richardhutnik said: Slavery even still exists in various forms, even right down to working for corporations where you have no right to intellectual property you create.  You get a wage and turn over property, and make a corporation rich.

Which is a contract between consenting people, and thus not slavery.

_mevildan said: @richardhutnik "So again here, if Hitchens is correct in that, there is NO act anyone needs any God for to do, that is right, then exactly why do people fall short?" ... you have me completely baffled here. The premise: No good act can be exclusively performed by someone religious. Your question: Why aren't people always good? I just don't follow... how does your question relate to the premise? Do you really think the premise is false?

Initial statement: Hitchen's challenge: Show a single moral act that can be performed by a religious person that can't be by an atheist.

Premise: If Hitchen would be correct, then that means that all moral acts are performable by all human beings, irregardless of their beliefs. 

Question from the premise: If this premise is true, then is there any example of ANYONE who is totally and completely moral in nature and didn't "sin" at any time in their life alive now?  

The question asked follows because if something is within the capabilities of humans, without assistance from God/gods, then why do they fail at it?  Is morality nothing more than some niceties one should try to do for no particular reason, or something that is an ideal sought to be hit, that should be possible.

I

The biggest irony of all is atheism is a religion.

So again his argument is pointless.

richardhutnik said: The question asked follows because if something is within the capabilities of humans, without assistance from God/gods, then why do they fail at it?

Because all organisms are inherently selfish and being ethical requires us to consider how our actions impact others, which is obviously not something we naturally like to do.

BenVTrigger said: The biggest irony of all is atheism is a religion. So again his argument is pointless.

Atheism is not a collection of beliefs, it is one belief at most (one can be an agnostic atheist), and therefore not a religion.

badgenome said: BenVTrigger said: The biggest irony of all is atheism is a religion. So again his argument is pointless. Atheism is not a collection of beliefs, it is one belief at most (one can be an agnostic atheist), and therefore not a religion.

Sure it is.  You cant get past point of origin.  If you dont believe a "god" or outside source created the Universe you have no other conclusion to arrive to other than the absolute absurd notion that the Universe created itself. in such a case the Universe itself is all powerful and responsible for the creation of life and thus "God". Atheists can try and hind behind their slander of religion when in all actuality to believe the Universe is capable of creating itself takes FAR more faith than any form of organized religion.

richardhutnik said: Initial statement: Hitchen's challenge: Show a single moral act that can be performed by a religious person that can't be by an atheist. Premise: If Hitchen would be correct, then that means that all moral acts are performable by all human beings, irregardless of their beliefs.  Question from the premise: If this premise is true, then is there any example of ANYONE who is totally and completely moral in nature and didn't "sin" at any time in their life alive now?

He doesn't say people are capable of doing all moral acts. He says atheists are capable of doing the same moral acts as religious people. There's a difference.

And even if he did say atheists were capable of doing all moral acts, your point would still be flawed. Just because a person is capable of doing any particular moral act, that does not mean they are capable of always doing perfectly moral acts with no chance of error. 

The tendency for humans to make mistakes would prevent any human from doing a certain act forever; that doesn't mean they aren't capable of doing that act.

The question you're asking is the same as asking "If humans are capable of single-digit addition regardless of religious belief, then why has no human ever lived a life without making a single-digit addition error?"

BenVTrigger said: badgenome said: BenVTrigger said: The biggest irony of all is atheism is a religion. So again his argument is pointless. Atheism is not a collection of beliefs, it is one belief at most (one can be an agnostic atheist), and therefore not a religion. Sure it is.  You cant get past point of origin.  If you dont believe a "god" or outside source created the Universe you have no other conclusion to arrive to other than the absolute absurd notion that the Universe created itself. in such a case the Universe itself is all powerful and responsible for the creation of life and thus "God". Atheists can try and hind behind their slander of religion when in all actuality to believe the Universe is capable of creating itself takes FAR more faith than any form of organized religion.

Atheism isn't a belief that the universe created religion; that's a subset of atheism, and really, that's kind of stretching it..

Moreover, a belief that the universe created itself is undeniably less absurd than the belief that God created it. Even if both are absurd because they assume the existence of an all-powerful entity, creationism definitely takes it a step further because it assumes an entity which is not only all-powerful, but which cannot even be observed.

Jay520 said: BenVTrigger said: badgenome said: BenVTrigger said: The biggest irony of all is atheism is a religion. So again his argument is pointless. Atheism is not a collection of beliefs, it is one belief at most (one can be an agnostic atheist), and therefore not a religion. Sure it is.  You cant get past point of origin.  If you dont believe a "god" or outside source created the Universe you have no other conclusion to arrive to other than the absolute absurd notion that the Universe created itself. in such a case the Universe itself is all powerful and responsible for the creation of life and thus "God". Atheists can try and hind behind their slander of religion when in all actuality to believe the Universe is capable of creating itself takes FAR more faith than any form of organized religion. Atheism isn't a belief that the universe created religion; that's a subset of atheism. Moreover, a belief that the universe created itself is undeniably less absurd than the belief that God created it. Even if both are absurd because they assume the existence of an all-powerful entity, creationism definitely takes it a step further because it assumes an entity which is not only all-powerful, but which cannot even be observed.

This post is not even remotly true.  And can be easily swept away with a simple thought experiment.

Imagine you decide to make a drawing.  You draw a big picture with a couple people in it, a house, some birds etc.  You just created your own "world" and Creatures inside of it.  Now if the figures in the drawing were capable of thought and speech and they looked around the drawing and saw all this creation but did not observe you within the drawing they might say to themselves "Look at this amazing drawing! It must have drawn itself since we cant see an artist!"

You exist OUTSIDE of your creation, not within it.  In fact this is true of everything.  If you paint a picture, if you build a sculpture, or design a video game.  In every case you yourself exist wholly seperate from the creation.  The entire point atheism makes about god cant be real because you cant observe him defies both logic and science.  Whatever created the Universe would never exist inside it.

BenVTrigger said: Sure it is.  You cant get past point of origin.  If you dont believe a "god" or outside source created the Universe you have no other conclusion to arrive to other than the absolute absurd notion that the Universe created itself. in such a case the Universe itself is all powerful and responsible for the creation of life and thus "God". Atheists can try and hind behind their slander of religion when in all actuality to believe the Universe is capable of creating itself takes FAR more faith than any form of organized religion.

Yes, you can. One can be an agnostic who says, "I don't know how the universe came to be, but I don't believe in a god I can't see."

Atheism is defined by disbelief; religion, by belief.