ible

If I wanted a reason to do evil things, I would lose faith. I wonder how many have converted away from Christianity in order to do the things their religion forbids--i.e. all the things you have named, adultery, cheating, etc.

As long as I understand that there is a standard to living, and that we humans have an idea of what perfection is (in beauty, in morality, in reason and truth), it would be hard for me to lose faith. It seems to me more probable that the watered down version of perfection that we humans understand comes from a perfect being, rather than the chaos of nature around us. The opposite conclusion tends to reduce humanity to cogs in nature, truly unimportant in their existence.

Because of the necessity of a low entropy first state of the universe and the subsequent increase of entropy, it seems likely that the universe was created by an all powerful being beyond entropy.

Together these provide evidence, to me, of a perfect supreme being. I simply see the God of the Bible as a strong candidate for the position, because of his record for love and vengeance, his laws, forgiveness and grace.

Johnny Skeptic

How utterly absurd. I was a fundamentalist Christian for over 30 years. I only gave up Christianity because God would not heal me of my health problems. Surely you must know that many people have given up Christianity because of what they believe are false prophecies and Bible contradictions. Several weeks ago I told you that in my opinion, I am more moral than I was when I was a Christian. You asked me why that is the case. I forget what I told you. The point is, I still have a great love for people and animals. I still believe in being loving and forgiving. My philosophy of life was aptly told by the wizard Dumbledore in one of the Harry Potter movies when he essentially told Harry that it is not the abilities that a man has that is most important, but the chioces that he makes. Since I am a determinist, you might consider that to be strange, but if determinism is true, it would not be strange at all. At any rate, I am not interested in debating determinism, and I would much prefer that the universe not be deterministic, which might be the case.

Why do you think that atheist police officers are willing to risk their lives to try to save the lives of fundamentalist Christians?

Since the Bible indicates that all non-Christian theists will go to hell, obviously, your arguments against atheism do not make any sense.

juergen

[QUOTE=ible;5172691]Maybe I didn't phrase my question correctly. My question was not "if you did or wanted to do bad things, would you lose your faith??

You asserted that a person that doesn't believe in God (and I'd bet you think a Christian God) doesn't have a good reason for doing good things, and that if one does not believe in God, it doesn't make a iota of difference to the person whether his actions are good or bad.

My question was "if you lost your faith, would you stop classifying things as either good things or bad things, and do whatever pleases you? without thinking about consequences or feelings?"



There might be people who lose their faith because not doing so would otherwise mean they can't keep engaging in certain kinds of behavior, who knows, but that definitely wasn't my case. My moral standards have not really changed at all as I moved from being a committed Christian to being more of an agnostic (at least for now), short of praying (which I loved to do) and talk theology/God with fellow Christians.

ible

It's not absurd at all. I'm sure that people have fallen away from Christianity because they wanted to do the things that Christianity forbids. I didn't say that this was how all people fall away from Christianity; with your own case in point.


Have you ever read C.S. Lewis with his views on the problem of pain? In a world where God exists, God could be a "Cosmic Sadist" (i.e. God enjoys hurting people) or a Good Surgeon (i.e. God must hurt us in order to heal us). Lewis sees pain as a method of removing (or helping us remove) all things that stand in the way of loving God fully.

Also, regarding trials and the testing of faith:




Once, I was speaking to a Christian friend that said that he didn't really need to believe in the Incarnation of God in Christ per se (i.e., the Holy Spirit comes upon Mary) in order to believe in the promise given by Christ. I countered that if people didn't believe Christ was also God, they would start to lose the picture of Christ that we ourselves have, and Christ as God is integral to the promise we understand.

The reason I'm telling you this is that I have a question: How do you know that your morality isn't just a vestige of what you first believed? For my friend, his picture of Christ would be unchanged if some of the elements (Christ's Godhood) were taken away, but the same cannot be said for the people who would begin their understanding of Christ with those elements removed. In a world where you did not start out as a fundamentalist Christian, would you have the emphasis of love and forgiveness that you do now?



I know what your question was, and I'm sorry for deliberately avoiding it. It's hard to imagine what I would be like if I lost this important part of my identity. But I think that if I did lose faith in God, it would be pointless/meaningless to make such distinctions as "good" and "bad", and I probably would do whatever pleased me. I would think about consequences insofar as they are negative to myself.

Johnny Skeptic

How do you know that the God of the Bible exists?

If not, that would not reasonably prove that the God of the Bible exists. Most religions teach that God wants people to be loving.

Would you ask a liberal Christian "In a world where you did not start out as a liberal Christian, would you have the emphasis of love and forgiveness that you do now?

Would any Christian who has lived during the past 2,000 years have been a more moral person if he had not become a Christian?

Noted skeptic Bible scholar Dr. Robert Price once told me that in the first century, which was a time when most Christians endorsed slavery, some Sophists and Stoics opposed it.