Is Atheism a threat to Freedom

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Society where human rights are protected by Christianity.

Well, right, I am mostly engaging in criticisms based upon facts that I consider accepted by theists, as such, the criticism is more of an internal criticism. While there have been some who have tried to argue that I am wrong in some element of this, the issue is that I consider most of their arguments rather questionable. 91's punt to "mainstream interpretation" being one example, given that the question for Christianity has always been the question of what the revelation says, not what the interpreters say. The interpreters are only right in as much as they are right on the meaning of revelation, a point taken by most Christian denominations. As for the morality of Christians, the issue is that many Christians have punted to the value added to society by Christianity, but I wanted to attack this, (and note, this implicitly attacks earlier criticisms of my methods, and also is a point against Christianity outright, given mainstream theological claims by Christianity).

And well... right. I mean, from the atheist perspective, your entire proposal falls apart given that much of your moral theology is just anachronisms. It makes no sense, and an intellectually dead belief is intellectually dead, even if you still manage to kill an opposing belief. Even further, given that you think that a dead belief can maintain the value of society, I hardly see how atheism is discredited. Atheists, even if the never spurt out a living idea for moral objectivity, could easily fake it just as well as you do. And heck, I doubt we need to fake it to create something compelling enough to bind society. The reason I say this is because culturally constructed ethical frames of thinking do work, they are not based upon anything objective, but we uphold these implicitly in our every day lives, and mostly because they have our sentiments so bound up in them.

Finally, I accept your nomination, waltur! As WP's most strident atheist, I will make sure I contine to combat theism where it is with effective grounds of combat wherever I can, and to do so until the heretics are gone, until the dissidents have accepted our holy texts and our interpretations of them, and until every child is indoctrinated and converted to what we believe!

Doesn't the Declaration of Independence state:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratio ... dependence

Then the Gettysburg Address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address

And that's part of the anachronism. The freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and so many of these other things didn't exist under a Christian society. It was only until the Enlightenment came about when the moral values we cherish so deeply came about. The issue is that this Enlightenment isn't a Christian thing, but rather it was deeply connected to heresy, anti-clericalism, and even the real father of the atheism that we see around today.

You do know that quite a few of the Founding Fathers were anti-religious Deists, right?

Ok? Your point?

Basically all you point out is that these texts have theistic rhetoric. The theology underlying these positions is still fatally flawed by the standards most religions explicitly hold themselves to.

I believe that objective truth exists regardless of whether the atheist believes in it or not. Thus though they cannot fulfill all moral duties such as to love God, they can fulfill most of them.

As to the concept of Human Rights, they are universal because no one has put up a decent argument as to why they should not be.

The fact that two groups have different points of views does not makes them necessary destined to be violent towards one another.

The atheist can be a threat to freedom; but most obviously choose not to be. The obvious proofs of this are that atheists can also kill and torture. That is not an argument against atheism itself; only against those atheists. Though there may be aspects of their world view that help them to justify their crimes they still have free will and the responsibility is to those who make the choice.

If however, atheists start putting forward in any serious way the argument that religious education of Children is akin to child abuse (as Dawkins ofter does) ; then this would be a threat to freedom and I will argue against that.

Inuyasha

Yes I am also annoyed at constantly being attacked for being Christian and having the concept of Christianity attacked over and again here.

We have the opportunity though to have the argument and I believe we have the winning one.

As such we should go out again and again also and put forward the case that we believe these things for a reason. We can engage the prejudice at the heart of many of these arguments and maybe prove to some the truth of our position.

Unfortunately, you are wrong on having the winning argument, and this can be seen in many of the evasions on Christian theology, as you were practically arguing that interpreters were higher than revelation on an earlier thread.

I think the reason is often also very clear. Most Christians, whether they admit this to themselves or not, are to a great extent under the sway of their culture. This isn't to say that they have no reasons, but rather that the reasons they use don't really get them to where they are at.

It's kinda sad but Glenn Beck ended up debunking the idea that most of the founding fathers were deists. When you have left wing radicals writing texts I guess truth doesn't matter does it...

http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesAr ... asp?id=113

In fact the overwhelming majority of the signers of the Constitution were Christian. It's just they don't get talked about because it isn't politically correct. Just like how the Declaration of Independence got changed in History Textbooks because it wasn't politically correct.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=110635
http://www.lonestarreport.org/Managemen ... dence.aspx

You know it's pretty bad when only the Conservative blogs and Fox News bother to report someone trying to alter the Declaration of Independence in History Textbooks just to make it politically correct.

Editted to fix Typo.

Last edited by Inuyasha on 11 Nov 2010, 11:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Actually, the relationship of the founders to God is more complex than either side is admitting. The founders weren't really Christians in many cases. A lot of them were heretics, such as unitarians. A lot of them didn't believe the real truth of the Christian text. However, the founders did generally promote civic religion, and have respect for Christianity. They weren't simple philosophical deists, but many of them were not Christians in the sense that most churches define Christianity. (such as by the Nicene Creed) Or even Christians by a true allegiance to the text.

It's odd that you suddenly replaced "Deists" with "atheists", which is a boldface strawman or lie on your part.

That was a typo on my part I will fix it.

So I take it people aren't able to make their own choices... There is something called "Free Will."

Hey Inuyasha,

I suggest you read up on ethical theory, political philosophy, and the "correlation implies causation" fallacy. Wikipedia provides a good general overview.

Sincerely,

- Hector

There is, of course, something that people like to assume is free will but even a surface examination of the thought demolishes both its existence or even its utility. No sane person makes decisions without reasonable consideration of the consequences and free will is quickly seen to be utter nonsense.

Actually, there are arguments against this, both from within theism, (theological determinism) and as a psychological question. (Libet experiment is one good example)