My Deconstruction from Atheism

I actually deconstructed from Atheism. Most people deconstruct from Christianity, but the one thing that makes it hard for me to be an atheist, is the fact that you have to accept the fact that there are no universal values. It's just a consequence of being an atheist. You can have preferences, but as soon as you come upon a person or society that doesn't, it challenges your claims to objective knowledge. But I don't observe ethics being that way, so it's hard for me to accept that antecedent that there are no objective truths about morality. As the saying goes, if you see the square has four equal sides, it's therefore a square. If I see objective knowledge about morality, but quantifiably, nobody can prove it, but it just is, then I have to assume there's a higher authority than man Who does.

Sure, you could build a perfect morality through Game Theory, and I'm sure it'll be done at some point, but I find that will ultimately reflect what's in the Old Testament, and therefore, be extremely harsh and cruel. Meaning people will ultimately reject it, and then there will be lawlessness. And say they do neither, you still rely on the fallibility of human judgment, and who knows what they'll get wrong.

So, Hume's argument is actually very flimsy--the argument used by most atheists--that milieu determines morality. I find that not to be possible. And I find whiffs in ancient philosophers of a divine order, that seems to make sense, and appeal to a greater sense of truth than simply human understanding. And that's generally God, or Elohim. Also called "The Way" or "The Word."

And simply put, the argument right now is that we have a better world than we did with religion--and I can quantifiably say that's unjustified. Religion made people compassionate, and taught people the right way, and tempered peoples licentiousness so they could all have a portion. Without it, it's a free for all, both sexually and materially--as is what my friend Jonathan would say, the Neo Liberal way--which isn't resulting in more compassion or human growth, but is actually having the opposite effect, and turning everyone into sociopaths, or at the very least borderline narcissists.

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 To make a perfect world would be a crime. Because humans are fallible. Hence, we need God to judge. And generally, we come prewired knowing right from wrong, and it's built in us, but we don't follow it. And that's why there's suffering in the world.

I mean, generally, the issue is ethics are universal, and there is a way to promote perfect peace. It's just humans cannot follow that way. But, we need to be encouraged to try, and that's why the Gospel is so important. The Old Testament condemns sin, while the New Testament forgives it. Justice needs to be a balance of both.

And you're never going to eliminate human greed or corruption, so basically there's always going to be injustice. And that's why God needs to make Heaven and Hell, so people's lives aren't all that matter. Cause at the end, if it were, it'd be the worst of all possible worlds, as everyone would strive against one another to get whatever they could.

But generally, the point of Confucianism is that there is a right way, that humans understand perfectly, and we're supposed to walk according to that way. It's kind of a relevant philosophy, and it's certainly not Western. And that's also the Bible's too, but it adds that we fail, so we need to be forgiven.

But do you understand what I mean? Of course people understand what's right from wrong. They always have. And they always will. It's just that we fail miserably at doing it, and that's why we need the Gospel. For no other reason. If it were just a matter of defining morality, we have 100 sages who do a great job at it. It's that we need to be forgiven, too. From Pythagoras, to Plato, to Aristotle, to Mencius, to Confucius, to Marcus Aurelius, to Lucretius and Ptahhotep. We have thousands of religions, too. It's that we need Christ's blood, to wash us. That's all it is. As far as human morality, it's been said the same way over a thousand times by a thousand philosophers. It's not that we need. You may, but that's the result of sin, having your conscience seared. It's not that way originally.

And then we have the psychos who do know it, and try to reshape the world through the sword. And those are probably the worst. Which I'm not trying to create a perfect world, just to help people understand that's not possible, and why we need to really pay attention to what our Sages in history had said. As the world we came from was better in many ways than the world we're going to.