Alright. I don't get it but whatever. Christians get insulted by the idea they descended from monkeys. Whatever you want to get your back up about I suppose. Would it be insulting if I told you that you can do good because you're genetically engineered as a social animal? Or if I told you your good deeds weren't really good because they're false moral constructs? Or what you thought were good works were actually evil because the True God stands for everything the Christian god abhors? What if I said God looks on your good deeds as he would on menstrual rags? Or what if I said that while your deeds were outwardly good, they really were evil because they were done for the wrong motivations? Or what if I said your heart was in the right place but your execution sucked and you did more harm than good? There are 6 billion opinions in the world on the moral worth of your actions. How many are you going to spend the energy being insulted by?
I understand you and even I needed it at a time but some people act like they can't do any critical thinking themselves. "If the Bible doesn't say it, it's not true." Hmmhmmm...
They get insulted by evolution because they're arrogant and vain. They like to think they're special rather than just another animal on Earth among a incredible number of planets in a vast universe without some supreme being looking out for their well being. I have no issue with someone telling me I do good because I'm a social animal or I do good because it's in my own self interest or whatever other sociological or scientific reasoning for my doing good. There are no doubt reasons and evidence that can be presented for why people do good and bad things. I personally believe I make the choice to do good because I follow Buddhism (sometimes not very well!) and I believe we're all intertwined and when I do good for others I ultimately and however indirectly do good for myself so there's certainly selfish motivation in a sense. Every action, however small, makes a difference in the world. That's what I believe. God doesn't play any role in that for me.
Maybe what is really disturbing here is how angry you are that others believe in a supreme being. You do it time and time again. You talk down about people who believe in God as though they are in some way inferior to you. Yet you call them out in this post as being arrogant. How delightfully odd.
You do realize that it isn't really any more reasonable to feel you know beyond all doubt that there isn't a god, than it is for someone else to feel they know beyond all doubt that there is one? For the record, my own guess on the matter is the same as your belief (that there is no god). But the truth here is unknowable. Calling someone "arrogant" for making a different guess than you about that unknowable truth seems more than a little silly.
Hardly. First, I didn't start this thread and I dont care what the pope has to say about anything. I was simply disputing the interpretation of his statement. Frankly, it's laughable to me that any atheist would seek or even care about the pope's approval, disapproval, or explanation of how someone is deemed to be good. Faith has no intelligence prerequisite either way. You can be a complete moron or a genius and still believe whatever you want. I can respect the person and their intelligence without respecting their belief in Noah loading up two animals from billions of species within the same food chain living harmoniously on a boat for 40 days. I can't underscore how stupid that belief is and tens of millions of people believe it. You can't leverage your intelligence as some sort of evidence that your belief isn't stupid without any actual evidence to your belief. I can respect you and your right to believe what you will but I cant respect beliefs I find completely stupid whether its Christians or Muslims or Scientologists. You can try to make it personal if you want but that's your choice to define your intelligence by your belief. The only thing that angers me about your faith is it's use in government. Strangely enough, I was watching this documentary (the revisionairies?) about the Texas State school board trying to dismantle evolution in the science curriculum. It was sickening and yes that angers me. The whole persecuted Christian thing I find to be completely ridiculous. Stopping Christians from injecting their faith into the public sphere isn't persecution.
You can believe there is a planet made of licorice if you want but my belief that there isn't one is based on the lack of evidence to its existence while yours would be based on nothing. Would you find it arrogant for someone to say there's no such thing as a licorice planet? I wouldn't. Of course no one can know there's no god beyond all doubt, that's the beauty of faith. You can have faith in all kinds of things that would be impossible to discount beyond all doubt. It's the constant wildcard. I wouldn't say that my not believing in god means there's no god. There might be one but I see no reason to believe that. Nothing I've ever seen or read or experienced has caused me to think, well maybe there is a god. I don't see that as arrogant, I see that as pretty damn honest. There may be a god and I could be completely wrong but based on the lack of evidence, I doubt it.
First of all, I do agree with the premise that there probably isn't a licorice planet. But think about this: there are people who believe the universe is infinite. I don't, but I at least think it's so ridiculously large that it's almost beyond the ability of our minds to really comprehend. Given that the universe is that huge, and our knowledge only extends to a tiny fraction of that, I have a hard time ridiculing anyone for believing that almost anything might exist out there, within some modicum of reason. Maybe purple unicorns exist a billion light-years away. Who knows. For all we know, we could be only aware of one page out of an entire encyclopedia's worth of things that exist in the universe. Thus I feel it isn't fair to say that the theoretical belief in a licorice planet would be based on "nothing." Rather, it would be based on the assumption that we maybe only know 0.1% of what there is to know, so hey, there's a fair shot that other 99.9% contains a licorice planet! Yep. So when they get insulted by evolution, you say they're "arrogant and vain." But when you get insulted by the idea that the good in you comes from god, you're just "being pretty damn honest." Hate to do it, but I feel I must: "Nothing I've ever seen or read or experienced has caused me to think, well maybe there isn't a god. I don't see that as arrogant, I see that as pretty damn honest." Not really any more unreasonable than your statement.
Lol, you're the only one who decided to take the subject personally. Everyone else was talking about Catholic doctrine and/or religious reconciliation. You're the one that came in and said **** reconciliation, those bastards are talking down to us!