Atheists can't do good as Atheists.

Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven.

so the pope is just another person.    He is the head of his church.  This is true. But are you saying he is infallible and we must believe everything he says? 

Nope, I am saying that no one should listen you and your own shite, and to take your smug ramblings with a pinch of salt, to put it bluntly. You do not know the scriptures that you admit to simply  "passing on what you have been told " to pass on for who knows how long?  And that have been teaching to all those universities ; this is you isn't it?

Tradesecrete wrote: I in most parts are merely passing on the teaching of what i have received , I don't have an agenda.   I don't charge students,  I charge universities when they request me to lecture to them.    #20

So going by that standard, I think it is safe to say the Pope knows a little more about scripture than you will ever live to know. You even tell us that you don't have "an agenda", so you tell me, why would anyone listen to the likes of you, a smug fly-by night- holy roller that doesn't remember the Great Commission given  by Jesus to all of his disciples.?

“You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.

Ok. Again I am not sure your point. 

 That is because you are stupid.

He[the pope] is the head of his church.

Well not just any church is it, Reverend? 

The Pope has inherited the very church of the person that Jesus in the bible tells us  he would build his church on: Peter. Or have you forgotten this ALSO?? 

"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).

Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven.

so the pope is just another person.    He is the head of his church.  This is true. But are you saying he is infallible and we must believe everything he says? 

Nope, I am saying that no one should listen you and your own shite, and to take your smug ramblings with a pinch of salt, to put it bluntly. You do not know the scriptures that you admit to simply  "passing on what you have been told " to pass on for who knows how long?  And that have been teaching to all those universities ; this is you isn't it?

But they should listen to you ? Why? 

 You bluster here more than anyone else- except perhaps your two other personalities - Brother and Dimtim.

The pope is a person - who is trained in his doctrine.

quickly -attacked the man.  ad hominin. 

Tradesecrete wrote: I in most parts are merely passing on the teaching of what i have received , I don't have an agenda.   I don't charge students,  I charge universities when they request me to lecture to them.    #20

So going by that standard, I think it is safe to say the Pope knows a little more about scripture than you will ever live to know. You even tell us that you don't have "an agenda", so you tell me, why would anyone listen to the likes of you, a smug fly-by night- holy roller that doesn't remember the Great Commission given  by Jesus to all of his disciples.?

Oh and again. bringing up things from the past.

And things I have explored.  I don't have an agenda.  The Great Commission is not an agenda. 

Some people talk about it being a mission.

  The pope is still not my god. 

“You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.

Ok. Again I am not sure your point. 

 That is because you are stupid.

Delightful - again - just go straight for the man.  ad hominin. 

And why? because that is your default position BECAUSE you cannot present a solution.

   The pope is irrelevant in this context. 

He[the pope] is the head of his church.

Well not just any church is it, Reverend? 

The Pope has inherited the very church of the person that Jesus in the bible tells us  he would build his church on: Peter. Or have you forgotten this ALSO?? 

"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).

Wow ! you almost sucked me into a full on apologetic.  Well done.  But why waste my time. You don't believe this - and I don't believe it. The Catholics might - but so what?  

Why do you think you ought to do good? How do you determine if it improves it or not?  

Well obviously it is derived from atheism.  But it doesn't just arrive from nowhere? 

I do good because it pleases God. Not because he might punish me - but because I love God and like to please him. And also it makes sense rationally. For instance I don't kill people.  I do this because I value life. I value life because God is the author of life. And I want to be like him. 

So how then can an atheist do good things if it does not flow from their atheistic view?  

...because they have a worldview which isn't atheism or religion - Humanism for example.

Thanks for that SkepticalOne.  And thank you for acknowledging that atheists can't do good simply as an atheist. 

Would you consider it [Humanism] to be an Atheistic worldview? Or is it a religious one?

Hmmm, why did the early humanists desire to do good? 

It is the Atheist who says they do not have a worldview. The Theist totally accepts he has a worldview.  In fact - it is pretty much only the Atheist who denies he has one.  

It is the Atheist who says they do not have a worldview

Morality does not fall out of the sky.  Our morality typically comes from our environments

Can you name a non-theistic worldview?

But even secular thinking is a religious doctrine

Define good

You can be a atheist and not even know you are.

As a memeber of 5 religious groups , that spans across the three "main" holy books. 

I highly doubt you will ever meet  anyone as moral as I.  

I'm so fukin moral. 

If you need to know if a act is moral or not just PM me. 

Nice. 

Picture being  a theist for like twenty - twenty five years ,   And something happens one day that makes you denounce your religion.  

You'd go to bed that night feeling fine. 

But then picture waking up that very first day your not religious anymore. 

And not having one single moral in ya . 

It would feel freaky right?    

Good game.

Good game. 

It is the Atheist who says they do not have a worldview

Atheists do not say they have no world view, atheists are saying that their worldview is not tied to atheism. Once again, atheism is a position on a single issue - that of whether a god exists. That’s all.

Morality does not fall out of the sky.  Our morality typically comes from our environments

Our morality tends to reflect our culture, because much of our sense of morality is learned through the behaviors we observe. But at some point in our lives we develop the ability to question our own morality and in so doing we improve. Our history with slavery is a perfect example of this.

The problem with religion is that the only thing it teaches with regards to morality is obedience. It completely discourages any type of rational application or critical thinking. ‘Do as god says’ it’s literally all religion offers. This is why theists cannot fathom the idea of morality without god, because they’ve never had to figure it out for themselves.

Can you name a non-theistic worldview?

A worldview is a term we use to describe the totality of ones beliefs. Theism/atheism is just one small part of it, so it doesn’t make sense to say “name one”. I have a non-theistic worldview because my worldview doesn’t include a belief in a god, but there is no one name that describes the totality of how I see the world. I’m just not that important.

But even secular thinking is a religious doctrine

Secular thinking is literally the opposite of a religious doctrine. This is like arguing that abstinence is a sex position.

Define good

Good is that which corresponds to a moral standard. The moral standard is subjective, even if you’re using God’s.

Reason - the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

  The universality of Reason delivers the Universal Moral law. The proper moral motivation is one of duty to the moral law one gives oneself, out of a sense of reverence for that moral law. Reason delivers the moral law, and we must apply it to ourselves in order to be morally autonomous. And if we are reasoning correctly, we should all arrive at the same universal moral law.

Why do you think you ought to do good? How do you determine if it improves it or not?  

My answer is pretty clear: I try to do good because it improves the world around me. That's according to my perception of my actions vis a vis the world around me. It's not difficult. 

Well obviously it is derived from atheism.  But it doesn't just arrive from nowhere? 

If it's obvious that my desire to do good derives from atheism, please provide your demonstratioin. I've never once done anything good or bad and thought "I'm doing this because atheism." It arrives through the social contract we all live by: if I do good, and you do good, then the world gets better. It's just humanism, it has nothing to do with atheism. 

I do good because it pleases God. Not because he might punish me - but because I love God and like to please him. And also it makes sense rationally. For instance I don't kill people.  I do this because I value life. I value life because God is the author of life. And I want to be like him. 

Let's imagine that you woke up tomorrow and there was some rock solid confirmation that there is absolutely no god or gods. Would you immediately stop doing good? As to the bold, this is EXACTLY what I do, I just don't do it related to anything about any god. If you want to be like god, do you also think about punishing the sinful, taking your vengeance on your enemies, holding people accountable whose great grandparents committed some crime, and drowning humanity? I have a real hard time arriving at the conclusion that the god of the bible values life as much as I do. TUrned a woman into a pillar of salt, for pete's sake. Do you want to be like that one too?

Tradesecret, since your gender status is all over the map, where one time you are a female, another time you are a male, then you are unknown, then again you become a male, therefore your gender is on a merry-go-round in your inept and weak profile pages where we don’t know “what” you are at any given time!

That is precisely what I have been saying. I commenced this thread because of that view by Atheists.  I don't have to agree with it of course. An Atheist has no Atheistic worldview. 

Whether it is small or not, it is still part of it. We can no more raise it to the top level than to dismiss it altogether.  Why wouldn't it make sense? There seems to a large motivation by atheists who want their cake and to eat it as well - to try and dismiss the notion.

Well, you obviously have a distorted view or narrow view of religion.  Christianity does not merely teach obedience. What a silly thing to say.  When Jesus teaches - do good to others. Or treat other people how you want to be treated - it is clearly encouraging rational application and critical thinking

The question of good unless it has an objective standard from our point of view - loses its intrinsic value as a word. 

I do accept that God's standards from his point of view are subjective.  This of course does not mean that they are arbitrary, vindictive, irrational, or sinful or even prone to error.  From our point of view - this is objective.

f I woke up tomorrow and discovered by some amazing epiphany that there was no god, what would I do? I would no longer worry about anything but my life. I would do my own thing. I would be selfish. I would be looking after no. 1.   Yes, I would good at times, but only if it served my purposes.  I would not go around killing people in case I got killed back, or went to prison. I would not respect other human life. Why should I? If I am going to be a life that is just a dot in the history of everything - then I will try and get as much zest out of it as possible. That would be the only meaning for me.  The pursuit of my happiness. Now of course that does not mean I suddenly become as evil as possible - but it does mean that I will do whatever I can do - without getting caught.  And that would be perfectly ok - because good is subjective isn't?  That is why the second part of your paragraph is INCONSISTENT. 

God loves people. God created a pretty good world. Humanity stuffed it up. God wants to see the world improved again. But humanity stuffed it up - and so - humanity should try and fix it up. Humanity does a pretty bad job and continues to do a pretty bad job.  The world God made continued to have a God that warned people when they were sinning and God continued to put humanity on notice when they sinned and stuffed things up. God continues to help humanity despite their ignoring him.  Yet, he warns and then judges.  He warns and then judges.  I sometimes think that people like you would prefer that judges just stop judging and let people do what they want to do  -without consequences.    That is the effect of what you say about God. Stop judging us - let us do our own thing.  Let us try and fix up the world - we have no idea how to do - but we are sure that we will figure it out - if we don't kill ourselves first.   

If good is subjective, then so is evil.   How we improve the world is determined by our worldview and the standards we hold to.  This is why  I find atheists who think they are attacking god with the things he has done - but some sort of absolute morality when they don't hold to it themselves is irrational.

What is humanism and why does it have nothing to do with atheism. 

#53

ludofl3x

It was at one time viewed as moral to sell your duaghter into se slavery, in the Old TEstament.

Yeah, this kinda means you're not a good person: you're only doing what you think god wants you to do because you think he or she is there, watching, and waiting with a reward or a punishment. By all means, then, please keep believing this way. Me, I don't do good only when it serves my own purposes. I do it because it makes the world a better place, in ways large or small. Like when I hold the door open for someone...that makes the world a little bit better and serves no purpose for me. You're saying fxck that person, unless, of course, Jesus is watching. You wouldn't respect human life without Jesus? What's the matter with you, seriously? You think people who don't believe as you do (because there are far more non Christians than Christians) are only pursuing their own happiness all the time? Your entire personal integrity ("doing whatever I can do without getting caught") is based ENTIRELY on the reality of Jesus? Are you serious? I always find it strange how unChrsitian Christians turn out to be, not surprising, but strange. But here it's laid fairly bare, no?

Logic, reason, and facts are smiling in your behalf!