The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #132437   Message #3004193
Posted By: GUEST,josep
10-Oct-10 - 11:19 PM
Thread Name: BS: True Test of an Atheist
Subject: RE: BS: True Test of an Atheist
///Morality originates from God? That's an odd concept, that's logic eacapes me.///

It's an extremely common position taken by theists. I just encountered it in a book written by a man who was criticizing Hitchens and Dawkins. He had some valid points but at the most crucial part of his argument against these men, he resorted to the argument that morality emanates from god but, of course, failed to understand the gaffe he had committed and smugly thought he had thoroughly destroyed the arguments of these men. I don't remember the book offhand but maybe if I go back to that bookstore I'll see it again.

///"Kill them all - let God sort them out" - from a crusading Bishop.... ///

Which demonstrates that morals are indeed man-made. We can put whatever words we want in god's mouth to make them divinely inspired. That's why the bible is worthless for quoting because for every one person quotes, someone else can quote something that refutes it because the bible was written by men with vastly differing views who probably would have killed one another if they had been unfortunate enough to have known one another.

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. ---Thomas Huxley

Doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue. ---Charles Darwin

It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. ---Bill Waterson

Theologian: An uncommon individual who, though possessing finite abilities, has been called by God himself who, though possessing infinite abilities, requires the assistance of the former in explaining Himself to the rest of us.
---Donald Morgan

Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her. Without asking, or warning, she snatches us up into her circling dance, and whirls us on until we tire, and drop from her arms. ---Goethe

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually come to believe it. ---Joseph Goebbels

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a Sunday afternoon. ---Susan Ertz

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. ---George W. Foote

Show me a population that is deeply religious, and I will show you a servile population, content with whips and chains, contumely and the gibbet, content to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the waters of affliction. ---H. Hubert Harrison

If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. ---Ayn Rand

Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion. ---Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. Psychologist

The world does not owe us a living, we owe the world a living, our own. ---Forrest Church

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. ---Derek Bok, ex-president of Harvard

The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. ---Herbert Agar

The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts. ---William Ellery Channing

When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in His wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me. ---Emo Phillips

The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages—as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already. ---Edward Abbey

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. ---Viktor Frankl

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. ---Albert Camus

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'? ---Friedrich Nietzsche

Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such. ---Homer Simpson

If we don't play god who will? ---James Watson

If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. ---Mitsugi Saotome

And let that day be lost to us on which we did not dance once! And let that wisdom be false to us that brought no laughter with it! ---Friedrich Nietzsche

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed.' Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' ---Carl Sagan

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do that!"
He said, "Nobody loves me."
I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
"Yes."
I said, "Are you're a Christian or a Jew?"
"A Christian."
I said, "Me too! Protestant or Catholic?"
"Protestant."
I said, "Me too! What franchise?"
"Baptist."
I said, "Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"
"Northern Baptist."
I said, "Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
"Northern Conservative Baptist."
I said, "Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?"
"Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region."
I said, "Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?"
"Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."
I said, "Die heretic!" and I pushed him over.
---Emo Phillips