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Originally Posted by Jetty3
If atheism is true: The universe has laws.
These laws cannot be violated. Life is a product of these laws and can only exists in harmony with those laws and is governed by them. Therefore, human thought, feelings, etc., are programmed responses to stimuli and the atheist cannot legitimately claim to have meaning in life.
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It is standard operating procedure for a Christian apologist to point out that all ethics and morals come from God. It is, so they claim, therefore impossible for the Atheist to be a moral person. Many Atheists counter this argument by pointing out that as a matter of fact they are ethical persons and that they know the difference between right and wrong.
"In fact," says the Atheist, "it is the Christian who admits that the difference between right and wrong is unclear; all the Christian knows is what is sin according to God and what is not sin."
The Atheist continues: "What a pity that the only reason you, a Christian, do not steal is because your god threatened you with horrible punishment if you do. I'm sorry you don't know that stealing is wrong. It causes innocent people to suffer and the inflicting of needless pain is the worst of all crimes."
But now there's a new reason to say it is impossible for morality to be based on this religious belief. I's so simple that some will wonder why something so obvious is not brought more often.
Let us imagine a particular person. And just for fun let's call her Madalyn. Now Madalyn has never had religion. By this Christian definition Madalyn is without morals of any kind. Along comes a missionary and tells Madalyn all about Yahveh and Jesus. He tells bible stories that illustrate what wonderful, upright examples they set for sinful mankind. He tells about the ten commandments and how all morals come from the deity.
Here is the quandary:
How is Madalyn, whom we agree has no morals, able to judge if this deity is a moral god? We might observe that one should not worship a god unless that god is worthy of worship. Surely, one would not love a god unless that god was worthy of love.
In other words, Madalyn must first make an independent judgment -- based upon Madalyn's own godless moral values, that God is worthy of love and worship. Until that independent value judgment is made, Madalyn's conversion to Christianity or any other religion is -- to use a very old expression -- putting the cart before the horse.
The next time you hear that tired old claim that you can't be moral without God, just ask, "Let's assume what you say is true. Since I have no knowledge of morality, how is it possible for me to understand what you are saying?"
Another approach you might prefer is to observe, "Since you just now pointed out to me that I can have no morals without God, what standards do you suggest I use to make up my own mind that your god is a good god and aught to be my god, too?"
The next excerpt is a letter written by Einstein in response to a 19-year-old Rutger's University student, who had written to Einstein of his despair at seeing no visible purpose to life and no help from religion.
In responding to this poignant cry for help, Einstein offered no easy solace, and this very fact must have heartened the student and lightened the lonely burden of his doubts. Here is Einstein's response. It was written in English and sent from Princeton on 3 December 1950, within days of receiving the letter:
"I was impressed by the earnestness of your struggle to find a purpose for the life of the individual and of mankind as a whole. In my opinion there can be no reasonable answer if the question is put this way. If we speak of the purpose and goal of an action we mean simply the question: which kind of desire should we fulfill by the action or its consequences or which undesired consequences should be prevented? We can, of course, also speak in a clear way of the goal of an action from the standpoint of a community to which the individual belongs. In such cases the goal of the action has also to do at least indirectly with fulfillment of desires of the individuals which constitute a society.
If you ask for the purpose or goal of society as a whole or of an individual taken as a whole the question loses its meaning. This is, of course, even more so if you ask the purpose or meaning of nature in general. For in those cases it seems quite arbitrary if not unreasonable to assume somebody whose desires are connected with the happenings.
Nevertheless we all feel that it is indeed very reasonable and important to ask ourselves how we should try to conduct our lives. The answer is, in my opinion: satisfaction of the desires and needs of all, as far as this can be achieved, and achievement of harmony and beauty in the human relationships. This presupposes a good deal of conscious thought and of self-education. It is undeniable that the enlightened Greeks and the old Oriental sages had achieved a higher level in this all-important field than what is alive in our schools and universities."
Atheism is simply the absence of a god belief. Either you have a god belief or you do not. If you have a god belief, you are a theist; if you don't have a god belief, you are an atheist. Some people go further and assert that no gods exist, but this is unimportant. The important thing to remember is that atheism, itself, does not say anything about you except that you do not hold this one opinion which is common among humans. It is a way for us to distinguish ourselves from these other humans, if need be, but usually there is no need for this and we simply consider ourselves regular humans. Besides, if theism is a learned behavior, that is, if theism is something that people add to their humanity, then atheism is the default position when it comes to religious belief. Many of the atheists who came out of the Age of Enlightenment (and many today) would say that an infant is an atheist, having no god belief.