What does atheism offer?

[Syntho-sis]

Wikipedia isn't a crappy source if it has the answer to the question being asked.

 

How does the individual asking the question know that unless they use another source?

[Sisyphus]

How does the individual asking the question know that unless they use another source?

 

Well, the articles are sourced. But I don't really understand the objection. If it's a simple question that can be directly answered by looking up a certain article on Wikipedia, what is wrong with directing someone to that article?

[StrontiDog]

In the bible, the story of Cain and Abel tells of the atheist majority of humans of that time. After Cain kills Abel, Cain is sent away. Cain fears, "whoever shall come upon me shall kill me". If Adam, Eve and Cain were the only three neo-humans at that time, who were these "whomever", whom Cain was afraid of? It was the the atheist branch of the humans, which were the vast majority at that time.

 

I heard an interesting take on this, which I would like to share.

 

Imagine a world that had humans, much like us, but with no souls. Then God came along.

 

First of all: KJ Genesis: (So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.)

 

 

Interesting line, really. Does God look like a human? Doubtful, to say the least. Though I have seen the Sistine Chapel with my own eyes, I doubt God really looks like Michelangelo portrayed him.

 

The theory was (a synopsis, at best) that God--as a spiritual Being--gave a human a soul. A soul would be a spiritual construct, more like God than the meat machines we call a physical body. So therefore, 'in His image.'

 

This soul would forever after be part of our 'spiritual' reality. Now, there were other humans in the world at that time who did NOT have souls. Maybe they were all lawyers. But they had cities, culture, and areas that had names, so that Cain could go there when he was banished from Eden.

 

That first human who got a soul, was Adam of course, Lillith would have had a soul, but she didn't follow the rules, so Eve was given one, as well. Don't know about that one.

 

 

In any case--"The Image of God" wasn't our physical bodies, it was the soul. This is the way that a very thoughtful, educated and intelligent person of Faith, explained it to me.

 

This weird, but logical, interpretation explains every 'inexplicable' oddity of Genesis. Like where Cain found a wife, etc. And of course, the whole soul thing is passed on to the progeny, whether the other parent had one, or not.

 

As I said, not bad logic--as far as it goes.

 

As for the Noah incident, it means that all descendants would HAVE to have souls. All the rest were wiped-out in the Flood.

 

And BTW, the Flood of Noah doesn't really have to cover the whole world. Only the part that had people in it. If the human population was limited in geography, it would only have had to cover a small section of the planet to be World Wide--from our perspective, anyway.

 

Comments? Like I said. I can find no flaw in the logic, though I don't buy it.

 

(Note: By 'no flaw in the logic' I am acknowledging that humanity was spread mostly over the world 5k or so years ago, and that there is no evidence for a worldwide flood. . .ever. . .is a given. I'm simply addressing the logic concerning the apparent fallacies of Genesis, as I understand them.)

 

 

Bill Wolfe

Edited April 9, 2010 by StrontiDog

[Sisyphus]

In that account, what's a "soul?"

[John Cuthber]

I have a rough idea of what a soul is as an abstract concept. What I lack is any evidence that such a concept is meaningful.

 

"The fairies at the bottom of my garden" is a logically valid concept, but that doesn't mean they are real.

 

I think the question is not so much "what is a soul?" as "why should I believe that a soul exists?"

[Kyrisch]

I think the question is not so much "what is a soul?" as "why should I believe that a soul exists?"

 

You can't answer the second question until you answer the first question.

[michel123456]

 

In the bible, the story of Cain and Abel tells of the atheist majority of humans of that time. After Cain kills Abel, Cain is sent away. Cain fears, "whoever shall come upon me shall kill me". If Adam, Eve and Cain were the only three neo-humans at that time, who were these "whomever", whom Cain was afraid of? It was the the atheist branch of the humans, which were the vast majority at that time.

 

 

It means that Genesis is the story of a tribe, not the story of human kind.

If it were, where are our black and chinese brothers, american natives and others.

 

Strontidog wrote

Interesting line, really. Does God look like a human? Doubtful, to say the least. Though I have seen the Sistine Chapel with my own eyes, I doubt God really looks like Michelangelo portrayed him.

 

Here is the answer:

 

God created man in his own image.- ...........................................-After, man evoluted. God, we don't know.

From the fabulous belgian Philippe Geluck.

[MM6]

Relief from cognitive dissonance.

[John Cuthber]

You can't answer the second question until you answer the first question.

 

Interesting point, but I think it's moot.

If I can't tell you what a "plingybob" is then you can't tell me if it exists or not, but if I can't prove that a "plingybob" exists then it doesn't matter what it is.

[Kyrisch]

Interesting point, but I think it's moot.

If I can't tell you what a "plingybob" is then you can't tell me if it exists or not, but if I can't prove that a "plingybob" exists then it doesn't matter what it is.

 

...but how can you prove whether or not a plingybob exists if you don't know what it is (i.e. what attributes it has)?

[Mr Skeptic]

Interesting point, but I think it's moot.

If I can't tell you what a "plingybob" is then you can't tell me if it exists or not, but if I can't prove that a "plingybob" exists then it doesn't matter what it is.

 

OK, let's say the "plingybob" is an algorithm of order O(ln N) or less for finding prime numbers. I don't know whether one exists, but I think it does matter what it is.

[mooeypoo]

OK, let's say the "plingybob" is an algorithm of order O(ln N) or less for finding prime numbers. I don't know whether one exists, but I think it does matter what it is.

It matters what it is because you suspect it may exist, or that it may help you understand/make sense of something else that exists.

 

Otherwise, why do you care what it is?

[John Cuthber]

One of the defining characteristics of a plingybob is that you cannot prove it exists. Sorry I forgot to mention that before.

If it were such an algorithm then it would be useful and that would prove it existed; so it's not.

[jryan]

Atheism also gives me the freedom to decide for myself about morality. I don't need to take someone's word for it that people who eat shellfish are evil.

In the same way, it would be difficult for anyone to convince me that some group of people were "subhuman" and could legitimately be wiped out. On the other hand if I thought that their destruction was God's will then I might well kill them.

 

 

This sounds good but isn't really compelling when viewed historically.

 

Most of the greatest atrocities in the 20th century were done after ridding the communities of religion. Chirstianity worked well for Hitler in the 20s when his primary goals were to make everyone think that Germany had strong moral character.... but as you read the writings of Hitler and his henchment as they approached their violent uprising you see that either as a pragmatic or preexisting condition the Nazis loathed Christianity, and could only justify their terrors with a wholly anti-Christian dogma.

 

Likewise Communism shut down the Churches in all countries where it found root and were all decidedly atheistic movements.

 

That isn't to say that atheists are all Nazis or communists... but I would question the intrinsic value of deciding your own moral code as it is a prone to abuse as religious code -- which at least, when used for nefarious purposes, can be said to be hypocritical.

 

Which brings up another interesting topic that I will start a new thread for...

[Sisyphus]

Everyone does decide their own moral code, already. Some people just decide to wholly and unquestioningly copy another's.

[Mr Skeptic]

Most of the greatest atrocities in the 20th century were done after ridding the communities of religion.

 

Great atrocities require the removal of political opposition, whether by assimilation or persecution, and regardless of whether it is religious or secular. Don't for a second think that secular opposition was nor would have been ignored.

[michel123456]

I think in this matter, the key word is tolerance.

 

It is absolutely impossible IMO to make everybody believe the same thing. It is a wrong and devastating goal.

 

Moral codes have the purpose to make people live together. So, why can't we live together? Each one with his own belief, peacefully.

 

After all "Death is vigilant enough, she needs no one to help her take the scythe"*

*poor traduction from the words of G.Brassens from the song "Dying for ideas"

 

Untranslatable....

[ydoaPs]

It is absolutely impossible IMO to make everybody believe the same thing. It is a wrong and devastating goal.

 

You're right. We shouldn't teach science anymore. Or math. Or history. Let's just get rid of school.

[Mr Skeptic]

You're right. We shouldn't teach science anymore. Or math. Or history. Let's just get rid of school.

 

No beliefs are necessary to do math.

[ydoaPs]

No beliefs are necessary to do math.

I don't believe that 1+1=2. I don't believe that if a=b and b=c then a=c.

[John Cuthber]

This sounds good but isn't really compelling when viewed historically.

 

Most of the greatest atrocities in the 20th century were done after ridding the communities of religion. Chirstianity worked well for Hitler in the 20s when his primary goals were to make everyone think that Germany had strong moral character.... but as you read the writings of Hitler and his henchment as they approached their violent uprising you see that either as a pragmatic or preexisting condition the Nazis loathed Christianity, and could only justify their terrors with a wholly anti-Christian dogma.

 

Likewise Communism shut down the Churches in all countries where it found root and were all decidedly atheistic movements.

 

That isn't to say that atheists are all Nazis or communists... but I would question the intrinsic value of deciding your own moral code as it is a prone to abuse as religious code -- which at least, when used for nefarious purposes, can be said to be hypocritical.

 

Which brings up another interesting topic that I will start a new thread for...

 

I think it's fair to say that nazi propaganda portrayed Jews as

1 sub humans and

2 a different religious group.

 

 

They also showed the "Aryan" race as superhuman and they attributed this AFIIK to God's will.

[jryan]

I think it's fair to say that nazi propaganda portrayed Jews as

1 sub humans and

2 a different religious group.

 

 

They also showed the "Aryan" race as superhuman and they attributed this AFIIK to God's will.

 

#2 is not safe to say. The Nazi opposition to Jews was entirely due to #1 as Hitler hated Christianity just as much as Judaism. In fact he found Christianity to be the more damaging of the two, as religions go. You can see from Hitler's personal writings what he thought of Christianity:

 

“The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity. Bolshevism practises a lie of the same nature, when it claims to bring liberty to men, whereas in reality it seeks only to enslave them. In the ancient world, the relations between men and gods were founded on an instinctive respect. It was a world enlightened by the idea of tolerance. Christianity was the first creed in the world to exterminate its adversaries in the name of love. Its key-note is intolerance.” -

Hitler's Table Talk, Page 7

 

It's a fascinating book, in a very chilling way.

[mooeypoo]

Interesting.

 

"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." -

Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

 

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." –

Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922

(Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

 

"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition." -

Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf

 

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” –

Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

 

This also has some information about this 'hitler was an atheist' myth: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/1417

 

And more places. If you insist, I'll look 'em up.

 

~moo

[michel123456]

You're right. We shouldn't teach science anymore. Or math. Or history. Let's just get rid of school.

 

No. Just get rid of religion at school.

 

BTW are you an academic?

[jryan]

Interesting.

 

"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out." -

Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

 

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." –

Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922

(Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

 

"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition." -

Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf

 

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” –

Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

 

This also has some information about this 'hitler was an atheist' myth: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/1417

 

And more places. If you insist, I'll look 'em up.

 

~moo

 

So you tell me. Would Hitler lie in a private journal about the scourge of Christianity and tell the truth publicly about his love of Christianity?

 

 

“…the only way of getting rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 61

 

“It’s Christianity that’s the liar. It’s in perpetual conflict with itself.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 61

 

“In the long run, National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 6

 

“Kerrl, with the noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don’t believe the thing’s possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 145

 

“As far as we are concerned, we’ve succeeded in chasing the Jews from our midst and excluding Christianity from our political life.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 394

 

“There is something very unhealthy about Christianity.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 418

 

“The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity. Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilisation by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society. Thus one understands that the healthy elements of the Roman world were proof against this doctrine.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 75-76

 

“When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunised against the disease.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 145

 

“Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. It will last another hundred years, two hundred years perhaps. My regret will have been that I couldn’t, like whoever the prophet was, behold the promised land from afar. We are entering into a conception of the world that will be a sunny era, an era of tolerance.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 343-344

 

“Pure Christianity—the Christianity of the catacombs—is concerned with translating the Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 146

 

“Christianity is the worst of the regressions that mankind can ever have undergone, and it’s the Jew who, thanks to this diabolic invention, has thrown him back fifteen centuries.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 322

 

“The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity. Bolshevism practises a lie of the same nature, when it claims to bring liberty to men, whereas in reality it seeks only to enslave them. In the ancient world, the relations between men and gods were founded on an instinctive respect. It was a world enlightened by the idea of tolerance. Christianity was the first creed in the world to exterminate its adversaries in the name of love. Its key-note is intolerance.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 7

 

“But Christianity is an invention of sick brains : one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery. A negro with his tabus is crushingly superior to the human being who seriously believes in Transubstantiation.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 144

 

“It took fourteen centuries for Christianity to reach the peak of savagery and stupidity.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 314

 

“Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 7

 

“We must recognise, of course, that, amongst us, Christianity is coloured by Germanism.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 46

 

“We’ll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. We shall continue to preach the doctrine of National Socialism, and the young will no longer be taught anything but the truth.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 62

 

“Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 51

 

“By nature the Duce is a freethinker, but he decided to choose the path of concessions. For my part, in his place I’d have taken the path of revolution. I’d have entered the Vatican and thrown everybody out—reserving the right to apologise later: “Excuse me, it was a mistake.” But the result would have been, they’d have been outside!” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 145

 

“So it’s not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the Churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that’s left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 59

 

“But, even so, it’s impossible eternally to hold humanity in bondage with lies. After all, it was only between the sixth and eighth centuries that Christianity was imposed on our peoples by princes who had an alliance of interests with the shavelings. Our peoples had previously succeeded in living all right without this religion. I have six divisions of SS composed of men absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. It doesn’t prevent them from going to their deaths with serenity in their souls.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 143

 

“Had Charles Martel not been victorious at Poitiers—already, you see, the world had fallen into the hands of the Jews, so gutless a thing was Christianity!—then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glorifies heroism and which opens the seventh Heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world. Christianity alone prevented them from doing so.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 667 (Talk about Islamo-fascism!)

 

“The priests of antiquity were closer to nature, and they sought modestly for the meaning of things. Instead of that, Christianity promulgates its inconsistent dogmas and imposes them by force. Such a religion carries within it intolerance and persecution. It’s the bloodiest conceivable.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 322-323

 

“One cannot succeed in conceiving how much cruelty, ignominy and falsehood the intrusion of Christianity has spelt for this world of ours. If the misdeeds of Christianity were less serious in Italy, that’s because the people of Rome, having seen them at work, always knew exactly the worth of the Popes before whom Christendom prostrated itself.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 288

 

“With what clairvoyance the authors of the eighteenth, and especially those of the past, century criticised Christianity and passed judgment on the evolution of the Churches!” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 88

 

“When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 59

 

“The fact that the Japanese have retained their political philosophy, which is one of the essential reasons for their successes, is due to their having been saved in time from the views of Christianity.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 393

 

“This terrorism in religion is the product, to put it briefly, of a Jewish dogma, which Christianity has universalised and whose effect is to sow trouble and confusion in men’s minds.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 393

 

“It may be asked whether concluding a concordat with the churches wouldn’t facilitate our exercise of power…. I’m convinced that any pact with the Church can offer only a provisional benefit, for sooner or later the scientific spirit will disclose the harmful character of such a compromise. Thus the State will have based its existence on a foundation that one day will collapse.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pp. 58-59

 

“It is to these private customs that peoples owe their present characters. Christianity, of course, has reached the peak of absurdity in this respect. And that’s why one day its structure will collapse. Science has already impregnated humanity. Consequently, the more Christianity clings to its dogmas, the quicker it will decline.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 60

 

 

 

I suggest you read the book I linked to before you start taking Dawkins word for anything. It is certainly an inconvenient text for Dawkins anti-Christian dogma... but it's very real.

 

Also, that "Christianity couldn't content itself.." quote doesn't sound very Christian or religious. It actually reads, as many of my quotes read, like something Dawkins would write.

 

For Hitler the heathen altars were what he wanted. His cult was the deification of Aryan men.

Edited April 17, 2010 by jryan