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 Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:40 am
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1- Atheists have no morals because they have nowhere to turn to to get their morals
Why must a person turn anywhere to find thier morals? I did not create my morals, I just understand them. My morals come form my society's law, the global laws, and my personal opinions. These are not things I made, ut things I understand. For example, I understand that I shouldn't steal from my nieghboor for my wn selfish desires, because that gives them an incentive to steal from me, have me arrested, etc. This kind of behavir beomes mutually harmful. We can both work towards mutally benificial options, such as sharing and trust, if we choose to not steal from each other.
2- Atheists believe life is meaningless because we arose with no cause
First of all, any claim about the meaning of life is a subjective one. Second of all, even if life has no meaning, that doesn't decrease from it's beauty. Look at the Sun, the cosmos itself, plants and animals. All these things coexisting, increasing the chance of life, all while having the power to utterly destroy it. There are millions of things humans have yet to understand. We still can not answer the universal question: "Why?" These are simply facisnating things that make life worthwhile and beuatiful.
3- The universe is so perfectly designed. The earth is so perfectly positioned for life so that life can actually live on earth without freezing or burning to death. It all just works out too perfectly. Someone must've made it like that
Well, no. Assuming something is designed doesn't make it so. And life on Earth freezes and burns to death all the time. (Humans freezing to death in the Artic, beached whales being sun baked) Simply because something looks designed, doesn't mean it is. The probability of life on any planet is one in a billion. Considering the number of planets in just our own galaxy, that's pretty good odds.
So unless the Earth is the only life bearing planet in the universe, or some power owns up to creating the Earth and life and comes forward with evidence, the argument from design is moot.
4- Nothing can only come from nothing; so where did this first something come from? How?
Let's use the same argument theist do. It always was.
5- A great majority of people believe in God. Do you really think they're ALL wrong?
Yes. The majority of people once thought slavery was perfectly fine. Some people thing selling children as sex slaves is perfectly okay. The entire educated world at one point argued the Earth was completly flat, and that you could sail right off the edge of it and fall forever. What makes them right? More importantly, what makes them wrong?
6- What about all those people who claim that they can feel God's presence and can actually converse with him? Are you calling them all liars?
Yeah, I am. What about all those people who say they can talk to animals and spirits and the voices in thier heads?
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:07 pm
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[The Looney Bin] [-Erik-] Don't you just hate it when Jehova witness knock on your door and won't shut up just beacuse you don't want to be rude you don't throw their preachings back into their faces? D:
I wonder if they have ever successfully converted somebody before... I've never had them =[. I want them so badly. You can make them do chores~
I've been dying to get a Jehovah's witness. I'd preach at them until they were scratching at my door to escape...mmm. |
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:40 am
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D i v i n i t y Okay, well I don't actually believe in any sort of god(s) whatsoever. I'm just curious as to how some of you, guild members, would answer the following questions. I'm going to just throw some arguments at you guys. I'm just curious... I want to see the different and similar defenses/arguments/points of view. I, myself, have had some of these arguments thrown at me before but most of them are just arguments I've heard somewhere before or read somewhere. I have my own answers to them but I would like to see other people's answers. You don't have to answer EVERY question if you don't want to but I would just like to see some responses if that's not too much to ask. :] Basically, how would you respond to these questions/ statements? 1- Atheists have no morals because they have nowhere to turn to to get their morals 2- Atheists believe life is meaningless because we arose with no cause 3- The universe is so perfectly designed. The earth is so perfectly positioned for life so that life can actually live on earth without freezing or burning to death. It all just works out too perfectly. Someone must've made it like that 4- Nothing can only come from nothing; so where did this first something come from? How? 5- A great majority of people believe in God. Do you really think they're ALL wrong? 6- What about all those people who claim that they can feel God's presence and can actually converse with him? Are you calling them all liars? That is all. I know that some of these arguments are fairly easy to shoot down since they're pretty poor arguments, but I never said I agree with any of the statements. I just think they're arguments and I want to see how people respond to them. 3nodding
1. Atheists make their own moralities based on their own sense of integrity rather than a bunch of largely contradictory rules they read in a book and often interpret specifically to justify their own ends.
2. Nope. It doesn't take much determination to give your life meaning. Help the people around you, treat people with compassion, try and make the world a better place and your life has genuine, tangible meaning.
3. Since there's no evidence to suggest that someone made it that way, I'm going to suggest an alternative. Evolution. This doesn't just have to apply to biology; anything where variations of a process happened over and over given an infinite amount of time will eventually hit the point where it works.
4. Atheists don't pretend to know. At least we know we're more likely to find the answer than a bunch of zombies living by the rules of a centuries-old book written by nomads who thought the sun was magic.
5. Yeah. They're all wrong.
6. No. Psychosomatics, the placebo effect, mind tricks, all are documented and explained scientifically, and the people who befall these things are simply fooled. |
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Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 9:34 pm
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1- Atheists have no morals because they have nowhere to turn to to get their morals
A Mormon friend of mine once asked me if I had a conscience. I told her that I simply use the golden rule - treat others as you would like to be treated. In turn, I asked her if she acted kind because she was afraid of things such as Hell or if she was trying to get on God's good side. She responded saying that it was complicated...I feel like she was avoiding answering the question. Does this mean atheists have the greater conscience?
2- Atheists believe life is meaningless because we arose with no cause
Personally, I think that life is ultimately meaningless, but that doesn't mean that we can't do things within our society to make it better for everyone while we're around. We have to assign meaning to our own lives.
3- The universe is so perfectly designed. The earth is so perfectly positioned for life so that life can actually live on earth without freezing or burning to death. It all just works out too perfectly. Someone must've made it like that
You underestimate the scale of the universe. There are an incomprehensible number of stars in the universe. There are stars you can't see in the sky, because they are so far - some of the points in the sky aren't even stars, they're whole galaxies with billions of stars each - and even in the seemingly empty space beyond the stars, there's even more universes that have existed and that may exist still. Look at the Hubble Deep Field. Of the stars out there, a small percentage of those may have planets - but that still narrows down to >trillions of stars, and of those stars that have planets, a number of those must be terrestrial - and of those terrestrial planets, some of them have a probability of meeting the requirements for life as we know it. Our own planet is proof of that. It doesn't work out so perfectly, because on such a large scale, the probabilities are endless.
4- Nothing can only come from nothing; so where did this first something come from? How?
Nobody knows. One of the major goals of the sciences is to understand how this happened.
5- A great majority of people believe in God. Do you really think they're ALL wrong?
There are many beliefs out there other than Christianity. Are you that pompous?
6- What about all those people who claim that they can feel God's presence and can actually converse with him? Are you calling them all liars?
As human beings we all feel a number of sensations. People who truly believe something interpret these sensations as the presence of God. Others call them epiphanies, intuition, or otherwise spiritual experiences. We, having consciousness, and possessing bodies, feel as though we consist of separate entities. I call it "the human experience". Get stoned sometime and you might think you're conversing with God, if you believe in him.
The last argument isn't particularly well-put together. I guess I really just think they're all delusional, but I feel bad saying that...because a lot of my friends must be delusional.
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Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:48 pm
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1- Atheists have no morals because they have nowhere to turn to to get their morals
Are you seriously saying that the only reason everyone doesn't start killing, cannabalizing, and raping each other (in MOST cases) is because of some old book that may or may not hold the truth? That is an insult to humanity.
2- Atheists believe life is meaningless because we arose with no cause
((Um, who is 'we' in this context??))
3- The universe is so perfectly designed. The earth is so perfectly positioned for life so that life can actually live on earth without freezing or burning to death. It all just works out too perfectly. Someone must've made it like that
But there is no other life in the universe that we know of, even if there is, with the vastness of the universe I don't find it surprising that there is at least one place with just the right circumstances for life. And who knows, it's probably going to come to an end someday, maybe because of us.
4- Nothing can only come from nothing; so where did this first something come from? How?
Answer a question with a question - What exactly is nothing? Is it even possible? I'm much more convinced that all the matter in the universe was originally in an infinitesimally small, infinitely dense space and expanded to what it is now in a second - that the world has always existed.
5- A great majority of people believe in God. Do you really think they're ALL wrong?
Yes. There are a wide variety of religions, mixes and stuff too, atheism is like a religion in itself as well, are YOU claiming all religions but yours are wrong? That is pretty much what it is to choose a religion!
6- What about all those people who claim that they can feel God's presence and can actually converse with him? Are you calling them all liars?
Yes.
Well, not exactly, or just, liars, exaggerating and stupid and crazy (probably), wishful thinking too.
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Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:49 pm
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:02 pm
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:50 am
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 6:33 pm
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Daffodil the Destroyer KuroFur If you'll forgive me for posting off-topic, why do all of you think this way? I am speaking of you all individually, of course. But, for example, one person says "Instinctively we're programmed to want to extend the human population." Where do you get that? Why do you think that way? That is all I am asking. 
It's a biological fact - human beings as well as other animals have an instinct to protect their own DNA and propagate it into the world. Therefore, since our offspring, siblings, and other relatives have a certain percentage of the same DNA as us, our instincts lead us to want to take care of these individuals.
Societies and altruism evolved for similarly selfish reasons. Individuals have a better chance of survival if they cooperate with each other and share resources. If one individual helps another, then it is likely that the other will help the first individual in return someday. Societies evolved out of this principle. Pick up an evolutionary psychology book sometime if you are interested in learning about this in greater detail; it's a fascinating subject.
The first part bothers me in that while that claim may hold weight, it does not explain such events as murders, parents harming their children, etc. People biologically inclined to protect a certain person ending up hurting that person? Rather confusing. |
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:22 pm
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1- Atheists have no morals because they have nowhere to turn to to get their morals
Of course we have morals. We just do what's right because it's what's right, not because we're afraid of being tortured forever after we die if we don't. Personally, I think good behavior for its own sake is in and of itself the more moral position anyway, because it springs from consideration for others and a sense of social responsibility, not from selfishness.
2- Atheists believe life is meaningless because we arose with no cause.
I was conceived by my parents, and thereafter born. This was the cause of my life. Going back in time, my ancestors had their lives for corresponding reasons, on back through the ages and ultimately to the primordial ooze. It's a genealogy, awesome in its majesty, and it comes with no excuses, no predetermined purpose, no apologies. Our lives have purpose because of what we determine it to be. My life has wonderful meaning, and that means more to me because I chose it, rather than having it imposed on me from the outside.
3- The universe is so perfectly designed. The earth is so perfectly positioned for life so that life can actually live on earth without freezing or burning to death. It all just works out too perfectly. Someone must've made it like that
Wow. This is perfect? Then someone messed up and needs their engineering license revoked.... Perfect design doesn't create a planet covered mostly by water just for humans, who have no gills. Perfect design doesn't have us out in the otherwise unremarkable boondocks of an enormous galaxy that was supposedly created just for us, but exhibits an appalling waste of resources, if it were all just for us. Perfect design wouldn't have the human trachea crossing the esophagus so as to vastly increase the chance of choking during two very vital life-supporting activities. Nature is far from perfect, and even the human perception of beauty has been shown to possess a skewed proportionality ratio. The grandeur of the universe and everything in it is greater still because no deity had any hand in it. It is because it became, and in that is a greater sense of awe and wonder than any glib explanation that "God did it."
4- Nothing can only come from nothing; so where did this first something come from? How?
It wasn't quite nothing then, now was it? wink It's been theorized that all this was a universe, or multiverse, what have you, long, long before, but it collapsed, and this universe or multiverse resulted when that matter decompressed again. Recycling on the cosmic scale. We're still searching, and that's the big thing, the human thing. We question, we wonder, we try to find. To impose an answer that cannot be questioned upon a matter and then walk away is no answer. I'd rather live with scientific theories that adapt to suit what we discover of reality, than with dogma that does not adapt and does not suit reality. I am content not to have an answer for everything, for if I did, what would there be left to discover? To delve into the mysteries and learn is exciting stuff, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.
5- A great majority of people believe in God. Do you really think they're ALL wrong?
A lot of people believe they've seen Elvis, too, but belief does not bend reality to suit it. Nietzsche once wrote that a casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith proves nothing. Personally, I have no reason at all to think that any of those people are right about the deity thing. Existence is not determined by a democratic vote, so it really doesn't matter how many of them there are.
6- What about all those people who claim that they can feel God's presence and can actually converse with him? Are you calling them all liars?
"Liar" is a rather strong word. Most, I'm certain do not feel they are deceiving anyone when they say they can feel God's presence. I think it is merely a way of expressing some sort of belief or sensation in a more defined sense, even though the definition does not accurately bear out the origin of it. In truth, biologically speaking, the human brain is wired for religious belief and when that area of the brain is stimulated, it creates the sensation in a person of having had a religious experience.
As for the voices? Yikes. I had a boyfriend (very past tense on that "had" there, it should be noted) who thought me a "True Believer" back in my pagan days. It was a real kick in the gut to me to hear that, I felt, because I realized as he said it that it wasn't true (that was the beginning of the end of my days as any kind of theist), and I haven't the foggiest notion where he got that idea from at any rate. But, he yammered on all the time about how various gods and his deceased parents were talking to him and giving him advice (not sensible advice either, I must also note - it was always in line with what he wanted, himself). More than once, I wondered if he was only saying that stuff to try and manipulate me into doing what he wanted me to (see also: I dumped him), but some of the other much weirder stuff he was always on about made me otherwise wonder if he was actually slipping into paranoid schizophrenia. Either he was being candid and he really was hearing voices, or he was trying to dupe me. Frankly, I have a hard time telling the difference, and either possibility seems equally likely. If he was hearing voices, it could either be chalked up to mental illness or an overactive imagination coupled with a strong desire to hear such voices. If he wasn't...well, either way I wasn't willing to risk it or endure it any longer and I broke it off. I knew I had no chance of convincing him that he should have that hearing voices thing checked out, given his tendency to empty the very heavens themselves of all non-reality-based explanations before considering the more rational ones. So, no. Conversing with supernatural entities doesn't impress me if there's no audio record of it. If it impresses them, then, that's nice, but that doesn't mean I have to agree. And I don't.
Some lie, some manipulate, some want to experience God so badly that they feel that they do, and still others may benefit from some professional help if it actually turns out to be a symptom of something. The human brain is a truly strange thing.
As far as instinctual programming goes, while this plays a role in how humans react toward one another, instinct actually plays a lesser role in humans than it does in other creatures because humans have a greater capacity to reason, which serves to replace instinctual programming. This gives us a wider range of behavioral options, but our brains function in such a way that can introduce unsavory influences as well. Humans are subject to delusions, emotional overflow, and a number of other things that can wreak havoc on the more "normal" human desire to protect other humans. Clannish feuds, extreme fury or jealousy, unwise decisions and so on can all lead quite precipitously to murder and worse things. But, it's our choices and our ability to reason that can make us either greater beings, or baser ones (excepting cases of severe hormonal or neurological imbalances, of course).
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Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:37 pm
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KuroFur Daffodil the Destroyer KuroFur If you'll forgive me for posting off-topic, why do all of you think this way? I am speaking of you all individually, of course. But, for example, one person says "Instinctively we're programmed to want to extend the human population." Where do you get that? Why do you think that way? That is all I am asking.
It's a biological fact - human beings as well as other animals have an instinct to protect their own DNA and propagate it into the world. Therefore, since our offspring, siblings, and other relatives have a certain percentage of the same DNA as us, our instincts lead us to want to take care of these individuals.
Societies and altruism evolved for similarly selfish reasons. Individuals have a better chance of survival if they cooperate with each other and share resources. If one individual helps another, then it is likely that the other will help the first individual in return someday. Societies evolved out of this principle. Pick up an evolutionary psychology book sometime if you are interested in learning about this in greater detail; it's a fascinating subject.
The first part bothers me in that while that claim may hold weight, it does not explain such events as murders, parents harming their children, etc. People biologically inclined to protect a certain person ending up hurting that person? Rather confusing.
You act as though what's being said is that we're driven entirely by instinct. Obviously, that's not true, we are thinking beings and thus can act uninstinctively or override instinct. Instinctively, we want to have sex and make babies. All organisms want to reproduce. Of course that doesn't mean that some deviants wouldn't like to kill their children after they are produced. The fact of the matter is that the children are still produced regardless of their treatment. |
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Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 1:43 pm
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KuroFur Daffodil the Destroyer KuroFur If you'll forgive me for posting off-topic, why do all of you think this way? I am speaking of you all individually, of course. But, for example, one person says "Instinctively we're programmed to want to extend the human population." Where do you get that? Why do you think that way? That is all I am asking.
It's a biological fact - human beings as well as other animals have an instinct to protect their own DNA and propagate it into the world. Therefore, since our offspring, siblings, and other relatives have a certain percentage of the same DNA as us, our instincts lead us to want to take care of these individuals.
Societies and altruism evolved for similarly selfish reasons. Individuals have a better chance of survival if they cooperate with each other and share resources. If one individual helps another, then it is likely that the other will help the first individual in return someday. Societies evolved out of this principle. Pick up an evolutionary psychology book sometime if you are interested in learning about this in greater detail; it's a fascinating subject.
The first part bothers me in that while that claim may hold weight, it does not explain such events as murders, parents harming their children, etc. People biologically inclined to protect a certain person ending up hurting that person? Rather confusing. 
Murders of anyone other than a close family member don't really apply as much here, as we aren't biologically predisposed to protect anyone who does not share a certain percentage of our DNA. People might murder others over a variety of concerns - perhaps the other person threatened them or their family or property, stole from them, etc. Sure, society is an evolutionary advantage for us, but that doesn't mean that every single individual is going to follow this model.
Parents murdering their children are generally explained by a defect of some kind in the offspring, or a serious lack of resources (protect yourself now, have different offspring later), or a mental illness.
Like I said, pick up an evolutionary psychology text and it will explain these questions in much better detail.
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Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 6:28 pm
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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:27 am
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1- Atheists have no morals because they have nowhere to turn to to get their morals No. We gather our morals and beliefs from thinking about and analyzing what we see around us and the best thing to do with it and how things should be and how one should act based on that. We think for ourselves, we do not need some book or "god" to tell us what to believe and the "right" way to act.
2- Atheists believe life is meaningless because we arose with no cause
The question "what is the meaning of life" cannot be so narrowly interpreted as to mean that a "god" had to "create" a "meaning" for life, and without that "god" to "create" it there would be no "meaning".
I believe that we do not exist for any inherent purpose in the world. Since however, we do happen to live in this wonderful and complex world of ours, the opportunities to make and find whole bunches of tasty sandwhiches of meaning are abundant. My life might not mean anything to the universe, but it means something to the people around me, and I can make it mean something to the world.
"To the world you are one person, but to one person you may be the world."
And I did arise by a cause. All the way from the senseless mindless urge to replicate of the primordial ooze to modern times. I came into existance because various people from present day Germany, Sweden, Hungary, Russia, and Denmark found their way into eachother's arms and had my parents, who then had me because they wanted a nice little kid to make them happy and to do great stuff for the world. So I'm here because of DNA needing to be passed on and because of people's natural urges.
3- The universe is so perfectly designed. The earth is so perfectly positioned for life so that life can actually live on earth without freezing or burning to death. It all just works out too perfectly. Someone must've made it like that Yes, something did make it like that; the laws of the universe did. No master engineer thought it all up, things just fell into a natural order. Contrary to popular belief there are no German auto makers and Japanese robotocists up there who designed the universe.
What do you mean by the universe being "perfectly" designed? The universe encompasses everything....it is neither perfect nor inperfect. The concept of "perfect" is a human invention which requires that something be compared next to an ideal. Since we have never known another universe, there is nothing we can compare the current one to. Since the universe isn't really doing anything bad to us that we can tell, we really have no problem with it. There is no "perfect", it simply is. It simply exists.
As far as the Earth being "perfect"...may I remind you that the Earth was unable to support life for a very long period of time. The universe went on, and eventually the Earth was able to support life as we know it on this planet. In about a million and a half more years, it is projected that the planet will not be able to sustain life as we know it any longer. Things change and come and pass. The universe is vast, it is huge, mindbogglingly so. If you think about it, it may cause your brain to explode. There is so much potential for other forms of life out there that it would be stupid to assume only Earth, in the vast expanse of the universe, can support life. As long as all the elements on Earth exist in the universe, which they do (by default), life is possible in other places. Our existance proves this. There is the potential.
4- Nothing can only come from nothing; so where did this first something come from? How?
Then where did your god come from? Hm?
Just because we don't know the answer to a question doesn't mean that we have to fill that space up with fictional things. Just accept that fact that you don't know what's going in the universe. No need to make up stories about it.
5- A great majority of people believe in God. Do you really think they're ALL wrong? No, I think they're human. Religion was invented by humans as a way of explaining the unknown and for comfort, and to give their culture a grounding. It's common to the human experience, and it just evolved through ought time to what we see today. It's one of those anthropological principles that most people tend to ignore....
6- What about all those people who claim that they can feel God's presence and can actually converse with him? Are you calling them all liars?
I'm not calling them liars, since I doubt they're lying if they truly believe they had these "visions". A schizophrenic isn't lying if he says he can hear voices in his head, he really believes they are there, therefore, he is not lying. If he was hearing no voices yet said he was anyway and was aware of that fact, then he would be lying. These "visions" can be causes by neurological and chemical issues within a person. So many things can biologically go wrong/affect a person and that could cause you to have a "religious" experience. So I'm not calling them liars, I'm calling them silly little humans.
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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:43 pm
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Reply
