RE: Atheists, tell me, a Roman Catholic: why should I become an atheist?
December 13, 2016 at 9:52 am
(December 13, 2016 at 5:15 am)Ignorant Wrote: We are "supposed" to love god as Father Son and Spirit, not because that is the ultimatum (love me or die!), but rather because love is the most fundamental thing all of us are trying to do with our lives (it's what we want to do), and god as Trinity is the truth about the foundation of everything which we are trying to love.
We want to love well, and knowledge of god as the Trinity and as the ultimate source and object of our love within everything else is necessary in loving the way we actually want.
But that's not how love works, at least not that which we feel for other people. When I think about the people I love, the reasons are never stuff like "well, I read about what a nice person he is and then I found out that he did some really wonderful things for me unselfishly out of a desire for me to have a good life." I could admire such a person and feel gratitude towards them, but I wouldn't feel genuine love unless I got to know them and understand them and feel a bond of some kind. Just reading about them wouldn't be enough, nor would I feel love for them if I gave them the credit anytime something good happened, whether they were the cause or not.
I might say that I love an idea, or that I am moved by something magnificent and beautiful, but that's not the kind of love that I would feel for someone I care deeply about. God in the OT demands recognition and worship, which makes more sense in light of the relationship humanity has with him as a king or ruler. He's a god of war in the OT, not love. The writers of the NT apparently decided that he needed to be modernized and completely reversed his nature. He was no longer Jehovah, the Lord of Armies. He was the very personification of love and his every action was motivated by love. He no longer demanded devotion under threat of punishment, he expressed love and sought love in return... under threat of punishment. Eh, it's progress.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould