Dear Jardine,

a)

For something to be called "rational", it must be derived from thought, not just any thought, but straight, sane and logical thought. Axioms however, are not derived - or they wouldn't be axioms, they would be theorems. While theorems can be rational, all theorems are ultimately constructed on the quicksands of irrational axioms.

b)

For an ethical system to be rational, it must be derived from theorems and axioms concerning good and evil, thus include good and evil as its building blocks, but where could those be derived from? Not from nature anyway.

I have no problem to accept irrational definitions of "good", such as from the biblical Psalm: "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High", but if you insist to limit your ethics to rational sources, then where will you obtain "good" and "evil" from?

c)

Objections to "man acts" could come from several directions:

1) It's not the man, but some part(s) of the man which act.
2) Only conscious entities can act, but "man" is just a body.
3) No action actually ever takes place, it only seems so.
3a) All actions have already taken place, just your consciousness travels along the time-dimension.
4) We're rarely ever fully conscious: automatic acts do not count.
5) All action is deterministic.

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Another example?

- Husband comes home drunk, obviously not realising how much he drank and asks his wife to go the bar and argue with the barman that he was charged too much and should be refunded half his money. The wife responds: "But you know that I cannot argue, darling".

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«the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the Magic Flying Teapot acts. It has no real explaining power, and I don’t see how you can say it’s rational or quite convincing.»

As for "rational", I never claimed that it is.
What I claim is that nobody's axioms are rational, including this, mine and yours.

As for "convincing", can over a billion people be convinced, yet you don't see that it is convincing?

Posted by mhaze, Wednesday, 29 March 2017 10:49:03 AM Page 11

"Certainly we have more than a few examples where otherwise western socities have sidelined or rejected Christianity, and the results haven't been pretty."

Indeed, when seen as "result" the dreadful visitations wrought upon heretics and apostates have been at the hands of the most pious of christians. That the christian actions were historically "unpretty" is a gross understatement.
If you were referring to those states who chose to develop a communist "Utopia", exemplified by Russia and China, if you maintain that the atheism attributed to these nations is responsible for your "unprettyness" then historically you haven't a leg to stand on.
Atheism, by its very nature as a withholding or rejection of belief, could never be a rallying cry for any government.
Demonstrably, it was never used at any time in Russian or Chinese history because it had so little political influence in government at all levels. Wars, famines, purges and other catastrophes were a consequence of human agency with much more pervasive, ignoble and mundane reasons in mind, not the least of which were messianic megalomania, jealously guarded power, perceived economic/political necessity, uncritical adherence to political doctrine and dogma,
Christianity had been at the seat of privilege throughout the West. It made and unmade kings, it gave legitimacy to aristocracy, it owned vast swathes of agricultural lands and estates, it extolled ignorance and poverty as highest virtue yet flaunted obscene wealth. All this, thousands of years of privilege, was under threat from communism which was not a religious movement but a political and economic one and so, to retain the allegiance of its vast flock, christianity declared and confirmed communism to be godless.
I am neither praising nor defending any particular politico-economic system of government. History as I have presented it is as it is. To contest it here can arise only from an imperative to pervert it

mhaze,

In what way is Western civilisation in decline, and how exactly does the decline of Christianity fuel such a decline?

If you mean what I think you mean, then I can assure you that virtually every sociologist disagrees with you.

It sounds to me that not only are you mistaking correlation for causation, but you are mistaking a negative correlation for a positive one.

As societal health in Western countries continues to improve, Christianity declines. However, Christianity's decline is not the main cause of our improving societal health. It is more a symptom of a third factor driving the inverse correlation: education.

By Greg Clarke - posted Friday, 24 March 2017 [last para]

"China, Korea, many African nations and much of South America are all realising this. Europe is starting to see what it has lost. Australia is already, constitutionally speaking, "humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God". Can we bring it Lazarus-like back to life into public discourse, without fear or prejudice?"

It's always the way, isn't it?

Just so long as your own fear and prejudice prevails.

Return to addressing the flock, you're not cut out for the soap box.

As the skeptic and author, Johnathan Swift, wrote: "You can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into."

And as M.L.King jr wrote: "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

Pogi,

>>History as I have presented it is as it is.<<

What you have presented is an outsider’s view of what the Communist system was about. Or am I wrong? How many years did you spend in a Communist country?

I grew up in a Stalinist country and I can assure you that for us, children, it was not some abstract social theory construct of Marx and Lenin that we were taught (that came later) but first of all atheism, i.e. insistence that there was no God, in spite of what our parents would tell us.

Nevertheless, I am aware that there are atheists who insist Communism was not about atheism “by its very nature” (although Communists proudly referred to themselves as atheists). The same as, until recently, there were Christians who insisted “the dreadful visitations wrought upon heretics and apostates” were not about genuine Christianity (although the perpetrators proudly referred to themselves as Christians).

George,

It doesn’t matter one iota who insists what. Nor does it matter to what extent communists saw atheism as a defining tenet of communism. What matters is that there is nothing within atheism to support what the communists did. That’s the difference between atheism and religion, and the atrocities done in the name of each.

Your comparison is fallacious.

Further problems for your comparison is the fact that atheism is not a worldview or a belief system. Even in its stronger forms, atheism is merely a rejection of religious claims as unsupported by the evidence. Atheism neither says nor implies anything with regards to how or whether or not one should further act on that position. This is one of virtues of atheism over dogma.

You are again falsely equating atheism with religion by attempting to burden atheism with some of the actions of atheists in the same way that Christianity legitimately bears the burden of some of the actions of Christians. This is not possible for the reasons stated above.

The sceptic never has a cross to bear.