Atheists know God better than any Christian, Jew, or Muslim can hope...

Well, at least the majority of Atheists who live perfectly good and moral lives. Let me explain.

Look at me for a moment. I, as a Christian, follow the laws set by God out of fear that he will punish me if I don't. I consider God to be the almighty One and that what He is absolute until He says otherwise. This is a flawed viewpoint and sadly one that I cannot break because my mind is not a flexible as it once was.

Now take a look at the average Atheist. He follows God's laws (at least the morality based ones) not for fear of punishment, but because it is right. What's more, they don't believe it is right because God says so, but because they have realized it on their own. Instead of "It is wrong to kill because God says so," an Atheist probably thinks, "It is wrong to kill because there is still potential in that human being. If I kill him, the world will lose both a valuable resource and the thoughts, feelings, and emotions unique to this person." This is also flawed based on my religious beliefs, but an Atheist (ideally) does not have any religious beliefs, only moral beliefs.

In short, you can only fully know God if you do not believe in him and if you do, then you will never fully know God.

Thoughts on this sort of meta idea?

 

This is an interesting thought. Though, I can sort of see what you're getting at - not just from reading about it, but from experience. Let me explain.

I have been saved/baptized. I had followed God in 8th grade until my early Sophomore year in High School. Then, out of nowhere, I sort of dropped it. Now, I live with a sort of.. Understanding that if Jesus Christ isn't up there, there must be something up there, but I don't live by rules created by a God. I live by what I find to be right, morally. In the past year and a half of my not following a God, I have seen the way others see Christians and from my time in being a Christian, I have seen what it's like to live from the inside. I find myself sometimes thankful for being on the outside now. Not because of the things I can do because my mind isn't restricted by the rules and regulations of an almighty power hovering over my head, but because I can escape from the (please don't take offense from this) ignorance of what Christians may see.

Think of it like this: A Christian sees a person who doesn't follow God. What do they think of them? Say they don't judge them, but merely gather information to see what the person's status with God or in any kind of religion is. Let's call this person, Jay, and the Christian, Dee. Dee sees Jay and learns that Jay is "lost." So, Dee's goal is to tell Jay about God and to maybe show Jay the way to Dee's God's redemption(?).

Now, I see Jay. Let's say Jay is a Caucasian male, who doesn't get in trouble often and has average grades. He doesn't party on the weekends and he doesn't do drugs. He plays video games, plays sports and hangs out with his friends, who are just as normal as him. What are my conclusions? He's an alright guy, and he doesn't need to change. But Dee, on the other hand, finds that Jay isn't religious and strives to maybe change that.

I find that to be a sort of ignorance. I find that Christians cannot see outside of the walls created by their God, but Atheists can see inside if they so please, and also see on the outside of what it is to be religious. Though their thoughts and actions are not bound by an all-knowing God, they can see "eye-to-eye" with what a God finds good and bad, depending on the Atheist's morals.

All in all, I agree that Atheists can be closer to God than a Christian can.

 

This is a very interesting idea. (hopefully I don't ramble too much. Rambling kind of helps me to get my points across).

However, I may have to agree with you to a point. Yes, it is true that many Christians follow the Laws of God because they are afraid of punishment (a bad life, or spending eternity in Hell). However, Jesus did say (i'm paraphrasing here) that not every person who says their a Christian and simply follow the rules are going to be in Heaven. I, as a Christian, do not base my faith off of fear. You can say that it started out that way though. Yeah, I got saved, started reading my Bible, and began to pay more attention in Chruch a little more than a year ago. I learned that you have to have a good relationship with God/Jesus in order to get into Heaven. Any person, whether they be Christian, Atheist, or a Muslim can do a good deed on a normal basis, but a true Christan has a real relationship with God. I can say that part of that relationship is fear, because you don't want to mess up, which is why I can somewhat agree with your statement.

But there's so much more to the relationship. It's about getting to know who God is and what He wants you to do with your life. It's using your faith and not your sight to guide the way. This is why I think Atheists can never understand why God does things, it's because they refuse to get to actually know him and just decide to not even learn about Him. Life can be crazy; I mean, I'm not suppose to be here, and I'm having amazing luck with my condition lately, and I thank God for it. However, there are stories or a rich atheists who don't have genuine happiness and a homless Christian who has a smile on her face because she knows God has something in store for her.

 

That's true, but you don't necessarily have to believe in God to know what He wants. The idea behind this thought is that God wants us to know what He wants without having Him tell us that's what He wants. This is hard if you believe in God because you always have to second guess whether or not you're following God's path for you. An Atheist, however, can take any path that he morally believes in with very little thought because he doesn't believe in a God who has a plan.

And typically if you don't have to think about it, you choose the simplest solution. With a slight variation on Occam's Razor, you can say that the simplest decision that follows your morals is the right one. Sure you can argue free will, but when it comes down to it even I, with this thought in mind, believe that God wants me to end up somewhere that I'll never know, even if I get there.

You could liken God to a good version of Big Brother from 1984. Those Proles who support Big Brother follow him because they believe while those who do not still follow him due to how society has programmed them. The former would be constantly thinking, "Would Big Brother want me to do this?" while the latter wouldn't think about it at all and take the simpler option that falls within society's standards.

Atheists are the latter, who do not need to believe in God to do what He wants. They are able to make decisions without worrying about whether it's part of God's plan, and therefore fall into the plan naturally.

And then there's the whole idea that Atheists are simply called by God to serve without belief. That about speaks for itself

 

I'd have to say that the biggest problem I have with this thread is that it is too general. To say that an Atheist knows God better than ANY religious-following person would be inaccurate in my opinion. It all depends on the individual person. Yes, there are those who feel obligated to follow what is "right" out of fear of punishment (in this life, the afterlife, or in another life). But I don't think everyone who believes in God (and practices a religion) follows a moral code just because it is written in the Bible.

I live a morally good life, and I am Christian (brought up in a Protestant home). I learned the lessons every child does about God and the Bible, I didn't always comprehend them. It was when I grew older that I could look at those lessons and see meaning in them, both the meanings taught to me and my own conclusions found after much meditation. I do believe in Heaven and Hell, with Heaven being the reward and Hell the punishment after death. But really, those places are not what I focus on. I'm all about life here and now. I want to live a good life with few regrets so as to have a better enjoyment of it and help others enjoy life. The fact that God's laws support the decisions in my life just further fulfills that enjoyment of life at a deeper level.

And really, no one can fully know God; A religious person because of their bias, an Atheist because of their objectivity (you have to be exposed to the supernatural aspect of God in some way, you can't just observe him from the sidelines).

 

The thing is, religion isn' t the only way to enlightenment or happiness, philosophy can also lead you there without requiring any belief in a superior will, the same philosophy that is contained in most religious books. The key is to love and have faith, may it be in God, in Life, or merely in yourself. When I watch The Matrix or Lost I see the story of a person (Neo/Jack) who' s utterly lost at the beginning of the story, but then reaches enlightenment and happiness without ever believing in any God (maybe Jack does in the end, I' m not sure).

 

Both are double edged swords.

A Christian individual can have moral beliefs out of fear of God, doing the right thing, realizing it over time, or they can only do it without fully realizing why they have the moralities they do.

In the same way, an Atheist can have moralities that they've realized on their own, but at the same time, they can have lack of moral values on the basis that there is simply no need, and instead just care for themselves.

Both have somewhat decent outcomes, but both also have pretty negative ones as well. In that respect I'd say they're no different; the only difference I can muster is that the source of the meaning in the morals is different in either.

 

Well the basis of my theory is Atheists that do keep morals that are commonly considered to be good. The idea is that while the believer has these morals thrust upon him by an all seeing being, the nonbeliever simply figures it out on his own the help of people he can see. The Atheist doesn't need God's direct instruction to know what God wants and the believer, while it is possible for him to figure it out on his own, typically wants God to tell him that he's doing the right thing when making a difficult decision. I know that I do. I've God at work in my life many times, but it's never clear if belief in God is what brings me close to him. Now I'm not saying that it keeps you away from God. That's just silly. All I'm saying is that from a young age we (theists) are conditioned to rely on God to carry out His mission. Atheists are able to carry out God's mission without that because they don't believe in Him.

 

The thing is, there is so much more to being Christian than just following the rules. In fact, I'd say following the rules is the least important part of being a Christian, because it's literally impossible to do it. It's about having a personal relationship with God, seeing the world in a completely different way than atheists do. I do not believe any atheist could comprehend the way I see the world or the feeling I get when a prayer is answered, or the satisfaction you get when you know you've glorified God, there's just so much more to it. Atheists can arrive to the same moral conclusions and may be able to know the idea of God better than I can. They could read more of the Bible than me. But can they actually know God the way I do? No.

 

I don't know what to think of this, I mean, I'm a Christian and I don't base my faith off of fear, I don't do good because I fear the consequences, I do it because I know it will produce the least amount of suffering. Athiests may do the exact same. The only difference would be I believe God made it that way for a reason whilst an atheist would disagree.

You may sometimes see street preachers yelling things like "Believe or you will burn in hell!" and I think that's the wrong message to send, I don't think people should believe out of fear, they should believe because they want to get to know God. Plus, I don't know if I'm alone on this or not but I don't think there is a hell, I don't think God would ever let any of his children, no matter what they've done, burn in hell. He said he loves us no matter what we do and He loves us all equally so there is no reason why not. Anyway, I also don't think we can fully understand God, we've had to personify him and his many aspects because that's the only way we can comprehend Him so any human who can understand those personified parts has an idea of who God is. I'm not sure if Atheists would know him better than a religious person or not, well they are more free minded in their thinking but overall I'm sure almost everyone understands the basics of what is wrong. Yes, Christians can be close minded as they can't see past their God space and how he wants you to act but atheists will probably think the same things just without God being involved.

 

If you've read the thread you'll notice that I sort of got away from "fear-based obedience" and closer to "reliance on God's advice." And I'd also like to get away from Christianity and discuss more along the lines of Theism (belief in a god) in general. My whole thing is that I, as a Theist, have been conditioned to go to God for advice while an Atheist (assuming he lives morally), whether he believes in it or not, sees what God has to say without having to ask. It's actually rather hard to explain. Basically, a lack of belief in a god causes a person to see God's message without asking for it. It becomes self evident on its own rather than looking at a holy text and saying, "This book says it so it must be right."

And perhaps I shouldn't have said "fully know." A better phrase would probably be "better comprehend." My mistake there.

 

Well, there are cases where atheists come to radically different moral conclusions than Christians do. Almost any atheist supports gay marriage and almost any theist doesn't

 

Well I, as a Christian, do support gay marriage provided it's for love and not "fun." I'm for gay marriage, but not gay sex. Anyway, this is why I'm applying this to Atheists who do live relatively moral lives. And besides, how does anyone know that his/her moral decisions are right?

 

It doesn't matter whether they're right or not, the point of this thread is that atheists and theists seem to arrive at the same moral conclusions, and they don't.

 

I grew up Catholic, and the 1960's catholic (pre Vatican II) were taught to fear God. Now (post Vatican II) we are taught to love God. Worst part...the church I attended almost every Sunday (and K to 6th grade, I was at church every Tuesday, I went to a private Catholic school) is very focused on both pre and post Vatican II. Which means its lessons are very...contradicting (to put it nicely).

So now, as a Gay man, I have decided that I hate my catholic church and almost most of the religion because I grew up with the bad side.

I totally understand what you mean, because me and a friend of mine have realized that we "don't need a religion/ relationship with Jesus to do and be a good person"

I am very open to religion, and I view myself as more Christian.

 

Ah, this morality thing. Okay, here we go.

Morality is shorthand for a longer decision making process. Absolute laws of morality do not exist, therefore morals must be governed by something else, as it cannot be an inherent knowledge of what is right and wrong. Morality is governed by personal gain, the subject's desires and the society they live in.

We can confirm that no absolute laws of morality exist by analysing different civilisations, and seeing how they can have completely different moral beliefs, such as how some in ancient times used to eat their dead, others buried them, and others burned them. To each civilisation, their method was the morally correct one. Likewise, moral laws have evolved over time. Slavery used to be justified, while now it is not. Even among the same society today, we get people who hold opposite moral views on topics such as abortion. This sort of pattern can be observed in basic social interaction, in which two people can have a confrontation, and both believe that they were morally correct. All of these occurrences prove that laws of morality are not absolute, or if they are, we have no evidence for their existence, nor does humanity does not follow them.

Thus another source of 'morality' is required to exist. This source is one of personal gain, personal desire and personal beliefs. Where as a Christian may say "I will not kill, because it is forbidden by God, and if I do, I will go to hell," an atheist will reach the same conclusion, but for different reasons. "I will not kill, because it is forbidden by society in an attempt to preserve infrastructure, and if I am caught, i will be punished." As such, both parties have the same moral beliefs in this situation, and even without the threat of hell, the threat of prison is still in place.

One may say that morally, it is correct to help people and be nice. Without morals though, you still reach the same conclusion, because it improves others' opinion of you, meaning that it is beneficial for you to be nice, as it means others are more likely to want to communicate with you, so it is potentially beneficial for you to be nice to people. The logical reason to be nice ascends to a moral position, so people actively believe that it is 'right' to be nice, when it's just a shorter way of coming to the same conclusion. So the morality is defined by personal gain and what is beneficial.

Conflict arises in other situations, because situations adjust, while morality lags behind, which can result in flawed conclusions. For example, pre-marital sex. In the past, it was forbidden for the logical reason that a woman being burdened with a child before marriage lowered her value as a wife, et al. So it was ascended into religious and moral texts, and said to be a moral rule. This worked well enough, until reliable contraception and abortion was invented, as well as the importance of marriage decreasing, meaning logically, pre-marital sex was no longer requiring to be forbidden. However morally, it is still forbidden due to hangovers from past morals, and while we are steadily progressing away from such stigma, the belief in chastity until marriage is still strong.

Then we come to the idea of the Ring of Gyges, a ring that makes the wearer invisible, and completely immune to consequences of his actions. If a person were to wear such a ring for a prolonged amount of time, his morals would degrade over time, as there would be no reason not to steal, rape or pillage as his heart desired. It is for the same reason that power corrupts. When one does not have to be respected, or one is immune from the law, his morals will lose all meaning, because the initial basis for them is gone. The time it takes for the morals to disappear depends upon the strength of the individual's moral beliefs, and some may be strong enough to last a lifetime or longer. I am not arguing that everyone in power is amoral, but I am arguing that their reasons for remaining moral is due to moral beliefs that have not yet correctly come into line with their current situation.

So I disagree with Keyblade Spirit's statement, because absolute moral laws do not exist. Atheists are merely closer to the initial logic, which ultimately evolved into the morality preached by the religion. This also means that atheists' morals are more 'evolved' than those of theists, because they do not take their morality from religious beliefs, which take longer to 'update' to the present situation.

 

No, the point is that those specific Atheists who arrive at the right moral conclusions (regardless of coincidence with those at which the majority of Theists would arrive), are closer to God than those specific Theists who happen to arrive at the same moral conclusions. It makes no assumptions that all Atheists have the morals as all Theists.

@P: You seem to misunderstand. This proposal is made under the assumption that although there may not be absolute laws of morality, there is always one choice among many that is the most morally acceptable based on a single correct set of moral laws. Whether or not anybody holds that set of moral laws is a different question entirely. The idea is that an Atheist who makes the correct choice is more in tune with God than a theist who makes the same correct choice.

 

I'm arguing that such a correct set of moral laws does not exist, and 'correct' morality is dependant upon the purpose. An objectively 'correct' choice does not exist.

 

Well just by the nature of morality the right choice depends on the situation. But that doesn't mean that the rules change. It just means that based on the correct set of rules it is possible to derive a morally correct course of action. Nothing changes. For example, would you change your morals if a woman were threatening to kill you rather than a man? I wouldn't. In the case of death threats, men an women are perfectly equal. To save my life and/or the lives of others, I would treat a threatening woman exactly the same as a threatening man.

As for purpose, wouldn't you say that the universal purpose of morality is to keep more people living than dying?

 

The rules don't exist in the first place. Depending on the society, it could be 'morally' acceptable to give in to the woman, while you fight back against the man, or vis versa. There is no 'morally correct' universal standard. Morality is not an absolute law, like physics. It's subjective. Morality varies between people. There is no universal purpose of morality. Morality of one man may lead to him murdering someone else, which is not keeping more people alive.