Isn’t dignity what euthanasia is about? I would have thought that dignity is a quite a popular virtue.

Fat man lookin’ in a blade of steel
Thin man lookin’ at his last meal
Hollow man lookin’ in a cottonfield
For dignity

Wise man lookin’ in a blade of grass
Young man lookin’ in the shadows that pass
Poor man lookin’ through painted glass
For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year’s Eve
Somebody said dignity was the first to leave
I went into the city, went into the town
Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searchin’ high, searchin’ low
Searchin’ everywhere I know
Askin’ the cops wherever I go
Have you seen dignity?

Blind man breakin’ out of a trance
Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance
Hopin’ to find one circumstance
Of dignity

I went to the wedding of Mary-lou
She said she don’t want nobody see me talkin’ to you?
Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew
About dignity

I went down where the vultures feed
I would’ve got deeper, but there wasn’t any need
Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
Wasn’t any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid
Have you seen dignity?

Drinkin’ man listens to the voice he hears
In a crowded room full of covered up mirrors
Lookin’ into the lost forgotten years
For dignity

Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues
Said he’d give me information if his name wasn’t used
He wanted money up front, said he was abused
By dignity

Footprints runnin’ cross the sliver sand
Steps goin’ down into tattoo land
I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light
In the bordertowns of despair

Got no place to fade, got no coat
I’m on the rollin’ river in a jerkin’ boat
Tryin’ to read a note somebody wrote
About dignity

Sick man lookin’ for the doctor’s cure
Lookin’ at his hands for the lines that were
And into every masterpiece of literature
for dignity

Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind
Combin’ his hair back, his future looks thin
Bites the bullet and he looks within
For dignity

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
Dignity never been photographed
I went into the red, went into the black
Into the valley of dry bone dreams

So many roads, so much at stake
So many dead ends, I’m at the edge of the lake
Sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take
To find dignity

Robert Zimmerman

What does disappoint non-Christians like me is that Christians so often imply, with great modesty and humility, of course, that they are the exclusive owners and protectors of virtue, using, as Tony Payne does, irritating expressions like “Christian virtues” and “Christian values”. The values they are referring to are invariably also Bhuddist values, humanist values and pretty much universal human values.
What Christians do have in common with believers of other religions, but not atheists, is a preparedness to believe propositions for which there is no evidence. This defines “faith”, and is always unethical, as the philosopher William K Clifford so eloquently pointed out long ago.

Hi Ian,
I’ll start with an example that will help make my answer to your questions clearer. Before meteorology, it was a puzzle that water flooded down the Nile. A religious story was invented to explain it. That story was false, as I think we would both agree. (I’m pretty confident that you don’t think that the Nile floodwaters are the tears of the goddess Osiris). Someone should have said “what evidence do you have for the goddess’ tears story?” This made-up story would have been impossible to disprove at that time. That does not mean that it should have been believed. All that should have been said about the cause of the floods was “we don’t know”. If there is no evidence one way or the other, you say “I don’t know”, not “I believe”. You don’t make up a story, and then challenge others to disprove it.

Belief without evidence is unethical.  Imagine that someone accuses you of being a paedophile. Someone hearing that should say “what evidence do you have?” A reply from your accuser “Prove he’s not” would be outrageous. The person making the claim has to show the grounds for making it. If the ststement does not have a reasonable basis it is unethical to make it. It would also be unethical for anyone hearing it to believe it, in the absence of evidence. I have mentioned the philosopher William K Clifford, and he’s well worth a read on this matter.

With all that in mind, here are my answers to your two questions.

1. I don’t have to show any “compelling evidence that God does not exist” because the onus is on the person making a claim to show evidence for it. You claim there is a God. I can’t see any basis for the claim. I can see plenty of mysteries around, and plenty of reasons to say “I don’t know”, but no evidence to suggest that the existence of a God is any more likely to be an answer to any of them than Osiris turned out to be.

2. This is a long list! Here are a few items. a) that there is life after death. b) that a supernatural entity infuences events on earth c) that there is a malign spirit known as the “Devil” d) that prayer has greater effect than placebo e)that individuals have a “soul”, which is separate from mind and body f) that there is a very pleasant place or state of being called “heaven” and a most unpleasant one called “hell” g) that I (as an atheist) will spend the rest of eternity in the latter...and so on.

By the way, I know quite a few Christians who are very smart and likeable, and not at all silly. It is clear, though, that being intelligent and sensible is not enough to save some people from succumbing to the obvious temptations of wishful thinking when pondering our mortality.

I realise at this point we are a little off topic but I think what Ian has pointed out is quite important, and something not grasped by many Atheists I know.

Atheism is a claim.

If I decided to stop following Christ tomorrow I’d be an Agnostic.