Conscience and the Moral Argument as Evidence for the Goodness of God.

[Nay_Sayer]

Keep telling yourself that while Millions of Babies with Beating Hearts are killed by Abortion every year. Atheism and Moral Subjectivism has failed humanity.

You're a silly failure turtle.

Thoughts and prayers.
RAmen

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Atheism and Moral Subjectivism has failed humanity.

And religion has done such a really, really superduper job. Fucking idiot.

[Silver]

A religious path that only succeeds when absolutely everyone is a believer is actually a failure of a belief system.

It's why some tyrannical schisms believe it better to kill non-believers.

[Nishant Xavier]

Atheism and Moral Subjectivism has failed humanity.

And religion has done such a really, really superduper job. 

Yes, it has. I guess, you've never read, "Who really cares: the Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism" by Prof. Arthur Brooks?

Here's a brief description of that book's research and some reviews: "We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? In his controversial study of America's giving habits, Arthur C. Brooks shatters stereotypes about charity in America-including the myth that the political Left is more compassionate than the Right. Brooks, a preeminent public policy expert, spent years researching giving trends in America, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Really Cares, he identifies the forces behind American charity: strong families, church attendance, earning one's own income (as opposed to receiving welfare), and the belief that individuals-not government-offer the best solution to social ills. But beyond just showing us who the givers and non-givers in America really are today, Brooks shows that giving is crucial to our economic prosperity, as well as to our happiness, health, and our ability to govern ourselves as a free people ..."

"The book uses data from many sources to prove that the one overwhelming predictor of generosity is religion. Political affiliation is almost irrelevent - the statistics for religious liberals and religious conservaties are identical. Religious people are statistically more likely to give than secularists (91% to 66%), and give more of their money (3.5 times more than secularists), are more likely to volunteer their time (67% to 44%), and volunteer more of their time (almost twice as much). The fact that the conservative population is more charitable than the liberal population is due to the fact that religious people tend to be politically conservative."

"once the author reveals that religion is the cause of conservative generosity, that liberal Christians give almost as much as conservative Christians, and that non-religious conservatives are actually the least compassionate and generous group, the surprise is ruined, because it’s really not much of a surprise that religious people give more than non-religious people (unless you’re a staunch atheist who thinks religious people are evil)."..

So much for "religion really poisons everything. " But hey, if Hitchens said it, it must be right, right? Wrong.

[Nay_Sayer]

And religion has done such a really, really superduper job. 

[Snipped for brevity]

You're a silly failure turtle.

Thoughts and prayers.

RAmen

[The Grand Nudger]

Political religion, my favorite. Are you big on charity Nishant?

[Astreja]

Was it moral for God to expel Adam and Eve? He had freely given them Paradise. He had warned them not to eat of a particular fruit, while giving them complete and absolute freedom to eat any other.

It was both immoral and stupid. Why put a temptation in front of people who did not possess the moral intelligence to resist the temptation? According to the Eden myth, the eyes of Adam and Eve weren't opened to their alleged wrongdoing until after they had eaten the forbidden fruit.

They were set up to fail.

As for God's Authority to allow temporal chastisements as a consequence of sin, if even mere human authorities punish offenders by jailing them or sometimes capital punishment, then God even more has the right to inflict such penalties, which more often are remedial measures than anything else. If someone, on seeing a temporal difficulty, repents and turns to God, he saves his soul and goes to Heaven to enjoy Eternal Life.

No, I don't think so. I believe that eternal life is impossible, literally impossible. I believe that Heaven is a mythical place. I believe with 100% certainty that all who live are fated to simply die and never live again.

When viewed in the Light of Eternal Happiness, which is an Infinite Good because it lasts forever, a small amount of temporal pain is infinitesimal.

When viewed in the light of reality, the degree of pain is dependent on the perception of the suffering person.

And "Eternal Happiness" sounds ghastly. I have no desire to live forever, and even in my finite lifetime I have no desire to remain perpetually in just one emotional state. I'd rather have a spectrum of emotions. I don't want to be stuck in "happy happy joy joy" mode.

[Fake Messiah]

"once the author reveals that religion is the cause of conservative generosity, that liberal Christians give almost as much as conservative Christians, and that non-religious conservatives are actually the least compassionate and generous group, the surprise is ruined, because it’s really not much of a surprise that religious people give more than non-religious people (unless you’re a staunch atheist who thinks religious people are evil)."..[/color]

So much for "religion really poisons everything. " But hey, if Hitchens said it, it must be right, right? Wrong.

Yes, religion does poison everyting including charity because religious organizations use most of the money to build castles, jets, jewelry, cars etc. Like, have you seen the Vatican lately? How many stariving people could be saved by selling the tresures and castles there?

So the world is better off wih godless organizations: UNICEF, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, S.H.A.R.E., Goodwill Industries, etc.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Was it moral for God to expel Adam and Eve? He had freely given them Paradise. He had warned them not to eat of a particular fruit, while giving them complete and absolute freedom to eat any other.

Putting the fruit there in the first place was evil. Giving humans freedom but not absolute wisdom and foresight was evil. Hell not simply making the fruit incapable of being eaten was evil. The idea it was just to condemn them when he could simply have prevented them from doing it in the first place while still giving them a choice was evil.

As for God's Authority to allow temporal chastisements as a consequence of sin, if even mere human authorities punish offenders by jailing them or sometimes capital punishment, then God even more has the right to inflict such penalties, which more often are remedial measures than anything else. If someone, on seeing a temporal difficulty, repents and turns to God, he saves his soul and goes to Heaven to enjoy Eternal Life.

No human authority condemns someone for eternity even the death penalty (which is also evil ) is only for life and life is not eternal and not all punishing authorities are just. Would you call the  authorities of north korea just for locking people up for criticizing the government? Also, evil regimes reward people who submit to the tyrant that doesn't make the tyrant just it simply means he rewards those who submit to him. 

When viewed in the Light of Eternal Happiness, which is an Infinite Good because it lasts forever, a small amount of temporal pain is infinitesimal.

Nope hurting someone for any length of time is evil. If a child abuser beats his son him giving the child infinite ice cream afterward does not wash away the evil he's done. Any being who could do something with causing suffering but seems to purposely go out of its way to create suffering is not a good being.

[Deesse23]

Yes, it has. I guess, you've never read, "Who really cares: the Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism" by Prof. Arthur Brooks?
The book uses data from many sources to prove that the one overwhelming predictor of generosity is religion.

Are you a suddenly a utilitarian now? The truth of your god proposition is not tied in any way to the generosity of its followers. Do i really need to point that out?

Arthur Brooks: A conservative coming to the conclusion that conservatives have more empathy than liberals? How unsurprising.

What do you think of this criticism of his? https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/b...servatism/
Thoughts?

When defending conservative policy views against liberal criticisms, Brooks relies on arguments so broad that they could only work as responses to the crudest straw men

Brooks’s feel-good gobbledygook is of a piece with his paeans to free enterprise: They’re both better suited for motivational posters than a serious political program. His perpetual presence in the Post and the Times is evidence not of his intellectual heft, but of a desperation for conservatism that, if nothing else, at least sounds smarter and doesn’t come across as heartless. Any illusions about the intellectual heft of Brooks’s AEI should have been dispelled by its purging of David Frum for his mild Obamacare apostasy.