Do knowledgeable ex-atheists exist?

[Stario]

if there is an intelligent creator, why does he allow things like that to exist in the world? Why is the creator imperfect?

Evil/Good are human definitions. Perfection/imperfection another human defined trait... this is Irrelevant! & does not disprove an intelligent creator IMO

Its true the universe is a brutal place- when a pack of African wild dogs catch a Cape Buffalo they are not strong enough to kill it outright- so the poor animal suffer a slow agonizing death while being eaten alive- its intestines hanging out while the animal is still alive; travel close enough to a magnetar and your Iron ions will get sucked out from your blood- wouldn't be pretty i would imagine- the universe is clearly full of "evil" places but so what!?.

SO maybe the creator is imperfect (by our human definition), maybe a bit loopy & sadistic; maybe such intelligent creator even enjoys its subjects being tortured. Eventually our milkyway, our universe will die (& it won't go down quietly), & for billion trillion trillion trillion years in the future the universe will live out its final days with only black-holes left -until eventually even those black-holes will fizzle out etc.... but still even though imperfect (from a human point of view), this hardly disproves the the notion that the universe shows intelligent design.

[Akar]

Your own self-professed standards deny you an ability to give an objective accounting of what constitutes evil or good; if the universe is nothing more than random interactions between elements and science is the only source of truth, then your concept of "good" is both subjective and emotional.

Yes, you're absolutely right on that point but I was approaching the topic from your viewpoint that it is not the case that the universe is nothing more than random interactions. So that's not exactly relevant here, since from a Christian perspective good and evil are absolutely objective not subjective as the bible clearly explains "right" and "wrong". The problem is that in one chapter it says do not murder but in the next god says to commit genocide.

The issue of "infanticide" which you raise is a case in point: millions of abortions are carried out every year, yet it is evidently the case that a significant portion of the human race (perhaps even a majority) do not view them as being "objectively evil".

First of all, abortion is not infanticide and attempting to claim that it is is disingenuous at best. I think we can all agree that than aborting an unborn child is significantly different than dashing the heads of babies against rocks and murdering entire races.

Humanity tends to naturally define things with contrasts. It's hard to find a good definition of something without finding its contrast somewhere in there.

Of course, but that doesn't mean that you cannot have good without evil; just that it's easier to notice good when you can juxtapose it with evil. You can have good without evil, and you can have evil without good. You can have one without the other.

The big problem that Akar has is that he doesn't think anyone who believes in God is knwowledgable.

No I believe plenty of Theists are knwowledgable(sic), just not the ones who are completely unable to argue from or understand a point of view other than their own.

[Cope]

Yes, you're absolutely right on that point but I was approaching the topic from your viewpoint that it is not the case that the universe is nothing more than random interactions. So that's not exactly relevant here, since from a Christian perspective good and evil are absolutely objective not subjective as the bible clearly explains "right" and "wrong". The problem is that in one chapter it says do not murder but in the next god says to commit genocide.

The Bible does provide objective moral standards; the problem is that we interpret those standards both subjectively and imperfectly. This is why scripture is always subject to more perfect explanation. We apply the same standards to natural phenomena too: there is nothing in the natural world - even things we've been observing for millennia - which we understand with absolute, irrefutable clarity. In fact, most things we have a very limited knowledge of.

First of all, abortion is not infanticide and attempting to claim that it is is disingenuous at best. I think we can all agree that than aborting an unborn child is significantly different than dashing the heads of babies against rocks and murdering entire races.

A genetically distinct human life is created at the point of conception. There is nothing "disingenuous" about equating the destruction of individual humans at the very beginning of their development (a phase common to all human life) with the destruction of individual humans at a later stage of their development. And since 2d. and 3d. trimester abortions can often involve the fetus having its limbs ripped off and its skull crushed, I don't see that it is much different from being "dashed against the rocks". I would show you a video, but since even drawn interpretations are deleted for "gore", I can't.

[Akar]

The Bible does provide objective moral standards; the problem is that we interpret those standards both subjectively and imperfectly.

Is it subjective and imperfect to consider genocide to be morally wrong? At what point does god stop getting a free pass for doing stuff just because he's more perfect?

This is why scripture is always subject to more perfect explanation.

Also just happens to make it easier to always change the interpretation to match whatever the argument requires.

A genetically distinct human life is created at the point of conception.

Yeah, just like when a chicken lays an egg. But you're not a militant vegan or anything. "genetically distinct human life" is a meaningless phrase and benchmark.

There is nothing "disingenuous" about equating the destruction of individual humans at the very beginning of their development (a phase common to all human life) with the destruction of individual humans at a later stage of their development.

There absolutely is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_t...n_of_pregnancy

"There is no sharp limit of development, age, or weight at which a human becomes viable.^[15] A 2015 study found that even with active treatment, no infants born at less than 22 weeks survived, at 23 weeks survival without severe impairment is less than 2%, and at 25 weeks, up to 30% might survive without severe impairment.^[16][17] According to studies between 2003 and 2005, 20 to 35 percent of babies born at 24 weeks of gestation survived,"

There's nothing "individually human" about them. They have no personality or emotion, no sentience. They are aware of nothing and are nothing more than a tumor or growth. You're aborting something that is at that point essentially a parasite, with the active infanticide of an entire nation's babies. I don't think it's a stretch at all to call it disingenuous. It's a woman's right to choose what happens to her body. It is not god's right to commit genocide, no matter how badly he wants Canaan for his Jews.

And since 2d. and 3d. trimester abortions can often involve the fetus having its limbs ripped off and its skull crushed, I don't see that it is much different from being "dashed against the rocks". I would show you a video, but since even drawn interpretations are deleted for "gore", I can't.

Just because abortion can look messy doesn't make it morally or medically wrong. A vast majority of medical procedures look pretty "gorey" to the outside observer. Ever seen someone get a steel rod put into their leg? They literally use a giant hammer. Claiming that abortions are messy is a classic move by those against a women's right to choose, but it's a totally moot and irrelevant point. It's like comparing a surgeon amputating a limb with a murderer cutting your leg off while you're still alive. The action is technically the same, but aside from that the two things are unrelated.

If you want to compare videos I think there's a few of the genocide in Rwanda laying around that show genocide and infanticide are a bit more serious than a controversial medical procedure.

[Gaidin]

A genetically distinct human life is created at the point of conception. There is nothing "disingenuous" about equating the destruction of individual humans at the very beginning of their development (a phase common to all human life) with the destruction of individual humans at a later stage of their development. And since 2d. and 3d. trimester abortions can often involve the fetus having its limbs ripped off and its skull crushed, I don't see that it is much different from being "dashed against the rocks". I would show you a video, but since even drawn interpretations are deleted for "gore", I can't.

Ironically 2nd and 3rd trimester complications are what can endanger the mother's health and even life and this is where it can be argued that abortions would be necessary, if not required to be legal. I can point to multiple cases. A mother who has committed to the pregnancy to the 2nd and 3rd trimester is not going through an abortion because she wants to. You might want to reassess your argument.

[Cope]

Ironically 2nd and 3rd trimester complications are what can endanger the mother's health and even life and this is where it can be argued that abortions would be necessary, if not required to be legal. I can point to multiple cases. A mother who has committed to the pregnancy to the 2nd and 3rd trimester is not going through an abortion because she wants to. You might want to reassess your argument.

We aren't talking about cases which are medically necessary to save the life of the mother. Although even if we were, I would still say that that an attempt to deliver would be the right decision, not the deliberate destruction of the fetus.

[Gaidin]

We aren't talking about cases which are medically necessary to save the life of the mother.

An abortion is still an abortion and the only ground I've ever seen any pro-life debate willing to cede on is in cases of rape and incest.

Although even if we were, I would still say that that an attempt to deliver would be the right decision, not the deliberate destruction of the fetus.

Case. In. Point.

[Cope]

An abortion is still an abortion and the only ground I've ever seen any pro-life debate willing to cede on is in cases of rape and incest.

This is a flat out lie. Virtually every person who opposes abortion would make an exception in cases where it was medically necessary to save the life of the mother. This was explained to you repeatedly in the abortion thread.

Case. In. Point.

The case in point is that you rarely if ever would need a technical abortion to save the life of the mother. In most of the cases where the mother's life is at risk, ending the pregnancy is a viable alternative to aborting the child, even if the probability of the fetus surviving is negligible.

[Muizer]

Plz stop discussing good and evil. It's ruining the thread.

[MaximiIian]

Evil/Good are human definitions...

[sigh] Much as I hate to admit it, Stario kinda has a point.
Just to be clear, I do not believe the gods are "creators" so much as they are "influencers" of the universe. Sustainers, perhaps. I see them as the spirits of the natural world, in the same way one might see a human soul as the spirit of a human being. So I would be averse to arguments based on intelligent design.

That being said, I do not think that moral arguments apply much at all. Morality is largely a human invention, to negotiate a fairer interaction with each other and with the world around us. The gods have nothing to do with it, except in the few cases where they make it their business out of personal interest (gods that patronize law and order, or mercantile endeavors, or human crafts, or war, etc.).
For the most part, in my perspective, the gods simply are. Sometimes they are helpful, sometimes they are benevolent. Sometimes they are capricious, sometimes they are destructive (though that's usually just the natural world moving in accordance with natural laws). If you think that makes them not worthy of veneration and honor, well...that's your decision. I go another way, and I'm fine with that.

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

[sigh] Much as I hate to admit it, Stario kinda has a point.
Just to be clear, I do not believe the gods are "creators" so much as they are "influencers" of the universe. Sustainers, perhaps. I see them as the spirits of the natural world, in the same way one might see a human soul as the spirit of a human being. So I would be averse to arguments based on intelligent design.

That being said, I do not think that moral arguments apply much at all. Morality is largely a human invention, to negotiate a fairer interaction with each other and with the world around us. The gods have nothing to do with it, except in the few cases where they make it their business out of personal interest (gods that patronize law and order, or mercantile endeavors, or human crafts, or war, etc.).
For the most part, in my perspective, the gods simply are. Sometimes they are helpful, sometimes they are benevolent. Sometimes they are capricious, sometimes they are destructive (though that's usually just the natural world moving in accordance with natural laws). If you think that makes them not worthy of veneration and honor, well...that's your decision. I go another way, and I'm fine with that.

Would you buy 'creators' in the sense of being the origin of the universe, and taking an unknowable, hands-off (or so entwined we could never know, but I digress) approach thereafter with all to come to pass after that being explainable by natural development?

[MaximiIian]

Would you buy 'creators' in the sense of being the origin of the universe, and taking an unknowable, hands-off (or so entwined we could never know, but I digress) approach thereafter with all to come to pass after that being explainable by natural development?

I see the gods as having emerged with the universe, inextricably linked to it, but not before it. I might make some accommodation for the Hermetic notion of a panentheistic unity of all the gods and the universe, but I really have doubts that it acts with intelligence or coordination. If there is such an interwoven things, it's more of a numinous energy or force than an entity.

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

I see the gods as having emerged with the universe, inextricably linked to it, but not before it. I might make some accommodation for the Hermetic notion of a panentheistic unity of all the gods and the universe, but I really have doubts that it acts with intelligence or coordination. If there is such an interwoven things, it's more of a numinous energy or force than an entity.

As a small followup, but you'd say the individual entities have a much more active pull?

[Gaidin]

The case in point is that you rarely if ever would need a technical abortion to save the life of the mother. In most of the cases where the mother's life is at risk, ending the pregnancy is a viable alternative to aborting the child, even if the probability of the fetus surviving is negligible.

Why do mothers that have to do this for medical reasons literally have to fly to Colorado to an abortion clinic to do this in a medically proper fashion? Why did Ireland let a mother die in such a dramatic and traumatic fashion that they literally amended their national Constitution so that abortions would be legal if...actually just legal. All Ireland's Constitution says is Abortions are now legal. Provisions may now be made by law in Ireland for termination of pregnancy. Thanks to that mess.

[Cope]

Why do mothers that have to do this for medical reasons literally have to fly to Colorado to an abortion clinic to do this in a medically proper fashion? Why did Ireland let a mother die in such a dramatic and traumatic fashion that they literally amended their national Constitution so that abortions would be legal if...actually just legal. All Ireland's Constitution says is Abortions are now legal. Provisions may now be made by law in Ireland for termination of pregnancy. Thanks to that mess.

I'm not going over this again with you. The points you're raising were thoroughly and repeatedly rebuked here.

[Muizer]

IMHO one of the fascinating avenues of research is that minerals may have served as templates for the building blocks of life. If that were the case, this would mean that life is like a 'built in' feature of the (this?) universe. It is not 'created' as such, but the laws of nature would be such that the whole universe is seeded with templates, such that wherever conditions are favourable, it is very likely to arise, and arise in the same way as it has on earth. It is dangerous to extrapolate from the one case we know of, but it is a fact that on earth, life arose pretty much as soon as the conditions were such that it could survive. This does not outright contradict the idea that life arose as a freak incident in the 'primordial soup' , but it certainly does not speak in its favour. (Judging bu time alone, going from prokariotes to eukariotes and from there to multicelled life was vastly more 'difficult'.)
I think the mineral template or something similar that ties life to laws of nature is as close as I see myself getting to an 'intelligent design'. The idea that that would justify anyone they're doing something sensible by going to a church or praying is just bizarre though. It would not change anything about the fact that we're in a tiny pocket of space-time adrift in an uncaring universe. Might just mean there's plenty more such pockets, most likely inhabited by single celled organisms.

[Gaidin]

I'm not going over this again with you. The points you're raising were thoroughly and repeatedly rebuked here.

I didn't bring it up in this thread. But you'll happily concede it. Which is fine.

[Cope]

I didn't bring it up in this thread. But you'll happily concede it. Which is fine.

I didn't raise infanticide in this thread either, but I was happy to give Akar a brief response because I haven't discussed it with him before. You, on the other hand, introduced talking points and a case study (again) which have been soundly rebuked elsewhere.

[z3n]

We started with the idea that Dyeus Pater (the Sky Father) created everything, several millennia later we ended up with Deus (reflexive of Dyeus) who created everything, and now there is an idea the Big Bang in the sky created everything.

[Akar]

I didn't raise infanticide in this thread either, but I was happy to give Akar a brief response because I haven't discussed it with him before. You, on the other hand, introduced talking points and a case study (again) which have been soundly rebuked elsewhere.

And then you scampered away from the argument when I replied

We started with the idea that Dyeus Pater (the Sky Father) created everything, several millennia later we ended up with Deus (reflexive of Dyeus) who created everything, and now there is an idea the Big Bang in the sky created everything.

The big bang did not "create everything", that's a misrepresentation of the theory.