was unacceptable. Clearly, the authority figures had no more insight than I had myself. They were all as human as I was. Certain things were constant and universal to everyone. . The idea that we are all rational beings. We are beings capable of reason. It seemed less important to subscribe to some religious doctrine, and more important to live a moral life, and religion wasn't necessary to do that. What makes an action morally worthy, consists not in the consequences or results that flow from it, what makes an action morally worthy has to do with the motive. The intention for which the act is done. What matters is the motive. And the motive must be of a certain kind. Do the right thing for the right reason. Kant said, “A good will isn’t good because of what it effects or accomplishes, it’s good in itself. Even if by utmost effort the good will accomplishes nothing it would still shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself". This isn't about looking to Kant as a replacement authority figure. It's a question of do the words ring true? Only one kind of motive is consistent with morality. Duty. Doing the right thing for the right reasons. Example: A young boy walks into a store to buy some bread. He's very young and the store owner knows that he could "short-change" the boy without his knowing it. But he reasons that if he did that, it might get around and he'd lose some customers because it would damage his reputation for honesty. So, he gives the boy the correct change. Was there any moral worth to his actions? No. His actions were completely dictated by self-interest. He should give the boy the right change, because it's the right thing to do. That's the motive that carries moral worth. When your motives are dictated by self-interest, there is no moral worthiness to them. The motive confers the moral worth on an action. And the only kind of motive that can do that, is the motive of duty. The reason we need to respect all human beings is that we are rational beings. We all have the capacity for reason. And it’s the exercise of that capacity for reason that exists in all of us. Pure practical reason legislates a priori regardless of any particular contingent or empirical ends.

I think you opened the door. Truth can be frightening, and ugly and harsh, but it's also beautiful in it's perfection. It's not ambiguous. It doesn't depend on faith. We can never own it as most religions claim to do. In my view, religion is an organized system designed to obscure the Truth and uses fear to maintain its grip on people. But we can get glimpses of it when we remove the things that obscure it. . We can do that when we falsify bogus claims. Once those are removed from our sight, we can see the truth more clearly. Logic and reason are great tools in accomplishing that.

That's a very insightful post you wrote. Nice job.

 

What aspect of a person or dictator committing mass murder or genocide proves or stands as evidence that a supernatural entity exists?

 

Any man can come up with rules that will enable people to get along together. They don't change , only people change.

 

Every society has come up with its rules to govern behaviour.

 

How can you be moral if your "morality" is able to change based upon nothing more than your whims?

 

who is like that? sounds like a psycho.

 

this sounds like a job for my old friend ..... EXPLAIN SWEDEN

 

"Why Would Any Logical Person Be An Atheist? "

Because us theists cannot provide any empirical proof to substantiate our claim that God does exist.

 

Any atheist. Their "morality" derives simply from themselves. A Christian or other religious person for that matter has a set moral code that is not a function of the whims of the individual but derives from a source outside of ones self.

OTOH an atheist can claim stealing is immoral today an moral tomorrow simply because he changed his mind. An atheist can say murder is immoral today and moral tomorrow. A Christian cannot simply change his morality because it's convenient for him... Unlike the atheist.

 

so by this astonishingly childish reasoning, there ought to be prisons full of atheists.

the analogy made by someone in another thread, to the effect, "if morality depended on god, then non-believers in gravity would be able to jump out of planes without chutes" applies here.

 

Having morals is different than performing an act that others perceive as moral. Stalin and Mao could have performed a moral act but that doesn't make them moral.

The problem is as an atheist you have no morality. Sure you can perform a moral act however tomorrow you may choose NOT to perform that moral act because according to your whims it's now immoral. A Christian or a religious person can not do that.

If someone slaps me on the cheek I have to offer the other regardless of how I feel or what I want. You do not.

 

has heretic put you up to this? we get 'plants' here, working for the activist atheist community, and your brand of arrogant numbskullery reeks of their work.

if not, and you're actually for real, could you give some examples of people suddenly going batshiit psycho with a meat cleaver ... on a whim. of course, you'll also need to demonstrate that their atheism was responsible. after first demonstrating that they were, in fact, atheist. you could follow up with some demonstrable examples of how no christian has ever gone batshiit psycho with a meat cleaver ... not on a whim (arguably more disturbing)

can you see the problem with your argument?

 

That is not necessary to prove the argument. Here let me show you.

If you are an atheist... who determines what is and what is not moral for you?

 

Bing Dictionary
mo·ral·i·ty [ mə rállətee ] 1.accepted moral standards: standards of conduct that are generally accepted as right or proper
2.how right or wrong something is: the rightness or wrongness of something as judged by accepted moral standards
3.virtuous behavior: conduct that is in accord with accepted moral standards

You are operating from some other concept of morality than that which is commonly held.
Does this mean you have to display the Fruits of the Spirit as well?

 

No I'm not. In each of those definitions there is a SET morality. However the atheist has no set morality except that which he himself defines. This "morality" is subjective even for the individual and as such can change minute by minute much less day by day or decade by decade.

No matter where I am, what situation I am in, what year it is or what decade from now it is... If I am a Christian my moral code will remain the same. That is because God defines my morality. I can't simply change it as it behooves me.

 

On the contrary. It simply says that morals are accepted behavior. It is a societal norm and changes over time. It used to be immoral for a black person to marry a white one. We grew out of that.
Morals are an agreement among people. It does not say it is set outside oneself, but rather a society determines what those morals are for themselves.
You should rather talk about righteousness, a theological term, and you would be on firmer ground. Morality has no dependence on a deity to have legitimacy, and atheists can conform to it as readily as an theist.

 

If your claims are true then for someone to have "morals" means absolutely nothing. If morality is truly subjective then it's just as valid for Stalin, Mao, and Hitler to claim the "moral highground" as it would be for Gandhi, mother Theresa, bahaullah and Jesus Christ.

If that's true and we are required to talk about a theological term because there is no secular equivalent doesn't that speak for the ethical superiority of religion over atheism?

 

I'm just going by what the actual term means, not your desire to use it differently than what it is actually accepted to mean. It doesn't suggest that morality is subjective, but determined by the group ascribing to it. Morality differs from culture to culture, and within the same culture over time.
All it says is the secular term morality doesn't mean the same thing as righteousness. It doesn't suggest a superiority of either one, other than to the person with an agenda to protect.

 

Of course it does. Let's look at the two terms as you're using them... morality and righteousness. Morality indicates a term that can be changed over time by the same group or individual. For instance it was moral to own slaves in America at one point and then it becomes immoral to do so. It could be, theoretically according to you, moral for a group of people to have sex with 2 year olds if they determined that it was the right thing to do.

On the other hand righteousness does not change. If you are a Christian and you follow the doctrines of Jesus Christ, you will always be expected to Love God above all else and love your neighbor as Jesus loved you. It will never be acceptable for you to murder. It will never be acceptable for you to rape. It will never be a moral activity to covet.

What is the atheist equivalent to righteousness?

 

You have finally understood the difference between the terms.
Well done.
In colonial times you could marry a 9 year old in some parts of the colonies.
You have not proven one is better than the other.
Righteousness intractable, unable to change regardless of what new data may compel it to do so.
Morality will not remain the same if the pressure within the community demands that it change.
Which is better? They both have potential weaknesses.
The red highlighted part above is simply a completely bogus argument. None of the definitions of morality suggest that it is the result of the individual determination of it. Make sense?
Since righteousness is a theological term, there is no equivalency for an atheist.

 

In theory, perhaps. In reality, where real people live, nobody is like that except sociopaths. Also, how would one account for people that, for example, murder abortionists for religious reasons? Clearly it is possible for Christians to have mutable ideas on morality too.