bystander
Posts: 301
Joined: Oct. 2005
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| Quote (Venus Mousetrap @ Nov. 12 2008,10:10) | | Quote (Quack @ Nov. 11 2008,16:28) | | Quote (steve_h @ Nov. 11 2008,15:47) | | I wonder if Barry the lawyer has ever wondered why the legal system that employs him exists. It seems to me that fear of judgement and punishment by other human beings plays quite an obvious role in keeping religious people as well as atheists in line |
Which leads to the obvious question: Why do we all, atheists as well as believers judge and punish other people? why are we not indifferent nihilists? How many atheists are nihilists?
And what about animals? They have no 'God', but they definitely are capable of moral behavior. |
I believe they actually use the atheists-not-being-nihilists as an argument against atheism. Something like 'see, they don't believe in God yet they hold themselves accountable to some higher force... clearly they want to believe in God really! How can they maintain that we're just animals and not go around murdering innocent people, their whole argument breaks down yadda yadda'. It is on the face of it a compelling argument; I mean, I personally can't explain why I have a conscience, or why I desire to do good when I could easily get away with doing nothing, or even being bad. But it becomes another argument of the gaps; is God filling that gap which explains my morals (which I arrived at independently, as far as I can tell)? Given the success this line of argument has had in the past, that doesn't seem likely.
As for animals: whose morals are they following? I don't agree with that. |
I think that in the comments on UD that they are saying that Atheists live miserable empty lives, always on the verge of murder and having sex with ferrets.
When they are shown the facts that atheists are no more or less fufilled than any theists, they will retreat to your position.
I don't find it difficult to see why we have developed morals, because societies with people that don't have morals don't survive. What the UDiots don't see is that morals have evolved over the last couple hundred years - 2 hundred years ago most good christians believed that slavery was okay and negros were subhuman and you need to beat your children to keep them on the straight and narrow.
Now, except for some notable exceptions this is a minority view even on the right.
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