Try as I might, I continue to be startled by the mindset of the non-believer. It's not so much that I can't grasp the notion that someone could believe that there is no Creator and that there is no grand design to the universe, but rather that so many of their choices and thinking patterns seem to suggest that they believe something quite unlike that which they profess. Often, I've inquired of non-believers if it at all vexes them that nothing that they have ever done or will ever do will make the slightest difference to anyone on any level? After all, one random grouping of molecules interacting with another has no inherent meaning or value. I still await the brave soul (or neuron complex if you prefer) who will respond that I am quite correct; that no thought, deed, action or impulse is any more significant or meaningful than any other, that statements like "I would like to enslave all of humanity" and "I would like a chocolate bar" are functionally equivalent, and that their very own thoughts and words are intrinsically suspect as they are nothing more than some indiscriminate electro-chemical impulses. Until then, I will carry on believing that most "non-believers" actually believe a bit more than they generally let on, or are willing to admit to themselves. That, or that they have contented themselves to willfully act out fantasies that bear no relation to their purported worldview.
Let's put this assumption to a test. How would you answer the following series of questions? I posit that if you are inclined to answer any of them from a non-materialist perspective then you might secretly suspect that there are grander cosmic forces at work than those discernible on a purely empiric level, or, possibly, that you are a victim of societal programming.
1. Would you be willing to sell your parent's remains for dog food?
If you answered no, why? As there are finite resources available to us as we plod through our limited number of revolutions on this planet, wouldn't it be in your interest to maximize them -- especially considering that a non-functional carcass provides little to no personal or societal benefit (and is a little unpleasant)? If you suggest that it represents something that was important to you and therefore you are inclined to treat it with more respect I would ask, "so what?" Your notions of respect and importance are subjective, non-intellectual whims that in any case (as we've said) are in reality nothing more than tiny electrical blips in your skull and worth far less than cash.
Could it be that subconsciously you suspect that it's just wrong to do it -- wrong in a way that transcends your temporality? If not, and if you would sell your mother's corpse so that it can be made into pet grub, congratulations: You are an authentic non-believer.
2. You and someone you dislike are stranded on a desert island with a functioning ham radio. One day you hear that there has been a terrible earthquake that has sent a massive tsunami hurtling directly for your island and you both have only one hour to live. Does it make any difference whether you spend your last hour alive comforting and making amends with your (formerly) hated companion or smashing his head in with fallen, unripe coconuts?
If yes, why? As no one will ever know what transpired and it will soon all be over in any event, what difference could it possibly make what you do in your final moments? I again see only two possibilities for the non-believer -- either you suspect that there is an inexplicable but real import to fateful decisions such as these or you have been conditioned to act a certain way -- one that is more in sync with the logical conclusions of a believer's worldview and not your own. As physicist HP Yockey suggested of the materialist's viewpoint, "if humans are only matter, it is no worse to burn a ton of humans than to burn a ton of coal." If you answer that it makes no difference whatsoever, then you are two for two (and I am impressed with your consistency).
3. Is love, art, beauty or morality intrinsically significant?
For those (almost all of us) who are inclined to say yes, the question once again is why? What precisely is the root of their significance? What difference does a painting make? You can't eat it and it will not help your genes to reproduce (for whatever unclear reason it is that they "want" to do that in the first place). Does it truly matter whether or not you love your children as long as you provide for their basic needs? And if you suggest that love is a basic need that was cleverly "designed" by evolution to help parents to provide for their offspring, then does it matter if you only pretend to love them? Or do you believe that love has an intrinsic meaning of its own -- one that transcends chemical reactions and meaningless groping towards cell mitosis? If you do, ask yourself why, as it would not seem to effectively square with the non-believer's weltanschauung.
If you are willing to define the human experience as nothing more than an arbitrary series of chemicals, atoms and other blind and indifferent forces acting in concert, then at the end of the day, you necessarily concede that human emotion and experience are intrinsically meaningless. What difference, then, does it make if you (or others) choose to completely disregard concepts like kindness, decency and love? The non-believer is duty bound to say that it makes no difference whatsoever, as meaning -- in all of its varied splendor -- resides exclusively with those who acknowledge its basis. One that is neither blind nor random nor physical.
If you chose the non-materialistic answer to any of these questions (no, yes, yes) you may be more of a believer than you think.
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Why Does God Test Us? Scriptures on Testing - By Martha Mac
Humans are probably psychologically hardwired to be "religious." So what? "concepts like kindness, decency and love," we're mammals! No superior being required.
1) Nothing remains of family members who are dead but rotting flesh. I doubt people are fit food for pets but for the sake of argument, take them but I wouldn’t charge them.
2) Two seconds after realizing I am stranded with a person I dislike (can’t say I’ve ever hated anyone) I would start to find common ground so we could live together in peace and harmony for both our sakes.
3) Yes, just as the shiny apple appeals to all of us so does the uniqueness of art and beauty. As a person who was raised an atheist I can surely say that I admire and respect the beauty and uniqueness that surround me but in no way do I attribute it to God.
I am an Atheist. I don’t believe in my heart or brain that there is a God.
Atheists understand that what we do for each other surely does make a difference to the human race. We find joy in life and with our families. Our successes improve life for all humans. What a great gift to future generations to be able to live longer and be disease free, have more knowledge, see the betterment of humanity and the continuation of humanity. This is how our families, our humanity goes on.
It’s just short sighted to think that random grouping of molecules interacting with another has no inherent meaning or value when you see the wonderful consequences of evolution. This need of the religious to insist that we all believe as they do stems from a huge ego or the desire for everyone to be “on board” so the myth transforms into reality. Gods aren’t necessary or essential to life on Earth.
Experience is the point of experience, ok?
'Intrinsic' value does not imply a god given value.
Would I sell my mother's corpse if it was the only way to prevent a child from starving? Yes. I wouldn't sell my high school diploma for dog food, why would I need dog food? Not even worth a phone call. I would avoid all dealings with anyone buying corpses, if I could. Although medical science does profit greatly from these kinds of donations.
Would I kill someone in a fault free circumstance when we only had one hour to live? Of course not, why would I want to do that? I have no urge to make anyone suffer and I fear no punishment.
A work of art that produces no human empathy is virtually worthless because empathy and emotion have great value as they are the substance of our experience. Our experience has intrinsic value, not a god given value.
In addition, why should He or his Son speak of a Kingdom? This is particularly troubling to me. Surely, an almighty god would have found a better way of describing himself and his “reign” or “government”. Democracy being known from the Greeks even in Jesus' time.
He could have called it “a heavenly democracy” for example or “a haven for freedom and justice”.
Maybe our problems of society and religion, today, stem from the fact that we should all be living in a monarchy. Democracies are our downfall and shall be destroyed by this god’s wrath, for He is King and will not tolerate any voting in his government.
I know I am being a little facetious here but there is little room for a broader expose'.
But I was more surprised by the sameness of the replies, almost a propaganda line: not one original thought, only the pre-digested ideas they learned in college. It seems America's universities are busy manufacturing atheists.
For example, many hotly argue that "religion has evolved" but they would know the Tanach stands alone in documenting a progressive revelation, if they actually read it.
Surely this is owed to the professors.
The Genesis Creation Story owe nothing to the creation myths of Egypt and Mesopotamia, written for completely different purpose: not really about the creation of the universe, but the "genesis" of a certain king's reign (and his god's) supremacy. Each myth is different with its local adaptations. The Biblical history has unity, never changing, as the myths do with each succeeding king.
The argument most often used in the replies is the claim that the Bible was written for the same purpose as all other Ancient Near Eastern documents were written - to control men through religion!
These professors seem incapable of understanding that the Bible is history and the myths of the ancient near east are little more than political propaganda.
And I think this reflects the research data that Americans are Bible illiterates.
Some who even show up on Huffpost: make a show they love their text, and a host of others are hostile to the Bible. So I'm quite aware of the kind of critics you learned the things you wrote of on this post.
But what these geniuses don't get, and neither do you, is that it doesn't mean anything at all what the historical evidence of David's reign in Israel was, as truthful and accurate as it is, but its just what Paul said: these things were done for our learning, because God put them through the motions, so all these historical personages are vessels of Divine instructions.
We see Bible Criticism as Satan inspired, which is why we who trust the Word of God want to have nothing to do with mainstream Bible criticism, because they are not only hostile to the text but do not have the Holy Spirit, and insists on reading the Bible according to its own notions 3000 years removed instead of simply accepting what tradition said it meant.
What you see through Philistine eyeglasses as reprehensible, like what the Bible reports of those rapes and incest, I see as the God Who tells it just as it was, because He has no respect of person, not even his own people's.
Its not the reason why I trust what the Bible said, its just why others should.
You just assume that money has more value than the remains of ones parents - why? Money doesn't have any REAL value either, only the value we give it - same goes for anything. (1000$ has a higher value to me than to bill gates)
No matter if it's emotions, thoughts, opinions, the universe, etc. NOTHING has an intrinsic value. There has to be someone to put a value to it (if there were no living beings would a beautiful sunset be worth anything? No, because there's no one to see it and think it's beautiful).
I don't understand why you assume that a non-believer has no emotions what so ever. Because we don't believe in a supernatural being, we're cold and emotionless? Doesn't that sound really wrong to you? Emotions may boil down to chemical reactions in our brains, but these reactions happen anyway and we get affected by them. Are the emotions worth less because we know how they get caused? I don't think so.
And yes, no thought, deed, action or impulse is any more significant or meaningful than any other; at least objectivly and from a "non-human" point of view. The human race is only significant to itself - you think a whale cares if we exist? No of course not. There's absolutly no reason to believe we're somthing special - except if you THINK there MIGHT be something out there that created us for some unknown reason.
It is amusing that so-called advanced thinkers throw logic and reason out the window in their efforts to prove how the entire universe came from nothing.
Advanced thinkers whose ultimate aim is closing doors to knowledge? I guess in that case nothing leads to nothing.
Why do you seem to limit the concept of a Higher Entity to one God; which one are you referring to? Are you not throwing logic and reason out the window in your effort to limit this concept to one unique God or one unique physical reality of a universe created from something instead of nothing.
And, lastly, why would there be an almighty something that could not create something from nothing? How much mightier would he be if he did?
And there is very firm substantial historical evident that everyone in the world believed in the God of Noah.
And while you may have acquired your atheist belief at university like most Americans do these days, from seminars, college courses and professors who claim that the Hebrew religion copied their creation story from Egypt or Mesopotamia, when they're creation myths were about their own leaders, their god which changed with the leaders while the Hebrew's accounts never did, and that the Old Testament writings are younger than the actually are, or that they used their writings like those other nations, to control the people.
But there is, as I said, clear and substantial history of Noah, and that the postdiluvian world all knew the one Creator God. There simply were no other gods in the world. Until the Nephilim, offspring of fallen angels and human women, Nimrod introduced Satan's Mystery religion.
It can be proved that these Nephilim retained partial angelic powers, hence the people worshiped them as "the gods", there is no other source in of gods in the entire history of this planet.
The Nephilim Nimrod was in antiquity call "the god of 10,000 names! this because he was worshiped the world over by different names, and this still extant spirit is worshiped today, even in America.
It can be proved that saintly figure American worship at xmas called Santa Claus is just Nimrod.
The symbols are exactly the same: the fatherly white hair which represents Nimrod as the Patriarch and benefactor of the human race, who gave such natural gifts as metal working, agricultural natural science, and makeup: the potbelly representing gluttony and debuachery; the red suit, representing the color of Satan.
The fact is, that all idolatrous religions the world over are of a single system, and all of them are radically Babylonian!
Even Nazism, Marxism, Socialism and Secular Humanism are just Hinduism, because they make man the measure of all things. For what is Hinduism but self-realization: realizing that you are god. And Hinduism is none but the Mystery religion which came into the Indus valley from Babylon.
Nowhere does the Bible concern itself with the earth's age.
What it does tell us, is that the earth was very good, when first created, then a cataclismic event happened when the civilzation, towns and cities of a pre-adamic race led by Satan the usurper was destroyed off the face of the earth, and then later, God made and or reform the earth in six literal days.
Of course, God could have done it in an hour, but the six days was for a special purpose, which was to serve as a time point for Jews and Christians to calculate the end of the world from, by using a day/year calender: thus the six days of creation is six thousand years for God redemptive purpose for mankind. Then the seventh day was when God rested, represented the Sabbath, and 1000 years of the Kingdom.
That's the only purpose for the six days.
We could care less about the age of the earth that has a sell-by date that's shortly going to be destroyed, for a new Earth.
But, as I said, Liberal Christians are scared to death and avoid what Genesis actually says like the plague!
I do not presume what you claim I presume. First, I never presume that anyone believes in God "unwittingly." From my experience, both believers & non-believers give the question of God a great deal of thought & analysis & do not arrive at their understanding of God frivolously or lightly. But each of us does in fact arrive at an understanding of God (the God of our understanding). I do not think/believe that MY understanding of God is the Best or ultimate understanding of God. I also recognize that Christianity is not the only religion in the world & I have a deep respect for other people's religious beliefs & traditions: I value & appreciate our linguistic, cultural & religious diversity. In part, this respect derives from the fact that I am a monotheist. There is no such thing as "my" God or "your" God or "their" God. There is only our God (possessive pronoun representing all humankind). This is not an insult or a devaluation of anyone's religion. It is an affirmation of our common humanity.
"Often, I've inquired of non-believers if it at all vexes them that nothing that they have ever done or will ever do will make the slightest difference to anyone on any level?"
Are you serious?
Why does "meaning" have to imply some supernatural effect or connection? Why can't "meaning" simply be ensuring the continuing survival of the species through biological imperative by maintaining a functioning society through law & order? Why can't "meaning" in the context of art & music simply be desire to fulfill one's personal emotional needs? Though we may be collections of molecules, we do have emotional needs. Why does thinking something is "wrong" necessitate the existence of a deity? Why can't "it's just wrong" simply stem from the desire to live and let live?
Personally, I trust someone who respects my collection of molecules simply because they're MY collection of molecules much more than someone who behaves simply out of fear of eternal damnation.
When I posted a polite comment on his site suggesting that Dr. Coyne should have the courtesy to make a counter-argument to the Rabbi rather than dismissing him with an arrogant hand-wave, Dr. Coyne called me a “troll” and threw me off of his site! (This after bravely challenging me, then immediately silencing me!)
I couldn’t believe that Dr. Coyne was so intolerant and small-minded.
P.S. In point of fact, I myself disagreed with the Rabbi’s article. I merely took issue with the rude way that Dr. Coyne responded. For this, I was deemed a “dumb troll” and silenced.
2. I wouldn't wait for the tsunami. I'd try to make common cause with my "enemy" as soon as I found myself stranded alone with the person. Our chances of survival and rescue are better working together than on our own and all humans require social interaction (as we are descended from social animals and remain such ourselves). Otherwise, atheists are typically live-and-let-live sort of people. I don't think it would even occur to me to smash his head with a coconut if I can avoid him for a few hours for the same effect.
3. Yes, these things are significant. Why do you suppose they have anything to do with God? Art, of course, isn't the result of magic. Art is the act of communication, especially communicating impressions of beauty. I've already mentioned why communication is important to human beings. And morality, of course, is what we call the rules governing communication between people.
As far as beauty goes, I'm unaware of any religious theory of aesthetics that is the least bit successful. So yes, all three of these things are important. And none have to do with God in the least.
From the perspective of Kabbalah both belief and non-belief have a common source in the unknowable unity. The infinite by definition must contain in potential the finite.
In Lurianic Kabbalah there is a metaphysical contraction of the infinite to allow for finite existence. Within this metaphysical “space” value and conceptual arch-types are emanated. After going through a “dialectical” (borrowed term) process the end result in a plural creation. All concepts give rise to their opposite. There is a synthesis of opposites which in turn creates its own opposite.
The end result is actualization of the original arch-types. It also allows for the existence of paradox and antimony within finite creation. The “dialectical” process works intellectually in the reverse also. All paradox and antimony is resolved in the infinite unity.
Humanity is created in the image of God. In contemporary terms some things are “imprinted” on our hearts. Individuals may conceive differently but ultimately both belief and non-belief have the same source.
What I meant to say is that Aheism and theism are just two sides of the same coin. They have the same ultimate source. You can not have one without the other.
First, my parents' remains would be dealt with as they specified when they were alive. You may lack the morals to treat the wishes of the dead with any respect, after all, they're dead and they can't sue you. Second, that application of their remains is not suitable.
You will, however, find many people willing to turn over their remains to medical science which I guess is effectively saying do what you like with my dead flesh so long as it will help someone else. Someone I will never know or meet and can have not beneficial interest in helping since I'm dead.
The poor quality of this argument just goes to show, the smarter and better educated a person is (evidentially supported by statistics), the less likely they are to believe.
Sure people may turn over their bodies to science, but it's possible that this wish makes people happy while they are alive, and that there is no suitable alternative. If atheists talk about a biological role in the perpetuation of the species, then logically selling their own bodies in exchange for something that perpetuates their genes (for example, money, or finding a suitable mate, etc) would be ideal.
I don't understand how atheists are so inconsistent and throughout the message boards are running to small technical issues which I am saying over and over again is something that can be worked out so that we can get to the root of the issue here.
Second, it is my business what you would do with it, because neither I (nor the relatively, presumably) would want you doing anything truly absurd with it, such as making obscene movies with it and posting them on the web. For the same reason as before, if I permit you to do this, it is my sense of integrity that is on the line.
Third, you're still stuck in the rut of assuming that, since we are atheists, you get to define for us what our value system is. While it is true that we evolved through natural selection, and natural selection promotes characteristics that result in the propagation of our genes, that does not mean that we are required to continue that legacy. We are cogent beings capable of deciding for ourselves what we do and do not value, and neither you nor evolution get to dictate the terms.