The Promised One said:
For morality to carry any actual weight in an absolute sense, where something can be said to be truly "evil" in the same sense that we know that certain natural laws work (Like gravity as one mentioned. That were I to jump off a cliff, it's simply not debatable that I would fall to the Earth), and not have it be anything more than opinion, even if that opinion is a majority one, our morality must come from someone higher than ourselves.
I see no reason at all to grant this. Regardless of what you mean by "higher", all you're really doing is substituting the opinion of the higher being for your own, and adding an opinion that said being has the authority to objectively decide what's good or evil. So at the end of the day, it's just your opinion that something else has steered you in the right way.
Or, you can pull a Euthyphro, and say that anything God wants is good by definition, but then there's nothing at all special about being good.
And frankly, the fact that people who supposedly follow the same god end up with wildly different views of morality doesn't speak well for this system anyway.
You have God all wrong. Anyone who ends up in hell, is there because they'd rather be there, and in God's presence. On Earth, for now, we can hide from Him, and pretty much ignore Him if we want. In Heaven though, that is not a possibility. Those who hate the idea of His authority over their lives (and if you hate the rule by which He says to live by in the Bible, then you do in fact hate that authority, kind of like how criminals hate cops), wouldnÍt enjoy Heaven in the least. Try reading -The Great Divorce-. And to quote Lewis again (paraphrasing).....
Yes, I've heard that one, too, although whether or not that's how it works depends on which believer you ask. However, it invariably gets some additional stuff tacked on about how terrible hell is - you're either burning forever, or you're going to feel nothing but despair, or whatever. Still not nice. And like many christian arguments, it shows no insight into what most atheists think in the first place - we aren't ignoring the gods, because there's simply nothing to ignore, and no point in hiding from something that apparently doesn't exist in the first place.
And I've already read one Lewis book, and that was more than enough.
Anywho, Atheism is looked down upon, simply because it's not the truth, just like how Atheists look down upon "my kind" because they think we're deluded, and living in a fantasy world. Honestly, the most vehement, frequent, and tenacious preachers (preacher's meaning anyone who tries to spread their particular world view) I've seen online, have been Atheists.
Never seen Fred Phelps' website, I take it?
Regardless, I at least don't look down on most theists at all - it's simply not significant to me in and of itself. However, if they won't stop talking to me about their gods, or try to pressure me into believing in them (or saying I do), then that's a different matter.
Were I to stick 15 Atheists in a room together, and ask them all the same questions on certain moral and political issues having nothing to do with mentioning God, I can guarantee you that they would all answer the same on almost every issue.
I can't believe I missed this doozy. There's a massive difference between, say, objectivism (who tend to be strongly libertatian) and secular humanism (who lean towards the liberal end of the spectrum), but both are primarily followed by atheists and agnostics.
