Serious Problems with Atheism

[brewer]

[edit]

Why are the random electron collisions in his brain forming his "logic" 

"bad" and the random electron collisions in your brain forming your "logic" "better"?

[edit]

You should probably stick with what you know. This comment indicates that you don't know "dick" about brain function. You're only hurting your very shaky position.

[Pat Mustard]

Ah ok we are resorting to abuse, yes that's typical of Atheists, seen it all before, nothing wrong with abuse in a Universe with No good or evil right?

And as for Eben Alexander his response is "I wrote a truthful account of my experiences in Proof of Heaven

and have acknowledged in the book both my professional and personal accomplishments and my setbacks. I stand by every word in this book and have made its message the purpose of my

life. Esquire's cynical article distorts the facts of my 25-year career as a neurosurgeon and is a textbook example of how unsupported assertions and cherry-picked information can be

assembled at the expense of the truth."

He seems sincere to me, and there seems a campaign of misinformation about him,  but hey, even if I am wrong, the NDE Research Foundation has THOUSANDS of cases and growing

daily, even if one single one is genuine, Materialistic Atheism falls. Go ahead, research NDE's with an open mind and see for yourself.......... yeah I'm pretty sure you couldn't be bothered, but you

certainly cannot in Conscience assert you are sincere in your search for Truth.

I work off one simple rule, you don't act like a piece of shit, I don't call you out as one. By your actions in this very thread, viz lying, insults, persecution complex, misrepresentation of others, condescension and so on, it is amply clear you are a piece of shit of the most pungent variety.

You don't like it, change your posting style.

---

I am Falsely accused of lying and quoting Dawkins out of context, then verbally abused, and it's all my fault? Really?

Again with the lies. You quote mined Richard Dawkins in order to try and make out he was saying something that he never said, which is a lie, and I called you out on it. You then called me a liar, falsely, which I also called you out on. Now you are lying about your own lies.

Is there some sort of compulsion your under that forces you to constantly lie?

[Crossless2.0]

Personally, and like Dawkins I speak for just one atheist, I have no use for the word "evil" and prefer the word  "prosocial" to "good".  Goodness and Evil as nouns are nonsense.  Acts which get singled out as 'good' tend to be ones which are good for the wider group.  As a community we naturally appreciate such acts.  But self serving acts which serve only the individual are not 'evil', they're just not socially relevant.  On the long view, even the pursuit of solitude or solitary pleasures can be seen as having some prosocial value if by nurturing the individual that individual is then able to go on to more fully participate in and contribute to the social good.  

But some acts actually subtract from the social good and I have no problem calling them "bad": hitting or even killing others in anger, robbing them, the destruction of property, and so on.  But "evil" is still a reach.  The closest I can come to attaching meaning to that would be anyone who inflicts pain and suffering on others for the pleasure they receive in doing so, like Charles Manson.  But then, he was obviously deranged so possibly all 'evil' is really an offshoot of pathology of one kind or another.  But "evil" as a thing in itself itself exists no where but fiction (e.g., in the bible).

That's at the core of the debate isn't it, why is "prosocial" better than "antisocial"? Why is human survival better than 

extinction? 

As the 2007 atheist suicide-murderer Pekka-Eric Auvinen from Finland said ‘The faster the human race is wiped out

 from this planet, the better … no one should be left alive. No mercy for the scum of earth.’ ‘I am the law, judge and 

executioner. There is no higher authority than me.’ 

Why are the random electron collisions in his brain forming his "logic" 

"bad" and the random electron collisions in your brain forming your "logic" "better"?

So my point is we innately know that there is Good and Evil in this Universe because we have a Conscience which is simply 

irreducible to random electron collisions in our skulls, and it requires the stubbornness and closed-mindedness of a Dawkins to

 deny the obvious.

First, what the fuck is with your formatting? You're writing bad prose, not bad poetry.

Regarding your "atheist suicide-murderer", from Wikipedia:

Pekka-Eric Auvinen (4 June 1989 – 7 November 2007), an 18-year-old student at Jokela High School, was born in Tuusula, Finland. Between December 2006 and January 2007, Auvinen's parents tried to get him referred to a psychiatric outpatient clinic, but the offer was refused, as his symptoms were deemed mild. It was recommended that before a resort to hospitalisation, efforts to use antidepressant medication would be taken first. Auvinen had irregularly taken SSRI-antidepressants one year prior to his death. Auvinen was frequently bullied at school, and school students reported changes in his behavior to a youth worker, saying he acted threateningly and remarked that they would die in "a white revolution". One of his teachers described him as a militant radical who was interested in both far-right and far-left movements. Auvinen had apparently been planning the shooting since at least early March.
Auvinen had a number of online accounts, including a YouTube account he used to upload videos about school shootings and violent incidents, including the Columbine High School massacre, the Waco siege, the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and bombing during the Iraq invasion. Several months before the shooting, an American YouTube vlogger, "TheAmazingAtheist" from the state of Louisiana, called for authorities to investigate accounts with content on school shootings, including one used by Auvinen. But no actions were taken.
Auvinen uploaded a homemade video to YouTube prior to the shooting, declaring that he would carry out a "massacre", and uploaded a manifesto to a file sharing website. His manifesto expressed anger at his social alienation and called on "strong-minded and intelligent individuals" to revolt against the "idiocracy" of the "weak-minded masses".

So your example of -- what? the dangers of atheism? -- is a troubled kid with a history of anti-depressant use; whose parents apparently thought he needed additional psychiatric help; who was bullied by his peers; who had an obsession with violent images; who had a history of threatening behavior; who was interested in radical movements of both the right and the left; who apparently had delusions of grandeur; and who harbored vengeful fantasies. Now connect the dots. What does any of this have to do with atheism?

As for your remark concerning Dawkins, he is not the simple-minded reductionist you are trying to portray.

You, on the other hand, are exceedingly dishonest and are grasping at straws.

And your bad prose is not bad poetry, so stop with the shitty formatting. 

[Asmodee]

That's at the core of the debate isn't it, why is "prosocial" better than "antisocial"? Why is human survival better than 

extinction? 

It's better for ME. That should be obvious. Prosocial means I don't have to grow my own food, spin my own yarn, weave my own clothes, build my own house, etc. It means I can focus on just a few things that interest me to make a living and assigned thousands of things I don't to someone else. And bonus, I don't have to empty a chamber pot outside my window after using leaves to wipe because I don't know how to manufacture tissue paper, or don't have the time with the thousands of other chores I would have on my plate. It means that we have gotten together and agreed, as a society, not to take from each other or harm each other. For the minimal price of agreeing not to kill my neighbor (or, in our case, the institute of law telling me I can't) I can be reasonably assured that he isn't going to kill me. This is all pretty basic. It doesn't take a college degree to figure out why I don't want the human race wiped out and any moron who isn't severely socially impaired can easily figure out why being social is "good". You're trying to make a big mystery out of common sense things.

As the 2007 atheist suicide-murderer Pekka-Eric Auvinen from Finland said ‘The faster the human race is wiped out

 from this planet, the better … no one should be left alive. No mercy for the scum of earth.’ ‘I am the law, judge and 

executioner. There is no higher authority than me.’ 

Why are the random electron collisions in his brain forming his "logic" 

"bad" and the random electron collisions in your brain forming your "logic" "better"?

Again, society, as a whole, has decided what is "bad" and what is "good". And again, it takes only a pretty basic understanding and very little thought to come up with this.

And the brain does not work by "random electron collisions". It's actually chemical processes which produce the electrons and if they were random we would all die.

So my point is we innately know that there is Good and Evil in this Universe because we have a Conscience which is simply 

irreducible to random electron collisions in our skulls, and it requires the stubbornness and closed-mindedness of a Dawkins to

 deny the obvious.

And it requires a straw man to support. No two people on the planet can agree 100% of the time what is "good" and what is "evil". I think the members of the Westborough Baptist Church are inherently "evil". They think the same about me. I think the ACLU is inherently "good". Most right-wingers and many Christians would disagree. Our idea of good and evil is anything but innate. It is learned. And again, if the processes in our brains were random we would all die. Nobody is claiming that they are random, it's you who is claiming that we are claiming that they are random, which is a straw man.

[The Valkyrie]

That's at the core of the debate isn't it, why is "prosocial" better than "antisocial"? Why is human survival better than 

extinction? 

As the 2007 atheist suicide-murderer Pekka-Eric Auvinen from Finland said ‘The faster the human race is wiped out

 from this planet, the better … no one should be left alive. No mercy for the scum of earth.’ ‘I am the law, judge and 

executioner. There is no higher authority than me.’ 

Why are the random electron collisions in his brain forming his "logic" 

"bad" and the random electron collisions in your brain forming your "logic" "better"?

So my point is we innately know that there is Good and Evil in this Universe because we have a Conscience which is simply 

irreducible to random electron collisions in our skulls, and it requires the stubbornness and closed-mindedness of a Dawkins to

 deny the obvious.

First, what the fuck is with your formatting? You're writing bad prose, not bad poetry.

Regarding your "atheist suicide-murderer", from Wikipedia:

Pekka-Eric Auvinen (4 June 1989 – 7 November 2007), an 18-year-old student at Jokela High School, was born in Tuusula, Finland. Between December 2006 and January 2007, Auvinen's parents tried to get him referred to a psychiatric outpatient clinic, but the offer was refused, as his symptoms were deemed mild. It was recommended that before a resort to hospitalisation, efforts to use antidepressant medication would be taken first. Auvinen had irregularly taken SSRI-antidepressants one year prior to his death. Auvinen was frequently bullied at school, and school students reported changes in his behavior to a youth worker, saying he acted threateningly and remarked that they would die in "a white revolution". One of his teachers described him as a militant radical who was interested in both far-right and far-left movements. Auvinen had apparently been planning the shooting since at least early March.
Auvinen had a number of online accounts, including a YouTube account he used to upload videos about school shootings and violent incidents, including the Columbine High School massacre, the Waco siege, the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and bombing during the Iraq invasion. Several months before the shooting, an American YouTube vlogger, "TheAmazingAtheist" from the state of Louisiana, called for authorities to investigate accounts with content on school shootings, including one used by Auvinen. But no actions were taken.
Auvinen uploaded a homemade video to YouTube prior to the shooting, declaring that he would carry out a "massacre", and uploaded a manifesto to a file sharing website. His manifesto expressed anger at his social alienation and called on "strong-minded and intelligent individuals" to revolt against the "idiocracy" of the "weak-minded masses".

So your example of -- what? the dangers of atheism? -- is a troubled kid with a history of anti-depressant use; whose parents apparently thought he needed additional psychiatric help; who was bullied by his peers; who had an obsession with violent images; who had a history of threatening behavior; who was interested in radical movements of both the right and the left; who apparently had delusions of grandeur; and who harbored vengeful fantasies. Now connect the dots. What does any of this have to do with atheism?

As for your remark concerning Dawkins, he is not the simple-minded reductionist you are trying to portray.

You, on the other hand, are exceedingly dishonest and are grasping at straws.

And your bad prose is not bad poetry, so stop with the shitty formatting. 

Even just reading the quote posted from him, assuming it was a factual quote, indicated a severely deranged mindset.  That's nothing to do with atheism.  That's all about mental health.

Even if he was an atheist, and that is probable, he didn't do what he did in the name of atheism, as far as I can see.  Unlike many religious people who carry out atrocities in the name of their religion.

Now, I won't insult you but I will ask you to stop generalising.  The views of a single atheist, no matter how influential, is not representative of the entire atheist community.

[Cyberman]

If they ever ask, I will nominate you for head of local tourism.

Please don't.

[Whateverist]

Personally, and like Dawkins I speak for just one atheist, I have no use for the word "evil" and prefer the word  "prosocial" to "good".  Goodness and Evil as nouns are nonsense.  Acts which get singled out as 'good' tend to be ones which are good for the wider group.  As a community we naturally appreciate such acts.  But self serving acts which serve only the individual are not 'evil', they're just not socially relevant.  On the long view, even the pursuit of solitude or solitary pleasures can be seen as having some prosocial value if by nurturing the individual that individual is then able to go on to more fully participate in and contribute to the social good.  

But some acts actually subtract from the social good and I have no problem calling them "bad": hitting or even killing others in anger, robbing them, the destruction of property, and so on.  But "evil" is still a reach.  The closest I can come to attaching meaning to that would be anyone who inflicts pain and suffering on others for the pleasure they receive in doing so, like Charles Manson.  But then, he was obviously deranged so possibly all 'evil' is really an offshoot of pathology of one kind or another.  But "evil" as a thing in itself itself exists no where but fiction (e.g., in the bible).

That's at the core of the debate isn't it, why is "prosocial" better than "antisocial"? Why is human survival better than 

extinction?

Not 'better' in some absolute, abstract way. Prosocial behavior is just better evolutionarily as it carries a survival advantage. We weren't designed to cooperate we evolved that way. The way we feel about inflicting harm, bestowing support and our capacity for empathy are some of the ways that manifests in our experience.  What we experience is what it feels like to be a creature with the advantage of being able to live cooperatively in communities of our kind.

As the 2007 atheist suicide-murderer Pekka-Eric Auvinen from Finland said ‘The faster the human race is wiped out

 from this planet, the better … no one should be left alive. No mercy for the scum of earth.’ ‘I am the law, judge and 

executioner. There is no higher authority than me.’ 

Why are the random electron collisions in his brain forming his "logic" 

"bad" and the random electron collisions in your brain forming your "logic" "better"?

Who says they are? His behavior was obviously not pro-social, his 'tribe' did not benefit from his actions.

The question should be, how do we account for his aberrant behavior - with or with out a god. With a god, as has often been said, either it isn't all powerful or else it doesn't care and if it isn't either of those things, why call it god? Without a god we account for in the same way we do a baby with birth defects or cancer, as simple failures in the system. Shit happens in a godless world. In a world with a god, you have to ask yourself why god allows it. Or if you think it is all powerful then you might wonder why he designed it to happen. Mistakes make more sense in a godless world.

So my point is we innately know that there is Good and Evil in this Universe because we have a Conscience which is simply 

irreducible to random electron collisions in our skulls, and it requires the stubbornness and closed-mindedness of a Dawkins to

 deny the obvious.

There is nothing random about evolution except the occasional mutation, and then only those which improve the survival of the species win out. Of course evolution leads to more complexity and increasingly better adapted creatures.

[Rhondazvous]

Of course it didn't happen.

Zombies only come out for Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

That's what the authorities tell us to prevent general panic. But for all I know that may have been a zombie who stole my waffle. I had my suspicions.

[Crossless2.0]

Of course it didn't happen.

Zombies only come out for Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

That's what the authorities tell us to prevent general panic. But for all I know that may have been a zombie who stole my waffle.  I had my suspicions.

I don't know about that, but I have it on good authority that if it's waffle-stealing zombies you worry about, it's best to avoid the Waffle House on Canal Street. The one on Elysian Fields looks suspect, too.

[Rhondazvous]

That's what the authorities tell us to prevent general panic. But for all I know that may have been a zombie who stole my waffle.  I had my suspicions.

I don't know about that, but I have it on good authority that if it's waffle-stealing zombies you worry about, it's best to avoid the Waffle House on Canal Street. The one on Elysian Fields looks suspect, too.

They're not limited to waffle houses now. They stole it right out of my kitchen and returned it as a soggy mess in my sink. They're getting bold in their mischievous ways. Next thing I'll have to start counting my blueberries too. Let's see, how many did I use this morning?