Nature's Laws

[downbeatplumb]

I'm just telling you what I find convincing.  I can't convert anyone.  Just as my conversion was a miracle, so it is for all who, by faith, are saved in Christ.  As I've said, God brought me to a point at which it began to require vastly more faith to remain an atheist than it took for me to believe in the God of the bible.  As I began to evaluate my atheism after reading "Evidence" I began to realize that atheism isn't something positive (like an explanatory and conceptually fulfilling world view), it is merely the negation (or rejection) of theism.  Since atheism is nothing more than that, it doesn't contain or support, and it isn't trying to contain or support, any kind of philosophical foundation for morality, the origins of life, or anything else.  Atheism is highly prized as if it were really something wonderful by those who reject theism, but it is nothing but the rejection of theism.  It is nothing!  How can "nothing" make a person free? 

You are correct that atheism is just the rejection of theism and is not a world view. It never claims to be. But when you free yourself from the shackles of stupid myths you can act according to how the world really is and not as part of some "gods plan".
As an atheist with one short life, life becomes more precious.
As an atheist you don't have to hate rival faith groups or people that the evil book tell you too.
As an atheist you take responsibility for your morals and nature, we aren't nice because god is watching we are just nice.
And of course we get to do what we want on sunday.

[Angrboda]

You are correct that atheism is just the rejection of theism and is not a world view. It never claims to be. But when you free yourself from the shackles of stupid myths you can act according to how the world really is and not as part of some "gods plan".
As an atheist with one short life, life becomes more precious.

Some atheists may feel this way, but it isn't a necessary consequence of the freedom that comes from being an atheist.

As an atheist you don't have to hate rival faith groups or people that the evil book tell you too.

No, but you can still irrationally hate groups of people for secular reasons.

As an atheist you take responsibility for your morals and nature, we aren't nice because god is watching we are just nice.

This is only true if you are a moral anti-realist, which isn't, again, a necessary consequence of atheism.

And of course we get to do what we want on sunday.

Theists get to do what they want on Sundays as well, whether that be church or something else. Plus, some atheists choose to go to a club or church on a specific day of the week. Being atheist doesn't free you from such chosen obligations.

[Tonus]

The universe is orderly and purposeful in certain ways.  How could impersonal stuff like matter and energy "obey" laws of any kind?  Where do the laws of nature and the laws of logic come from?  If there is no god, why do so many atheists care so much about the non-existence of a supposedly fictional deity?  Please don't take any offense to my words.  I'm not trying to offend anyone here.  I'm just asking a few questions that seem to be fair.

I suppose the universe may be seen as orderly in some ways, though I am not sure how it is purposeful.  What is the purpose of gamma ray bursts, aside from obliterating everything within its reach?  In any case, the order is what we occasionally find, and the laws describe the way things appear to work based on our understanding of the universe.  If we focus on the few bits that seem ordered and ignore the rest, then we may suddenly find order and purpose in an otherwise chaotic and purposeless universe.

As for the second, it's not that I care about the non-existence of god.  It's that the belief in god has effects both direct and indirect on our lives, via community and social standards and behavior and via laws and regulations.  People fight to have creationism taught as science alongside evolution, a sign that they have absolutely no idea about what evolution is or how established it is in reality (nor how teaching works, since "teaching creationism" amounts to a few direct assertions and nothing else).  They get in the way of human learning and progress by demanding that the world take the ignorant statements of ancient fiction writers as immutable fact.  Those are things I care about, and they are real issues and real problems.  If belief in god(s) did not affect society in those ways, I would pay god even less attention than I already do.

[Freedom4me]

The bible endorses slavery, it gives you instructions on where you're allowed to buy slaves from, how much you can beat them etc. It never once says it is wrong. And the bible is not shy about saying what it thinks is wrong.

Any civilised person would hopefully agree slavery is immoral. Therefor, the bible supports either immorality, or a bygone morality system of no relevance today. The only way to find out which bits are moral and which aren't, is to apply our own morality. Blindly accepting it would lead us to continue with slavery, so I think that's a very bad idea.

The result? People justify what they think is moral by finding bits of the bible they think sound similar. They find excuses for why the bible doesn't really mean what it seems to mean in all cases where they disagree. In other words, they are entirely ignoring the bible and using their own morality. They are saying they know better than God, and they are right, in most cases. But sometimes, a good person may do a bad thing because religion endorses it, that they wouldn't otherwise do.

I think that in biblical times, slavery was quite often the most obvious and practical alternative to something far worse.  For example, when one tribe went to war against another tribe and all of the men of the losing tribe were killed-off in the fighting, the care of the women and children of the defeated tribe would probably have been deemed an unbearable burden by the victorious tribe.  What should the victors do with them?  Kill them too?  Maybe they don't have to be killed.  Speaking for myself, if I could remain alive by working as a slave rather than die because the absence of slavery means I'm nothing but a hindrance to the victorious tribe, I would wish that slavery existed for my own survival...unless my treatment as a slave was really brutal.  So, although I wouldn't want to put a smiley face on slavery even in those days, I can understand that in ancient times there were often no good alternatives to slavery.  

[Crossless2.0]

Great, another ancient slavery apologist because 'my almighty god, who created the universe and could rain manna from the very sky, couldn't figure out a way to make slavery obsolete'. How much longer before you tell us that we are the moral relativists?

[Angrboda]

The bible endorses slavery, it gives you instructions on where you're allowed to buy slaves from, how much you can beat them etc. It never once says it is wrong. And the bible is not shy about saying what it thinks is wrong.

I think that in biblical times, slavery was quite often the most obvious and practical alternative to something far worse.  ... So, although I wouldn't want to put a smiley face on slavery even in those days, I can understand that in ancient times there were often no good alternatives to slavery.  

Do you really think this case was in the majority, rather than a minority of cases? What makes you come to the conclusion that the creation of slaves through spoils of war was "quite often" other than the desire to explain away the undesirability of slavery? Did the Romans not make slaves of both male foreigners in their conquests, even where they weren't attempting to acquire land, but merely to acquire the spoils of the land, food and precious items, in addition to slaves. It seems clear that in ancient times, slaves were 'goods' sought for their own value, not simply the leftovers from war. What makes you think the majority of them were leftovers rather than the goods to be sought in and of themselves?

[Tonus]

I think that in biblical times, slavery was quite often the most obvious and practical alternative to something far worse.  For example, when one tribe went to war against another tribe and all of the men of the losing tribe were killed-off in the fighting, the care of the women and children of the defeated tribe would probably have been deemed an unbearable burden by the victorious tribe.  What should the victors do with them?  Kill them too?  

Bad example.  When the Israelites attack the Midianites (Numbers 31) they are ordered to kill the men, women, and boys and take the virgin girls "for [them]selves."  Which means rape or slavery or both.  So I think they covered all of the possible alternatives to slavery.  I don't think it's that the old testament treats slavery as less wicked than other actions; I think that the view was that certain things (mass-slaughter, pillage, rape, slavery, etc) were only really bad when they happened to other tribes.  And hey, if their gods couldn't stop our god, then they deserved whatever they got.

[FatAndFaithless]

How about...not killing them and not enslaving them? Was that too complex for god to comprehend? Or hell..how about "don't engage in ridiculous tribal warfare".

[Freedom4me]

Great, another ancient slavery apologist because 'my almighty god, who created the universe and could rain manna from the very sky, couldn't figure out a way to make slavery obsolete'.  How much longer before you tell us that we are the moral relativists?

I wouldn't call my views on ancient slavery 'moral relativism' any more than my current views on divorce are moral relativism.  The post-fall world is severely unjust, imperfect, and actually cursed.  So although I tend to hate the whole idea of divorce, I would be ignorant, cruel, and unjust to think that, for example, a woman who's married to a wife-beating jerk should continue to submit herself and her children to such horrible abuse.  

[Iroscato]

Great, another ancient slavery apologist because 'my almighty god, who created the universe and could rain manna from the very sky, couldn't figure out a way to make slavery obsolete'.  How much longer before you tell us that we are the moral relativists?

I wouldn't call my views on ancient slavery 'moral relativism' any more than my current views on divorce are moral relativism.  The post-fall world is severely unjust, imperfect, and actually cursed.  So although I tend to hate the whole idea of divorce, I would be ignorant, cruel, and unjust to think that, for example, a woman who's married to a wife-beating jerk should continue to submit herself and her children to such horrible abuse.  

What is your evidence for the world being 'actually cursed'?