The God Fuse

[Freakshow]

Read this on one of my favorite websites.

10 Things Christians and Atheists Can -and Must- Agree On

The God Fuse

Please read, it only takes a few moments of your time.

[DontBeAfraid]

It's the same thing, thinking that deep down Christians don't really believe this is the law handed down by a creator, and therefore Christianity is just a petty, intentional rebellion against the non-Christians of the world. In other words, that Christians don't honestly believe what they say, and just say it because they're jerks.

Incorrect assumption about "atheists". Ill keep reading

If there's no God, then there is something in the human brain that can and does present an amazingly realistic impression of one. A gland, an artifact of environmental pattern recognition, whatever you want to pin it on, the result is, at certain times and in certain moods, as tangible and real and distinct as the person sitting across from you on the subwa

Given the definition of reality this statement makes an unverifiable assumption of what a god is.

Atheists, even if you reject the idea of God completely and claim to live according only to the cold logic of the physical sciences, you all still live as if the absolute morality of some magical lawgiver were true.

A divergence from objectivitey has begun at this line. It is poorly rationalized with several non related real life examples. And not from an evolutionary point of view but only feelings generated from the examples. That is, no genetic rationalization of the feelings is given. Should I bother to keep reading?

When that "boob at the Super Bowl" incident happened a while back, I constantly heard atheists making fun of Christians and their puritan silliness over sex. "Come on! It's just meat! We're all just mammals! Sex is natural! What are you afraid of?!?!?"

Yet, the moment you find out that while you were on vacation, your girl got drunk and slept with the entire Chicago Bears...




...Suddenly sex is something to get upset about. Suddenly it's not just meat slapping against meat. Suddenly the exclusive sexual bond between you and your girl was important, was to be protected, was almost... sacred.

Again there's this invisible rule that was supposed to be followed, that everybody was supposed to be aware of, that can't be proven by logic. Whatever it is, wherever you think it came from, you can't deny that it's there. Your own behavior would make you a liar.

lol.... If you cant fathom why the underlined is a non sequitor to the situation then please post your questions of it so that I may ridicule you with the answer.

hint:

absolute morality

Does not exist.

and has been a scientific and technological freaking superpower. So please stop waving your arms and warning that if Christians get their way, we'll all be sacrificing virgins on altars and replacing surgeons with priests.

Recently christianity gained enough power to block teaching of sexual protection programs in public schools(this means no more showing the videos of births and stds, which do far more to inspire abstinence than anything I can think of) and are gaining ground on teaching ID along with real science And in giving tax money to PRIVATE schools..... So we can say that christianity doesnt want to stop scientific progress but reality disagrees.

and that atheism is the one true belief system!"

I was going to ignore the referals to atheism as a system of beliefs but it is made too many times to not state that atheism is simply not having a belief. There is a subtle yet important difference.

and we all depend on some fantasy that floats outside the boundaries of cold reason.

Grand assumption.

Atheists still tell their girlfriends they "love" them, and not that they simply feel a psychological artifact of a biochemical bond generated by the mating instinct.

Its ok to use a single word when its definition or meaning is the same as the meaning of what you want to communicate. In this case the word is "love" and it doesnt involve any magic.

from that to:

They still refer to their "mind" as if it's something more than chemical switches. And remember what we talked about with "justice" and "right" and "wrong." None of it is scientific.

Grand ignorance.

Even weirder? Free will. Remember, to a neuroscientist, free will is every bit as real as the Tooth Fairy.

A glimpse of hope from the author. Though he simply concludes that the whole of free will exists and not that we can only know that the illusion of it exists. We dont know if actual free will exists. However, with the illusion of it we can progress as if it does.

You can't defend morality with logic.

Retarded statement.

Once you explain it away as an artifact of the genetic herd instinct, well, hey, we've got the genome mapped out, right? Couldn't we just cut that morality gene right out of there?

Sure, but if it is of no benefit then it probably wont happen.

Do you see how weird this gets? There's no logical conclusion to it, it just gets more and more strange.

Retarded statement.

You have to lead by example.

I agree.


All in all the article and the author were not offensive. It has what I think is a good point and messege but was not entirely logical or fair while trying to get to the messege.

[Freakshow]

I thought the author did a great job on the article, and while he may have been biased in some areas (when was the last time you read an unbiased article on anything?) a lot of the points he makes are very good.

I especially like this one:

1.You Can Do Terrible Things in the Name of Either One

We're putting aside the question of which belief system has killed more people by percentage of population, or whether a hypothetical world without religion would have seen fewer or more genocides than ours. We're not going to open a spreadsheet and try to count which belief system manufactures more murderous sociopaths per capita.

All I need from you is agreement that it's entirely possible for either an atheist or theist world to devolve into a screaming murder festival. The religious leader sends his people into battle because he thinks God commanded it, the Stalins and Maos of the world do the same because they see their people as nothing more than meaty fuel to be ground up to feed the machinery of The State. In both cases, the people are equally dead.

[DontBeAfraid]

Nobody does anything in the name of atheism. Simply put, a non factor can not be a positive motivator.

[Freakshow]

Nobody does anything in the name of atheism. Simply put, a non factor can not be a positive motivator.

What do you mean by that? Do you mean nobody does anything violent in the name of atheism or that no one does anything in the name of atheism, becuase I'm pretty sure people have done stuff in the name of atheism such as write books or make websites: http://www.atheists.org/

[DontBeAfraid]

I mean that atheism, by itself, is a non motivator. The stuff that is done "in the name of atheism" is not motivated by the actual lack of beliefs that is atheism but is motivated the response of others to a persons lack of beliefs....

The above sounds kinda like double talk but its not. Im just saying that if a persons lack of belief was never questioned or scrutinized in any way then there would be no reason to ever explain it.

Things that might seem like they are done in the name of "atheism" upon closer inspection have other motives that dont rely anything at all on a lack of a belief in god. Take for instance the push to keep prayer out of school, seems atheistic, if there were such a thing, but upon closer inspection its motivated by a push for equal rights.

the american atheists site, seems at a glance to be motivated by "lack of belief" but after a very short time reading it it is obvious that the motivation of its generation was to help other non-believers deal with scrutiny.... hence the "coming out" article.

Seriously a lack of belief is not a positive motivator, it must be coupled with something else.

[Freakshow]

Ah I see. That does make alot of sense.

[Traveler]

The bottom line is that no one will do anything unless they are motivated to do it.

We go out to work, often at a job we don't even like so that we can pay our rent so that we are not living in the streets.

Just because religion can be seen as a motivating factor it does not make it wrong.

How about getting all riled up over greed.

Including sex in adverts makes people buy things they don't really need so why not hammer sex.

Now pride can really be a motivator. So lets all unite against pride.

But for some reason religion seems to be marketed as the cause of all the worlds evils. But think of it, how many people would not actually be here if it was not for the hospitals and schools that were established and run by those who were motivated by their faith to do good over the last couple of centuries.

[DontBeAfraid]

I was not impying that all forms of motivation or even many forms of motivation were bad at all. I was simply pointing out that some things are not motivators.

But for some reason religion seems to be marketed as the cause of all the worlds evils.

Persecution complex.

Just because religion can be seen as a motivating factor it does not make it wrong.

Nobody even came close to implying this. How is me pointing out one thing as a non-motivator in any way a knock on religion?

Could it be that among the many great things that your religion has motivated you to it has also motivated you to feel persecuted when you are not?.... yes, yes thats the answer.