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CS Lewis addresses much of what you write about in his classic apologetic "Mere Christianity." One of the most striking points he makes is that we cannot use science to either prove or disprove the existence of God because we cannot scientifically evaluate a power greater than ourselves. i.e. we cannot put God (or the higher power, creator, whatever you want to call it) into a box and evaluate scientifically because God is bigger than ourselves, and all of His creation.

The one scientific observation we can make is of human beings - ourselves - because we have inside information into how we think, and act, and behave. and if you evaluate human nature, all of the suffering in this world, etc our human experience actually aligns with God's description of this broken world that we live in as set forth in the Bible.

the message of Christianity (not conservative political thinking, or racist, homophobic holier than thou religious dogma) is that this world is broken, we human beings are born into sin, and we must turn to God (as manifested through Jesus Christ) to overcome this sin that we are born into and obtain peace and to experience real love in this world. not politically correct everything is equal love, or holier than thou i am better than you love, but the real love of God that only comes from knowing God.

a lot of your arguments about why God does not exist can be refuted, but to be quite honest all the words that i would use to try and refute them will not be accepted by an athiest until he or she has a change of heart that can only come from God.

it is all extremely complicated and confusing, and that is why one can only understand the nature of God and His role and plan for creation by reading the scriptures and asking for God's wisdom as manifested through the Holy Spirit. Scripture says to "lean not on our own understanding" and that is really at the heart of these debates. as long as one is leaning on his or her human understanding the real message of Christianity will never be understood.

i would highly recommend not only Lewis' "mere christianity" for an athiest who is interested in exploring more about "true" christian beliefs (not religious dogma), but also a new book by a dutch minister named brother andrew. the book is called "secret believers" and is about muslim converts to christianity who believe that God has spoken to them through dreams and other visions, and are willing to put their lives on the line to build churches in majority muslim nations. the book also gives great insight into the real differences between islam and christianity.

again, the human being (i.e. personal testimony) is the best scientific evidence for the existence of God and how he manifests Himself in creation.

the biggest problem that not only athiests but all human beings demonstrate is a perception of God that is incredibly smaller than God really is. God is the creator of all things, from beginning to end, above all time and space and human invention and the limits of our minds. which is why questions of eternity are so hard to comprehend by us as human beings.

God exists and will never go away. why would He? to truly understand God you have to think in terms much greater than this finite world that we live in. and you can only think in those terms when God is imparting wisdom to your mind far beyond the limits of our own human understanding.

Gerry,
When you say, "Go ahead and worship your label," You fail to make the distinction between the label and that which was labeled. I am not worshipping the word, "Trinity"... I am worshipping the Godhead which was labelled "Trinity" by the Church, long ago. The fact that Jesus' apostles did not use the label "Trinity" in their communication has no bearing on the validity of what they worshipped, which was later given that label by others.
Your label is "Gerry" but you could have been named "Lester." Someone could call you, "sir." You are the man you are, regardless of what people call you. It is the man that is the primary reality, not his name.

Keep worshiping your "label", that's all it is. Beautiful proof of my point.

Gerry,
"Trinity" is a label (not found in the bible) given to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three are all spoken of as divine persons in the Bible.

Gerry,

As I told you, I only included that quote about children's open-mindedness (and also the bible verses) in order to show Dan why some Christians say that atheists are conning themselves. I know that it is a weak argument and I do not use it myself to argue for God's existence.

And I must disagree with your claim that the link between Deity and moral absolutes has been "debunked." It would be more accurate for you to say that you prefer the prosecution's argument.

Eric,
about your cryptic quotation about atheism being not natural: Children (not only them, btw.!) will embrace anything you brainwash them with, like communism, nazism (I remember!), Santa Claus, angels, demons, tooth fairies - Islamism, Christianity, Mormonism, witch burning (Luther favored it!) Zeusism, Wotanism, Ra-ism - you name it, it works without exception.

Weird, how a halfway intelligent person (in your quotation) can try to misuse the trivial fact of children's susceptibility to impressions as a proof of the validity of an impression (brainwashing)! But it reminds us of the habit of the pious flock to use bible quotations in a futile attempt to prove the truth of the bible: Worthless. No valid statement can ever be made about a system from within that system. It has to come from outside. (A mathematical axiom introduced by the genius mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel).

And the story about a god or worship gene? There certainly is the proclivity in all humans for awe and wonder (in you and me! I don't think I miss anything that you have in terms of genes!). It is only the OBJECTS of such a gene, real or imagined, that can be exchanged arbitrarily, and that is where all the trouble starts. The god gene, thus, would only be a proof of an (innate?) human state of mind, but not of the existence of god!

And please don't talk about god and moral any more: The connection has been debunked ad nauseam!

Eric, there is no such thing as a "biblical trinity", even if it "resonates" with you (you made it up with or without others influencing you so it can "resonate"). Trinity was introduced into Christianity for political reasons in the 4th century, and even then largely contested by Christian scholars. It is a strictly human artifact. The trinity idea was prevalent already way before Christ in Egypt and other pagan religions. It is actually a pagan concept.

So I would advise that you start defining what you so fervently believe in, before suggesting that we "run away from it". As we atheists think, once you start believing in the "supernatural", it could be just anything a human mind can make up, from the spaghetti monster on upward.

I was quoting scripture not because you would appreciate it, but because I was using it to give Dan some insight on why Christians believe athiests are conning themselves. He had expressed puzzlement about that phenomenon.

Out of all the pantheon, the Biblical Trinity Godhead resonates with me on several levels. What can I say. If I am wrong then I hope for the best. But I'd be very, very surprised.

Eric, I was taught growing up that the "worship gene" as you call it was a "god-sized hole in everyone's heart" that cannot be filled with anything except the religious conception of whoever was propounding that view. That's pretty darn poetic, but not accurate. If you are talking of the seemingly innate ability for humans to feel wonder and awe, then I agree it's there. If, as you intimate, the wonder and awe can only have a deity as its object, I strenuously object.

Thanks for quoting scripture at us, but please realize "scripture" holds no sacred place and is powerless in the mind and life of someone who is pretty sure the whole thing is bogus. So quote ineffectually away, if you like.

I would be quite interested in seeing the studies on which your other quotee based the assumptions presented as truths. Again, when the baseline is theistic, everything is measured from that baseline -- even if the baseline is imaginary. Sentences three and four contradict each other unintentionally, though. Is theism innate or merely easily embraced by the innocents being indoctrinated?

By the way, theistic means believing in a god or gods. So your assurance to Anonymous (me) that you would still be a theist even if you were to find out you were following the wrong god is accurate, if not enlightening. But aren't you taking an awful risk worshiping just one conception of one god?

Dan,

Looking at the human race, there seems to be a "worship gene" in humanity, generally, and atheists appear not to have it. (I used to think I didn't have it. Wow, was I wrong.) Since atheists are a seemingly small minority, it is easy for theists to surmise that atheists are (or at least they were in the beginning of their atheism) successfully resisting the same "God gene" that is in them.
Also, let me add something else to hopefully clear this up for you. Christians don't believe in atheists, because in the NT book of Romans, the Apostle Paul writes that many people suppress the "knowledge of God" that God Himself has placed deep in their hearts. It is a very bold statement, one that atheists will surely deny:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth in wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles."
"...Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done."

Here I'm quoting from an article on this that contradicts your claim...

'Atheism is not natural. One must "become" an atheist. All have an innate knowledge of God. Children readily embrace a belief in God, because a belief in God is rational and natural, especially to the innocent. Even atheists have an innate knowledge of God, but they have suppressed it, for "they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God." (Rom. 1:28). They suppress their knowledge of God because they want to ignore God's moral absolute: they do not want to be accountable to God for their actions.'

You will disagree with these statements, but they explain why it is sometimes claimed by Christians that atheists are actually running from God.

To Anonymous: I will still be a theist (in great pain) if I die and find that I have been worshipping the wrong god and am infinitely stung by killer bees.

Eric, you say, "... I would have to say that I can never stop being a theist as long as I live. If I am wrong, I will never know I am wrong, because I will simply be extinguished at my death."

Unless you're worshiping the wrong god. Then you won't merely be extinguished, you will be punished forever with infinite numbers of killer bees.

(Sorry, just couldn't resist.)

Also sorry about the triple post earlier. Thought I had caught the post before it went anonymously, but the system was too efficient.

Incidently - Gerry, thanks!

Eric - good reply to the old dilemma - it's the classic response, going back to Thomas Aquinas. What's not clear is if it actually helps.

- I take it you don't think evolution and nature is a sufficient explanation for consciousness? ; )

Eric, I don't want to be rude (if it might come across as such), especially after your generous compliment above, but - are you secretly afraid of Zeus? (Or Odin, or Ra, or etc.?)

No, of course. You don't believe in them. It would surely be quite misleading, though, to say that you were "actively denying" them - instead, they're simply not real to you, but rather clearly mythical and only of historical, cultural, or literary interest (if any), for what they say about people's lives and thoughts, for what circumstances, lessons, and questions of existence were embodied in them and their associated pantheons.

For (at least) many/most atheists, that's what it's like re: God. Certainly I can say I don't fear God, because I don't think he's *real*; likewise neither I nor you fear that the world will end if the Aztec gods haven't been sufficiently empowered by human sacrifice - because they're not real, not because we're hiding such a fear from others or even ourselves.

(Indeed, insofar as the idea of the harsh and strident atheist has any validity, it's arguably rooted in the fact that for many folks, the only obvious and outspoken atheists they tend to encounter as such are the ones who care enough to go on about it online or in bestsellers or etc. - who have very strong feelings on the subject. In reality, quite a few of us - my wife, for example - spend about as much time thinking or arguing about God as one does over Zeus - it's just not an important part of life. Which is, of course, not to say that morality, tradition, community and such aren't deemed important (indeed, we had a very nice Ethical Culture Society wedding), any more than one is turning their back on state and society by not appropriately honoring the deified Augustus and the various gods, or whatever.)

(Some folks might find all of these comparisons offensive, but of course that's because such deities are clearly not real to them. But remember, all these gods were as real and important and significant to their believers as the Christian God is to Christians (who were sometimes called atheists by the Romans, as they denied the Roman gods and the divinity of the emperor. (Were they secretly afraid of Jupiter?)

To paraphrase - Dawkins, I think? - everybody's an atheist in regard to 99% of deities - we just have one god less. (Well, compared to monotheists, anyway.) Sorry to go on about this, but it is really bizarre how some people think that atheists all 'really' believe in God, but are somehow just pretending. Weird.

Since everything I know points to the existence of a Creator Deity (even the miraculous conscious intelligence you use to continue denying Him) I would have to say that I can never stop being a theist as long as I live. If I am wrong, I will never know I am wrong, because I will simply be extinguished at my death.

Thanks, Stan, you answered Eric's post beautifully! I don't actively DENY god, as Eric assumes erroneously, I simply don't posit the existence of a god or gods. The topic of god is not my interest, personally. There isn't anything to "deny".

Nice try, Eric, to psychologically turn my "negation" around into a secret affirmation (I know the trick, I was married to a psychologist). You are on a wrong track. Can't you simply accept the idea as a fact that there are people who lead a free, decent, happy, successful life, free of fear of god or anything else, even of death, since death is a condition of life, people who think freely, who don't succumb to indoctrinations any more (you did not "invent" god, somebody told you about the story of god and its implications!)? It is you who transfers his horrors to atheists, talking about the "dark cloud hovering above me", only because I am pretty old. What a joke!

You are so scared that you don't even dare imagine such a possibility. It would destroy your house of cards. Therefore you compulsively must DENY such a possibility. Give it a try! You can always return to the warm and cozy religious security, if free thinking is to chilly for you.

No, Eric, I accuse believers of being fear based because I was one. I understand from the inside out the fear motivation, from the petty to the cosmic, that believers use and endure. From fear of bucking peer pressure to fear of eternal torment, I understand that the system falls into disarray without fear motivation.

The fear you smell may be emanating from your own general vicinity and environs.

Is it so hard for you to imagine people living unafraid of invisible, imaginary bogeymen? Or bogeygods? I suspect it is too hard for most theists, since an admission that another paradigm could possibly exist rather devastates their own most basic assumptions -- which would be too frightening to contemplate.

You still haven't answered my earlier questions. Most importantly, what would it take for you to cease being a theist?

No, Eric, I accuse believers of being fear based because I was one. I understand from the inside out the fear motivation, from the petty to the cosmic, that believers use and endure. From fear of bucking peer pressure to fear of eternal torment, I understand that the system falls into disarray without fear motivation.

The fear you smell may be emanating from your own general vicinity and environs.

Is it so hard for you to imagine people living unafraid of invisible, imaginary bogeymen? Or bogeygods? I suspect it is too hard for most theists, since an admission that another paradigm could possibly exist rather devastates their own most basic assumptions -- which would be too frightening to contemplate.

You still haven't answered my earlier questions. Most importantly, what would it take for you to cease being a theist?

No, Eric, I accuse believers of being fear based because I was one. I understand from the inside out the fear motivation, from the petty to the cosmic, that believers use and endure. From fear of bucking peer pressure to fear of eternal torment, I understand that the system falls into disarray without fear motivation.

The fear you smell may be emanating from your own general vicinity and environs.

Is it so hard for you to imagine people living unafraid of invisible, imaginary bogeymen? Or bogeygods? I suspect it is too hard for most theists, since an admission that another paradigm could possibly exist rather devastates their own most basic assumptions -- which would be too frightening to contemplate.

You still haven't answered my earlier questions. Most importantly, what would it take for you to cease being a theist?

I know you will deny this totally, but I bet that behind your decided position of atheism is fear of God. An agnostic can be indifferent to the question of God, but an atheist is actively denying him. I smell fear. I know you will say it's just my projection, but I bet there's at very least a kernel of truth to it. I think at the core of atheism is an effort to dismantle a fear-producing belief in God. That's why you immediately accuse believers of being fear-based.

Any thinking is a positive action.

...Maybe a better word for it would be that atheism is a "choice" to not believe. In that sense athiesm is a positive action, like theism is a positive action.

Eric,

Pascal's wager has been discussed extensively. His position is: Since I don't know if god exists, I have two choices: 1. I believe, just in case he exists, 2. I don't believe in something for which is not the slightest proof. In case he exists, I am then on the "safe" side with No. 1. Therefore I choose No.1.

What a sad, unworthy philosophy of fear!

And, as has been pointed out hundreds of times, atheism is the ABSENCE of a belief in any god (a-theism, as the greek word describes), not a belief! Put your logic together: Logically, Nothing can be the negation of itself. Belief and non-belief cannot be the same. So, atheism cannot be a belief.

Stan, I agree that Webster's definition is stupidly biased, without the authors obviously even noticing it!

Dear Moderate and Eric,

You both have apparently gotten your definitions from biased or outdated sources. When the prevailing viewpoint is theism, including the prevailing viewpoint of dictionary editors, it's not surprising to get slanted definitions.

The definition you quote, Moderate, tips its hand by coming from a default position of belief in a god. Clues: uppercase "God," statements that an atheist "rejects" and "denies" and is "unwilling to accept." This viewpoint assumes a theistic baseline to reject or deny or be unwilling to accept.

I approach life from a totally different paradigm.

If I were rewriting the definition from the point of view of those of us who acknowledge our atheism and find theism a fantastic and far-fetched notion in need of objective validation, I should think it would read more like this:

Atheist: a person who has no reason to believe in supernatural claims made by theists.

Wikipedia begins its article on atheism this way:

"Atheism, as a philosophical view, is the position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods or rejects theism.

"When defined more broadly, atheism is the absence of belief in deities, alternatively called nontheism. Although atheists are commonly assumed to be irreligious, some religions, such as Buddhism, have been characterized as atheistic.

"Many self-described atheists are skeptical of all supernatural beings and cite a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of deities. Others argue for atheism on philosophical, social or historical grounds. Although many self-described atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as humanism and naturalism, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere."

After years of searching for a god or deity or some supernatural force that answers prayer and objectively affects lives, I've come to the point of understanding gods are a man-made construct. I'm not, however, arrogant enough to think I know everything. So I suppose I'm an agnostic atheist. I am, to quote someone else, agnostic about the existence of god in the same way I'm agnostic about the existence of fairies. If there were good reason to believe in either, I'd believe. Don't see it happening.

Dear Stan,

Eric is right.

Webster's puts it this way:

Atheist: "A person who believes that there is no God."

"SYN. -- an atheist rejects all religious belief and denies the existence of God.;
an agnostic questions the existence of God, heaven, etc. in the absence of material proof and in unwillingness to accept supernatural revelation; deist, a historical term applied to 18th-century rationalists who believed in God as a creative, moving force, but who otherwise rejected formal religion and its doctrines of revelation, divine authority, etc.;

freethinker, the current parallel term, similarly implies rejection of the tenants and traditions of formal religion as incompatible with reason; unbeliever is a more negative term simply designating , without further qualification, one who does not accept any religious belief; infidel is applied to a person not believing in a certain religion or the prevailing religion.”

So, at least accorging to the dictionary, you are reaching for Agnosticism if you have no position. If you imply by “no position” that God is unnecessary and hence should not be considered, then you are taking an Atheist position.

Eric,

You say, "Atheism is not an acceptance of a fact." This confuses me. Are you attempting to posit the existence of a deity as fact? I asked for a description of what atheism is a belief in, not what it is not. Because my Atheist Creedbook must have gotten lost in the mail or something. I don't know what I'm supposed to profess as an atheist. So I thought maybe you could help me out.

The default human position regarding a deity is atheism. Babies don't pop out saying the rosary or magnifying Jesus or praising Allah or speaking Hebrew. They must be taught those things. Humans brought up without religion do not default to belief in a deity -- because there is no clear evidence to persuade them to believe that. Why would they? Humans must be indoctrinated or threatened into belief in something less than obvious, less than tangible -- such as that there is a deity; what that then means in terms of creed and conduct is up to the local culture inculcating the religious belief.

As an atheist who has seen no evidence there is a deity of any kind (despite my fundamentalist christian upbringing,) I do my best to address reality with honesty and integrity. If there were credible evidence that there is a god and that I must do something about that, I would seriously examine the evidence and choose my direction. If the evidence were clear enough I would cease to be an atheist. What would it take for you to cease being a theist?

Atheism is not a belief, Eric. It is the default human position of skepticism regarding truth claims made by those with no way of demonstrating the veracity of those claims.

Atheism is not an acceptance of a fact. Therefore it qualifies as a belief. It makes a truth claim but cannot prove it as truth, so it qualifies as a belief. Any statement asserting the existence or nonexistence of deity, is, rather than being factual, a statement of belief.
Gotta go but I'll be back later.

Eric, what is atheism a belief in? Don't tell me what atheism is a non-belief in (which is really what it is, from lack of evidence) but rather tell me and the other atheists what it is we believe. We'll be very interested in your ideas, I'm sure.

Gerry,
I just want to point out that atheism is also a belief. But you assert your beliefs (no Divine judgment, no God, no afterlife, etc.) as if they are certainties. Fact is, you really don't know for sure. You are speculating with your life, just as you say I am speculating regarding my beliefs. But if I am wrong, I lose a dream I had. If you are wrong, you lose in a real way. Why that appears to give you no pause, I do not understand.

There is no "healthy fear", and there certainly is no black cloud hovering over me (don't conclude from your "Fear"-life to others' feelings, you seem to be scared like hell!). I enjoy every single day and I am grateful to nature for granting me the opportunity to even give a lot of my full life's experience to young people, helping them in their lives.

And there is nothing to "repent" (a religious concept), which doesn't mean I haven't made quite a few mistakes in my life. And nobody will "judge" me, and about Jesus and the apostles - that is a long, controversial and rather nebulous story, written by pre-enlightenment miracle believers over several centuries, not binding for anybody. And if god IS love etc., why not leave it there? Love is love, etc., for you and for me. It boils down to a semantic question. Its "value" is the same for you and for me!

Dan,
thank you for your convincing, honest and down-to- earth approach! It is refreshing to read a fellow freethinker, without any neurotic pouting or proselytizing ambition! Moral is a sort of oil in the gear of ANY group or society, as you clearly describe. No need for a joker or a "super-" deus ex machina!

Eric,
Mortality hovers over all of us like, well, like the wide, blue sky. It's not a black cloud; it's just part of life. The final part. The point is to live one's life in the best possible way BEFORE one dies.

It doesn't take fortitude to let go of fear. Just reason and a healthy curiosity. Deathbed conversion? Why? To what? Repent? Of what and to whom? My mistakes of a lifetime were and are, I hope, learning experiences for me and others. Why would I repent of learning and growing?

Disregarding for the moment whether or not Jesus and his disciples were actual historical figures, I take any warnings emanating from their ilk with the same seriousness I take Nostradamus's prophesies. You do believe in Nostradamus, yes? No? I've heard a few of his prophesies can be construed to have come true. Ergo, they are all valid. Sure, just as valid as the pronouncements in a very old compilation of writings many people view as sacred. I'm speaking, of course, of the Q'uran. No, the Bible. No, the Tibetan Book of the Dead. No, the Sayings of the Tao. Well, maybe something or another in one or another of those books proves the validity of something or other.

But it's not anything I lose sleep over. Sorry to hear you live in fear.

Dan S,
Wow, from your post I can say that you are by far the most tolerant and courteous atheist I have come accross.
On your assertion that moral absolutes are still relative because they are God's opinion.... That's very clever, and seems to make sense as an argument; except that the Bible teaches something else: Moral absolutes are absolute because they emanate from God's absolute nature, which even He cannot violate. It is not that God is a pragmatist and tells us (by writing it on our hearts) what to value that is good and what to resist; it is that God IS love, God IS charity, God IS compassion, God IS self-sacrifice, God IS patience, God IS light as opposed to darkness - God is where all of these qualities originate and emanate from, and because God IS those things, they are inviolate standards which are to be upheld.

E-Fav

"how do we know what God’s judgment is – a biblical interpretation? A voice in our heads? (or in a particular authority’s head)?"

Truly, time alone will tell. Exactly what to do at ab=ny may be less clear than some things we should not do. We do know that if we obliterate a species we have taken it out of play for the rest of eternity, though.

You can get into a Care Ethics viewpoint from this without a lot of strain if you think of the Universe as created by God as an abode for life.

No voices from the TV set either. :-)))

Gerry,
I mistakenly figured you were a younger man. In spite of the fact that you are as elderly as you are and that your mortality is hovering like a black cloud, you continue to deny God. You resist a healthy fear of even the possibility of Divine judgment. That is unusual. I am impressed with your fortitude, but obviously I believe it is misguided. I suppose there will be no deathbed conversion for someone as opposed to the very idea of God as you are even in their late years. I hope you decide to repent before you find yourself appearing before your so-called "man-made concept" as He is pronouncing judgment on you. That is not my threat, it is a warning made by Jesus and his apostles.

" In order to continue along that path you must devalue the healthy fear of authority as being a weakness"

Um - I repeat my point about authoritarian mindsets? (& thanks, btw - I do try to avoid the whole nasty and rude thing .. .)

The whole 'atheists deny God so they can indulge their base desires' thing . . .well, I can't say it doesn't exist anywhere - after all, you describe yourself as feeling that way when younger - but I *suspect* it's rather rare (at least among the kind of affirmative atheists one tends to run into online), and that such folks tend to end up as theists when they get older, as you did. Would be interesting to study.

The whole divinely-objective morality debate's an oldy but a goody. Is everyone (still) here familiar with the Euthyphro dilemma (from Plato's dialogue of the same name)? In simple modern form, basically, if morals come from God (if good is good because God says so), then they're ultimately arbitrary - we've just kicked utter moral relativism up a few notches: God could suddenly declare that, for example, rape, sadistic torture-murder, and baby-eating were moral goods. Of course, the moral absolutes you feel in your bones reject such a thing with horror - were God to tell you such a thing, you'd refuse. So one could argue that God would never do such a thing - that God tells us to be good because goodness is good. But then God isn't really the source of morality - rather, just a messenger passing independent morality along.

I tend to think, being rather simpleminded, that the problem is we're arguing about morality at too high and abstract a level. Instead, we should (and really can only) view morality in terms of our own existence and experience - bounded, limited, and with its own givens - from the ground up, not from the heavens down. From that perspective, morality, in its basic form, is far from relative, and seems to arise and develop from human reality, experience and ways of thought (indeed, there are some folks arguing that the evidence suggests the existence of an inborn moral facility, akin, at least in a sense, to that for learning language -and just as all known human groups have complex language, they also all have morality - and while there are differences in the exact details, no-one's ever stumbled upon a group with a genuine anti-morality, in which evil is self-consciously sought.) And like many other atheists, it's obvious that our ability for empathy, combined with foresight and reflection, is very, very important - it's not surprising that some version of the golden rule occurs in culture after culture, nor that some of our most horrifying criminals seem to have had something go haywire with this ability, nor that much harm requires (sometimes quite formalized) practices and beliefs that blunt it, from dehumanization of the other to the deadening of the self to constant drilling, causing such acts to be automatic, at the time (ie, in the military).

Eric,
with all due respect: I was the bigot believer in my adolescence, praying for my team to win a match. And I simply don't adhere to a philosophy of fear, your police example notwithstanding. A Psalm with your "fear of god" quotation has no meaning whatsoever for me. I don't fear god because he is a man-made concept which I don't have anything to do with. He doesn't exist outside this "Attributed Value". And thanks for the compliment for the rebellious adolescent at my age of 77. You don't need god for law and order, concepts that easily can deviate to crime and suppression (as already shown in the bible ad nauseam). In Nazi Germany there was enough law and order, believe me!

I thought we could take for granted meanwhile after hundreds of really relevant and convincing posts, that moral has nothing to do with religion. It is an established fact. Cling to your warm and cozy religion, and I stay with my chilly freedom of thinking, the principal attribute of human dignity.

Gerry, I did fear God, or the thought of God, even though I wasn't brought up that way. I wouldn't say that my religious choice is only "based on" fear, although there certainly is that element. It makes sense to "fear" God, just as it makes sense to "fear" the police car you see when you are tooling down the road. The cop has the power to apply the law against you if you violate it. So, the very thing you cite as weakness or foolishness on my part is actually a prudent judgment, if I am to accept that God is a God of law and order. It would be far easier in certain ways to continue a belief in atheism, but such a belief would be inconsistent with the moral absolutes that I know in my bones (when I am being honest and not repressing them) are there and must not be violated.
You have chosen to disregard any claim of a Supreme Being on your life and that is your choice. In order to continue along that path you must devalue the healthy fear of authority as being a weakness.
One of the Psalms says that "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." When I really ponder the logic of this, I can see its truth. Maybe you will too someday, I hope and pray. Just remember that when we on the other side of the spiritual fence hear you devaluing the fear of God, it sounds to us as the sound of the rebellious adolescent, with all due respect. I was there. I know.

Eric, the idea of God holding you accountable, cramping your lifestyle only corroborates my stance: Religion is based on fear. And you value fear, which, as you say yourself, is your own decision, positing a god at a given moment in your life. Fear is your value. My life is not cramped. It is free of fear, and it is full of curiosity.

When I say there is no "objective" value, I maintain that every value is "ATTRIBUTED to something: You obviously ATTRIBUTE value to your religion of fear, whichever you voluntarily have chosen out of the thousands available. My statement about value doesn't have anything to do with atheism or theism: It is established common sense. If you are dying in the desert for lack of water, you probably attribute a thousand times more value to water than to the gold you may possess. Your last sentence therefore is way below the level of this discussion.

Gerry, I am not saying my life is more meaningful than yours. I am saying that if atheism is true, both your life and mine are *ultimately* meaningless accidents. However, if theism is correct, then your life and my life have meaning far beyond our temporal experience. I think that is a scary thought for atheists (I was an atheist in my early life; the idea of God holding me accountable cramped my lifestyle).
Also, to say "there is no such thing as objective value" agrees with my point. An atheist must hold that nothing is objectively valuable, that everything is a matter of personal taste. Hide your wives and daughters if that view becomes mainstream!

Eric - I do consider my life a gift - from nature.

Please consider that your idea that the good things in life have to come from God might originate in religious indocrination.

Moderate – thanks for continuing the conversation. All I can say is that I share your feelings about our responsibility for the earth, and find no added value in God’s involvement. You say, “We must not let our hasty human judgment replace God' judgment” and I would say – how do we know what God’s judgment is – a biblical interpretation? A voice in our heads? (or in a particular authority’s head)?

Based on some of the awful things people have done in God’s name, I’d say we’re not too good at discerning his judgment. Really, I’d say there isn’t a God.

Eric,

value is what we attribute to something. There is no such thing as "objective value". I think my life is just as meaningful as you think yours is. My love to something or somebody is just as valuable and profound as yours may be. An all-loving creator is something I certainly don't believe in, considering the concept of hell and its silly implications, considering all the biblical threats, both in the old and new testament. And if you think my life is arbitrary and meaningless as compared to yours, it only would prove a complete lack of maturity and an incredible hubris on your side, as is so often the case with believers.

Atheists,
Love and beauty may be awesome and pleasurable, and seemingly profound, and human rights worthy of standardizing, but if such things are only happy accidents along with our more base instincts, and not gifts from our transcendent, infinite, immutable Creator, they are ultimately as meaningless and arbitrary as our beautiful, but anomalous and lonely planet in the infinite, cold darkness of space.

Dear Ben,

I like your thoughtful approach to the statistical issues. I also work in the technical fields, and actually use statistical inference in my day job.

I have to add to my previous comment about the education level of Atheists and their predominance of white collar jobs that I have no demographic data to back it up. So it is just a hypothesis to check. Could be interesting, though.

Dan,

"a habit of thought leading to the idea that rights (or laws, or morals, or biological complexity) can only be handed down from above, and, perhaps, that political authority derives not from the consent of the people, but from God and/or a strong leader...Where we *come from* doesn't *matter* (for this question). What matters is what we *are* - that we live and love and strive and hope, feel joy and pain, are born and die; thus we have rights."

Excellent point. Rights that are "handed down" are mostly definitely NOT inalienable.

Gerry,

Have you seen the Map of Science? You can check it out here: http://www.didi.com/brad/mapOfScience/ or here: http://informationesthetics.org/node/20

What I mean by flinging poo is just being sloppy, sort of how I was in one of my posts above. Being a software engineer working on databases, I find that I need to be very, very rigorous to avoid pitfalls. The same applies to the interpretation of real statistics.

I don't think the data show that Christianity has a negative influence on social order, crime, etc. I completely agree that there is very little reason to believe that Christianity reduces victimization or crime.

Ben,

of course I know that correlation is not cause. The prison inmates statistics have many more factors, like race, education, money, prejudice, social surroundings, even superstition and random biographical facts. Logically, my wording "religion destroys morals" was wrong, but my point was and is that there is no positive correlation between religion and morals and certainly no positive causal relation.

Moreover, as the huge 1/50 ratio seems to point also to education (you agree to the "white collar factor", we might even call it "enlightenment"), it seems at least plausible, if not cogent, that religion does not have ANY positive influence on morals, statistically speaking. BTW, I don't quite understand what you mean be "poo flinging". One can, logically, ascribe "poo flinging" to any argument one disagrees on, depending on one's olfactory sensitivity.

Eric: "How can a soulless biological machine which accidentally developed from the primordial slime truly have "rights"?"
To me, as an artist interested in science, it always remains a mystery why the fact that I need a brain with billions of neurons to think, feel, perceive (which organ do you use for thinking btw?) should devaluate the greatness of nature, the miracle of my own life, the beauty of art, the profoundness of love and mercy. The fact that all this has developed through immeasurable times does not diminish, but enhances my awe and wonder towards the universe - and towards life.

I am a convinced atheist, but nothing less than a "materialist", another one of those silly prejudicial concepts thrown around all the time.

Of course, thinking is more dangerous and painful than believing. Thinking implies the cool breeze of doubt, believing the cozy warm and stuffy security of abandoning one's responsibility to an imagined higher ("super"-) being. It boils down to freedom vs. security. I know what I am talking about, having experienced both.

Dan,
Good reply, and the first one I've received in this discussion that was not at all nasty or rude, which is to your credit.
You Without the existence of the Supreme Being serving as a real, transcendent source of real qualities including The Ultimate Standard of Love and Goodness, we are left with mere hallucinatory, chemically induced novelties. Removing the transcendent source of these qualities removes their objective value totally and reduces them to mere physical phenomena. We may decide that we like them, and therefore exalt them, but others may exalt other qualities in opposition and we cannot tell them they are wrong to do so, since they are following the same logic in assigning value as we are, even though we may see their valuations as perverted. Removing God from human relations removes the Gold Standard by which real goodness has an objective value apart from human opinion and biology. Mere soulless biped flesh-computers (who naively live their lives as if they are something more than just flesh-computers) can only assert that such qualities as love and kindness are "good" as a matter of their own opinion and not because they are objectively "good." The same can be said for "evil." If there is no objective "good," and if human rights are just a matter of convention and taste, then we have no basis upon which to assert to the Nazis or to a baby-torturer (for example) that what they are doing is *actually* "evil" and that they are violating a *real* standard of goodness.
My whole point is that the theist understands that the beauty of the human experience is a gift from the Creator who made us in His own image, meaning that, unless we have become perverted or damaged, we will know intuitively the true valuation of what He values - selfless love, justice, mercy, beauty, and kindness - as real qualities with transcendent value, not just one set of conventional values among many, which is how the materialist must see them if he is to be honest in his materialism.

The Moderate:

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