Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Part 2)

silverharp · 15-03-2015 08:34PM

Cen taurus wrote: »

Scripture details that the first thing mankind did as soon as it became morally culpable for its own actions and choices was to reject God in preference for evil, yet God is always willing to try and salvage mankind, this culminated in Christ and spreading the his commandments and teachings to the world.

there was no first human though , evolution is a process whatever snapshot you take. Homo erectus for example made tools and managed to control fire , so somewhere along the line they could have become "morally culpable" . They couldnt reject god becasue they were never informed. You have to picture that humanity sprang out of different places with small groups with no communication possibilities. I'd imagine there is a fairly wide window of hundreds of thousands of years where Humans were "morally culpable" but lacked the ability to communicate/retain the idea of a god.
And again this knocks on the head any idea that there was a perfect earth, Every generation of human and pre human has had to live in an imperfect world surrounded by killer bugs like cholera. Either God was uncaring and unjust plus making "flawed" humans" or the jewish story is a myth. Myth is logical

tommy2bad · 15-03-2015 08:48PM

orubiru wrote: »

Great post.

[snip]

I have no problem at all with the idea that there may be some kind of "God" but specific claims such as "Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected" need specific proof.

The thing is they don't outside of a Judaic Christian context. Claims about Jesus or Buddha belong in their context. If you don't accept the concept of god then any claims are irrelevant. Jesus did not come to prove God, he is not proof of god. If you believe in God then you might be persuaded Jesus is God made man, but that persuasion will be a carefully constructed argument that starts with the premise; God exists.

And yeah their are a lot of people who make claims about God based not on what they know about God but on what they want God to be. The ultimate blasphemy, creating God in your own image. Which is why I try to be, well, less than specific as to what God is, wants or says.

orubiru · 15-03-2015 08:49PM

Cen taurus wrote: »

Scripture details that the first thing mankind did as soon as it became morally culpable for its own actions and choices was to reject God in preference for evil, yet God is always willing to try and salvage mankind, this culminated in Christ and spreading the his commandments and teachings to the world.

I know its going a bit off topic but I find this to be a really grim view of the world.

The vast majority of people I have encountered in this world are good people. They just want to get on with their lives. The people doing "evil" are very much in the minority.

Human beings are inherently loving, caring, happy and empathetic. I do not think that we have a preference for evil at all. If anything we have a preference for good. Evil is the exception.

Of course, there are bad people but they really are a minority. Its unfair to paint the entirety of mankind as prone to evil or guilty of sins etc. Its just not true.

Not an attack on you personally, by the way, I just don't think that we are all that bad. Very few of us could be described as evil.

orubiru · 15-03-2015 08:52PM

tommy2bad wrote: »

The thing is they don't outside of a Judaic Christian context. Claims about Jesus or Buddha belong in their context. If you don't accept the concept of god then any claims are irrelevant. Jesus did not come to prove God, he is not proof of god. If you believe in God then you might be persuaded Jesus is God made man, but that persuasion will be a carefully constructed argument that starts with the premise; God exists.

And yeah their are a lot of people who make claims about God based not on what they know about God but on what they want God to be. The ultimate blasphemy, creating God in your own image. Which is why I try to be, well, less than specific as to what God is, wants or says.

I have no argument with any of this. You are making some excellent points here.

tommy2bad · 15-03-2015 09:06PM

orubiru wrote: »

I know its going a bit off topic but I find this to be a really grim view of the world.

The vast majority of people I have encountered in this world are good people. They just want to get on with their lives. The people doing "evil" are very much in the minority.

Human beings are inherently loving, caring, happy and empathetic. I do not think that we have a preference for evil at all. If anything we have a preference for good. Evil is the exception.

Of course, there are bad people but they really are a minority. Its unfair to paint the entirety of mankind as prone to evil or guilty of sins etc. Its just not true.

Not an attack on you personally, by the way, I just don't think that we are all that bad. Very few of us could be described as evil.

I kind off agree here, most people are doing their best in difficult circumstance. The Christian take is that we all sin, sin is now part of the DNA of creation. Only with God's grace can we overcome this but we must take advantage of that grace. It is not imposed on us.
All of which is fine and dandy but it makes it hard for the guy doing his best when I can just say no! I'm looking after no1, do me some evil an get rich, laid or powerfull.
I even doubt anyone acts from purely selfish reasons, though selfish reasons play into it, I think fear drives most evil, fear of hunger, fear of being alone, fear of being at the mercy of others.
anyway just musing, carry on!

indioblack · 15-03-2015 09:46PM

tommy2bad wrote: »

I kind off agree here, most people are doing their best in difficult circumstance. The Christian take is that we all sin, sin is now part of the DNA of creation. Only with God's grace can we overcome this but we must take advantage of that grace. It is not imposed on us.
All of which is fine and dandy but it makes it hard for the guy doing his best when I can just say no! I'm looking after no1, do me some evil an get rich, laid or powerfull.
I even doubt anyone acts from purely selfish reasons, though selfish reasons play into it, I think fear drives most evil, fear of hunger, fear of being alone, fear of being at the mercy of others.
anyway just musing, carry on!

Carry on Musing!

Frank Bullitt · 15-03-2015 09:54PM

Cen taurus
To put someone like Harris ahead of Einstien and Fenyman, and the wider scientific commuinity, speaks for itself.

Neurobiologist and historian of Science, Kenan Malik, (a humanist), sums up Harris claims that science can be an authority on morality :

"Imagine a sociologist who wrote about evolutionary theory without discussing the work of Darwin, Fisher, Mayr, Hamilton, Trivers or Dawkins on the grounds that he did not come to his conclusions by reading about biology and because discussing concepts such as "adaptation", "speciation", "homology", "phylogenetics" or "kin selection" would "increase the amount of boredom in the universe". How seriously would we, and should we, take his argument?"

So you are saying that Harris, who is a philosopher and neuroscientist, doesn't have any kind of argument over Einstein, who was a theoretical physicist? On what grounds? Simply because he is Einstein?

And this is despite the fact that Einstein argued more or less, the same point that Harris makes in connection between scientific and moral truth in terms similar to those made in The Moral Landscape.

A quote from Einstein on this:

For pure logic all axioms are arbitrary, including the axioms of ethics. But they are by no means arbitrary from a psychological and genetic point of view. They are derived from our inborn tendencies to avoid pain and annihilation, and from the accumulated emotional reaction of individuals to the behavior of their neighbors.

And

However, ethical directives can be made rational and coherent by logical thinking and empirical knowledge. If we can agree on some fundamental ethical propositions, then other theoretical propositions can be derived from them, provided that the original premises are stated with sufficient precision. Such ethical premises play a similar role in ethics, to that played by axioms in mathematics.

Cen taurus
Given the millions of people that suffered and died under state atheism, even for Hitchens that's a pretty crude strawman.

State atheism? You mean Communism I presume? Stalin was a confirmed atheist but his dictatorship was far from that. He was raised as a Christian, was enrolled in a seminary school and also studied to be a priest under his own will. No strawman (which you like to mention quite a lot in here) was used to put forward his argument.

To quite Hitchens on it directly

For Joseph Stalin, who had trained to be a priest in a seminary in Georgia, the whole thing was ultimately a question of power. “How many divisions,” he famously and stupidly inquired, “has the pope?” (The true answer to his boorish sarcasm was, “More than you think.”) Stalin then pedantically repeated the papal routine of making science conform to dogma, by insisting that the shaman and charlatan Trofim Lysenko had disclosed the key to genetics and promised extra harvests of specially inspired vegetables. (Millions of innocents died of gnawing internal pain as a consequence of this “revelation.”) This Caesar unto whom all things were dutifully rendered took care, as his regime became a more nationalist and statist one, to maintain at least a puppet church that could attach its traditional appeal to his.

So saying that Stalins Communist regime was a secular one, is simply getting history wrong. The people of the state were told that the head of the state is also a supernatural being, Stalin stepped in and took full advantage of that, then followed by miracles, witch hunts, multiple miraculous harvests per year and heresy hunts. You trying to say that that state was secular?

And you still haven't attempted to answer the question, name a moral act performed by a believer that could not have been done so by a non-believer.

marienbad · 15-03-2015 11:53PM

Cen taurus wrote: »

It's not my argument it's his. Yet again, I've yet to see a single argument advanced against Christianity on this forum or elsewhere, that is not based on false premises, fallacies, straw men, misrepresentation etc. Including this post. If you've got anything, that isn't post it up. Surely you must be capable of presenting something that isn't after almost 6,000 posts ?

What is the point ? You don't read all posts and those you do you give no indication you understand !

Just never ending rudeness ,fallacies ,strawmen,ad hominem and not just in this thread .

You haven't provided any evidence to prove the premises and claims of your argument.

Anything to contribute yet ? Any independent thought ,any point of your own ?

Any answers ....ever ?

Got anything

MaxWig · 16-03-2015 10:15AM

orubiru wrote: »

I know its going a bit off topic but I find this to be a really grim view of the world.

The vast majority of people I have encountered in this world are good people. They just want to get on with their lives. The people doing "evil" are very much in the minority.

Human beings are inherently loving, caring, happy and empathetic. I do not think that we have a preference for evil at all. If anything we have a preference for good. Evil is the exception.

Of course, there are bad people but they really are a minority. Its unfair to paint the entirety of mankind as prone to evil or guilty of sins etc. Its just not true.

Not an attack on you personally, by the way, I just don't think that we are all that bad. Very few of us could be described as evil.

I think the point is that evil is neutral in it's origin. Evil exists because man exists. And, with every step taken and choice made by free man, potentially (or definitively) more evil is unleashed into the world.

When (wo)man was prehistoric, pre-consciousness, pre-human - there was no evil! How could there be? No choice was ours. We acted automatically, like the animals - lost in ignorance.

But as soon as we became 'man', evil was born with us. Not because we 'are' evil, but because we experience it. We understand the terror and the beauty now. Heaven and hell.

ScumLord · 16-03-2015 10:55AM

Cen taurus wrote: »

Scripture details that the first thing mankind did as soon as it became morally culpable for its own actions and choices was to reject God in preference for evil, yet God is always willing to try and salvage mankind, this culminated in Christ and spreading the his commandments and teachings to the world.

How did people reject god? By eating the apple? Knowing the human condition like we do today that act was a set up by god, that's the only thing it could have been.

You bring a human into an enclosed area and point out one thing that will give them superpowers then tell them not to use that thing, what did he really expect to happen, I mean god made us, how can he get so pissed off when we act out his programing.

Do people treat their children like that? Look children here's a chocolate bar that will make you super smart I'm going to leave it here in the middle of the room and go outside, nobody eat it or you're rejecting me your mother and I'll hold it against your for the rest of your life.

The god described in the bible is a horrible creature. Jesus was sound though, I could go along with pretty much everything he said.

silverharp · 16-03-2015 11:10AM

ScumLord wrote: »

How did people reject god? By eating the apple? Knowing the human condition like we do today that act was a set up by god, that's the only thing it could have been.

You bring a human into an enclosed area and point out one thing that will give them superpowers then tell them not to use that thing, what did he really expect to happen, I mean god made us, how can he get so pissed off when we act out his programing.

Do people treat their children like that? Look children here's a chocolate bar that will make you super smart I'm going to leave it here in the middle of the room and go outside, nobody eat it or you're rejecting me your mother and I'll hold it against your for the rest of your life.

The god described in the bible is a horrible creature. Jesus was sound though, I could go along with pretty much everything he said.

I'd agree that such a god if it existed would be evil by our own standards. As for Jesus being sound, yes and no , I'd say no in that if you took his views literally one was not to invest in the future but to sell up and follow him. Society wouldn't get very far if everyone did this. The Amish would look positively progessive and heretical

ScumLord · 16-03-2015 12:59PM

silverharp wrote: »

As for Jesus being sound, yes and no , I'd say no in that if you took his views literally one was not to invest in the future but to sell up and follow him.

Selling up what little you own to follow a new way of life wouldn't have been as life changing as it would be today. They were very dependant on their skills, many people would have been able to feed themselves, they wouldn't be completely dependant on society like we are today.

orubiru · 16-03-2015 01:35PM

MaxWig wrote: »

I think the point is that evil is neutral in it's origin. Evil exists because man exists. And, with every step taken and choice made by free man, potentially (or definitively) more evil is unleashed into the world.

When (wo)man was prehistoric, pre-consciousness, pre-human - there was no evil! How could there be? No choice was ours. We acted automatically, like the animals - lost in ignorance.

But as soon as we became 'man', evil was born with us. Not because we 'are' evil, but because we experience it. We understand the terror and the beauty now. Heaven and hell.

The thing is though that "evil" wouldn't just be introduced as the flick of a switch. We didn't become Man in an instant and so evil could not have come in to existence in an instant.

It would be more of a development over time. Probably even things that you and I would call "evil" today would have not been considered so by our distant ancestors.

I think that evil exists because man has looked at the world and deemed certain things to be "evil".

In that sense, we are the ones who created the concept of evil. Over time we have developed an ability to identify things that are destructive or hurtful or dangerous and we have labelled them as evil. We created evil to describe acts and events that were already in existence.

I don't know if that makes sense...

MaxWig · 16-03-2015 02:31PM

orubiru wrote: »

The thing is though that "evil" wouldn't just be introduced as the flick of a switch. We didn't become Man in an instant and so evil could not have come in to existence in an instant.

It would be more of a development over time. Probably even things that you and I would call "evil" today would have not been considered so by our distant ancestors.

I think that evil exists because man has looked at the world and deemed certain things to be "evil".

In that sense, we are the ones who created the concept of evil. Over time we have developed an ability to identify things that are destructive or hurtful or dangerous and we have labelled them as evil. We created evil to describe acts and events that were already in existence.

I don't know if that makes sense...

Makes sense to me

I agree that it wasn't flick of a switch in terms of time, but in the scale of things, it was pretty quick.

As soon as (wo)man began to symbolise his world, a whole plethora of problems arose.

In symbolising evil, man could manage his terror of "things that are destructive or hurtful or dangerous", by projecting them onto something and then trying to defeat that.

So all the bad in the world resides in the opposing tribe - the enemy - defeat him and we are saved etc.

The cycle is never-ending though. As is the problem. We have enough consciousness to contemplate the universe, do science, and build towards a brighter future etc.

But it all rings a bit hollow in the realization that 'I' won't be here for it. 'I' won't benefit. 'I'm' going in the ground.

So we keep projecting evil and trying to defeat it. Because we are ever conscious of our impending doom, and ever impotent in our rage against it.

Humanity's problem is the same as the problem of the individual. They are inseparable.

MaxWig · 16-03-2015 03:26PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Do people treat their children like that? Look children here's a chocolate bar that will make you super smart I'm going to leave it here in the middle of the room and go outside, nobody eat it or you're rejecting me your mother and I'll hold it against your for the rest of your life.

I hate to play devil's advocate here - no pun intended - but that is precisely what parents do.

Specifically in terms of sex. Forgive me for getting Freudian, but that is essentially how the process of socialisation works.

We must forego the pleasures of the body/instinct in order to become a functioning member of civilisation.

So, no chocolate bar, but substitute playing with your genitals and you have a similar process, and one that is probably more relevant to the story of Adam and Eve, and the garden of paradise etc.

Sure this feels good, or that feels good, but don't do it, or you forsake me your mother, or me your father - you shame us - you sin against us!!

silverharp · 16-03-2015 04:06PM

MaxWig wrote: »

I hate to play devil's advocate here - no pun intended - but that is precisely what parents do.

Specifically in terms of sex. Forgive me for getting Freudian, but that is essentially how the process of socialisation works.

We must forego the pleasures of the body/instinct in order to become a functioning member of civilisation.

So, no chocolate bar, but substitute playing with your genitals and you have a similar process, and one that is probably more relevant to the story of Adam and Eve, and the garden of paradise etc.

Sure this feels good, or that feels good, but don't do it, or you forsake me your mother, or me your father - you shame us - you sin against us!!

I'm not seeing the connection, socialisation and deferred gratification is parenting 101 , if the child messed up the parent would see that ( I'd hope) as the child letting itself down. Only a narcissistic parent would make it all about the parent.

MaxWig · 16-03-2015 04:10PM

silverharp wrote: »

I'm not seeing the connection, socialisation and deferred gratification is parenting 101 , if the child messed up the parent would see that ( I'd hope) as the child letting itself down. Only a narcissistic parent would make it all about the parent.

Sure it's Parenting 101.

No one is denying that. But in response to a suggestion that parents do not prevent their children from partaking of activities that provide pleasure/benefit, it's a valid point.

The question is not whether or not to do it, but why those particular activities are categorised as 'the child letting itself down'.

And if we are being honest, I think we could agree that it is not the child that feels 'let down'.

Nick Park · 16-03-2015 05:00PM

ScumLord wrote: »

How did people reject god? By eating the apple? Knowing the human condition like we do today that act was a set up by god, that's the only thing it could have been.

The problem here is that you are putting the cart before the horse.

The whole point of the Genesis account is that it is explaining (in symbolic language) how the human condition that we know today came about.

The fruit (not an apple btw) represents two things - an unwillingness to believe God, and a desire to take the place of God. As a result, man lost the close relationship with God that he had originally possessed. The point of the story is that we all choose evil over good, and therein lies the moral problem that is the foundation for everything that follows.

silverharp · 16-03-2015 05:34PM

Nick Park wrote: »

The problem here is that you are putting the cart before the horse.

The whole point of the Genesis account is that it is explaining (in symbolic language) how the human condition that we know today came about.

The fruit (not an apple btw) represents two things - an unwillingness to believe God, and a desire to take the place of God. As a result, man lost the close relationship with God that he had originally possessed. The point of the story is that we all choose evil over good, and therein lies the moral problem that is the foundation for everything that follows.

In Genesis there was a real god interacting with with "Adam" . humans havnt had that benefit, we have gone from ape to man without any help from an outside benefactor yet all the downside of living on a not so well tuned planet.

Nick Park · 16-03-2015 05:42PM

silverharp wrote: »

In Genesis there was a real god interacting with with "Adam" . humans havnt had that benefit, we have gone from ape to man without any help from an outside benefactor yet all the downside of living on a not so well tuned planet.

You are entitled to your faith. Thank you for sharing it.

ghosttombrown · 16-03-2015 05:48PM

The fruit (not an apple btw)

Why say that? Why say it's not an apple? Because it's not specifically called an apple in the bible? How about this, we say it's a banana and whenever this story is being discussed, we say Eve was tempted into eating the banana...

how the human condition that we know today came about.

I think there's a problem here with what you've said. This implies there was a period in history where evil wasn't part of the human condition. If this story is only symbolic, then what was the event that caused this change? If there was a singular event, why did God not tell us this story and use this symbolic story instead?

Nick Park · 16-03-2015 06:00PM

ghosttombrown wrote: »

Why say that? Why say it's not an apple? Because it's not specifically called an apple in the bible? How about this, we say it's a banana and whenever this story is being discussed, we say Eve was tempted into eating the banana...

I said it because there's a common misconception, caused by bad translation of Latin in days gone by, that the fruit was an apple. Therefore, in a discussion board, it is in order to mention it as a btw.

It was a fruit. There's nothing to stop you believing it was a banana if you choose. It's a free country.

I think there's a problem here with what you've said. This implies there was a period in history where evil wasn't part of the human condition. If this story is only symbolic, then what was the event that caused this change? If there was a singular event, why did God not tell us this story and use this symbolic story instead?

I think you're misunderstanding the point of the Bible. It doesn't pretend to answer every question we might have about the past. It lays the foundation for the future by leading us to Christ.

The event itself nay well have been that people chose to stop worshipping God and started worshipping idols itself. Or it could have been something else entirely. That isn't actually important.

The story of Adam and Eve tells us that man once enjoyed a close relationship with God, and that the relationship was broken by man's disobedience and sin. And, since the point of the Bible is to help us regain that relationship to God, the Adam and Eve story serves its purpose very well indeed.

Frank Bullitt · 16-03-2015 06:01PM

ScumLord wrote: »

How did people reject god? By eating the apple? Knowing the human condition like we do today that act was a set up by god, that's the only thing it could have been.

You bring a human into an enclosed area and point out one thing that will give them superpowers then tell them not to use that thing, what did he really expect to happen, I mean god made us, how can he get so pissed off when we act out his programing.

Do people treat their children like that? Look children here's a chocolate bar that will make you super smart I'm going to leave it here in the middle of the room and go outside, nobody eat it or you're rejecting me your mother and I'll hold it against your for the rest of your life.

The god described in the bible is a horrible creature. Jesus was sound though, I could go along with pretty much everything he said.

Was he though, he said that if you didn't follow him, then you would burn in everlasting fire in hell. Also claiming to be the son of god, and being divine, non of which there is a shred of evidence for.

So I would say that if he wasn't the son of god, then he was a stark raving lunatic.

Nick Park · 16-03-2015 06:03PM

Gintonious wrote: »

So I would say that if he wasn't the son of god, then he was a stark raving lunatic.

I agree wholeheartedly. You're two-thirds of the way to C.S. Lewis' famous trilemma.

silverharp · 16-03-2015 06:05PM

Nick Park wrote: »

You are entitled to your faith. Thank you for sharing it.

it is not faith , it is a observation based on the evidence of evolution. the journey from ape to man was a process over tens of thousands of generations. there was never a first a human. I just dont see a God that was communicating with them in any real sense. At most you might be able to present an original "clockmaker". How would you reconcile the genesis account with the actual development of humankind? how could they have offended god?

ghosttombrown · 16-03-2015 06:07PM

Or it could have been something else entirely. That isn't actually important.

*Raised eyebrow*
It's not important? One of the two most important "events" in the religion of Christianity, the one that explains why there's a Jesus Christ and you think it's not important to have the actual details?

Nick Park · 16-03-2015 06:15PM

silverharp wrote: »

it is not faith , it is a observation based on the evidence of evolution. the journey from ape to man was a process over tens of thousands of generations. there was never a first a human. I just dont see a God that was communicating with them in any real sense. At most you might be able to present an original "clockmaker". How would you reconcile the genesis account with the actual development of humankind? how could they have offended god?

Again, I think you're making faith statements. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that, however you define 'human', that evolution led to a series of mutations by which somebody eventually crossed the line from being 'nearly human' to 'human'. I can't see that you have any evidence that was not the case.

Then you say that you 'don't see a God that was communicating with them in any sense.' Can you present evidence to that effect? If not, then it's another faith statement.

ScumLord · 16-03-2015 06:17PM

MaxWig wrote: »

I hate to play devil's advocate here - no pun intended - but that is precisely what parents do.

Specifically in terms of sex. Forgive me for getting Freudian, but that is essentially how the process of socialisation works.

I don't know any parents that wave treats in front of childrens faces and then tell them they can't have it. They hide treats, or control the amount of treats but they don't highlight treats and then take them away.

We must forego the pleasures of the body/instinct in order to become a functioning member of civilisation.

I don't really agree, there is a certain amount of that. We can't be greedy or mean or other people won't like us. But much of human social behaviour is learned over millennia and adapted to current social needs. For the most part our bodily functions are directly attached to survival mechanisms. We like chocolate because it's full of calories and we need calories to live. 20,000 years ago there was no chocolate and if something tasted nice it meant it was full of calories and good for you because calories aren't easy to come by naturally. Now it's just a by product of our evolutionary history that we crave calories even though we have more than enough food.

So, no chocolate bar, but substitute playing with your genitals and you have a similar process, and one that is probably more relevant to the story of Adam and Eve, and the garden of paradise etc.

I don't see how playing with your genitals has anything to do with this, but OK.

Sure this feels good, or that feels good, but don't do it, or you forsake me your mother, or me your father - you shame us - you sin against us!!

But the religion has just taken some things relevant to the religion and attached shame to it. What's wrong with wanting to be more knowledgable? Why would god want to keep people stupid? there's very few valid reasons to religions desire to belittle people or label some things as shameful.

The whole adam and eve story makes god sound like a spiteful and manipulative god that just see's human suffering as something for him to amuse himself with.

Nick Park · 16-03-2015 06:18PM

ghosttombrown wrote: »

*Raised eyebrow*
It's not important? One of the two most important "events" in the religion of Christianity, the one that explains why there's a Jesus Christ and you think it's not important to have the actual details?

Of course it isn't important to have the actual details. Knowing that information would not make an iota of difference to helping me to know God better, to treat my fellow man more humanely, or to be a good husband and father. Christianity is a spiritual solution to a moral problem. It doesn't pretend to offer a scientific explanation for our origins.

Frank Bullitt · 16-03-2015 06:20PM

Nick Park wrote: »

I agree wholeheartedly. You're two-thirds of the way to C.S. Lewis' famous trilemma.

Unfortunately, C.S Lewis concluded that he was the son of god, he was so close.

Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Part 2)

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