National Day of Prayer; May 3, 2007

Drusus, thanks for letting everyone look into the mind of an atheist.

 

I think the concept you guys are getting at is spirituality. We are spiritual beings. It is just not necessary to make up an invisible character to tap into this part of our being. Again, don't confuse spirituality with God, there is a difference even though religion has tried to monopolize our spiritual qualities and claim them for themselves.

 

Moen, I think that more often than not through history, religion has been used as a cover for deeds that would have been committed anyway. In one time and place it can be the Inquisition. In another, Mao did not need religion to justify mass murder -- only the welfare of the state. The lack of religion would not have stopped the Inquisition, and the presence of it would not have stopped Mao. Only the cover story would change, but the evil deeds would not because of the nature of the people involved.

Also, I did not say, or did not mean to say, that morals and religion were tied together. My intent was to tie morality to the belief in God, whether or not a person chooses to practice a particular religion.

When atheists are asked for their basis for morality or for distingusihing what is right from what is wrong, in my opinion they always revert to explaining what they were taught to be right and wrong without really understanding why. They have no philosophical or theological basis for their actions. Some animals can be trained to kill, or to refrain from killing. But the act of killing for them is not a moral decision. I think people are higher order spiritual beings than they are. That's all.

 

Can you explain the basis for this belief if we as spirits are not created in the image of God? If there is no God and man is still spirit, why would it be wrong to kill since nothing is actually destroyed?

 

I dont know about spirituality...if you mean a spirit, I dont understand or grasp and I dont know if I believe in it..I would call what drives me to live a moral life is empathy which to me can be more easily explained as a very real emotinal based system that most social animals have that gives them the ability to co-exist without hurting each other. I can put myself in the place of others who are wronged and feel sorry for them and not want to be the cause of it as we have all been wronged and had problems and know how it feels, even some animals seem to have empathy....A show I watched with mear cats showed how, when one of their numbers died, they seemed to morn...I had 2 cats that were buddies, one died and the other seemed out of sorts for months (still isnt the same)...I think she was affected by the loss of her friend...she may have been feeling empathy and sadness. Social animals seem to know what is expected of them if they wish to remain a part of a social group...we are social animals...and I think we all know what is expected of us to get along in our society...it is reinforced by many different real lessons as we grow. It is the very real need to act a certain why to get along in a society, one must be aware of your effect on others as we all must get along in the world.

But if I had anything that I could relate to 'spirit' it would be a feeling of empathy for my fellow humans when they are in dire circumstances, and the wish not to be the cause of any pain and suffering for them as I know what pain and suffering is and do not want to put others through that. I think this is just something you have by nature but some people are lacking this, and they are sociopaths. To me a sociopath is just another word for a person who cannot feel ampathy and is so selfish they will do whatever they want and damn who they hurt...these people will be this way regardless of how much God or morals you instill in them.

Also, its splitting hairs I know, but I am more of an agnostic than atheist. I just dont know if there is a god or not so I dont follow one but I cant say for sure if there is one. I tend to think this is how everyone is, they cant prove there is a god, they just believe without any real proof save the subjective type (personal revelations). I dont htink any human truly knows the nature of the divine if indeed there is one.

 

I'll try to answer both at the same time. Spirituality in the generic sense is just the feeling that we are all connected to everything else, that we are part of something greater that we can't experience with our earthly senses. Many people give this innate quality of ourselves a human face and call it God. I nor anyone else can explain it scientifically but I'd guess that it is probably the result of some past characteristic of human development and not as many think a function of our higher reasoning abilities. I don't know exactly what it is but I am not willing to explain it away by the existence of some superbeing.
Spirituality as it is defined and understood today is almost inseperable from religion and God. It comes down to whether God created us or did we create God. If we created God to explain our own spirituality in the absence of a better explanation, we have long since moved beyond the questions we should be asking and trailed off on a dead ended tangent that is leading us nowhere and tearing us apart morally without ever knowing why. If on the other hand there is a God that is responsible for our existence and spirituality is the path to whatever you need from from such a being, we already possess everything we need to be moral beings without any religion telling us so.

 

See next post.

Man is spiritual not spirit and simply valuing your earthly existence is enough to reason that others may also value theirs. It isn't always enough to keep us from killing each other though with or without a belief in God.

 

Ok, so for atheists life is sort of a one on one MAD doctrine that ends badly for everyone.

 

No...I have no clue how you draw such a conclusion...I think I have wasted my time trying explain, you either dont want to get it or cant. You just keep believing what you believe...you obviously cant grasp the concept and need a god to validate life...there is nothing at all wrong with that.

 

No, I think it's more, Life is what you make of it. It's up to you and not some all-knowing, omnipotent, lawgiver. If life is bad it's because you've made it that way and if it's good, the credit doesn't belong to some imaginary superbeing, you made it happen. I think it is more about taking responsibility for the way things are and have been in the past. It isn't God's will that I have cancer, or that Bruce over there has AIDS, or that my neighbor is rich and I am poor. It comes down to choices and acknowledging that we are responsible for our own destinies.

BTW I don't have cancer.

 

"What stops a person from stealing from another if he is certain that he will never be caught? For a non-religious person, it is that the other person deserves to be treated the same way you would want to be treated."

Drusus, I understand what you said quoted above. I just think someone with that depth of belief should not govern or hold power over others.

 

Moen, I'm glad you are healthy, but that sort of life philosophy is very Oprah. Also believing that destiny is of your own choosing and not grounded in something greater than yourself is a frightening quality in a political leader.

 

Okay...I could easily say that I think a person who believes in, or is guided by, an invisible all knowing, all powerfull super being probably has issues that might might be problematic in leadership positions...or if such a thing is the only thing he can think of to justify him not stealing from, and killing, his his fellow human beings and he cant imagine any other reason not to kill and steal but for the existance of such a thing is a bit frightening... Lets just hope that such a person never loses faith in that invisible all knowing all powerfull super being or we might all be in trouble...

 

Cloudy, I understand you have your beliefs and you gain comfort from them in some way. I respect your honest opinion on the topic and I thank you for sharing your views. I guess I just find that religion can be used to justify any number of wicked behaviors as well as be the source of some of the greatest good in humanity. I just find the price too high and you seem willing to accept the cost. It's just a way in which you and I differ.
I have no idea what Oprah's philpsophy is and I'm not sure that I want to know. I find leaders that are excessively religious like George Bush frightening because they believe that their decisions are the result of divine intervention rather than rational thinking. So you might be scared by the thought of some Atheist in charge someday but I am living my nightmare.

 

Thank you Drusus and Moen for explaining my position ( though I know this wasn't your specific intent) with an eloquence that I could never hope to acheive. I have enjoyed this exchange very much.I just want to add a couple of things.
First, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for atheists to proselytize occasionally.
Second,there was an early reference to the very common idea that atheism is ,itself, a belief or religion.The point was well answered but I'd just like to add a couple of things.Atheism has no rituals and therefore no clergy to conduct them,no regular gatherings,no real estate,no tax exempt status,and no requirement to believe things for which there can be no proof.

Bill

 

All good points too Bromac and thanks for your additions to the conversation.

I think Cloudy and Drus are my personal favorite debating duo. The tell you what they think, they don't resort to flaming you and they don't always agree with you. I know to not bring up global warming or immigration if I don't want a brawl on my hands but otherwise they are fun to have a go around with.
Thanks guys. :bow:

 

In response to atheists not being a religion, it has become the religion of anti-religion where the main belief is to disbelieve and the anti-divine purpose is to get that message out and impose it upon others as a set of belief in non-believing.
http://atheists.meetup.com

There are a plenty of websites any google search can find where atheists can meet up with other atheist and meet or how to plan groups and speaking engagements at colleges. It comes across to me a religion of non-religion and their enemy is religion. For after all if I didn't believe in god, then why would I really care if a coins states, "in god we trust" or someones says "under god indivisible and justice for all" for it really wouldn't matter would it.

 

Dear God:
Why didn't you save the school children at: ?.
Virginia Tech 04/16/07
Amish Country, PA
Wisconsin
Columbine High School
Moses Lake , Washington 2/2/96
Bethel , Alaska 2/19/97
Pearl , Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah , Kentucky 12/1/97
Stamp, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro , Arkansas 3/24/98
Edinboro , Pennsylvania 4/24/98
Fayetteville , Tennessee 5/19/98
Springfield , Oregon 5/21/98
Richmond , Virginia 6/15/98
Littleton , Colorado 4/20/99
Taber , Alberta , Canada 5/28/99
Conyers , Georgia 5/20/99
Deming , New Mexico 11/19/99
Fort Gibson , Oklahoma 12/6/99
Santee , California 3/ 5/01 and
El Cajon , California 3/22/01?
Sincerely,
Concerned Student
-----------------------------------------------------
Reply:
Dear Concerned Student:
I am not allowed in schools.
Sincerely,
God
----------------------------------------------------------
How did this get started?...
-----------------
Let's see,
I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained
she didn't want any prayer in our schools.
And we said, OK..
------------------
Then ,
someone said you better not read the Bible in school,
the Bible that says
"thou shalt! not kill,
thou shalt not steal,
and love your neighbors as yourself,"
And we said, OK...
-----------------
Dr. Benjamin Spock said
we shouldn't spank our children
when they misbehaved
because their little personalities
would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem.
And we said,
an expert should know what he's talking about
so we won't spank them anymore..
------------------
Then someone said
teachers and principals better not
discipline our children when they misbehave.
And the school administrators said
no faculty member in this school
better touch a student when they misbehave
because we don't want any bad publicity,
and we surely don't want to be sued.
And we accepted their reasoning...
------------------
Then someone said,
let's let our daughters have abortions if they want,
and they won't even have to tell their parents.
And we said, that's a grand idea...
------------------
Then some wise school board member said,
since boys will be boys
and they're going to do it anyway,
let's give our sons all the condoms they want,
so they can have all the fun they desire,
and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school.
And we said, that's another great idea...
------------------
Then some of our top elected officials said
it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs.
And we said,
it doesn't matter what anybody,
including the President,
does in private as long as we have jobs and the economy is good....
------------------
And someone else took that appreciation a step further
and published pictures of nude children
and then stepped further still by
making them available on the Internet.
And we said, everyone's entitled to free speech....
------------------
And the entertainment industry said,
let's make TV shows and movies that promote
profanity, violence and illicit sex...
And let's record music that encourages
rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...
And we said,
it's just entertainment
and it has no adverse effect
and nobody takes it seriously anyway,
so go right ahead.
------------------
Now we're asking ourselves
why our children have no conscience,
why they don't know right from wrong,
! and why it doesn't bother them to
kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.
------------------
Undoubtedly,
if we thought about it long and hard enough,
we could figure it out.
I'm sure it has a great deal to do with...
"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW,"
------------------

 

I guess my basic point was the following: While electing candidates with a mainstream religious background is no guarantee of anything [for how can we know they are being truthful], electing professed atheists who have pre-announced their belief that they can make up their own code of ethics is more dangerous to the nation in my opinion [probably about as dangerous as voting for religious fanatics]. Our resident atheists have convincingly argued that they, personally, have chosen a reasonably sound code of ethics for their lives without believing in God; but it would be dangerous to assume that other athiest politicians are pre-disposed to behaving in the same manner.

 

I would be shocked if you could name a professed Athiest candidate at almost any level of government. I know that there are probably many out there but proclaiming your "belief" as Athiest is pretty much the same as saying please vote for me and by the way, I'm not on the ballad. You have a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected in this country as an Athiest because of irrational fears such as the one you admit to.
I can think of many people that either don't believe in God or simply don't care whether God exists that I've met in my life and none of them have seemed any more or any less moral than the rest of the general population. There are many sources or morality that have nothing to do with religion or God. I think religious folk would tell you that all sources lead back to God and claim that it is only through devine influence that we are moral beings at all. That is a convenient prospective because it both justifies their beliefs and vilifies the non-believers.
I don't think trusting Athiests to make socially beneficial decisions is any more or less dangerous than trusting someone with a rigid set of religious beliefs. We are just people after all and we as individuals decide whether to rationalize our morals away and act against the interests of our fellow citizens or we can decide that the moral consequences are too high. I may know right from wrong and act based on that knowledge or forget what I know is right and act anyway. Freewill trumps ethics in many cases in both large and small decisions. The guilt we may or may not feel after some "immoral" behavior is probably more a function of religious exposure than a solid set of moral convictions instilled in advance. If the result of the bevaior is the same, but in one case I have a guarantee of feeling guilty afterwards and in another I may or may not feel guilty, I don't really see how the guilt makes the one behavior any less or more moral than the other. Guilt is a personal penance that changes nothing in the end and in my opinion destablizes an individual that is already on shaky ground.
I still think the danger of electing someone with a religious agenda is far more risky than someone that is an Athiest. Whether you believe that religion is the cause or only the mechanism that inspires people to wage wars is an unimportant distinction in my opinion. Without the justification of the religious dogma behind them, war-like regimes throughout history could not have inspired their masses to take up arms aginst cultures with different beliefs. The ambiguity that is inherent in all religious writings allows unscrupulous leaders to manipulate the meanings of the texts to justify any number of anti-moral behaviors from oppression to genocide.
By sharing religious ideas and carrying on the illusion of morally sanctioned behavior, no matter how benign at the present, you are complicit in all the has happened under the flag of that religion to some degree. It is in no way the same for those of us that do not believe. Simply not beliving in something doesn't automatically put us in the same category as everyone else that doesn't believe as it does for a group that has the same religious rituals, scriptures, and practices. It is wrong to define us as the opposite of you since there are so many different religions, semi-religious beliefs, or just individual beliefs.