Another apologist with his "clever" questions

[Cecelia]

1. And that's okay!  What's wrong with questions being unanswered?  Is it better to have the wrong answer, than no answer at all?  Is it better to say that people get cold's because of cold weather, and live in ignorance of the fact that it's actually germs?  Or is it better to learn that there are in fact germs and that it's those germs that cause us to get sick?  Substituting 'god' as the answer every time we don't understand something leads to further refusal to understand.

Sub Answer: How do we understand good and evil?  It's pretty simple.  Each individual makes that decision for themselves.  All Christians do not share the same beliefs and morals.  They have very different morals, that are based on things other than the Bible.  Evidence for this is clear: Not everyone agrees on the same interpretation of the bible.  Not even people within the same denomination.  Good and Evil are things we decide for ourselves.  They are abstract concepts that we've used to attach to human actions.  There's no natural good or natural evil.  (This is perhaps one of the strongest arguments against the existence of the Christian God.)  Good and Evil are concepts made by humans.  

2. People find their own meanings.  Why is God needed to give meaning to something.  Can't we find our own meaning?  If the world merely exists, then we are free to make our own meaning in life  Just because some people who lived during a time where the world was very different had their own answer to the meaning of life, doesn't mean that today we have to accept the same answer.  Christians and other religious groups don't seem to understand: The past doesn't have the answers.  Studying history is important, but it's not like our ancestors knew the world better than us.  On the contrary, they knew if far less well than we do today.

3. And when people have embraced Christianity, the historical results can be horrific.   The Christian Church executed people for being gay, or simply for believing in a different god.  You even have Christians today calling for the deaths of gay people.  Let's not forget that Hitler was a Christian.  This is a silly argument.  How about the Crusades? Remember those?  Christians love to conveniently forget them when bringing up Stalin and Mao Zedong.  This suggestion seems to say that the least horrific results is the one that leads to the right answer.  In which case Christianity would be very low on the totem pole--even lower than Atheism. 

4. Good and Evil are abstract concepts, and cannot be solved.  A wish for all those who wrong you and others to receive justice is nothing more than wishful thinking.  Just because you wish for Hell, doesn't mean it exists.  God doesn't solve these concepts at all.  It's a revenge fantasy, plain and simple.  I know Christians love their revenge porn, but it doesn't solve the problem of good and evil.  If there were a God--he would be just as responsible for the evil as he was the good.  Bad people get away with doing bad things sometimes.  It's the way of the world.  No amount of wishful thinking will change that.

5. Each individual has their own standards to judge religions and religious people.  Values do not come from religion, but from human interaction.  Child molestation is wrong because it hurts a child.  If this is a difficult concept to understand, you aren't truly 'good'.  You merely masquerade as good, doing only what god tells you.  If god says rape is good, then rape is good.  If god says bacon is bad, then bacon is bad.  There is no one 'truth'.  Each individual must use their own standards to form their own morality.  Actually, most people do this--religious or not.  Otherwise one couldn't say that "God would never do that!  That's not good!" because if God DID say that, then they'd only have themselves to rely on for their moral decisions.  It's why people also cherrypick the bible.  They find certain things about it distasteful.  Even Christians seem to understand this--but lie about it.  Because they say "That was the culture of the time!"  when defending the bible.  The thing is--that culture had values that either: A. Came from god (meaning that we find God abhorrent) or B. Came from the people without god (Which is true answer here.  You disagree with the values of that time, independent of what God tells you.  That you can do this shows that each individual judges religions on their personal experience)

6.  Not everyone hungers for the spiritual.  If they did, why would they be Atheists?  This is a logical fallacy--you're begging the question.  You have to assume the premise is true to answer the question, and the premise simply isn't true.