Lady B wrote:

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If a theistic perspective collapses on the evidence of evil, how then does the atheist better explains evil?

*Kiss*

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Same way you explain good. It is a subjective thing. Absolutely. Evil is the "other". A construct of society to unify antipathy towards someone or something or somewhere. Same as sin.

I don't know where you heard that, but I can only speak for myself. As an atheist I have more than that argument in my arsenal to disprove the existence of God as both evil and God are man made. In fact evil really isn't anything till you define it. Like law it varies from society to society, time to time making it a totally subjective thing.

Have you actually seen that throne guarded by angels? I mean how do you know it exists? How can you know whether anything exists - Hell, heaven? Apart from of course the writings of old Jewish men thousands of years ago.

One thing you have to understand is that science did not set out to disprove God. Science never went out to pick a fight with religion. It just saw problems and set out to solve them logically - well prayer wasn't curing polio or the plague or syphillis. Some wise folks just found out; mostly by accident that diseases were caused by tiny things called germs - not evil spirits or demons.

They consequently opened up a pandoras box of discovery that the church was none to happy with since it challenged its hegemony. I mean, I'm sure the religious establishment was in denial when they realised that medicines were curing people and not prayer or Jesus.

And that my good friend is how it has been since. it's a pity that the church still keeps people in a constant state of denial about the world - I mean, this one not the one after death.

I watch these tele-evangelists (third-rate conmen) who tell people; mostly poor to send money because they talk to Jesus. Sometimes I feel I'm in the wrong occupation. Hell I can fake it and make a killing. Since I am actually aware that it is bogus - unlike the poor souls in the congregation - I can act it out memorise the bible and make people give me tax-free dollars. They retire after a few years!!

What do you think?

I understand where you're coming from. But you see the bible is stories, myths. Some true, some exaggerated, some just absolute tosh. To say everything that is written in it is an actual historical account of a true event is missing the point of it all.

Now religion; pre-science had some good things. It contributed to giving man a somewhat universal conscience of good and evil -- even though it instigated a lot of the evil itself. But the fear of eternal punishment had its rewards.

But we are now at a post-agnostic phase. Where scientific knowledge has surpassed "faith", Faith is just not enough in our industrial societies. For our machines to work, our medicines to work, we need more than just blind belief, we need evidence, proof, calculations have to work. Experiments have to offer proof of something. That's just how it is. Scientific discovery, archeology and all other sciences has illuminated the gaps in religion. All religions. Believing by faith alone is not only ignorant in todays world, it is stupid. Leave it to superstitious grandmothers and fundamentalists.

As for the stuff about midwives. There is no surprise there. There's nothing to giving birth. We've been doing it for millions of years that's how we're suvived as a species. An antelope or a deer can give birth and have it and its baby running from a lion in about 30 mins flat, what about humans huh? Well we don't live in the bush but still, even though the human baby is quite helpless at birth we have support structures in place to keep it safe till it can fend for itself - in about 20 years or so!!!

Actually YOU clear your mind. YOU break out from this ancient dogmatic Jewish myths called Christianity. See the world as it is not as the bible claims it is.

i forgot i was breaking bread with abre the scientific sooth sayer,if you cant clear your mind to understand the bible then let me try to take you on a small lecture and love you and leave you.

Medieval scholastism passionately dispute the issue of nominalism versus realism,plato saw ideals as real,nominalism,moving to aristotlelian thinking,ideas were mainly the names we gave to things,and have no valid life of its own,nominalism in those days was the progressive way of thought,opening the way to our analytical scientific approach.

in our time the burning issue comes again to the fore.the movement from redunctioning thinking to a holistic world view is the new realism,this makes us realise that ideas are living things(science).people like you contemplate matter as complete in itself,without knowing that you are the presence of godly spirit reality,manifesting yourself into material form.you dont actually know that spirit metamorphoses itself into matter.it expresses itself through a material brain in order that man may,by a process of conceptual knowledge attain to free self conscious,you derive spirit out of matter.

the moment you separate yourself from the belief in God,you are a separate entity among the people of God.

Ok Abre explain something to me Why the senseless murders of hundreds people i? Why earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and famines that has killed "innocent" man, woman, children and animals?

Do we not, humanly, need explanations for them?

Even if we do not have the answers we certainly, instinctively, asked, "Why? Why? Why?", especially if evil touches you and your love ones. How then do an atheist feel and think and reason, when they and/or their loved ones "suffer" tragedy, death, diseases, sickness, senseless crimes, abuse, injustice, corruption, etc etc.

Just shrug the atheistic shoulder and say, resignedly and fatalistically, "It is just the nature of things ... ", and move on without shedding even a tear? Hardly human I say! Can an atheist then be so aloofed and detached to say, "We are not obliged to explain evil"?

Are there are no such things as despair, pain, sufferings, hopelessness, meaninglessness in the atheistic world view? that these words do not exist in its vocabulary?

*Kiss*

But science IS based on FACT. Fuel burn, create heat, move machines etc. There REALLY is something like DNA. We didn't make it up to suit a belief system. It IS there and it DOES determine skin colour, and other characteristics.

As for LadyB. It is how things turn out. Of course atheists like me feel pain, compassion. Living things do. It is a survival instinct. You don't learn it as bees don't go to school to learn how to build complex hives. They have aquired it instinctively over millions of years of trial an error, natural selection which consequently makes it instinctual.

You have to understand that the earth is callous. It doesn't feel. We humans are just one of the numerous organisms on it. And earthquakes, torandoes are what they earth does as it goes about its business. Plates are moving, colliding etc. Unfortunately, we humans are at mercy of these forces. Why? No reason why. We're here that's why. You see, the very reason that it is nature makes people create elaborate reasons for it - like God is angry and stuff. Well, if he's all powerful, why should he care whether we worship him all day long - to feed his ego? I wonder.

Well I have come to the realisation and it makes me happier that we are part of a great process of life on earth and all living things (including Ayatollah sadly) are part of this process. I am happy that I am part of the process and will die and be recyled to create another life form. Plus have children and love them, teach them and watch them grow.

Evil is just a desciption of anything unpleasant to you. It is NOT universal. Same as happiness, anger, love etc. An earthquake that kills people is not evil. It's an earthquake. Do you know that there are about a hundred little eathquakes in Japan everyday?

If you release yourself from the dogma of religion (which unfortuantely fails to describe this present world) and look out to humanism, humanity and nature; you'll find it a lot more rewarding. Or just watch David Attenborough on BBC.

What are you talking about?

Of course there is evil. It's not an entity or a physical thing or a force. It's a adjective (or can be an verb). It is like love or hate. It is an action derived from an emotion of disgust, fear, pain or anything with negative characteristics. And it consequently is or at least, can be entirely subjective. Like Bin-Laden is evil to Americans but a saint to others. Not because of anything that he does personally but for what he supposedly represents to both opposing parties.

What is evil other than a societal perception of "the other", the enemy if you will. But to discribe natural disasters to be evil or the work of an evil mastermind i.e. Satan is as moronic as the belief that a God is responsible to punish a group of people. Evil doesn't have a thing. It cannot be quantified and set aside to be defined. There is no universal quality of it.

Another example. In Iran America is percieved as evil and they have evidence of it. In America it is preached on a political level that Iran IS the evil party. But they is scant evidence of that. 

If you see evil as a force an entity like you see God; then of course you'll argue with me for ever about that. But there isn't an entity, I don't disbelieve God, He doesn't exist or need to. There is no need for a it. I don't define it, or him (or her). I can't define something that does not exist. I can define a vacuum as an empty space. That's because a vacuum is a physical empty space, surrounded by physical boundaries. But I guess that's another debate.

It is a religious thing to quantify evil. In the confines of its dogma it is essential to do so. By defining what is the other, the opposition it creates a universal sense of its purpose, its reason for being; to challenge this enemy. By studying biblical narrative you see this recurring theme all through it. And that has shaped our world as it is today. Every dogmatic concept relies on it to function. The mind relies on creating a form, a notion, a concept to make sense of its surroundings, of its existence. It goes back to how memory and information get imprinted on our brains.

So, God as a being or notion falls into the same category of human thought. Animals don't need to believe simply because their needs are basic. Their emotional and physical needs are geared towards survival (same as man) but since their needs are less complex, they simply function and are sometimes even more successful at it than man is. I mean if you ever seen inside a termite colony; the complexity of it and its structures put most human structures (plus their beliefs) to shame.    

We're organisms; we're conceived, we're born, we live, we die, and we decay. But as we decay we feed the world of the living: plants and bugs and bacteria.

I'll tell you what I think is evil though. It's not using your dangly bits for what they're there for...love, procreation and - dare I say ... a bit of bloody fun along the way.

How many times have religions of the world been damaged by some discovery or other only to move the goalposts and carry on as before as though nothing had happened? They gave Gallileo a hard time for saying the world was round... somehow God seems to have forgotten to tell his 'flock' about our planet revolving round the sun and all that.

Then there was the theory of evolution - the teaching about which in schools was fought against in a courtroom in the USA and is still disbelieved by a majority of Americans, incredibly.

There's also no mention of dinosaurs in the bible either. Perhaps it's not inspired by an all knowing being after all and is, after all, just a cracking good work of fiction?

-- Edited by abre les ojos at 17:41, 2005-09-07

-- Edited by abre les ojos at 17:45, 2005-09-07