u/goldenreddit12345

The evidence question for God is incredibly old. Unanswered to those who oppose the claim that God exists. On the contrary, voices are often heard that the evidence lies in divine revelation. Personal experience fullfills the evidence burden for the individual. Extremely easy one might say. A rational question which arises is the following:

What do we need to do to fullfill the evidence question in our minds? The answer is short but unanimous across most religions: obedience. This is found in the Bible, as well as the Qu'ran and across all the laws written down in the Torah. All in all, it is irrefutable that obedience is a necessity in these so called "Divinely inspired" scriptures. However, this is not all. It is yet to be found, how obedience leads to divine revelation. And how could one not better show that, than to turn to the Words of God Himself?

We find this requirement to be proven -verse 7- for Judaism, Jesus himself proofs this for Christianity and last but certainly not final we read this in the Qu'ran. How fantastic the rewards -either on earth or in heaven-, the process of obedience, may be, they require mankind to bow the knee. To bow the spiritual knee, the mental knee, the physical knee. It means to allow yourselves to be dictated how to live. An amazing experience. At least to some. At least? Why even bother trying? If a relationship requires full obedience, it might be worth (re)considering the value of it.

And what if we do obey? Will we be forced to sell all we own, like Jesus commanded a man? What if we obey, yet find no divine revelation to be revealed to ourselves? One cannot be sure of divine revelation, as not all who obey find it. But then you're not a good believer. What a realisation. I must give all I have, but I may only receive what is to me a blind future. All or nothing, a risk worth taking for nearly 6 billion people...

I recently had a chat with a Christian, who brought to me an apologetics argument which I find to be used quite often against atheists:

>You cannot justify morality, because your absence of believing in a deity / the spiritual means you can only say we are a set of chemical reactions.

I suppose this statement holds false presuppositions, and I'd like your take on the following presuppositions along with my thoughts behind it. Please let me know wether I should rephrase, replace or add/remove certain things. That would certainly help me with future conversations!

Being an atheist equates being an eliminative materialist: Just because I don't adhere to the believe in a deity does not mean I am reduced to nothing otherwise then to deny the existence of e.g. consciousness and reason.
There are no more then two categories (science & spirituality) regarding justification of morality: Because I hold that I am not an eliminative materialist and I am an atheist, I am forced to step out of this duality. As an atheist I would not ground morality in raw chemistry, nor in the so called "words" of a celestial being, but rather in an emergent rational agency, that is constructed by rational agents to protect (conscious) creatures. Why emergent? Because biology shows us that complex systems give rise to emergent properties.

An objection which I have found is David Hume's Is-Ought problem. To quote the man himself:

>"and of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not."

further on:

>"This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observ'd and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it."

In my defense, I would argue the following:

"Objective" morality is not to be written in the stars: It can aswell be derived rationally from a shared goal. If that goal is conscious flourishment and avoidance of unnecessary suffering, hence moral "oughts" are to be objectively measured against that goal.

To conclude: Reason provides that e.g. murder objectively harms flourishing, thereby justifying a framework built without invoking a deity or relying on pure chemical reactions.

Obedience is a risky requirement to "fullfill" the evidence burden

What is your take on presuppositions made by those that say atheists cannot justify morality?