| dsgrue3 said: You seem to be extremely confused about the challenge and have failed to present a rebuttal in any sense of the word. Modus Tollens argument used here displays your severe lack of understanding of logical matters. No one said it it easy to be ethical and moral at all times. All Hitchens stated was that for any given person, it is no easier or harder to remain ethical or moral regardless of religious belief. He's removing the "religion yields morality" argument that is so commonly used to trump up the gigantic pile of non sequiturs that plagues religious apologetics' debates. |
Who said my comment was about rebutting the argument. In the case of Hitchens, he actually argues atheism is MORE moral because atheists can do everything moral theists do, but they don't have any of the evil done in the name of God.
Anyhow, who says my comment is a rebuttal. My comment is different animal. It ends up asking: If what Hitchens said was true, and is taken in a way someone who is concerned about ethics would respond, then what of sin? Why is it, if it is so easy to do then why don't people do it all the time? Maybe the issue is that it isn't easy to do at all, and no one really can. And in light of this, the issue then becomes exactly WHAT can cause there to be better results in the area of ethics. Does nothing, which atheism is (a-theism is a negation of a belief in God and nothing else) produce more ethically good acts, than something which at least is a positive belief in something?
As for one thing, how about people laying down their lives for the sake of another? People are more likely to do this if they believe there is a loving God and an afterlife, than if there isn't.
