bippy123 wrote:Kenny wrote:B. W. wrote:
As a former atheist...
Nothingness was all I was in reality defending. Could not escape that fact.
Again; what is "nothingness"?
B. W. wrote: Next point... Materialism involves relativistic morality as an absolute. I recall we and others disused this with you before. Do you recall these discussions?
If you do, then what I mentioned may make a bit more sense, if not, let me know...
I do not remember.
Ken
Nothingness is non being. Very simply not existing . It's not a material nothing but a complete nothingness
Bippy123 answered this with finesse
As I read your post in response to others, you are certainly defending nothingness as Bippy illustrated no matter what verbal judo you try to use, atheist are defending nothingness.
After one dies, atheist state you go into nothingness. Billions of years later, the sun implodes, and earth goes into nothingness. In this nothingness there is no God, no morals, just nothing that somehow randomly creates more nothingness to happen in some unknown future state of time.
As for the next point:
With this concept comes the atheist debate over morals. Atheist view is that human beings create morals, not God because there is no God, only nothingness. Again morality of atheism is based upon nothingness. One day we die and puff into nothingness we all go, and then in billions of years the sun implodes, and earth goes into nothingness. Rather hopeless.
Therefore human beings do make their own morals primarily based upon Epicurean thought - anything goes. People always slide toward justifying an immoral form of morality no matter the evidence of the harm caused by bad behaviors. Alcoholism is one example, sexual deviance another, and many more things we do. Investigate Miley Cyrus to see further what I mean or ISIS for another different example. Human beings are not prone to create the 10 Commandments as there are too many things to worship rather than God, like self, philosophy, atheism, fornication in all forms, taking what belongs to others, etc and etc
According to Aristotle: the goal of the ethics is to determine how best to achieve happiness. Happiness defined by him concerns living in accordance with appropriate virtues. What is appropriate is based upon the individual naturally being predisposed to behave in the right ways and for the right reasons deriving pleasure from behaving rightly mainly by the reward of feeling. A person arrives at this when they come to a balanced state between extremes of excess and deficiency. However this state of balance varies from person to person as one person may like a little vice and another maybe more balanced in their exercise of the pleasure of vice. There are no rules on how best to avoid vice due to the happiness it causes.
With Aristotle it is the agent, individual, acting voluntary and not an outside force that determines virtue (noble good), yet an outside force, like one under duress can force one to behave in a manner that goes against the virtue of noble good. It is by rational deliberation and choice that influences one's voluntary actions based upon pleasure/happiness in essence of a job-well-done feeling that comes by feeling one did or behaved nobly good however they define what is nobly good.
For Aristotle one compares moral virtue with its opposite such as Courage is superior to fear and thus courage good. Modesty is superior to shame, etc and etc You also have three social virtues of amiability, sincerity, and wit that make life pleasant. Basically Aristotle basically goes down the Golden Rule and leaves out the part of loving God with all ones being and simply bases his ethics on doing unto others as you would have them do unto you as the bases of his ethics. Sound familiar?
Despite this, has humanity improved and always strive for virtue after all these years since Aristotle died in 322 BC? It appears that Aristotle owed his philosophy to the writings of King Solomon and blended others into his own due to his seeking knowledge from afar. It was documented that Aristotle said:
"I do not deny the revelation of the Jews (context was about Jewish revelation of God and not about knowledge), seeing that I am not acquainted with it; I am occupied with human knowledge only and not with divine" (Judah ha-Levi, "Cuzari," iv. 13; v. 14).
Basically, he took God out of the moral equation and based morality upon the individual to do the right thing because doing the right thing makes one and everyone else most happy. Has the world improved? No, it has not as the historical record proves. While we can create morality, we cannot maintain it because one man's virtue is another man's vice. Instead, you have a constant influx of conflict between good and evil. Evil derives pleasure of happiness being evil and good derives pleasure of happiness trying to be good. There is no solid foundation to base or guide what is absolutely right or wrong when God the creator is left out of the picture and when after all die, we all fade into nothingness - morals, happiness, pleasure mean nothing.
Actually, the ability to discern morality proves that human beings were designed to be moral beings morally accountable to God who teaches right from wrong. However, atheism rejects this and extols the virtue of nothingness as supreme.
Nothingness as in non being. Very simply not existing. It's not a material nothing but a complete nothingness atheist defend.
Kenny, do you understand now? Your attempts at verbal gymnastics prove that atheist are bent on defending nothingness. Long ago, I could not escape this fact and neither can you.
Have a good day - but what is good worth when nothingness is all that awaits?
One day, the sun implodes and no more earth too...
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