Organization: Penn State University
From: Andrew Newell <TAN102@psuvm.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: free moral agency
Distribution: na
 <C5pxqs.LM5@darkside.osrhe.uoknor.edu>
Lines: 119

In article <C5pxqs.LM5@darkside.osrhe.uoknor.edu>, bil@okcforum.osrhe.edu (Bill
Conner) says:
>
>dean.kaflowitz (decay@cbnewsj.cb.att.com) wrote:
>
>: Now, what I am interested in is the original notion you were discussing
>: on moral free agency.  That is, how can a god punish a person for
>: not believing in him when that person is only following his or her
>: nature and it is not possible for that person to deny what his or
>: her reason tells him or her, which is that there is no god?
>
>I think you're letting atheist mythology confuse you on the issue of

(WEBSTER:  myth:  "a traditional or legendary story...
           ...a belief...whose truth is accepted uncritically.")

How does that qualify?
Indeed, it's almost oxymoronic...a rather amusing instance.
I've found that most atheists hold almost no atheist-views as
"accepted uncritically," especially the few that are legend.
Many are trying to explain basic truths, as myths do, but
they don't meet the other criterions.
Also...

>Divine justice. According to the most fundamental doctrines of
>Christianity, When the first man sinned, he was at that time the

You accuse him of referencing mythology, then you procede to
launch your own xtian mythology.  (This time meeting all the
requirements of myth.)

>salvation. The idea of punishment is based on the proposition that
>everyone knows (instinctively?) that God exists, is their creator and

Ah, but not everyone "knows" that god exists.  So you have
a fallacy.

>There's nothing terribly difficult in all this and is well known to
>any reasonably Biblically literate Christian. The only controversy is

And that makes it true?  Holding with the Bible rules out controversy?
Read the FAQ.  If you've read it, you missed something, so re-read.
(Not a bad suggestion for anyone...I re-read it just before this.)

>with those who pretend not to know what is being said and what it
>means. When atheists claim that they do -not- know if God exists and
>don't know what He wants, they contradict the Bible which clearly says
>that -everyone- knows. The authority of the Bible is its claim to be

...should I repeat what I wrote above for the sake of getting
it across?  You may trust the Bible, but your trusting it doesn't
make it any more credible to me.

If the Bible says that everyone knows, that's clearly reason
to doubt the Bible, because not everyone "knows" your alleged
god's alleged existance.

>refuted while the species-wide condemnation is justified. Those that
>claim that there is no evidence for the existence of God or that His will is
>unknown, must deliberately ignore the Bible; the ignorance itself is
>no excuse.

1) No, they don't have to ignore the Bible.  The Bible is far
from universally accepted.  The Bible is NOT a proof of god;
it is only a proof that some people have thought that there
was a god.  (Or does it prove even that?  They might have been
writing it as series of fiction short-stories.  As in the
case of Dionetics.)  Assuming the writers believed it, the
only thing it could possibly prove is that they believed it.
And that's ignoring the problem of whether or not all the
interpretations and Biblical-philosophers were correct.

2) There are people who have truly never heard of the Bible.

3) Again, read the FAQ.

>freedom. You are free to ignore God in the same way you are free to
>ignore gravity and the consequences are inevitable and well known
>in both cases. That an atheist can't accept the evidence means only

Bzzt...wrong answer!
Gravity is directly THERE.  It doesn't stop exerting a direct and
rationally undeniable influence if you ignore it.  God, on the
other hand, doesn't generally show up in the supermarket, except
on the tabloids.  God doesn't exert a rationally undeniable influence.
Gravity is obvious; gods aren't.

>Secondly, human reason is very comforatble with the concept of God, so
>much so that it is, in itself, intrinsic to our nature. Human reason
>always comes back to the question of God, in every generation and in

No, human reason hasn't always come back to the existance of
"God"; it has usually come back to the existance of "god".
In other words, it doesn't generally come back to the xtian
god, it comes back to whether there is any god.  And, in much
of oriental philosophic history, it generally doesn't pop up as
the idea of a god so much as the question of what natural forces
are and which ones are out there.  From a world-wide view,
human nature just makes us wonder how the universe came to
be and/or what force(s) are currently in control.  A natural
tendancy to believe in "God" only exists in religious wishful
thinking.

>I said all this to make the point that Christianity is eminently
>reasonable, that Divine justice is just and human nature is much
>different than what atheists think it is. Whether you agree or not

Xtianity is no more reasonable than most other religions, and
it's reasonableness certainly doesn't merit eminence.
Divine justice...well, it only seems just to those who already
believe in the divinity.
First, not all atheists believe the same things about human
nature. Second, whether most atheists are correct or not,
YOU certainly are not correct on human nature.  You are, at
the least, basing your views on a completely eurocentric
approach.  Try looking at the outside world as well when
you attempt to sum up all of humanity.

Andrew
