Originally posted by Jefferson
BEST QUOTE OF THE SHOW:
BEST QUOTE OF THE SHOW:
If we look at biblical Christianity vrs. atheistic evolution, from which foundation can we condemn Harris and Klebold?
Well, let's see, a god which requires the brutal murder of an innocent simply to forgive you, verses evolutionary pack mind, evolutionary parent-offspring empathy, verses...natural empathy and sympathy which develops intra-species.
Can we condemn them from biblical Christianity? Yes.
That really depends on what view you are taking of this religion. Christianity has basically taught brutality through Trinitarianism and the lack of tolerance of other faiths up through the centuries. During the theocratical reign of the Church of Rome some of the greatest attrocities imagined took place while science and evidence driven reality behind the scientific method fought to exist.
They murdered.
From our human perspective that is a wrong action, and that is backed whether you are a christian or not, an atheist still holds to the desire of life but does not hold to the unevidenced "enforcement" of this ideology through that of any god, gods, or God. This ideology/morality system can exist simply through evolutionary pack mindedness.
Can we condem them from atheistic evolution? No.
Sure you can.
Atheism makes no claims for nor against God.
Atheism claims there is no evidence for a (any) deity.
What the author of this quote is doing is trying to setup a strawman argument against Atheism because this author lacks the intelligence to defend his faith on a scholarly and well developed level of argumentation, so he goes and makes theists look like uninformed idiots who only follow a morality because "a God" commanded us to.
If "your God's existence" or the "morality system of a given theological set" is the
only reason you do not go out and kill innocent people then you are psychologically marginal.
I would think that to an evolutionary atheistic mindset, life is not a freak, it is an incredible development of an unplanned happenstance which is extra-ordinary and precious which gives us even more reason to cherish every moment of it.
Let me put it another way, for any christian, you have "eternal life" under your belief set, to an atheist they have come to a world view inwhich they understand within that world view that this life (good or bad, up or down) is all there is, and they should do as much as they can to make this realm as good as they can (leads to humanism) because this is all there is. If anything, the atheistic principles make a people more tolerable of other people's differences and in doing so does not lead to fanaticism lightly, and most certainly it leads to preservation of life over the killing of another over invisible fairy men.
Please understand, even as a theist, I attempt to realize and not degrade an atheistic standpoint because
it is a rational evidence driven viewpoint of this reality.
...an accident of nature,
Depending upon whether you side with quantum uncertainty or would rather side with Einstein in the belief that there is purpose to the mechanism of the universe (course Einstein believed that there was a "type" of "God" which did not play dice with creation) but that is for another thread....anyways, just because we would be concidered an "accident" or "happenstance" of a natural process does not degrade life in the least, if anything it makes it even more rare and precious.
...you're just molecules and atoms...
Ah, I hate to tell you, but this part of your argument is not a theory per se, it is evidence driven, you
are just molecules and atoms....but that we find a preciousness to our given "matter pattern" is simply that we have developed to a point to have sentience and develop social systems which link back to the primitive packmindedness of our ancestors.
...and if the stronger organism kills and eats or destroys another, if a fish eats another fish, that's not wrong, it's just an animal.
Animals without reasoning and acting souly upon instinct this is an acceptable statement, for it is natural selection.
But when humanity began to reason enough to realize self, to develop a system of empathy and sympathy with those like us, and to develop social systems which limit our actions, then natural selection breaks down into a social order, for natural selection does not operate within packs per se. Natural Selection is many times limited greatly within a given pack and the more a given species can control the environment and/or genetics or health of the members of it, then the more natural selection is reduced. As humanity has medical invention, social orders, and great developments, we are no longer relational to the basic animal order....however, we are still under the rule of the might wins, that is just the way this realm works. If you doubt that, look around a bit.
Again, your argument is a load of horse manure, is an attempt at a strawman, and although I am a theist I take insult to your statements because it reflects poorly on us that you are a member of my belief set. You would be doing all theists well to convert to atheism and draw up strawman arguments against theism.