Yet an atheist has to believe that matter came ito existence spontaneously. I have yet to see one bit of empiracal evidence that matter can come into being from nothing. You can not have evolution without matter, What was the evolutinary process that caused matter to be?
The evidence of abcence isnt abcence of evidence! Sure their is no evidence at present for how matter came into being. There is theorys. One day there may be or will be accepted theory or theorys tested to fact. There is work being done right now. This month CERN will start attempting to create dark matter in their atom smasher. Bingo , then we have created matter and only 5000 years after creating the wheel. Would that make us God?
On the flip side, there is not a shred of empirical evidence for God, and based on the only evidences we have,(scriptures that are provably full of holes), it's simply a case of choosing the ockhims razor.
I have no doubt you are an altruistic caring person and that you do derive joy by doing good. But, the reality is that without the existence of a god, the deeds of the best man have no more value then the deeds of the most evil man. Both will leave the exact same size hole in a bucket of water, if they poke their finger into it and remove it.
Have to disagree again woody. Hitler and Bin laden are clearly evil. With or without their beleif in God they leave scars on humanity that last, perhaps forever. Me in my job may only benifit a few people. Thats a few drops less in the bucket.
Dieseases used to come from God as punishment for sin. One atheist, Curie devoted her life to doing good. She found penaccilin and tipped that particular bucket over. I needent repeat examples, you will understand my point. If however we rely on a supposed God or even on a supposed Gods rather bizzare and often cruel instructions, we are sitting in a bucket waiting for someone to empty it when we have perfectly good hands ourselves and 1400 years or 2000 or 4000 years pass by with nobody outside the bucket emptying a drop.
In somalia Beleivers and atheists alike gave millions in food aid to help the starving. Those who professed faith turned the money into bullets.
I propose we bear personal responsibility to mankind for our actions, not to a deity who by the very starvation of those people shows an absence.
Your intention may be to do good in this life, but it takes faith to believe you actually did. You will never know if the best thing you ever did, will not turn out to be detrimental to all you love sometime in the future. It is by faith you believe that your good deeds will result in lasting good.
I could have faith that God wanted me flog myself, fast or for my kids to not receive a blood transfusion to save their lives. This will not stop any detrimental effects happening. I also cant take responsibilitys for everything that happens in the world, simply do my share. Most of the time I can see the results of any Good i do, as a patient of mine recovers. Sometimes i cant. I fixed the old guys tyre on a dark night. He may have crashed three minuites later and died. Would i not fix his tyre in future? God isnt going to fix it for him.
Unless you have some quantifiable, qualifiable data to prove that is true, you are operating under the belief it is and that requires faith.
But I do understand what you mean. I can have trust in my own actions however without having a God. There are billions of theists around, all having faith that they are doing good. Circumsising babies and blowing Trainloads of shoppers to a supposed hell. I Quantify my data based on the results I see, which is i feel better than quantifying it to something unquantifyable
and peace to you also. We may not agree, but it is good to kow that disagreement does not need to result in anger or lack of respect for each others views.
