Does God Exist? Part 3

Wow, good job on a fast response. * “Atheism doesn't have to supply an explanation to 'HOW THINGS WORK.” It always surprises me when Atheists claim they don’t have to explain anything, because that is simply not true. I think it is very interesting that you are demanding (in all capital letters) that I answer every one of your questions. Yet you STILL have not answered my questions from the beginning of this debate. How do you define good and evil? What answers does atheism provide for life’s deepest questions? Instead, you just avoid them by saying, “defining the meaning of these words is nearly impossible” (which is not true, every worldview claims to have some kind of definition for these concepts.) If you wish, I will not bring these questions up again because it is becoming tedious and wasting time. However, I will leave it at this – if your worldview (and yes, atheism is a worldview) cannot give you satisfying or tangible definitions of good, evil, meaning, and morality, then I would strongly encourage you to really examine these concepts. They are some of the most important questions for our entire existence, and it’s not acceptable to simply shrug and say “I don’t know.” Denial of a belief is not helpful unless you can offer an alternate explanation from your denial. Think of this example: Bob is murdered. Many people believe John is the murderer. Yet after the police investigate, they say “we don’t believe John is the murderer. In fact, we believe murder did not happen at all.” However, the police cannot just stop there by saying it was not murder. They must continue investigating and offer an alternate explanation for how Bob died. Yes, atheism’s primary claim is there is no god, but it is not immune to the questions that follow such a claim. If the atheist’s response is simply “I don’t know and I don’t have to answer anyway,” then that is neither intellectually satisfying nor convincing. When I wrote, “There is no proof atheism is true, it doesn’t make sense for me that god doesn’t exist, I see atheism as very immoral, and I see it as very easy and very understandable why someone would reject god...” I did not write this as a serious claim or argument. I was simply mirroring what you wrote to demonstrate how it was just your opinion, not a strong or convincing argument. However, I will still respond to your objections. * “You can't say that 'there is no proof in atheism'. Because Atheism is a rejection of belief, you can't say 'it has no proof'.” Once again, you cannot claim you don’t need to prove anything just because you reject a belief. You are the instigator of this debate, you are making the claim “God Does Not Exist.” Logically, the instigator who makes a claim has burden of proof, so you actually DO have to show proof. Once again, think of police or scientists. They cannot just reject a hypothesis, they must also give an alternate one. * Examples of immoral atheism – I do not think atheism is IMMORAL, I think it is AMORAL - it cannot define morality. Atheism cannot provide objective, authoritative definitions of right, wrong, good, and evil, which is very dangerous. According to atheism, if there is no god and we all just evolved by natural chance, then there is not true good or evil. There is only DNA, natural selection, and survival of the fittest. This is summed up perfectly by the Atheist writer Richard Dawkins: “In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice . . . DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.” No justice, no reason, just chance and luck. We are dancing slaves of DNA. What if my DNA predisposes me to murder, or to crave power or pleasure? There are plenty of examples of immoral atheist leaders in history. But the point is not that atheists can be immoral, because Christians can be too. The point is that if there is a god, then there is an objective morality that all people are held accountable to - a “master plan” as you call it. If there is no god, there is no source of objective morality. * “Why do you think it's understandable why somebody will choose to reject God?” I can see why people want to believe they control their own lives. Also, it is easy to misunderstand what God is all about. Those are just my opinions. Many theists also live ‘in the closet’ for years, especially in countries where there is persecution. * “You believe that you are right because your belief tells you you are right.” You are correct, I should explain this more. However, you are justifying your own beliefs with the exact same reasoning. In your Egyptian example, if things don’t make sense to you then you should reject that belief. So you believe you are right because your senses tell you you are right. Have your senses ever been wrong before? I believe my definitions are true because I assume that a universal moral law exists. I believe human nature proves this. The fact that we condemn the Nazis even though the Nazis thought they were right proves that we have some concept of universal behavior that all people around the world should follow. If we have a universal moral law, then there must be a universal law giver. Atheism believes the universal moral law sprung from nothing, in which case it has no concrete authority. I believe the universal moral law came from an authoritative law giver, god. The fact that we all mostly believe moral law has authority is proof enough for me that my definitions are most likely true. In any case, you still have not given any definitions of your own or reasons why they might be true. You suggest that things are wrong if they hurt people. This is a good starting point but it’s not enough to explain morality. You say if people do things in their own home without hurting anyone, then it’s ok. So what if a racist keeps his thoughts to himself and never hurts anyone or says bad things to them. Is his racism now acceptable? You assume all polygamist women are forced into it. This is not true. Some women voluntarily enter it and see no problems or rights violations in it. There is an ABC News documentary on the subject if you don’t believe me. So is polygamy still wrong for people who volunteer for it? (I 100% think that polygamy is bad by the way, I’m just saying, not all people do). With gossip, cheating, and lying, you are suggesting emotional or mental hurt is bad too. If every action that causes someone emotional, mental, or physical pain is wrong, then the list of those actions would be almost endless. What if telling the truth will cause someone else pain? What if helping one person hurts another? You said we can impose our ideas on the Taliban because they hurt people. Americans, Russians, Egyptians, Koreans, Chinese hurt people too. Every society hurts people, and every society has different ideas about how to fix it. Who is right? According to Richard Dawkins, people who get hurt are just unlucky anyways, so why does it even matter? I will briefly answer your questions about Christianity if you want. * “Why do you think your morality is the 'right' one?” Already covered. A universal moral law must have a moral law giver, and the Christian god makes more sense to me than any other religions. * “You said that Christianity exists for many years, and if it wasn't true, it would have disappeared.” I did not mean this to be an argument for Christianity being truer than Buddhism or Islam. It is an argument for why Christianity is a more realistic belief than Bella, Ra, Odin, or the flying spaghetti monster. * “Why would God make a man who lived as a good person and never harmed a human being suffer?” Once again, I ask if you can give a definition of what makes someone a “good person” so I can better understand your question. Christianity teaches that no one is a good person. We have all hurt people, let people down, and fallen short in one way or another. That is why Christianity is all about saving and forgiveness. * “I don't think a man who raped his daughter is equivalent to a man who stole an apple from the grocery.” I hope you are starting to see that all your questions assume definitions that you have not provided. This question assumes that rape is intrinsically worse than stealing. Why? What makes it worse? If it’s because an apple is a very small thing, then what if I stole the grocer’s car, or all his money? How small does something have to be before it’s ok? Is it because rape hurts someone? What if I stole something that hurt the grocer mentally, emotionally, and/or physically, or hurt his family’s welfare? You are assuming a line that makes one thing worse than another, but you cannot define what that line is. It makes more sense to me to say that sin is sin, it’s all bad and it all requires forgiveness. * “Christianity says that we are all sinners, meaning sin is a natural thing - just like walking, talking and breathing . . . If God punishes for sin, why can't he punish for breathing or acting human?” We do not choose to breathe. We do choose to sin. That’s the difference. We have all at times chosen to lie, gossip, let people down, hurt others, judge others, break promises, and sometimes worse. If you can name one person in human history who never chose to do something bad, then I will admit I am wrong on this point. * If God exists, it means he punished Jesus for something other people did. You are exactly right. That is what is so beautiful in my opinion. We believe Jesus was not just a man, he was God. That means God punished himself for something we did in order to save us. There is no greater love than that. It’s not like a child being punished for their father. It’s like someone diving in front of a bullet - giving up their own life to save someone else. I hope I was able to respond to everything.