Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

Penn

Why does it always come back to sex with a minor, ISAW? No society will ever think it is okay for adults to have sex with children, because the vast majority of people know it is not right. It will never happen. Society will never deem it to be okay, so could you use a less extreme example such as stealing or speeding or something? It will help your argument as well as improve the level of discussion.

ISAW

Penn wrote: »

Why does it always come back to sex with a minor, ISAW?

It is an example of absolute morals. It could be raping a woman or a number of other things. i I use "murder" as an example the relativists try to fudge and say some killing isnt murder self defence etc.

So I use some example which is always wrong even if the society says it is right.
http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/digest7e.pdf page10

“My sister was married at 14 years old. She appealed to the school to stop the
marriage, but to no avail.” 14 year old girl
“My parents married me to a man in Lekh. I had to work very hard but my parentsin-
law didn’t recognise this. My husband beat me, so I don’t like to go to his house
even though he will come to take me. I want to go to school.” 14 year old girl.

No society will ever think it is okay for adults to have sex with children, because the vast majority of people know it is not right. It will never happen.

It already has happened and continues to happen! In many societies even today.
People take tours to some countries to avail of underage services.
Many countries have child marriage. some societies even have rules advising how to go about having sex with children.

Society will never deem it to be okay, so could you use a less extreme example such as stealing or speeding or something? It will help your argument as well as improve the level of discussion.

no it will not! the point about absolute or objective morals is that some things are always wrong. why should i pick a grey example which isnt always wrong?

tommy2bad

ISAW you picked a bad example of something that absolutely bad.
The Church set the age of consent for girls at 12 and boys at 14 for a long time, so much for Gods guidance their.

ISAW

tommy2bad wrote: »

ISAW you picked a bad example of something that absolutely bad.
The Church set the age of consent for girls at 12 and boys at 14 for a long time, so much for Gods guidance their.

which is why i referred to six year olds who are not capable of bearing children.
the church has always opposed child sex.


http://rumkatkilise.org/rayabyzantium.htm#cooliris
Byzantine culture and Orthodoxy are one and the same. All these peoples
became in fact Orthodox.

Now what had they to say?:

Child sexual abuse: historical cases in the Byzantine Empire (324-1453 A.D.)
John Lascaratos and Effie Poulakou-Rebelakou
a Department of the History of Medicine, Medical School, National Athens
University and International Hippocratic Foundation of Kos., Athens, Greece
b International Hippocratic Foundation of Kos., Athens, Greece
Received 13 October 1999; revised 13 October 1999; accepted 4 December 1999.
Available online 7 July 2000.

Conclusion: The research of original Byzantine literature disclosed many
instances of child sexual abuse in all social classes even in the mediaeval
Byzantine society which was characterized by strict legal and religious
prohibitions.


Reid, Charles J., "The Rights of Children in Medieval Canon Law" (2007). U
of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-34

Kuefler, Mathew
Love, Marriage, and Family in the Middle Ages: A Reader, and: Love, Sex and
Marriage in the Middle Ages: A Sourcebook (review)
The Catholic Historical Review - Volume 90, Number 4, October 2004, pp.
743-746

The Canon Law On the Formation of Marriage and Social Practice in the Later
Middle...
Donahue Journal of Family History.1983; 8: 144-158


In fact when the Greek and Western Roman empire was acceptable of such things there are church rules going back to the third or fourth century against sex with children.

bnt

Just because we call a moral precept "absolute" now, it does not follow that it was always absolute, or that it needs to be backed by anything outside the human sphere for us to call it absolute. It's perfectly reasonable to accept that a moral is absolute because we say it is absolute. I'd even say it's part of our nature to learn about ourselves and make such decisions, regardless of what was "absolute" in the past (e.g. the way slavery was morally acceptable).

ISAW

bnt wrote: »

Just because we call a moral precept "absolute" now, it does not follow that it was always absolute, or that it needs to be backed by anything outside the human sphere for us to call it absolute. It's perfectly reasonable to accept that a moral is absolute because we say it is absolute. I'd even say it's part of our nature to learn about ourselves and make such decisions, regardless of what was "absolute" in the past (e.g. the way slavery was morally acceptable).

One can have secular natural law but even it is absolute and not relative.

Sex with a child is always wrong and the Church always said that.

slavery wasonly supported by ONE Pope for a shoirt period of time. Popes before and after the Borgia pope dint support it. But the Bible does mentioning servants slaves and masters and yes you could argue slavery -when not institutionalized and when entered into voluntarily - is not always wrong. which is why i don't offer it as an example.

tommy2bad

yes you could argue slavery -when not institutionalized and when entered into voluntarily - is not always wrong.

So the sub dom fetish is acceptable to you? Because outside of sexual fetishes I cant think of any circumstances where slavery is not wrong.

campo

Do Christians really believe that Jesus was born to a Virgin on December 25th and if so why is not in the bible surely if you were writing a Bio of Jesus this would be in it.

Oh and what about that Egyptian God think his name was Horus he was also meant to be born to a virgin, on Dec 25th, had 12 apostles and rose from the dead but all this happened 1200 BC explain that please

tommy2bad

campo wrote: »

Do Christians really believe that Jesus was born to a Virgin on December 25th and if so why is not in the bible surely if you were writing a Bio of Jesus this would be in it.

Oh and what about that Egyptian God think his name was Horus he was also meant to be born to a virgin, on Dec 25th, had 12 apostles and rose from the dead but all this happened 1200 BC explain that please

Been watching that stupid Zeitgeist?
It's a load of spherical things,

Horus was not born on December 25th, he was born on the 5th day of the "Epagomenal Days"[3], which does not even take place in December on the modern or ancient calendars, but rather between August 24th and 28th, but in terms of the rising of Sirius (August 4), they are July 30th through August 3rd[4]. His mother was also not a virgin. Horus's father was Osiris, who was killed by his brother Seth. Isis used a spell to bring him back to life for a short time so they could have sex, in which they conceived Horus[5].

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/#horus

campo

tommy2bad wrote: »

Been watching that stupid Zeitgeist?
It's a load of spherical things,


http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/#horus

Actually watched it on Religolous the Bill Maher movie but nice site thanks for link

King Mob

ISAW wrote: »

You are asking someone to prove a negative?
You do realise it is a logical fallacy?
so you admit "there is no God" can not be proved?

Yes I am asking it as a demonstration that they cannot prove a negative or provide the same thing they are asking for.
I have explained this to you several times ISAW.

tommy2bad

campo wrote: »

Actually watched it on Religolous the Bill Maher movie but nice site thanks for link

I like Maher but hes a comedian, not a reliable source of history and Bill Hicks is a better theologian.

Fanny Cradock

campo wrote: »

Do Christians really believe that Jesus was born to a Virgin on December 25th and if so why is not in the bible surely if you were writing a Bio of Jesus this would be in it.

Oh and what about that Egyptian God think his name was Horus he was also meant to be born to a virgin, on Dec 25th, had 12 apostles and rose from the dead but all this happened 1200 BC explain that please

Some probably do. However, if Bill Maher had ever bothered reading the 4 Gospels he would have noticed that nowhere is the birth date of Jesus mentioned. For that matter, if he had done the smallest amount of research into what The Book of the Dead actually says about Horus he would have noticed that Horus was not born of a virgin, that he did not have 12 apostles and his rebirth was nothing like the Jewish belief in the resurrection of the body at the end of time.

That Maher would repeat such foolishness in a film makes me think he is wilfully misinformed or a liar.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=57362872&postcount=2

muppeteer

philologos wrote: »

The thing is it isn't indistinguishable. I'm asking you to look to the very specific instance of Jesus' death, and what occurred between that point and the disciples evangelising to all nations. This is a specific instance, and it doesn't have any relation to Joseph Smith or Baba, because it was neither claimed that Joseph Smith, or Baba rose from the dead, and neither the followers of Joseph Smith, or Baba risked their very lives and reputations on the basis that either were raised from the dead.

Zombrex pointed out here

Zombrex wrote: »

If you are going to present argument about what humans would or wouldn't do in order to strengthen your evidence for the resurrection (and lets be honest that is all you have to support the resurrection) it shouldn't be a surprise to you when you are presented with counter arguments showing humans acting the opposite to how you claim they would.

I really can't improve on this so I've just re posted it. Seeking to ignore counter arguments because they differ in the minutiae while being valid examples of human reactions in similar situations is running away from uncomfortable parallels.

That's why the points that I have given are worthy of consideration rather than being fobbed off in this manner. If you were a follower of Jesus for 3 years, and you knew He was simply dead, why would you go out and face certain death rather than returning to Galilee to fish with almost certainty of a safe existence? Why would you go out into the world and proclaim that Jesus had risen from the dead?

Would a normal person do this? No. Would somebody mistaken/deluded/brainwashed do this. Yes. And we have many examples of people doing similar dangerous things for a cult which you choose to ignore.

Is it that the disciples were deluded about Him? - One person perhaps, but if you've been with someone 3 years, it's quite a difficult thing to mistake them, particularly when you claim that they have been with you for 40 days.

It's perfectly possible, and we have examples of people being mistaken/deluded about charismatic leaders.

Is it that the disciples were lying about Him? - Perhaps, but then again would you choose to go out to certain death with no gain for a lie?

Is it that there was an extraordinary event in the place of X in my previous description? - Seems natural, given that there was a clear and consistent shift in behaviour between how the disciples were at either side of it.

There is nothing natural about the suspension of the known laws of nature. It is far far more reasonable to assume that a group of people were somehow mistaken/deluded into doing dangerous preaching for a cult. We have numerous examples of this happening in groups of humans.

I really think firstly, bringing in examples which aren't comparable to the Resurrection is weak, and secondly that if one is to simply fob off the logic here, that is weak also. We need to engage with what historically happened rather than ignoring it.

The examples are comparable and relevant to your appeals to what humans do in such situations. Your logic is dependent on the premises holding up. One premise being that humans don't go recklessly preaching stuff that can get them killed. This has been shown to be incorrect.
What historically happened is that a cult wrote it's own history. We judge it's reliability not in isolation but against similar cult histories.
If you choose to ignore the wider world you are depriving yourself of the information that can help you judge if these stories are believable or not.

You say that the world corresponds with the bible. That may be true if you ignore huge chunks of the world. Willfully ignoring that which is challenging does not support your claim that Christianity is a reasonable position. Ignoring chunks of the wider world is not reasonable as I see it.

Perhaps not necessary for you. It would be necessary for me to be convinced that atheism corresponded with reality to see why it does.

Can you please provide the evidence that supports the positive argument that aunicornism matches reality?
Please can you answer this question if only to see what kind of thought process you are using here.

I'll deal with the subjective/objective morality question in a separate post to keep things tidier.

The problem is that they haven't been refuted. I can respond to each and every one of your objections. Even if I do respond to your objections, I think nonetheless you will suppress the truth. I am glad to be able to defend the Gospel whenever I can though, so that perhaps someone might read what I say and think a bit more about why God makes sense, and about Jesus saving them from their sin as He rescued me, and He can rescue all mankind if they are willing to accept it.

You haven't refuted each objection at all. You have tried to dodge them. I won't expect you to pick apart each one but I would like to at least have one dealt with.
To suggest I would suppress the truth is a little unfair I think. Your truth as you see it is different from how I see it but I would never seek to suppress it. I would only ever try to convince.

My point is that the Old Testament was written 600 years before Jesus. Jesus according to both the New Testament, and according to external historical documents has fulfilled the Old Testament.

And my point is that prophecy is a crock. I used Nostradamus as an example of it being a crock. It offers no support to your position if you are prepared to look up from the bible and see how prophecy is manufactured in the rest of the world.

No, I only want to discuss Jesus, because I am a Christian. A follower of Jesus.

If you want to discuss these other guys, find someone who is concerned with defending them.

See above for why this position is not justified.

I've explained to you why that analogy is weak. It ignores the specific instance of the Resurrection, which I've asked you to respond to rather than running away from. The Resurrection differs clearly from the other events you've described, and I'm fairly sure you know that.

See above.

It's hardly "hyperactive" when there are very good grounds for believing in a God, over postulating a multiverse to explain Him away. Besides, if there is no objective truth, and if humans cannot speak objectively about anything, this puts your position into quite a conundrum as to whether or not there can be any truth external to the mind.

The multiverse theory doesn't explain away a god. It is just a theory that falls out of some very heavy mathematics. It is not terribly testable at the moment also so it pretty much explains nothing away. And my position is in no way dependent on any kind of multiverse theory by the way.

Postulating multiverses to explain this universe seems to be "hyperactive" to me, but each to their own. I'll take the "hyperactive" and abundantly reasonable God.

Well as the multiverse theory doesn't posit an intelligent agent it would be difficult to shoehorn it into a type of hyperactive agency detection. Whereas your God, as well as all the other gods/fairys/angels/spirits fit rather nicely into known psychological dispositions.
So I'll ask again as you didn't answer it last time,
Did the early Jews and Christians have some sort of defense so that hyperactive agency detection did not make them see gods in the natural world?

Cheers again for taking the time to respond. I'll deal with the objective morals stuff later.

muppeteer

philologos wrote: »

It isn't subjective, and nobody operates on that basis.

It's really simple to find this out. If morality was subjective to the person, you would have no right or no means of claiming that it wasn't objectively wrong for another person to go fieldshooting humans on a Sunday morning. Who would you be to claim that your relative moral standard was any more significant or meaningful than the others was?

You are correct, I have no means to say it is objectively wrong to go human field shooting. I do have the means to say it is subjectively wrong, as I have a human mind with which to do so.
I and many others operate on this basis so it isn't nobody. On what basis do you make the assertion that "It isn't subjective" other than your own opinion?
Most who do have subjective ethics are not raving nutters so we don't go human field shooting or differ too much from the normal social norms in our societies. We'd be hard to identify on the street from anyone else from our behavior or personality without getting into a heavy philosophical discussion.

Again, it is not true in the case of diplomacy, or in any other means of human ethical reasoning. The more and more one sees what happens in the world, the more and more that people can see that it is a plain lie that ethics are down to the observer. There are things that are wrong, and there are things which are right. It doesn't necessarily mean that people can't be mistaken or confused on moral or ethical issues, but it does mean that they are there and can be objectively grasped. Much in the same way that the principles on which mathematics are built exist and are there to be grasped.

You are making an appeal to how you yourself see ethics in the world as evidence of how ethics in the world work. You will see why that won't be convincing to me or others.
I would also point out the irony in using an appeal to how you subjectively see ethics as evidence of objective ethics:)

Mathematics is based on axioms and logic. There is very little that could be called subjective when anyone or anything could arrive at the same mathematical conclusion completely independently provided the same chosen axioms are used. The same is not true for ethics and morals as the very axioms themselves are the important part.

The problem with your position is, that yes, if we are merely postulating an absolute, then you're right it's only my opinion and your opinion that matters, but if there is a God who has clearly spoken into this reality through His word to us, then it is neither a matter for you or for me to speculate on. It is abundantly real.

OK I'll pretend a god exists for a moment.
If a god is directly informing you by beaming it perfectly into your brain what is the objective moral standard then perhaps you can know the objective moral standard.
If that same perfect information is shown to you/read to you from a book then you will inevitably interpret it in your own mind, and in that instant it has become subjective.
The fact that an objective moral standard could exist if a god exists does nothing to solve the problem of you subjectively interpreting it just as much as I subjectively interpret my own ethics.

There is also a problem in where the god derived the objective moral standard. We may or may not want to go down this rabbit hole:)

Look at it this way. Let's say that there's a girl called Lucy. One of her classmates at school writes a nasty note claiming that Lucy is a dog. Any reasonable person could speculate as to whether or not it was true that Lucy was a dog, Lucy could after all be someone's pet. However, if Lucy speaks for herself, then it is Lucy's word that is authoritative. Likewise, if God speaks, and He is the moral law giver, then His word counts, particularly if He is to judge by it.

I'm unsure how this analogy fits with what you were saying. Lucy subjectively thinks she is not a dog. Lucy nor a god get a free pass if they themselves have decided what the moral standard is.

So yes, if there is no God and if that is a near certainty, then there is no objective moral standards. The problem is that it is abundant that people work on objective moral principles. This leads me to think that it is more probable that there is an objective moral law, and there is an objective moral law giver, and by implication there is an objective being with authority over us, and that He like Lucy has the right to speak about Himself.

You are appealing again to how people appear to operate to you. Even if ALL people appeared to operate on objective morals it lends no support to this matching reality. For example people appearing to operate on the assumption that Hindu gods are real gives no support to the proposition that Hindu gods are real.

As for a deist Thomas Jefferson. My point was that the common idea of human rights in the West is on the basis that they are unalienable. If human rights are unalienable, why is that? If human rights are dispensible what use are they if nations can give and revoke them. If human rights are no assurance as to how nations should act, what is the point of them. I.E if human rights are not unalienable or beyond human authorities, they are null and void, they are meaningless, and they shouldn't be strived towards.

They are useful because they help us be nicer to each other. To have respect for human life as one day I may depend on another human having respect for my life. They are absolutely not meaningless as the rights help us build the society we wish to build, a farer, more humane society. Just because we choose this for ourselves without a god to dictate to us does not lessen the achievements of human rights in any way.

If human rights are the essential ethical liberties that all people should have, then they cannot be based on mere opinion, but they must be principles which humans can neither give, or take away. Even if States do suppress these liberties, our objective moral sense would say that people have been wronged. I.E - that the party that denies these principles are wrong. If they are wrong, then there must be an objective standard between both parties to suggest that they are wrong. Otherwise, it could be just as likely that the other party is right.

If a state denies these rights and liberties they are just as wrong to a human with a subjective ethical outlook as the human who thinks he has an objective moral outlook, who in practice has chosen his morals subjectively.

That's the problem with atheism in a sense. If there is no objective moral value, one cannot make objective moral claims about ethical truth, or truth in general. As a result one cannot argue genuinely that the other is objectively wrong as there is no concept of an objective arbitrator between good and evil.

You have this absolutely correct but I don't see this as a problem in the slightest. Can you help me understand why this is a problem for you?

It is possible to have subjective morals and apply them pretty absolutely without compromise. But this isn't trying to apply an obsolete morality though.
This may be where you gain the impression that humanity operates on objective morals. Hell, if you met me in the street you could easily assume I operate on objective notions of right and wrong when I'm crying because somebody stole my ice cream.
As an example, sex with a child was mentioned. I would view this as absolutely wrong and as presented this can never be justified as being an ethical choice. I make this judgment using my subjective assessment of what causes harm to other sapient beings. I make no appeal to a god or a natural universal morality of the universe.

Evolution doesn't explain away my argument either, nor does it explain away a Creator as much as atheists would like it to. There is no reason why one can't believe in evolution and in God as the force behind Creation.

Even if evolution gave us our conscience. One cannot argue that evolution itself is the standard we appeal to for objectivity in decision making. Also, you've just claimed that morality is relative, not objective. To say that ethical decision making is relative and objective at the same time is like having your cake and eating it too.

I've only claimed that evolution explains our common empathy and much of our baser ethical behavior. It explains why we are somewhat uniform in our assessments of what is cruel and what is wrong. Culture plays a huge role in our ethical norms too though, so much so that our evolved base can be warped and diverted into all sorts of ethical positions, both good and bad.

I made no appeal to our evolved ethical abilities being any kind of objective standard. Can I have my cake back now?:)

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty interested in computers and that's what I work with, so I'll give you an example in respect to that. It's like saying that one can have an absolute and a relative path to a directory in the same path.

Let's say
C:\test\folder and folder. One is absolute because it goes from the root drive up. The other is relative from C:\test, it is defined in relation to that folder.

I'd consider myself a big old teccie but I'm afraid this analogy hasn't helped explain things.

Likewise, an objective ethical standard is absolute to all of us. A relative ethical standard is in relation to ourselves. Either we are the moral arbitrators of ourselves. Or an objective standard external to us is. If we are the ethical arbitrators of ourselves, it follows logically that others are the moral arbitrators of themselves. As a result you have limited jurisdiction to claim that they are doing anything wrong, you can only speak for yourself. If there is an ethical standard external to ourselves which we all naturally appeal to, then you can appeal absolutely to it in the case of ethical wrongdoing, because right and wrong are clearly defined, they are not up for individuals to decide for themselves. If there is a moral law external to us, there is also a moral law giver, an arbitrator of this standard. That seems to be God.

That's simple logic.

Correct, I do have limited jurisdiction to claim anything is wrong. I have limited jurisdiction to enforce my ethical outlook on others. Generally this is fine and dandy as others don't bother me and I don't bother others.
The only problem occurs is when we consider society as a whole. As a member of a society we do impose our ethical outlook on other members of that society. Usually for the protection and benefit of society.
We do not have to appeal to an objective moral giver to give ourselves the right to do this. It is a form of self protection. We choose it for ourselves and when we deem it appropriate we use a big stick to get our own way.

TL;DR
You assert that a human, subjectively appealing to an objective moral law, is somehow superior/different to a human subjectively appealing to a subjective ethical stance without showing why.
You assert that humans operate under an objective moral law but have not shown this to be the case.
You assert that having humans operate under an objective moral law somehow shows that an objective moral law exists, but you have not shown why this must be the case.
You assert that an objective moral law must have a law giver, but have not shown why that must be the case.
You assert that a moral law giver must be a god without showing why this must be.
Even if you assume all the above is true, despite all the counter points, you still run into the Euthyphro dilemma.

tommy2bad

muppeteer;
We choose it for ourselves and when we deem it appropriate we use a big stick to get our own way.

See its the big stick that bothers me because then it the stick that counts not the subjective or objective reason.

muppeteer

tommy2bad wrote: »

See its the big stick that bothers me because then it the stick that counts not the subjective or objective reason.

Some people just can't be reasoned with. We would prefer to appeal to our subjective ethics all of the time, that our way is a better, reasoned, more peaceful way. These appeals to good ethics can count and have worked better than a biggest stick competition.
But humans being humans it doesn't always work and so you reluctantly carry a stick. Poland 1939 would have liked a bigger stick.

lmaopml

muppeteer wrote: »

Some people just can't be reasoned with. We would prefer to appeal to our subjective ethics all of the time, that our way is a better, reasoned, more peaceful way. These appeals to good ethics can count and have worked better than a biggest stick competition.
But humans being humans it doesn't always work and so you reluctantly carry a stick. Poland 1939 would have liked a bigger stick.

So, basically you are saying that you are carrying your very own one in your back pocket somewhere about..

muppeteer

lmaopml wrote: »

So, basically you are saying that you are carrying your very own one in your back pocket somewhere about..

Not my own as such, but I suppose the Irish state carries one for me in the form of the police who protect me and others from individuals who cannot be reasoned with. And on a larger scale the EU, UN and NATO carry an array of obscenely big sticks that protect me from any new age Hitlers.

lmaopml

muppeteer wrote: »

Not my own as such, but I suppose the Irish state carries one for me in the form of the police who protect me and others from individuals who cannot be reasoned with. And on a larger scale the EU, UN and NATO carry an array of obscenely big sticks that protect me from any new age Hitlers.

Me too Muppeteer....We need to learn to engage with people properly methinks- there are no utterly bad people, but there are some zealots who won't walk away or turn the other cheek either - but meeting them head on solves little.

Imo, Christ walked right into their midst, and unbelievably asks others to do so too. That's exactly the cure - strange, weird and wild as it seems.

You have to remember this is the Christianity forum.

ISAW

muppeteer wrote: »

Not my own as such, but I suppose the Irish state carries one for me in the form of the police who protect me and others from individuals who cannot be reasoned with. And on a larger scale the EU, UN and NATO carry an array of obscenely big sticks that protect me from any new age Hitlers.

But that is the very reasoning that enabled fascism and the Nazis in the first place.
I am very wary of authorities who claim to be protecting me.

muppeteer

ISAW wrote: »

But that is the very reasoning that enabled fascism and the Nazis in the first place.
I am very wary of authorities who claim to be protecting me.

As you should be wary, as they are representing you and your ethical stance somewhat. We give consent to be protected under the rule of law by the police instead of all of us trying to protect ourselves.

The reasoning that enabled the excess of fascism was dehumanising those that were the "other".
The reasoning that defeated the fascists was realising that an appeal to their morals would not work and that it was time to build big sticks or we'll be the next "other".

Zombrex

tommy2bad wrote: »

See its the big stick that bothers me because then it the stick that counts not the subjective or objective reason.

It is the stick that counts. No one can force someone else to agree with them. You can force them not to do the thing that you think is bad.

This is why appeals to the existence of objective morality are useless even if we suppose such objective morality exists. An non-demonstratable objectively morality is as useless as none at all.

himnextdoor

tommy2bad wrote: »

Revelations isnt anyones plan or even a phrophesy of things to come, thinking that it is is your first mistake.

So what is Revelations then; a threat?

himnextdoor

ISAW wrote: »

Of course if your friends interlocutor was saying "of course it is not always wrong to have sex with children" you would have no argument with them at all?

You seem to imply that my friends and I are either paedophiles or paedophile sympathisers; why would you do that?

himnextdoor

ISAW wrote: »

Is an adult having sex with a child always wrong no matter how any of them say they experience it?

What do you mean by 'wrong'; do you mean 'evil'?

ISAW wrote: »

Her is a test for you: Is sex between a grown adult of sound mind and a six year old always wrong?

How can you describe a grown adult who has sex with a six-year old as being 'of sound mind'?

Let me ask you something; what is it about having sex with children that is bad/wrong/evil?

I mean, if you are going to claim that there is an objective morality then what is the difference between 'good' and 'evil'?

Is slavery an evil thing; were slaves good for the Egypt built by the Pharaohs? Is it a good thing that Egypt achieved the things it did? Could it have been done without slavery?

In other words, what can you say about slavery that is both objective and an issue of morality. You could say that slavery provides a cheap work-force; that is an objective thing but it has no moral implications. It is when you look at it from a slave's point of view and the slave-owner's point of view that morality comes into it; and 'point of view' is 'subjective'.

But back to the topic; your objective morality is basically - what God says is good is good and what God says is evil is evil. Is that fair?

The problem is that God has changed His 'will' on so many occasions as to show that good and evil depend on how God feels, i.e., morality is subjective to God. It's okay to have slaves but it's not okay for Jews to be slaves; it's okay to kill babies even as they suckle but 'thou shalt not kill'.

Morality is entirely and absolutely subjective; good and evil aren't actually 'things'.

Remember the story of Noah? God 'repented of creating man' and sent the flood. Later He regretted sending the flood and promised not to do it again. In other words, God thought He'd made a mistake by making mankind, lost His rag and calmed down after about forty days, realised that He'd made a mistake by thinking He'd made a mistake and apologised in a roundabout way by sending a rainbow or something.

So, if there is an objective morality then God doesn't seem to be all that connected to it.

Also, when He realised He'd acted disproportionately by sending the flood, why didn't God just press the 'Undo' button or do a 'System Restore' to a point before the flood? That way, there would be no record of the cock-up.

How do you reconcile a 'perfect God' with a God that got it wrong twice in the same story?

Or is it your view that bad-tempered and irrational are elements of perfection?

himnextdoor

tommy2bad wrote: »

See its the big stick that bothers me because then it the stick that counts not the subjective or objective reason.

Now you're getting it; the stick is objectivity and the reasoning is subjectivity. The stick is just a stick, morality depends on which end of the stick you are at.

himnextdoor

ISAW wrote: »

But that is the very reasoning that enabled fascism and the Nazis in the first place.
I am very wary of authorities who claim to be protecting me.

It is the same reasoning that led to the Nurenburg trials too.

Fanny Cradock

muppeteer wrote: »

There is nothing natural about the suspension of the known laws of nature.

Small point of order here. But Christians - and possibly other theistic religions - are not suggesting a suspension of the known laws of nature. Firstly, the known laws of nature our our observations about how nature works. If neutrinos were suddenly and quite conclusively observed to travel faster than the speed of light then no one would say that the laws of nature had been suspended. We would say that our previous knowledge, codified in things we call laws, happened to be wrong. The history of science is built upon discarded theories. Secondly, Christians don't believe that the universe (or the multiverse if you prefer) is a closed system. We believe that God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, is not subject to it.

muppeteer

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Small point of order here. But Christians - and possibly other theistic religions - are not suggesting a suspension of the known laws of nature. Firstly, the known laws of nature our our observations about how nature works. If neutrinos were suddenly and quite conclusively observed to travel faster than the speed of light then no one would say that the laws of nature had been suspended. We would say that our previous knowledge, codified in things we call laws, happened to be wrong. The history of science is built upon discarded theories. Secondly, Christians don't believe that the universe (or the multiverse if you prefer) is a closed system. We believe that God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, is not subject to it.

I suppose I could clarify suspension as being something occurring that has never before been verified in an independent manner. Something that actually goes against all that we currently know/have verified, about the natural world. It isn't to say that our knowledge is complete or that such a thing could not conceptually happen if you have an extra universal god.

We are left with an explanation for X that is dependent on accepting an extra universal and interventionist god preforming an event which goes against all that we have verified about the natural world.
We are are supposed to believe this supernatural account for X is credible based on the history of a cult that the cult wrote itself.
We are supposed to ignore all the similar cases where cults have endangered themselves for beliefs and histories which are transparently false and not supernatural, because this one time it happened it was for real.

The non supernatural explanation requires no extraordinary, non verified event and no trusting a self written cult account of this event.
We have in support of it an array of cases where humans have been obviously mistaken backed up by the knowledge that humans are susceptible to such mistakes.

Occams razor applied above will slice away the supernatural arguments.