"If there is no God"

In reply to this image, a Christian fundamentalist objected.

They wrote:
"Huh? If there is no god there’s no such thing as good or evil. Just atoms smashing around and the illusion of free will in a meaningless meat bag robot experiencing junk before returning to stardust. In that case morals are purely meaningless abstract self suggestions."

---
My reply to that
is this:

I understand that's your inner nihilist speaking.
I understand you found a religion which both fosters and caters to the needs of that nihilistic state.
But your religion lies
when it presents such a blatantly false dichotomy.

A vast multitude of people have lived very rich, beautiful, peaceful, adventurous, connected, fulfilling lives
without being a Christian.

Many of those people have been Buddhists, Pantheists, Panentheists, Pandeists, Native Indigenous Spiritual, Energists, Wiccans, etc..

Many have also been utterly non-religious.

Meanwhile, nothing in your reply
addressed anything in the OP.
But your religion numbs reasoning so much that you didn't even realize it.

Equally problematic are all the other fallacies baked into your reply.

Religious fundamentalism seems to treat every related conversation
as some great challenge
to see how many fallacies they can cram into the space of a fortune cookie.

We should examine those, for a moment.
But first, I should clarify where I'm coming from.

I don't speak as an atheist.

The term "atheist" is meaningless
because the word "theist" is meaningless.

The term "theist" is so empty
because the word "god" is so empty.
It just means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. So we may as well just make up a word like "Fruhaha" or "Pingerdoodle".

And that takes us to your opener.

"If there is no Pingerdoodle, there’s no such thing as good or evil."
Now it's easier to realize that the only content there is a blanket appeal to "Might Makes Right".

Authoritarianism
rears its ugly head; yet again.

So then,
the question really comes down to:

How can anyone decide what's good or bad
without a giant bully threatening to kick their ass if they don't let HIM decide?

By that logic, how can the Great Pingerdoodle justify its own evaluations, without something even stronger and meaner to defer to?

Theoretical-It may regard itself as perfect.
But by whose standards?

The inability to recognize ones own tragic failings
doesn't magically make those failings into virtues.

Nor does being a sycophantic Flying Monkey for an imaginary Narcissist
count as good evidence that Narcissism "in its purest form" is truly divine.

Meanwhile,
how were you able to form any opinion on slavery, pedophilia, or kicking puppies?

Bibles sanction slavery.
And those writers had no stated opinions at all about pedophilia or puppy-kicking.

Christians (eventually) figured it out
without any mighty Pingerdoodle TELLING them what to think about such things.

So why do Christians get a free "think for yourself (sometimes)" card, while everyone else should feel unqualified for doing the same?

Consider healthcare.
There is not a county in the world where a Healthcare provider is paid to do harm on purpose.

Nor do any of them get into heated debates about if randomly GIVING a patient a horrible disease is a valid opinion about what it means to provide healthcare.

Nor do any of those countries (not even one) defer to Bibles to inform or settle that matter for them.

Everyone, without the aid of a Pingerdoodle, figured out the difference between hurting and healing patients.

Exactly how to help people is another matter entirely.
But Bible writers were just as unhelpful there too.

There is only a very narrow band of controversy
for what counts as something a Dr should vs shouldn't do.
And most of that controversy is caused by politically weaponized religious fundamentalists.

Without help from any Pingerdoodle cult, people realized the logical, practical, and ethical reasons for trying to help people who are suffering.

Nobody ever stood up in the excitement of some bible-based epiphany and said
"Oh my God!
This book is right!
We should try to cure sickness and stave off early deaths for whoever we give a shit about!"

Such ambitions far predate Biblical cults.

Compassion and empathy aren't derived from commandments.
They are biological drivers.
And those go a lot further when we take religious tribalism out of the picture.

The desire to live in a safe society
logically provides automatic justification for trying to help create such a society.

We never needed religion for that.

In fact, the Abrahamic religions have often worked against the common good.

In fact,
Christian factions can't actually agree
WITH
EACH
OTHER
about what counts as good or bad.
-At least, when it comes to anything that Bible writers had some "God-Given" opinion about.

Only in matters which Bible writers were silent about ... do Christians enjoy a broad and meaningful consensus;
shared also with a majority of non-Christians.

So how can anyone argue in any seriousness
that any Christian's appeal to "a greater moral authority" ... actually solves anything?

BIBLES
do not provide moral foundation.
Nor do they foster global harmony of values.
They merely provide random, entitled, narcisisstic humans with a fictional badge of authority.

As fictionally authorized Deputies of a Cosmic Sherriff, ...
every such human reserves "The God-Given Right" to decide for everyone else
what counts as good and bad.
======
Christianity isn't even really a religion.

It's a pretentious but effective pseudo-spiritual THEME;
used as a front (a cover) for mafia power-cults.

Rival criminal syndicates; competing for power, profit, and prestige.

The offer of "grace" is psychological abuse; disguised (gaslit) as an "undeserved kindness".

It's also used as a marketing gimmick for Christianity's mafia protection racket.

"That's a nice soul you have there. It would be a shame if something ... bad happened to it".

Racism, colonizing, and chattel Slavery.

Persecution of "Heretics".

Witch burning.

"Manifest Destiny"

Helping monsters seize and hold power
as Hitler's armies attempted to exterminate everyone the Conservative Christian churches saw as vermin.

/

Attempting AGAIN to make the "Third Reich" of Jesus.

Meanwhile,
the Catholic Church,
mainstream Protestant-Evangelical's,
and fringe-independent Christian-cults (like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses)
are all competing for who can build the most effective network
of legally-sheltered sexual predators.