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(by PubSkeptic)

Hi OtakuRed,

Your question has been answered many times! Everytime someone decides to become an agnostic or an atheist, they don't lose their morality! They continue to be much the same person they were before.

This is because most of our moral beliefs do not come from religion - they come from our innate sense of right and wrong, a sense which was forged by evolution. We can see the same sorts of feelings that humans have in non-human primates as well as dolphins and elephants, for example.

The idea of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is deeply ingrained in humans, and was a moral principle for thousands of years before Jesus.

It is an important lesson to learn, but morality and religious belief are not related.

17-05-2007

(by PubSkeptic)

Hi Noir,

Thanks for your thoughtful post; I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I disagree with your point, though!

You claim that "Skeptics generally think, and correct me if i am wrong, that the idea of God existing is as farcical as the idea of a Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause". This is only partly true. Any idea of God that anyone has articulated to me does seem farcical, but this is only partly due to the internal problems of the idea, and more to do with the fact that gods are now redundant in terms of explaining how the world works. People who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago would have been at a loss for explanations about events which occurred in their world, and invoking a god who causes them is a natural human response, and a reasonable explanation. Modern science has given us tools which mean we no longer need to invoke supernatural powers to explain the world, not ever.

As to your point about God in fact says the opposite, that he exists outside of time and space. Suppose I told you that I have received messages from an Invisible Pink Unicorn which tell me that the IPU lives outside space time; does this constitute a good reason to believe that there really is an IPU?

Your point about parental love is also misplaced. We have always had access to the way that people behave, and this has given us a pretty good idea about what love is, and now we know that those feelings of love exist physically in the brain it is possible to map those feelings using something called a functional MRI scanner. If we read the stories in the Bible, it is clear that the Christian God does not “love us as a father loves his children", as no actual loving father would pour petrol on his children and set them on fire, nor drown them in a bathtub these are the actions of someone who does NOT love his children!

Your final point is about me dismissing the idea of God. I do not! It is perfectly possible that god/gods exist, maybe one of the so-called Holy Books is even right about Him/Her/It. What I say is that there is no good evidence that any religious claim I know about is actually true. I am open-minded and await the presentation of evidence from believers.

People say sceptics are closed minded, but I tell you, if I prayed for an amputated limb to re-grow (on a human) and it did, that would constitute excellent evidence for a supernatural being. That is the sort of event which could occur which would make me become a believer. If you are a believer already, what possible event could occur which could shake YOUR faith? If the answer is “none" you are the closed-minded person!

Cheers!

Nick

17-05-2007