Stolen Morality & A Good Argument for God

"Atheists steal their moral code from the Judeo-Christian tradition, then claim that it was obvious all along." - Occam's Tool

I've said this more than once...it's so obvious it's embarrassing that atheists don's see it. Kinda indicts their level of honesty...or their intelligence, doesn't it?


and further:

Atheists always behave morally--they ape the morality of the society they were born into, with a few personal exceptions to demonstrate their independence. What atheists cannot be is virtuous. Morality is the mere rough average of what a culture accepts and will not accept; virtue requires the belief in free will, which atheists cannot believe because without God there is no liberty. From the atheist perspective the whole of human history is no more important than lichens growing on a rock and then drying out and blowing away. No matter what we do, it is irrelevant, because it cannot matter to the rolling on of the universe. This is indisputable from the atheist perspective; a universe that was created by random chance CANNOT have any meaning or purpose, and everything in it can have no more. Cosmic nihilism, yes; but nihilism is an impossible philosophy so instead we get arguments from Judeo-Christian morality turned against Judeo-Christian morality, which is all we've seen in these comments from the atheists. Think enthusiastic atheism would save you in Kampuchea? More likely to get you killed by the atheist regime, because it means you are at least a self-styled intellectual and hence unworthy of the new world. At root, atheism is nothing more than intellectual onanism, a way to preen with self-righteousness while condemning all the unbelievers.

 Wow! "...without God there is no liberty." 

Or at least....for sure...without God, there is no purpose, no choice, no hope, no future, no meaning.

And I'm pretty sure I don't want to live in a universe like that.

and

When every choice leads to the same end, what does it matter what you choose? No choice, no liberty. And besides, all our behaviors are instinctive, we don't choose anything. Just ask an evolutionary psychologist.

Science nerd atheists of my acquaintance do suggest that "morality" is nothing more than instinct prompted by our DNA for its own survival and propagation.

They claim that kindness, generosity, community, etc..are not virtues but DNA directives that create a hospitable culture for the survival of the DNA hosts...which are really, in their eyes, just vehicles for DNA to use...not "individuals" in their own right.

This, of course, does not explain criminals, whose DNA would appear to be broken.

Or the tens of millions murdered within societies that surely did not prove to be hospitable to their DNA...

Nor does it explain altruism and self-sacrifice of oneself for others besides one's own children...which flies in the face of one's peculiar DNA protecting itself.

It's just not an argument that hangs together for me.


/gun

Interesting point of view... emphasis mine...

"I'm an MD, Magna Cum Laude in Biology. The Bible is a theology text focusing on the meaning of creation. Evolutionary Biology texts focus on the mechanism of creation. How G-d Creates is not the subject of the Bible.

However, given the Laws of Themodynamics, the concept of there being a designer seems rather strong. Randomness tends to lead to entropy."

—Occam's Tool

Are You Just a DNA-Ridden Meat-Suit?

I just read a comment by a woman defending her atheist husband as a highly moral man without the need of religion or God. I had to reply:

Oh idalily, all atheists who have been brought up in countries steeped in Christian values say that. Your dear husband got his "values" from his culture. And his culture got it from its religion.
Atheism has no—and logically can have no—inherent values. It is, by definition, a "values neutral" philosophy.

If there is no values Giver, Intelligent Designer, Cosmic Architect, then we are all merely products of blind and accidental nature, and are like any other animal, all of whose lives are dominated by "eat or be eaten". There is no moral component to nature. Morality transcends it. But if Nature is all there is, sans Nature's God...transcendence is impossible. Therefore morality is impossible.

You cannot adopt another's value system and then proclaim the other's philosophy—of which their value system is the unique product—null.

It is at best illogical.

My friend The Scientist claims that all our human morality can be rationally explained by our instincts to behave in ways that insure our survival and continuation as a species.

In other words, he advances the idea that people are just meat-suits used by DNA to replicate itself - and that which we call "morality" are really just those behaviors that foster human safety, survival and continuation...like honestly, friendliness, charity, kindness, cooperation, fairness, truth, honesty, etc. All of which grease the wheels of civilization and aid in the survival of individuals and cultures.

Sounds kind of convincing at first glance, doesn't it?

But, I have a question...

If DNA exerts such a powerful instinct as to minutely direct and define our individual and social behavior, determine the moral codes of millennia of human civilization, then why the hell is it so hard to get people to behave themselves?

The Gunslinger

Is it possible? Is it Real?

I know you're just going to think I'm still high on SUPERNATURAL, but something has finally wormed its way into my head. See the previous post about the insanity in the world....OF the world.

This bad craziness is going on all over the place, all the time, lately. Nothing makes sense. Humanity has completely lost its way. Crimes are sanctioned by peoples and governments in the name of "peace" and "fairness" and "equality"and "goodness". Human beings are considered to have no right to exist by "official" organizations of "world" governments.

"Civilized" people are calling for the heads of innocents in the interests of monsters.

What the hell is going on?

I have always seen this in the context of politics. Of human appetite...the human weakness of the love of money, status and power.

But natural humans have a way of being satisfied with millions of dollars, of status high enough to get them an appointment with the President of the United States—or their favorite movie star—and enough power to control their own destiny.

But unnatural humans have evolved somehow for whom no amount of money is enough, no status but "tyrant of the universe" is high enough, and no amount of power short of that of life and death over every earthly creature is enough.

This is not normal. It's not natural. Something is really wrong here.

Remember the end of The Exorcist, when the young priest dies fighting the devil? Remember his smile? It was because in coming face to face with the devil he knew that God—about whom he had been suffering a crisis of faith—did exist. The existence of the former logically required the existence of the latter. And he was satisfied.

I almost feel that way now.

My search for God has never been to seek out the face of the devil to prove, by the necessity of complementarity, the existence of God. In fact, it never occurred to me. But lately the level of decadent evil is clawing at my consciousness every day...demanding my attention. Is this my answer?

Wild lies, raging hypocrisy, massive corruption, the brutal, ruthless destruction of the best hope for freedom for humankind, and the ferocious destruction of the best hope for prosperity for humankind engaged in with relish and spite while pouring disapprobation on every evidence and spark of goodness and truth.

If it was just one country, or one sect, or one religion, or one party, faction or group...one could reasonably assume bad law, bad culture, bad nurturing, bad politics, bad choices... were responsible.

But when the leadership of almost the entire world...and our own country carefully chooses to support and advance that which is clearly and demonstrably bad, and crush all that is clearly and demonstrably good, decent and humane...well, that's a damned different kettle of fish.

Something is fucking UP!

Yes, I get Nazism, and Stalin and Pol Pot.  And Mao and Kim Jong Il.

But leaders of the United States and the West were not befriending these monsters, and allying with them in their mission to destroy the Light that is America and the traditions of the West. And every single earthly government was not full of weakness and hate and corruption and fear and cowardice and narcissism and vanity and voracious greed and a wild-eyed manic compulsion for destruction of time-honored traditions.

And most of the Western World had morals, and ethics, and filled Churches on Sunday, and valued its history and culture and true heroes.

But nowhere on earth do the leaders of the West (or any other country) encourage these values and standards today. Every single nation is failing, not only financially, but morally. The rot is obvious, and it appears to be contagious.

Something is UP!

It is said people have a "bias toward the normal", by which he meant we refuse to see things that fall outside of our habitual understanding and perception of our world.  Are we allowing that bias to blind us to true evil afoot in the world?

Not human evil. But SOURCE evil?

Is it possible? How does one know?

Lot's of people are in the booby hatch for imagining such things. I'd rather not be crazy...but I don't want to be blind to the real face of the enemy either. If we're not dealing with normal human evil, but something...else...how do we fight it?

I know what they do on TV....but this is real life, and frankly, I haven't got a clue.

The Gunslinger
(Demon Hunter?)