The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[R00tKiT]

How fun...the Christian and the Muslim are going to argue whose holy book contains the worst stuff.

You seem to have forgotten that Pol Pot and Mao Zedong were atheists, and found good reasons for their crimes by their atheism.

So both christians and muslims stand in awe of atheism when it comes to the worst stuff.

Concrete consequences of atheism :

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I see things differently and I'll use two basic models to illustrate: Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning and Baumrind's parenting styles.

1. Christianity is a conversation; a dialogue between God and man. It is not authoritarian or permissive, it is authoritative (these are parenting styles). Evidence for open communication is sprinkled throughout Scripture. You have Abraham interceding for Lot and God agreeing; Moses interceding for Israel and God doing as Moses asked; you have Jonah running away because he wanted Nineveh to be destroyed and God explaining to him why mercy is warranted. Clearly, I'm allowed to disagree with God, challenge him, wrestle with him as Jacob did.

That's a good point. But the difference is, Abraham, Jacob and Lot are prophets, we aren't. So we can't really receive a message from God which directly addresses our disagreements with scripture.

2. As for what I think about certain aspects of the Old Testament: I see a lot of similarity between God's interactions with humanity, and Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning. These are developmental stages; as if God is working with humanity, walking them through them. From pre-conventional moral reasoning in which reward and punishment are the primary justifications. Through post-conventional reasoning in which abstract things like justice and love are important. The shift is clear as you progress through the Bible, perhaps with the OT and NT marking the strongest shift. Clearly, I'm allowed to look back and feel that something is wrong or at the very least note how things have developed. Evidence for comes from stories like James and John wanting to rain fire on people like Elijah and Jesus rebuked them for it.

Well, some would argue that divine scripture should contain unchanging moral sentences. If you concede that some parts of scripture belong to developmental stages, then you somehow already acknowledged that this scripture is not divine. I am no expert of christian theology, however. And I am going to stop here because these atheist fools are trying to take the moral higher ground, when they have none.

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More effects of atheism on humanity :