"New Age" Atheism

Originally posted by @suzianne
Good morning to you too, sunshine.

Good morning, gorgeous!
Hope the dealer doesn't rip you off too much...

Originally posted by @freakykbh
You think you can erase the entire history of man and replace him with... Mr. Spock?
Sure.

Weak comeback.

Originally posted by @fmf
Weak comeback.

Your response didn't require much more.
All of human history shows man has ALWAYS had a concept of God, of Heaven and of Hell--- in various iterations.
You stand up in 2018 and declare none of it necessary.
That is a weak volley.
Hell: you can't even get it to the net, let alone over it.

Originally posted by @freakykbh
Your response didn't require much more.
All of human history shows man has ALWAYS had a concept of God, of Heaven and of Hell--- in various iterations.
You stand up in 2018 and declare none of it necessary.
That is a weak volley.
Hell: you can't even get it to the net, let alone over it.

So what if a lot of people have believed in a god or gods down through history and still do? So what if a lot of people find it "necessary"?

Originally posted by @fmf
So what if a lot of people have believed in a god or gods down through history and still do? So what if a lot of people find it "necessary"?

So what if reality destroys your argument?
So what if you lack a leg to stand on?

Originally posted by @freakykbh
So what if reality destroys your argument?
So what if you lack a leg to stand on?

Another really weak comeback.

Originally posted by @fmf
Another really weak comeback.

All it takes is for you to face as much reality as is available and then formulate a challenge, since your current one resides in a test tube, completely isolated from any messy historical details which would sully your findings otherwise.

Originally posted by @freakykbh
All it takes is for you to face as much reality as is available and then formulate a challenge, since your current one resides in a test tube, completely isolated from any messy historical details which would sully your findings otherwise.

"Reality"? "Messy historical details"? It's like you're going for a self-parody bail out.

Non-credible threats have no value - neither for coercion nor for deterrence. 

If your 'argument' is that some superstitious people - or even lots and lots of them - get spooked by things like sonship's stuff about people getting hung out on chains, then that is merely a bit of bears-poo-in-the-woods mundanity.

It's no more than a tautology along the lines of 'people who find such threats credible find them credible and therefore are coerced or deterred'.

Originally posted by @romans1009
That they may be wrong and God does exist. But the way they’re hedging their bets by retreating into agnosticism is futile.

Only if we are fooling ourselves and are actually believers.

Originally posted by @js357
Only if we are fooling ourselves and are actually believers.

Not sure I understand what you’re saying here

Originally posted by @freakykbh
Your pronouncement "It doesn't make any sense, psychologically or morally," is serious-sounding.
What's it based on, though?

There is nothing but consensus on the psychological benefits conferred when an actor is motivated by both loss and reward: running from and running to.
Morally?
What is bad behavior, if not hellish?

You talk gibberish and expect to be taken seriously.

"There is nothing but consensus on the psychological benefits conferred when an actor is motivated by both loss and reward: running from and running to.

Reward may be a make a pair with punishment as motivators of moral behavior, but both are normally seen as appropriate, if at all, only at an early stage of moral development.

http://info.psu.edu.sa/psu/math/Stages%20of%20Moral%20Development%20According%20to%20Kohlberg.pdf.

"At this level, the child is responsive to cultural rules and labels of good and bad, right or wrong, but he interprets the labels in terms of either the physical or hedonistic consequences of action (punishment, reward, exchange of favors) or the physical power of those who enunciate the rules and labels."

One of the hurdles that an adult nontheist who is exploring theism has to handle is placed there by theists who insist on the use of promises of heavenly rewards and threats of hellish punishments as a valid and effective way to motivate belief -- as if God operates as such an immature, almost infantile level.

Originally posted by @js357
One of the hurdles that an adult nontheist who is exploring theism has to handle is placed there by theists who insist on the use of promises of heavenly rewards and threats of hellish punishments as a valid and effective way to motivate belief -- as if God operates as such an immature, almost infantile level.

I agree with this. It is a point well made.

Originally posted by @fmf
"Reality"? "Messy historical details"? It's like you're going for a self-parody bail out.

Non-credible threats have no value - neither for coercion nor for deterrence. 

If your 'argument' is that some superstitious people - or even lots and lots of them - get spooked by things like sonship's stuff about people getting hung out on chains, then that is mer ...[text shortened]... people who find such threats credible find them credible and therefore are coerced or deterred'.

But it is a credible threat.

To say that it is absolutely not credible would imply that you actually have some kind of proof that it isn't.

Please, show us your proof.

Originally posted by @philokalia
But it is a credible threat. .

No, it's not. Credibility is in the eye of the beholder ~ or in this case, in the eye of the non-believing supposed target of the ludicrous morally incoherent supernatural threats. If you find it credible, and that floats your moral and philosophical boats, good for you.

Originally posted by @philokalia
To say that it is absolutely not credible would imply that you actually have some kind of proof that it isn't.

What do I need "proof" for? I don't find it credible ~ I do not need "proof" that I do not find the threats of eternal torture credible.