Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Aug 26, 2018 3:41 am
Theism is more specific than 'religion'.
Not much. And not nearly enough to be informative when used as a collective noun, for anything but the broadest and most unreflective kinds of statements.
To force atheism-in-general as a religion-in-general is definitely rhetorical.
I disagree. You accused Theism of relying on blind faith. I denied this. But if you accept that characterization, then where it is of limited application in regard to Theism, it is of absolutely justified application to Atheism.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Yeah, I saw that. But honestly, I just thought the very statement was too empirically and theoretically absurd to deserve any rebuttal.
I am progressing as a human being.
"Progressing" is a concept you need to fill out, if I'm going to understand you aright.
From what are you coming, and to what are you going, by what process?
"Progress" refer to net-positive increment [within moral standards optimally within constraints] from one's current status.
I won't go into the details as that is off topic.
It's certainly not off topic. If you claim to be "progressing," you need to show what "progress" consists of. And you certainly have made the claim, repeatedly, that "progress" morally is evident in the human race. So you do need to fill that out, and I absolutely want the details. They're crucial.
No morality if no God?
You don't seem to understand the conventional meaning of morality?
Please enlighten me.
Morality (from Latin: mōrālis, lit. 'manner, character, proper behavior') is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper.[1]
Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal.[2]
Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".
-wiki
Note God is not even mentioned in the above.
You've avoided the problem. The problem is not that people can't say what a "moral" might be: it's that they have absolutely nothing upon which to ground "morality." They've no authority for it, no universality, no way of demonstrating obligation to it, and no way to say it ultimately exists as anything but a delusion in the individual mind or collective mythology. They can't legitimize it.
Look, I can define "unicorn." But I can't produce one, or give you reason to believe any such beast exists. So showing a definition proves squat.
Religion can be theistic or non-theistic.
Or Atheistic.
...absolute moral laws as guides.
How the absolutes are grounded require detail discussion which I am not getting into.
I know why...you could no more do it than Kant could, or Mill, or Singer, or Aristotle, or MacIntyre, or Rand, or Kohlberg, or Noddings...or any ethicist, in fact. But it's the only discussion worth anything. No grounding, and morality is just unicorns.
So I'd say we should get into it.
This OP is about whether God exists or not.
Theistic related evil is already a subset of the OP.
Then by being its opposite, so is Atheism.
If Theism is indictable as sponsoring evil, then we would need to investigate whether Atheism was more, less or equally guilty...or there would be no way to recommend one over the other.
I have explained above theistic religions are not the same in terms of the obvious evil but the same in another finer perspective of evil.
Explain, please, this "finer perspective."
A natural percentile [re normal distribution] (20% conservatively) are born with an active tendency to commit evil, e.g. psychopaths and the full range of evil prone doers.
The above are principles of human nature - not religious doctrines.
Now you're arguing that Theism is NOT the essential cause of evil. A percentage of people are NATURALLY evildoers, you are now saying.
Myanmar is a 87.9% Buddhist country culturally and traditionally, thus most in Myanmar are born automatically as 'Buddhists' or pseudo-Buddhists who are not seriously into Buddhism-proper. Thus psychopaths or evil perverts born in Myanmar are 97% likely to be regarded as a Buddhists by birth.
But the same excuse would work for any religion or any ideology at all. For example, one might say, "People born in Syria are likely to be regarded as Muslims, so Islam is not indictable for the evil done by the Syrians."
So I'm not clear: do you believe that evil is a religious issue, or that it's a human one?