LogFAQs > #949723540

kind9 posted...

Have you watched many debates between theists and atheists? Theists constantly bring this up: "why not just go around killing and raping people??" So it's like, why do you guys keep saying that? Is it something you would do?

Because it's a question to the underlying moral framework of an atheist. If you don't believe in an objective right and wrong, good and evil, why NOT do anything that results in pleasure, self-satisfaction, and self-gain? The whole idea is that things like killing, raping, and whatnot are considered evil and wrong which is specifically why we avoid them. An atheist frequently counters that, if they need the fear of hell to avoid doing these things, they aren't good people anyways. That ignores the very fact that, in their own argument, they apply the term 'good' as being an objective thing in regards to rape and murder as well as assert that people who engage in such things are, effectively, morally wrong. However in an atheistic viewpoint a term like 'good' and 'evil' and even 'moral' cannot apply. We view human sacrifice as being wrong yet the Aztecs engaged in it and saw no problem with it. We see slavery as morally wrong yet many civilizations throughout history saw it as morally acceptable. Who is to say that such a thing can be objectively classified as 'wrong' and that said civilizations were wrong if we cannot objectively classify things as being morally right or wrong? It's all subjective. At BEST you can claim that such things are considered wrong by modern society and modern understandings but this ignores that said society and understanding (especially western society and understanding) is heavily based upon Christian understandings and morality.

So theists constantly bring it up because an atheist has no actual counter to it because their only reasons for such actions being unacceptable are either subjective (and thusly not applicable to other cultures), based on a cultural viewpoint heavily influenced by religion, or containing a belief that morality is something beyond what can be controlled by humans which would put it in the realm of the divine or at least religious.

In short refuting it means accepting that there is an objective right and wrong above human influence which is inherently against an atheistic position.

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I am the gentle hand who heals, the happy smile who shields, and the foot that will kick your ***! - White Mage