(November 23, 2014 at 7:32 pm)Chad32 Wrote:

(November 23, 2014 at 7:17 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Gee wiz, if you'all want to argue with the metaphor with talk of gills and such then go right ahead. The point is that being good requires the capacity to do so, despite whether you recognize the source of that capacity or not. The virtuous atheist can behave as well as anyone else because all humans have a providential conscience. If people do not look to the Good itself to guide their choices then they look to themselves or others for guidance. That looking elsewhere tends to be self-serving even if it potentially aligns with what is actually good.

First you have to get around to proving that Yahweh is real, that he is good, and is the source of goodness in the world, before you can assert that trying to do good without god is like trying to breathe without lungs. It's quite leap of assumptions.

That is where it comes back to free will. The concept of free will that I learned as a young Baptist was that evil is in the world because of free will. Free will exists because god wants love. By that logical, every time an event is on the news that makes us cringe at its cruelty(like Isis beheading aid workers or drug cartels murdering innocent people or serial killers torturing someone to death) it is because the Christian god wants love. So, the Christian god is evil. Ted Bundy, Hitler, John Gacy exist because their god wants to be praised and told he is great.

(November 23, 2014 at 7:45 pm)Losty Wrote: Are you saying hell will be like this great place for me that just happens to be without god?

Just another day at the office, really, isn't it?

In fact if one compares a concept of God-given morals to evolutionary-developed morals the comparison isn't in favor of the former. Think about it: God-given morals are completely arbitrary and what is even worse that God himself doesn't abide by said morals. Thus they are not backed up with any value other than fear of magical punishment (which isn't that threatening considering how many religious criminals are out there).
On the other hand, evolutionary-acquired morals have outlined origin and purpose. It's clear why society would enforce them. And seeing how humans have been able to advance from basic morals present in animals further for the better of society and individuals is really reassuring, especially as opposed to the Bible's 'decay of everything'.
By the way, the whole concept of constant deterioration of everything (including 'the fall of man') is lame. It's one of the worst things in the Book. As with the eschatological fears It's obviously there to discourage and depress (i.e. break down and make easier to control). While scientific explanation of morals reassures in better and inspires for progress.

(November 23, 2014 at 12:03 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: From Swedenborg's Divine Providence -

Certain spirits by permission ascended from hell and said to me, You have written many things from the Lord; write something from us, too. I replied, What shall I write? They said, Write that every spirit, whether good or wicked, is in his own delight; the good spirit is in the delight of his good and the wicked spirit is in the delight of his evil. I then asked, What is your delight? And they replied that it was the delight of committing adultery, stealing, defrauding and telling lies. Again I asked, What are these delights like? They replied, They are perceived by others as offensive odours from excrement, and as the putrid smell from dead bodies, and as the reeking stench from stagnant urine pools. I then said, Are they delightful to you? And they replied, They are most delightful. I said, Then you are like unclean beasts that live in such filth. To this they replied, If we are, we are; nevertheless, such things are a delight to our nostrils.

So, when I die my spirit goes to hell and becomes a convenient straw-unbeliever cartoon character that sounds exactly like the bluntest, most simplistic dishonest caricature a fundamentalist religious whackjob could come up with? I'll essentially become the villain in a Chick Tract?

Now, you also mentioned orgies before as being devoid of intimacy, which I can't help but think of being a result of the same cartoon character logic the above passage is made of. Speaking as someone who's actually been in an orgy (does seven people count as an orgy? I think it does. ) I can tell you that depending on the makeup of the group it can be very intimate indeed. I maintained close relationships with the others in my little group for a number of years, and still count them all among my friends now.

I guess things don't work in simplistic binaries after all! hock:

There is NO free will. That's basically a fact.

(November 22, 2014 at 4:25 pm)Nope Wrote: When I was a Christian, I thought that freewill was a lovely concept. Of course, the god that I worshiped didn't want his followers to be robots! As I got older, I began to follow some of my ideas to their logical conclusion.

Most Christians will say that their god gave humans free will so that they would freely decide to worship and love him. Awww....who could be upset with that
However, the same free will is responsible for humans doing sometimes unimaginably horrible things to one another.

For a time, I was happy with the answer that a perfect god does not allow evil but that human's free will is the cause of cruelty. Then one day I made the connection. We have free will, according to Christians, because god wants love. That means that babies are raped because god wants love. That is really sick.

After that, I could not believe in the Christian concept of god and that was one of the many things that started my slow movement away from faith.

I was just curious if any of you had considered how twisted the idea of free will and its consequences are?

There are some (and I count myself among them) who do not accept that free will exists, but that what is important is the belief that it exists.

Free Will by its nature invokes metaphysics, that there is something more created when balancing the chemical reactions we are made of, that somehow our brains are greater than the sum of their parts.

Personally, I don't buy that at all. I'm not saying we don't need the illusion of free will, I think the illusion is extremely important to us, but it is no more than an illusion.


MM

(November 23, 2014 at 8:12 pm)Esquilax Wrote: So, when I die my spirit goes to hell and becomes a convenient straw-unbeliever cartoon character that sounds exactly like the bluntest, most simplistic dishonest caricature a fundamentalist religious whackjob could come up with?

Its not dishonest. It's an honest warning.

(November 23, 2014 at 8:12 pm)Esquilax Wrote: [quote='ChadWooters' pid='802605' dateline='1416758610']


I guess things don't work in simplistic binaries after all! hock:

Computers do, my friend, computers.

(November 23, 2014 at 8:32 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(November 23, 2014 at 8:12 pm)Esquilax Wrote: So, when I die my spirit goes to hell and becomes a convenient straw-unbeliever cartoon character that sounds exactly like the bluntest, most simplistic dishonest caricature a fundamentalist religious whackjob could come up with?

Its not dishonest. It's an honest warning.

You aren't denying that your example is a cartoonish caricature.

(November 23, 2014 at 8:32 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(November 23, 2014 at 8:12 pm)Esquilax Wrote: So, when I die my spirit goes to hell and becomes a convenient straw-unbeliever cartoon character that sounds exactly like the bluntest, most simplistic dishonest caricature a fundamentalist religious whackjob could come up with?

Its not dishonest. It's an honest warning.

As has been pointed out, you're not denying the simplistic, offensive notions at play here, but more importantly, what's going to happen to make me that way? Because to be honest, that quote doesn't read as an accurate description of anything real, but of someone writing Snidely Whiplash. Leaving aside evidence and justification, it just seems like something you want to be true, some little passive aggressive shot at the unbelievers to shore up the theists and bolster their own imagined superiority. It reads like a rhetorical tactic, not a warning.

But, let it never be said that I'm uncharitable in my interpretations, so! What's going to make me that way? What's going to turn me from a well rounded human being who doesn't actually commit that many sins barring the standard disbelief in god, into a two dimensional prop for your mystic's demagoguery? As I am now, I have a moral code that isn't subjective or up for opinion, and that aligns with the health and happiness of my fellows; I don't actually "delight" in committing adultery, theft, lies and so on. So if I pass into hell as I was in life, that stuff will all remain. So obviously, either I'm going to be brainwashed somehow upon entering hell, in which case I'm not really me and your "warning" is inaccurate, or Swedenborg was wrong.

I know you compared the whole enterprise to addiction earlier, but I don't buy that in the context of real people and not children's characters. I may not believe in god and hence be destined for hell, but the nearest I get to addiction is a predilection for peanut butter M&Ms and an honest, moral but voracious sexual appetite. There's nothing in me, in most normal people, atheist or not, that could intensify to that level. Without something being changed, that is... thus bringing us back to the dilemma.