The Atheist - Agnostic - Non religious thread

Understandable. I merely am beyond the point of seeing why anyone would want to believe in God or any religion. Maybe it's not a matter of wanting. It's a matter of faith, but I just don't know how people can still have faith in that stuff. But it doesn't really matter to me as long as they don't stymie the progress of science and culture.

 

Right on...and neither did Buddha or Lao Tsu and others think religions would sprout up around them. That was not their intention either.

I believe in Jesus Christ because I am convinced that historical evidence supports the historicity of his resurrection, because I believe that the Christian story best explains the reality of the world and the human experience, and because Christ has proved himself faithful in my own life.  I don't want to start a debate about it (I will have very limited Internet access over the next couple days and my views are well-documented elsewhere on this site); merely to help you understand why I believe.

Let me ask you this, though: how do you define "progress" and what about it makes it inherently desirable?

Thank you, that was a very helpful answer.

To clarify, I don't think that the beginning of the Bible postulates the pinnacle of morality, and I think most Christians, if asked to point it out, would instead identify Jesus' teachings as the pinnacle, teachings that radically reinterpret and sometimes contradict the Old Testament Law.  it's helpful to understand the Law given to Israel as a set of military commands: God's people were going to war, a war to protect the messianic promise that would continue until the coming of the messiah, whom Christians understand to be Jesus.  It wasn't meant to be a universal standard of morality for all ages, but was meant specifically for the Israelites.  Christians can learn from the Law, and obviously there are parts of it that we attempt to follow in our lives - because although the Law was written for Israel, it comes from the same one from whom we find morality itself, so it will be similar because it has the same author.

 So, to my next question, it seems to me that you are advocating progress as desirable because it is for the betterment of the human species.  So again, I would ask you - what about the human race makes it worthy of betterment, or of any importance at all?  If you are going to die, why should you care about the people who will come after you?

Secondly, how do you know that the morality we are progressing towards is better than the morality that preceded it?  by what standard do you judge whether the changes in the accepted morality of our species constitute progress or regress?