(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.
Is this like the Catholic belief in the 'natural laws"? I might get this wrong but I have read that Catholics believe that all people have a conscious that tells them what is right or wrong. An atheist who follows his/her conscious and does good would get to heaven because he/she is unknowingly following god. I apologize to any Roman Catholics who feel that I misrepresented their beliefs. I still don't understand why anyone holding such beliefs would want to convert anyone to their faith because it seems like it shouldn't matter what anyone else believed.
