Nicanica,
First of all, you are right about my assumption run amok. You having children must have been a figment of my imagination. Please accept my apologies on that point.
I still think you are misrepresenting MD's talk. I don't think you'll find anywhere that he states the desire to sin is the 'biggest' factor in jettisoning a belief in God. He did say that this is a very common criticism leveled by believers and that atheists should not feel obligated to justify other reasons for disbelief since the absurdity of the concept of sin is sufficient enough to reject the God claim. Please note that rejecting the God claim on this basis is not borne out of a desire to sin, but that the Christian concept of sin is so antithetical to human nature that it is absurdly implausible that a creator God would devise such a system. The far more reasonable conclusion is that God does not exist and that ancient power brokers devised the idea of sin under the authority of an imagined God as a means of crowd control.
Your straw man defense is dead on arrival. You were quite specific in explaining your desire to adopt atheism for no other reason than to circumvent the divorce prohibition. I don't know if there can be a more clear-cut example of giving up God in order to do what you want.
With no children involved and assuming there is no other mitigating circumstance, I don't see any moral impediment to your desire for a divorce, sad as it may seem. Division of property and other financial matters can be negotiated between you and your wife and mediated by the courts if need be. The state you live in will determine how onerous this process is.
I hope this isn't the case, but there's something in all this that reminds me of a professional athlete that feigns retirement in order to get out of a current contract only to shortly thereafter take up with another team and continue on as before.
First of all, you are right about my assumption run amok. You having children must have been a figment of my imagination. Please accept my apologies on that point.
I still think you are misrepresenting MD's talk. I don't think you'll find anywhere that he states the desire to sin is the 'biggest' factor in jettisoning a belief in God. He did say that this is a very common criticism leveled by believers and that atheists should not feel obligated to justify other reasons for disbelief since the absurdity of the concept of sin is sufficient enough to reject the God claim. Please note that rejecting the God claim on this basis is not borne out of a desire to sin, but that the Christian concept of sin is so antithetical to human nature that it is absurdly implausible that a creator God would devise such a system. The far more reasonable conclusion is that God does not exist and that ancient power brokers devised the idea of sin under the authority of an imagined God as a means of crowd control.
Your straw man defense is dead on arrival. You were quite specific in explaining your desire to adopt atheism for no other reason than to circumvent the divorce prohibition. I don't know if there can be a more clear-cut example of giving up God in order to do what you want.
With no children involved and assuming there is no other mitigating circumstance, I don't see any moral impediment to your desire for a divorce, sad as it may seem. Division of property and other financial matters can be negotiated between you and your wife and mediated by the courts if need be. The state you live in will determine how onerous this process is.
I hope this isn't the case, but there's something in all this that reminds me of a professional athlete that feigns retirement in order to get out of a current contract only to shortly thereafter take up with another team and continue on as before.
