If the Almighty doesn't exist

[_Inconceivable]

5. If there is no God, the kindest and most innocent victims of torture and murder have no better a fate after death than do the most cruel torturers and mass murderers. Only if there is a good God do Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler have different fates.

This chafes me.

If good people concentrated more on the here and now (instead of depending on God's intervention in the hereafter, then there would be less suffering.

"It is in God's hands" - what an enabling statement.

No. It is in our hands to save the innocent from evil and to meet out justice to those that would diminish freedoms and happiness - now.

Ultimately, it was men, not God, that finally refused to permit a dirtbag such as Hitler to continue his reign of terror upon the innocent. He could have been stopped by good men so much sooner.

Justifying our inaction by posthumously blessing those we could have saved and giving an unknown God authority to punish those we could have stopped - nuts.

[_Some Schmo]

9. If there is no God, humans and "other" animals are of equal value. Only if one posits that=2 0humans, not animals, are created in the image of God do humans have any greater intrinsic sanctity than baboons. This explains the movement among the secularized elite to equate humans and animals.

...

12. Without God, humanist hubris is almost inevitable. If there is nothing higher than man, no Supreme Being, man becomes the supreme being.

Does anyone else find the statement of these two sort of hypocritical?

First he implies that humans are better than animals, or the most valuable thing around. Then he goes on to complain that, without a belief in god, there's potential for human hubris.

Like god has anything to do, one way or the other, with human hubris...

[_silentkid]

Does anyone else find the statement of these two sort of hypocritical?

Nice catch, Schmo.

#9: Without God, humans and animals are equal (no greater intrinsic sanctity than baboons).

#12: Without God, humans are the supreme being (implies that humans are greater than the other animals, including baboons).

I'm probably just misunderstanding Prager's point. If not, this is weird.

[_Some Schmo]

I'm probably just misunderstanding Prager's point. If not, this is weird.

I don't think you are.

I've often heard these sentiments expressed by religious types, and the fact that they don't see the hypocrisy in it is amazing.

It seems to me to be along the same lines as the crazy notion that the universe was created for our benefit. That's right; trillions and trillions of cubic light years all created for the sake of one tiny little insignificant planet on the outer edge of its galaxy and the specs of dust that populate it. If that's not overinflated human egocentricity, I don't know what is.

What makes the human species so special anyway? Because it is the smartest one? Doesn't it seem kind of silly that our criteria for what makes a species special just happens to coincide with what we have? I imagine if we were blue whales, the most superior species would be the biggest ones, or if we were cats, it would be the most murderous ones, or if we were eagles, the ones with the best eyes, or if we were cockroaches, the most efficiently reproducing ones, etc etc.

For all of our collective intelligence, humans are still pretty stupid.

[_GoodK]

This is old, but a good debate between Sam Harris and Prager.

Looks like he hasn't come up with many new arguments.

[_The Nehor]

Seems strange that something I consider to be a mental construct of certain individuals would have any effect on me. And what about those people who do go on killing sprees who claim they believe in Christ?

Where's the consistency?

Are you seriously suggesting that we should accept that all who claim to follow Christ actually do? Hitler is a Christian, Saddam is a Muslim, Jack the Ripper is on a mission from God, etc.

The danger in asking for consistency is that you won't find it outside mathematics. Show two atheists the same evidence and they may reach different conclusions. By your logic they must both be wrong.

[_The Nehor]

The Light of Christ :)

I never realized that the Light of Christ works through evolutionary programming.

Among other things, yeah.

[_Roger Morrison]

I ask with Marg, "what are the good points, Jason?"

As for Dennis, i find nothing original in his points made here. Very tedious reading... But since I ended scanning it I suggest all the bogey-man stuff posited to follow 'no belief in God' are experienced every day in the USA where 92% of the folks claim to believe in "God". What gives? How does Dennis account for the centuries of bad-stuff in the Judeo-Christian world that claims to believe in "God"???

Suggestion, it's time to put the Old Testament monster-god to rest. Try and understand Jesus' New Testament good-god. Meanwhile take responsibility for the bad stuff and work harder on the good-stuff. Such silly pointless "what-if" stuff... IMSCO

[_The Nehor]

As for Dennis, i find nothing original in his points made here. Very tedious reading... But since I ended scanning it I suggest all the bogey-man stuff posited to follow 'no belief in God' are experienced every day in the USA where 92% of the folks claim to believe in "God". What gives? How does Dennis account for the centuries of bad-stuff in the Judeo-Christian world that claims to believe in "God"???

I would suggest that belief absent faith is pretty worthless. Let's suppose that tomorrow I discover evidence that convinces me that Cthulu is coming to eat the world. Now the smart thing to do would be to prepare and venerate him to make sure he eats me first. However, it's so hard to find good sacrificial chickens and goats and the insane ranting and reading the Necronomicon can be a bit of a bore. So I slack off. Don't worry about it that much and then he arrives and I die a slow torturous death. I believed he was coming. I did not let that belief compel me to action to prepare. Same reason people have no retirement accounts and are overweight and smoke and watch 2 AM infomercials. They know they shouldn't but they don't have a burning faith to lead them to act.

This is why I hope that the Book of Mormon is never proven true. The Church would become filled with those who believe and do nothing. We already have a healthy supply of those.

[_harmony]

Are you seriously suggesting that we should accept that all who claim to follow Christ actually do?

You realize this can be said about Joseph Smith too, right?