How is it that some atheists are good people?

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Okay, Pepe, I'm glad you activated serious mode for a moment.
I wasn't comfortable with your "friendly banter". I find it mostly disruptive, as the discussion started to gain some subtleness I like.
It's like I was enjoying foie gras and you came and ladled a big spoon of chilli peppers on it.

I see no dichotomy between faith and reason. Maintaining a “reason only diet” makes assumptions about the human mind that are unrealistic. Everyone is forced to assume that the human mind perceived reality when that’s not logically necessarily the case. You yourself are incapable of proving that your mind works properly without external verification, and yet if your mind happens to NOT work properly, how do you know any apparent external verification is even real? The assumption that one’s sensory experience is reliable is never logical. Everything that both the religious and the atheist claim to know is based on faith.

Playing with definitions is annoying. I’ve gotten in the habit of using objectivist language, which can be uncool for some people because they get triggered when they’re called “selfish” when I see selfishness as a desired trait in others. Objectivist language is almost self-referential, a complete reordering of how people discuss philosophy and politics, something not everyone is open to doing.

Back in WP’s “strident atheist” era, there was one user who insisted on winning every single argument by decomposing EVERY SINGLE WORD into meaninglessness. His way of “winning” an argument hinged on his belief that if something could not be defined, it did not exist. “God” cannot be defined, therefore it’s gibberish. “Good,” “evil,” whatever. All gibberish. And because of his assumptions, by “definition” (haha) there could be no meaningful discussion (define “meaning”).

I don’t believe it’s right to block someone just because you dislike what they have to say. If I was scared of being offended, I’d stay the heck out of PPR. But this kid was a whole new level of annoying. That was the ONLY time I recall ever blocking another user.

All others, however, get reported. There was a time in PPR when I was business as usual and ran afoul of the mods. I picked up on the fact I was being bullied, so I started making judicious use of the report button. Mods were getting more involved in taming the Wild West of PPR, so the most vocal atheists fled WP. The discussions are friendlier now, but not nearly as interesting.

I’ve not read through this thread yet, so I’m sorry for probably being redundant.

Via natural selection, it’s beneficial for a species to be decent to each other. We wouldn’t have survived without some cooperation and teamwork going on.

Primates groom each other and are usually loving parents. While I’m not eager to pick bugs off people and eat them any time soon, I can see how being kind and even altruistic would be a beneficial, hereditary trait.

I’m an atheist and am generally a good person (or so I’ve been told).

Come on, Pepe...don't be so hard on BlazingStar.

BlazingStar is very mild-mannered. She has opinions....but she doesn't get rough with people.

^^^^ Actually, Pepe, I have been reading your posts for two years now, so I think I have a pretty good idea.

If somebody wants to believe in God---let them believe in God.

If somebody wants to be an atheist----let them be an atheist.

I believe in evolution, and that the world is approximately 4.6 billion years old, and that there's no gods. If somebody doesn't believe that--fine. But I wouldn't want that person to twist my arm and demand that I believe what that person believes in.

I would simply say, for example, that no----I don't believe the world was created in 4004 BC, and that it was created through Divine impetus.

But that's all I would do.

I might further expound on that.....but I wouldn't twist the other person's arm.

Pepe's just a trip and a half LOL

He's all right.