God's Villainy

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually, that's a very easy question to answer. See God gave the Canaanites 400 years to turn from their child-sacrificing wickedness. They didn't, so God destroyed them. Second, your question is phrased wrong. He does not command genocide. He commanded it under a strictly theocratic setting.

Certainly an omnipotent god could devise a more humane method.

I must confess, it no longer startles me to see Christians defending genocide.  It still, however, makes me sad -- and redoubles my concern about their place in American society.

Secondly, when dealing with other people, it is often the case that we can have access to the same information that they do. In those cases, we can rightly disagree. One of us may be wrong, but we can rightly disagree as we have access to the same information, even if one or both of us doesn't take full advantage of it. The question that arises is this: do I have an justification in thinking that I am in possession of enough facts to pass a judgment on this action? Sometimes, the answer is yes. Often, it is no, because we cannot answer negatively to this question: "Could that person have been in possession of information to which I am not privy?" It's clear that there are, however, situations in which we can answer it negatively, and thus, we are free to make our decision.

I am apparently privy to information your god doesn't know: bashing out the brains of babies is not good.  Corporate punishment for individual sins is not good.  Eternal torture for finite errors is not good.  If even I, a mere mortal -- not to mention, a redneck -- can figure this out, how dumb, or evil, is this god which you adore?

Sarcasm doesn't help, Thump.

It is what it is.  I have a sharp tongue and when I see evil being defended it goes to work.  Also, my last question is not sarcastic.  So, answer the question: how do you justify eternal torture for finite crimes?

Regarding the death of children in Joshua's conquest and other such cases, your objection is too weak. You should strengthen it by pointing to the deaths of all children in the history of the world (including the Flood). Why get mad at God over the death of a few hundred babies in a war when you can get mad at the babies who starve to death every day, or the untold thousands, millions even, who died during the Flood?

Actually, I already have, when I pointed out the evil of meting out the death penalty to all.  That fact that you attempted to cherry-pick your way out of it doesn't change its validity.  These other examples are merely to drive the point home: if your god exists, he is thoroughly evil.

The reason it is immoral to kill is that life does not belong to us.

Agreed.

God can give or take away whatever He wants. Unlike you and me, He can restore whatever He takes away He is perfectly capable of restoring if He so desires.

Hey, I guess he wants my son's mom to die of breast cancer then.  Good thing she's got a fighting heart.  Your god has inflicted tumor after tumor after tumor on her.

How do you know all of those children were not immediately taken into Heaven for an eternity of bliss?Had they lived, they likely would have become resentful of the people who destroyed their parents and revolted, not only against Israel, but against Israel's God, which would have resulted in their condemnation (and much of Israel's, as well, for as it happened, those who did live grew up and kept their ancestors' ways and led Israel off into idolatry). Or how do you know that God will not give them an opportunity to live in the Millennial Kingdom?

Defending a palpable evil with a hypothetical good?  Really?  This is silly.

God gives life. He has the right to take it away.

Again, "might makes right" doesn't excuse evil.  

Your life is not yours anymore than mine is mine.

Nonsense.  If this is true, then why is not the master present?

 

He certainly desires for everyone to keep theirs, but sometimes, sin gets in the way and brings about death. The good news is that God will restore all things and destroy both sin and death.

He meted out the death penalty, in his infinite mercy, for an applebite.  He made the rules.  He made hell, Satan, leukemia, tsunamis, the whole nine yards.  Yet you'd blame humans.

I don't have to give such evidence. You are the one claiming what God did was wrong, which is to say, that God had no right to do what He did. To say that is to assume that you know all possible scenarios under which God could do whatever He did. Let's take only the Flood. Mankind was extremely evil. Murder was all the rage. The violence was extreme. Had God let it continue, we would have wiped our own selves off the planet, and everyone would be in Hell forever. There was one man who followed God, and God rescued him from the judgment.

The emphasized part, as I have labored to explain to you already, is wrong.  There is such a thing as informed judgment, which understands that we may not have every conceivable consequence or fact at hand, and yet we still make judgments based on data we do have.  Have you driven every car in the world?  No.  Then how did you come to judge yours to be the best for you?  Did you study every religion in the world?  Again, no, you haven't.  By your logic, your own Christianity is a mistaken choice.

Here, then, is yet a third place where you make yourself God, for only God is judge, a position you claim for yourself. You would condemn Him for condemning others.

It's funny how you parrot the talking-points of the fundamentalists as you pose as an enlightened philosopher.

No intention to portray you as anything. You can read into my words whatever you like. I am telling you to read them plainly.

I have.  Would you kindly interpret then what you meant when you said "Oh no, PW again!" with the exclamation point?  How can that not be sarcasm?  I can take it, and dish it out, but please, if you're going to do so, at least be honest about it.  Everyone here can read it.  

What about it? God couldn't let man live forever in his evil state. That would have been a worse punishment than anything else.

Really now?  Worse that burning in the pits of hell forever?  Really?

Look, for all your fancy words, you obviously haven't thought through your position.

Of course, but assumption of invalidity has no rational basis.

Your problem is that this isn't an assumption.  It is a demonstrated fact.

Tell your wife she is a <insert insult> and follow it up with, "Oh, that's just an observation," and see how far it gets you. You are getting extremely combative, Thump. If you aren't capable of having a rational conversation, we don't have to continue this. As it stands, the increasingly aggressive tone, whether intentional or not, signifies a personal animosity more than any rational concepts.

I'm perfectly capable of having a rational conversation.  However, I detest anyone who defends evil.  simply because I have emotions, and occasionally show them, doesn't render my arguments "irrational", no matter how much you wish to portray them as such.  Now, if you can't handle me calling a spade a spade, by all means, put me on ignore.  You won't be the first believer to have done that, and it really doesn't bother me.

No more than what anyone else does. Everyone has a worldview, Thump. Even you.

Indeed.  I'm calling you on your claim that you are not biasing your daughter.  We aren't talking about me here.

Which I have answered ad nauseum. You refuse to deal with the basic issues, and that's fine, because all of this "discussion" has been you complaining about something, me explaining it, and you refusing without argument and returning to your complaint.

Nonsense.  You refuse to admit that your bible is wrong about a very very basic principle.  30/10 =/= 3.14 ....  You are even pretending that the word problem doesn't equate to a statement about pi.

Is that the way you handle conflict? Do you run off and tattle tale? I'm more than interesting in having a rational discussion with you about these things.

No, I haven't reported anyone here, and I moderate on a much more rough-and-tumble board.  I don't mind vigorous, sometimes heated debate.  Again, if you think something I have posted is a personal attack, please report it to the moderators here.  

If you aren't willing to engage in that, there's nothing to be gained by running off to the mods. If I'm here for discussion, and you aren't interesting in discussion, then it's just as easy to talk to those individuals who are interested in it.

I'm perfectly happy to engage in discussion.  After all, I've tolerated your repeated misrepresentations of my positions, your deliberate obtuseness on a couple of things, your attempts to sidle out of an issue by raising irrelevancies, and I really don't mind, because anyone reading this debate will see all of that, and understand my frustration.

Wrong. I've not said they are morally correct. I've said I withhold judgment due to a lack of evidence. You are the one so interested in making the judgment call here. So fine. If God was morally wrong, then prove it. Account for all logical possibilities of any and every kind, and I'll concede.

Fair enough -- I stand corrected.  However, your standard is ridiculously high.  You certainly make your own moral judgments without satisfying those standards.  In other words, you are applying a double-standard here.  This I reject.

Of course you didn't say anything about cubits. You've been going on and on about pi when the Bible doesn't mention it.

Once again, deliberate obtuseness doesn't help your cause.

I brought up cubits since that is the place from which we get pi. What exasperates me is not the request for evidence -- it's the double-talk, in which when I offer it, I get accused being too technical, and when I keep the terminology general, I get accused of moving goal posts. What exasperates me is you making claims without evidence, and when shown evidence, your ignoring of the facts.

The only claims I've really made are these two:  Your bible is factually incorrect in places, rendering it imperfect; and you can have an omnipotent god, or an omnibeneficent god, but you cannot reasonably have both when you examine his handiwork.  I have supported both of these positions.  That you cannot see my supports is not my problem; you're the one defending evil, after all.  I merely hope that spectators to this discussion will see these points,apposed to yours, and judge for themselves.  That apparently worries you, as you argue that no human has the right to make judgments without perfect knowledge, an impossibly high standard that you yourself violate on a daily basis -- and indeed, are violating in this very argument, as you are judging my argument to be incorrect.

Now, the verse is question that supposedly says "pi is three" is translated above. Drop the objection, or prove you couldn't care less about rationality (or, at least, rational discussion), or else prove that a cubit is, in fact, a precise measurement.

Simple math:  30/10 =/= 3.14....

As for the imprecise cubit:  it is roughly 18 -20 inches.  Sure.  However, did they not use the same cubits for one measurement (radius) as the other (circumference)?  You see, if they used two different measurements, it rather undermines the whole point of the description/instruction, don'tcha think?  And if the two cubits were the same (say, the engineer's forearm), then the ratio wouldn't be affected.

Or else He knows that the evidence He has provided is sufficient and your rejection isn't at all about evidence, but about something else entirely. The animosity you are showing here hints very strongly in that direction. Consider the skepticism of Thomas Nagel:

"It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time."

Nonsense.  I certainly hope this monster of a Christian god doesn't exist, for then life would truly be meaningless; but I can accept other conceptions of god with no problem at all.[/quote]

Now, you may wish to project your impressions onto me, and practice Internet analysis®, but that doesn't mean you're right.  You'd ought to stick to speaking  for yourself, and not me.

As I said, God knows your skepticism better than you do. That means He knows why you don't believe better than you do.

And yet he won't take it into account on judgment day?  I see.  Hey, that sound pretty fair.  

Sure He could have, but those words would have been meaningless to the to whom they were written.

Indeed, that is exactly my point.  That would be incontrovertible evidence of his existence in some form or another.

You missed the point. You get frustrated when I use words that make it hard to follow my line of thought, and yet you want God to use words that makes it hard to follow His line of thought. Such a feat may be miraculous for you. It would have been utter gibberish for them.

[See my comment above]  

No. I am arguing precisely the opposite. Everyone can understand God's message. You just have to be willing to do a little work and learn the language and background culture.

Oddly enough, there are at least three thousand or so sects which derive from this message.  It seems that yes, everyone can understand it, but they all seem to understand it differently.  That implicates the message as possessing deep imperfections; especially when the message is of "The Prince of Peace" and yet his followers are killing each other over whose interpretation is correct.

He did. You can understand Him just fine. You just ignore it. You are asking Him to speak in a language that you understand that the original readers wouldn't have. That is absurd.

Are you putting limits on what your god can and cannot do?  If he wanted to make his presence crystal clear, he could have done so.  The fact that he didn't makes him an obscurantist.  The fact that his obscurantism leads to the eternal torture of so many makes him party to that torture, especially when you remember that he made both the torturer and the torture chamber, according to your theology.

When all that could've been avoided by a simple odd word or three, well, golly, that's just plain silly.  This is one more reason I regard your god as nothing more than a grand fiction.

What you ought to be asking for is prophecy. And that is exactly what we do find in Scripture. To take only one example:

"They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea." (Ez. 26:12)

The "your" refers to Tyre and was written before 550 B.C. This was fulfilled in remarkable detail in 333 B.C. when Alexander the Great destroyed the city. It was situated on an island, so he built a land-bridge, which is still there to this day, out of the rubble from Tyre’s mainland. He literally tossed it into the sea until his army could march across.

Unfortunately for you:

"I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place for the spreading of nets.  You will be built no more, for I the Lord have spoken," declared the Lord God.

Apparently the Lord God spoke wrong; here is a recent view of Tyre:



This was only two verses away from the one you quoted.  Why did you not include this important part in your example for "prophecy"?

There are many of these prophecies that were literally fulfilled. We are watching the fulfillment of one--Ezekiel 37:1-14--in our own time. The whole of Daniel 10-11 constitutes a prophecy that is so detailed in its fulfillment that all non-Christian scholars have concluded it was written after the fact, despite evidence within the book itself that makes such a date virtually impossible.

Given your inaccurate representation of the prophecy of Tyre above, I'll look into this before I will respond.

There is plenty of evidence, Thump. God's provided it. The question is whether or not you will accept it, and that question deals with a lot more than just your intellectual objections.

Your showcase prophecy was wrong.  That is evidence, but not the sort I think you wish to present.

Why don't you answer my question?

So long as you refuse to address my point, I shan't humor you with my answer.

Yes, He could have dictated, but He didn't, because then the people to whom He was writing would not have understood His meaning.

Once again, that is irrelevant.

That's absurd. Our misunderstanding doesn't point to an error in God but in us. Suppose I said to you, "I like vanilla ice cream" and then you went and told people that I said my favorite movie was Gone With The Wind and used my statement there as support. People would look at you like you were insane as what I said had nothing to do with movies, much less Gone With the Wind. The error would be yours for ignoring what I said. The Bible refers to bats as tsippowr, which is exactly what they are. The fact that you choose to ignore what God said and substitute your own meaning is your problem, not His.

Given the fact that Christianity has literally thousands of sects and splinter groups, I'd say that the evidence shows that the Bible is one of the more misunderstood documents ever written; and that it cannot be the perfect word of your god.  If it were perfect, it could not be misunderstood.

Or perhaps I've seen them and can see why they aren't contradictions at all. If your idea of a "contradiction" is God calling a bat a bird, then it's apparent why you think there are contradictions. It's simply a lack of education on your part and a willingness to believe such absurdities without proper study.

No, I'm talking about the Euthyphro dillema: the contradiction between omnipotence and omnibenevolence, which you have yet to address in a sensible manner.

See above. I've made no such judgment call. I have reserved judgment.

Nonsense.  You've judged Christianity to be correct, and your god to be moral; indeed, later in this post of yours, you attempt to insinuate that god is the font of morality (when you talk about my employees standing around, which I will get to then).  Have you investigated every single religion in history?  Have you investigated every single god?  Have you investigated every possible system of morality?  No, no, and no.  

You're holding your faith and my lack of faith to completely different standards.  

Then you should read me more closely. I said God was no respecter of persons, meaning that God doesn't elevate one person above another.

Then why, pray tell, didn't you simply write what you meant?  No, you're changing horses here.  

 

You aren't lesser or greater than I am, nor are you lesser or greater than the ancient Jew, nor a 31st century scientists. In God's eyes, you have no greater or lesser claim to knowledge of Him than anyone else does. By the way, if you decide to start that thread on contradictions, is that the kind of exegesis I can expect from you? That's rather sloppy on your part. If you don't even take the time to understand what the person you are actually talking to is saying, what makes me think you are going to take the time to understand what a document written in another time, place, culture, and language is talking about?

It's odd that you should make this complaint of me, when you still insist that the verse I cited regarding pi has nothing to do with pi, even though it is plainly a formulation of it.  You'd ought clean up your own backyard when it comes to complaints about reading comprehension.  You've so littered this thread with examples that your complaint at this point is not only poorly aimed, but hypocritical.

Ah, so if your employees don't see you standing there looking at them, then they have no reason to obey the rules?

What is the relevance of this question?  I'm saying that good leadership requires both example and supervision, neither of which is provided by god.  

To answer your question, some do, and some don't.  And they don't see me "standing there looking at them."  They see me leading by example, a trait which in your god is conspicuous by its absence.

Which I answered exactly. Something is neither good because God demanded it nor is its goodness outside of God. Something's goodness is rooted in God's nature. Again, your own statement proves the fact. Look at the words I bolded. So there are actually three choices:

1. Something is good because God commands it
2. Something is good because it is rooted in something outside of God
3. Something is good because it is rooted in God

God wills the moral law according to His good nature. Now, again, all you've made me do is repeat what I said before without answering the argument. I took the time to lay out Euthyphro in a logical format so we could see the fault in the argument. If you want to have a discussion, please, do engage the ideas presented. Anything less is preaching.

Ironic charge, there.  At any rate, what does it mean for a moral standard to be "rooted" in god, and why should god command something that doesn't meet that very nebulous condition anyway?

I'm engaging the ideas presented, but I can sure understand your discomfort.

I think that I am to withhold judgment on those because I am not in possession of enough information. I can, however, think of situations in which these things are not necessarily immoral and may possibly be moral.

!!  

Do tell.  I'd love to read that. Please justify these great evils.

Also, you realize you've just practiced moral relativity?

That doesn't mean that God is operating according to these situations, but the fact that He may means that I must withhold judgment. I cannot assert them as moral because I can't prove that is what God is doing. I can't assert them as immoral because there are clearly cases (or clearly could be cases) in which they are not immoral.

Please list three cases where you would regard the beating out of infants' brains is moral.

With regard to the first, then, you are just using emotionally inflammatory language. The issue is the death of children (how else would you prefer they die?) [...]

How about in their sleep, so their last breaths are not screams of agony and terror?  How does that sound to you?

[,] in which case, we have a much broader issue of the death of children worldwide and historically. In the second, I have no moral problem with the death penalty being applied in cases of treason, and under a theocracy, worshiping an idol is treason.

... which is one more reason religion should not mix with politics.  And yes, death in general is a big sign that if your god exists he is thoroughly unjust and unworthy of worship or praise.

Not preaching, just observing facts.

Seriously though, it is my place to tell you what you logical rights you do and don't have, just as it is your place to tell me mine. I don't have the right to assert that I know God exists because the Bible says so. I can say it all I want. I have the legal right, but I don't have the logical right. To go on and say it makes me irrational. You have the legal right to demand whatever you want of God, but you don't have the logical right. To go on and do so just makes you irrational, unless, of course, it is you, and not God, who is sovereign after all.

Given that god is unevidenced, I can fairly say that he is not sovereign.  That doesn't mean that I am sovereign, and to argue otherwise is a false dichotomy.

Projection. I'm not offended in the least, although I think your combative tone is counter productive.

If you can't stand the heat, don't go in the kitchen.

 

Here, then, is yet another example of your bare assertions. I'm beginning to pick up a trend here. You've done this multiple times. Do you have any actual reason for believing what you do, or is everything a simple matter of assertion with you? Granted, if you were sovereign, assertion would be sufficient, but I have my serious doubt as to whether or not you really are the sovereign one here.

And here is another example of your hypocritical double-standards.

Then why do you assert that God has to answer to you and that you are in possession of enough facts to warrant judging God's actions as immoral? You are either claiming to be God or simply being irrational here. I don't see a middle ground.

That's because you are blinded by your faith.  You have bought the propaganda hook, line, and sinker.  I am asserting not that I am a god, not that I am omniscient, but that I have a right, and indeed a duty, to judge all issues in my sphere, and to do so based on my best available knowledge; [edit]if my knowledge is insufficient, I will abstain from judging until such time as I have educated myself on the issue at hand.[/edit]  If my judgment is in error, I have an obligation to correct it.

I do not, however, have an obligation to listen to someone who believes in the Christian conception of god call me irrational, while he bandies about a god which is entirely unevidenced, and internally contradictory.

Interesting. You make here another moral claim on God and maintain your basic misunderstanding of progressive revelation (that God revealed Himself to men in history), linguistics (the way in which language works--i.e., how tsippowr ought to be translated), and hermeneutics (the science of interpretation; i.e., in what sense we should understand what is communicated, including historical, philosophical, cultural, and linguistics considerations, etc.). Your claim to knowledge is rather extensive, Thump. I sincerely wish you would back up your arguments with evidence rather than these countless assertions. Your claims require a knowledge of possible worlds and unstated motives (with reference to moral actions) and to the various disciplines surrounding ancient historical exegesis. Unfortunately, you've offered evidence that you possess such knowledge in either of these areas. I'm always open to hearing it, though.

Please, I'm eating a tasty Greek salad right now.  Quit shoving words in my mouth.  I advise you to reread my post.    You are stating that judgment can only legitimately happen with perfect knowledge.  I need not rebut you; the real world does a fine job, as do your own judgments.

Yes, do look at the point you emphasized in my words. I argued that God doesn't play by your rules. The "rules" He set are found in reality itself, including basic morality. You don't have an option not to play by His "rules" in that regard, because to do so when be to go outside of reality. What in the world makes you think that by living in the world, God is somehow obligated to treat you differently than everyone else?

Bald assertion, coupled with a misstatement of my position.  This is getting awfully repetitive.  I am not arguing that I should receive special treament; I'm arguing that for a good god, he sure does a lot of evil shit.

As far as your question goes, the expectations in the Bible point to natural consequences, not rules.

Really?  What of the first four of the ten commandments?  There are no natural consequences flowing from those, yet they are considered by most theologians to be the four most important.

I'm sure you have rules for your son. You probably had more when he was younger than you do now, and as he gets older, there will be still less and less. One of the many rules for my daughter is not to play with the remote control as I don't want her opening it up and swallowing a battery and end up in the hospital as happened to the son of a very good friend of mine. The day will come, however, when there will cease to be rules. Instead, there will be only relationship. When my daughter is an adult, she will be able to do what she wants (including eating batteries, I suppose). She will know, however, just like I do with my parents, that if she does certain things it will harm the relationship and/or yield certain undesirable consequences.

The Bible is much the same. There were rules for Israel. The Christian has no such rules. We have an explanation of how reality works. Just like if you run a redlight, you are likely to get hit by oncoming traffic, so if you sin, you are likely to get hurt in myriads of ways. People who think you have to keep a bunch of rules and not sin have completely missed the point of the NT. We are not saved by keeping any rules. We are saved by our relationship with God through Christ, which is rooted in and founded upon simple trust. If you trust in God through Christ, you will be saved. If not, it doesn't matter how good you are or how many rules you keep, they will only be your own rules, and you'll be lost forever because of it.

Yeah, but I don't shove my son in the oven for eternity when he errs by not giving me puerile hero-worship.  Sorry, the mismatch between the punishment and the "sin" is so eggregious that is undermines any claim of justice made on your god's behalf.

Also, your last line is preaching.  Why is it okay for you to preach, but you accuse me of it as if it is a bad thing?  You may wish to have another look at Matt 7:3.

Every teenage girl has heard that line. "If you really loved me . . ."

Irrelevant.  Please answer my objection, rather than dodge it.

Again, we'll talk about Hell in its own thread this week.

Very well.  Please leave of with the "god loves you" nonsense, then, because hell undermines that entire trope.

[Thumpalumpacus]

<dbl post deleted>

[Sophus]

Wrong. It is completely relevant. You asked what I could do without getting something out of it. I said the issue is not what we get out of it, but why we do it. The shear fact that every action has consequences means we get something out of it by definition. This all goes back to your original assertion, "If you want to treat someone with respect then you must want to do so for a reason." I've offered a simple reason: because certain things ought to be done. The reason does not necessarily have to be because I want something out of it. You may assert that all you want, but you're just wrong. I certainly hope you don't do things only because you want something out of what you are doing. That would prove to be a terribly selfish way to live.

I'm not the one merely making assertions. I've provided examples but you have yet to do so. "Ought to be done" is a reason. A very vague reason, but still a reason. If you feel that you ought to do something it is always because you feel you can benefit from it. Again, please give one example of a time where you "ought to do something" but receive no benefit whatsoever. The subconscious, which drives your will, already has the notion of an end in mind. Intuition tells you you'll likely get something favorable by acting friendly with someone. Instinct tells you you won't be killed when you hastily jump out of the way of the approaching car speeding toward you. Whether or not a deed is well contemplated doesn't matter, you are always moving toward what you believe will be beneficial to you in some way. Otherwise there is no need to invoke a word such as "ought".

You cannot have obligations without them being necessary and those can't be necessary if they serve no benefit whatsoever. This is why claiming that an act simply ought to be done doesn't work because the "ought" can only be true if you are aware you are getting something from the deed. You reason to why an action is necessary. If someone asks you why they ought to do something, you've answer nothing by saying, "you just ought to." You must appeal to why it will benefit them.

Words, Sophus, are merely conventional signs with no inherent meaning. In other words, they mean what we agree upon them to mean. So it is certainly true that in popular vernacular, to forgive and to excuse can be used synonymously.

Now, I first mentioned forgiveness when I said that we are to forgive everyone. You then said that "You cannot work toward bettering the world if every horrible thing is to be "forgiven," by which you meant an excuse. In response, I strongly disagreed. I am not talking about offering an excuse for everyone. I am talking about forgiving everyone.

You're going to need to define forgiveness then.

Again, we'll talk about Hell in its own thread this week.

In what way is damning someone to eternal hellfire not relevant to whether or not the damner loves you? If this is a different subject then nothing anyone can ever do can possibly mean they don't love you.

[Jac3510]

Thump,

Your long post above all boil down to five issues:

1. The pi objection
2. The Euthyphro Dilemma
3. Babies being killed
4. Tyre being rebuilt
5. The ability to make moral judgments without perfect knowledge

If I missed one, feel free to let me know. Each of these are easy to answer.

1. Cubits are not a standard measurement. They are about the distance from your elbow to your fingers. To say a bowl was thirty cubit around by ten cubits across is to make an approximation. It is not possible to make an exact derivation of pi based on an approximation. The fact that the bowl was round will tell us modern people that, assuming it really was round, their approximation checks out as being pretty close.

2. The ED is no problem for theism because it presents a false dilemma. If God is essentially good, then His commands would be from His essentially good nature. The goodness of the commands would then come from the way God is, and the way God is would be an objective reality. Morality, then, is objective in this possibility. The ED does not consider this third alternative and is therefore invalid.

3. Forgive my skepticism, but if all the babies in the Bible died peacefully in their sleep, I have my doubts you'd say, "Well, that was nice and humane. So I guess that's perfectly fine!" This objection is merely a smokescreen. I have answered the fundamental issue, which is the death of the innocent more generally. On one side, life is God's to give or take away, not ours. On the other, God can restore life if He so desires, which He may very well do. Certainly all of those children will be resurrected at the end of time, and almost as certainly to an eternity of bliss.

4. Tyre was never rebuilt. There is a modern city built on top of Tyre. Every instance of a city being "rebuilt" in Scripture refers to the actual city itself being repaired and rebuilt. Thus, Rome has been rebuilt (and added onto greatly) and has been inhabited by Romans (and other) for over two thousand years. Tyre hasn't been inhabited by any Tyrians (or however you would say that) since its destruction. Thus, the prophecy is fulfilled on two counts: it was fulfilled in extremely remarkably literal detail in terms of its destruction, and it has not been rebuilt, just as was stated.

5. We do not need perfect knowledge to make a proper moral judgment. We need sufficient knowledge to make a proper moral judgment. There are many things in this world I can have sufficient knowledge about. I have offered several examples in this thread. You do not, however, have sufficient knowledge to make a qualified judgment regarding why God did or did not do what the biblical text states. Let me give you a simple illustration. Mike Huckabee years ago was presented with a case in which he decided to commute a prisoner's sentence. That prisoner had been sentenced to over one hundred years in prison for a relatively minor crime. There was very good reason to believe that had he been white and rich, he never would have served one day in jail. The prisoner had already served the minimum term for the crime, and thus, Huckabee commuted the sentence. The man got out of prison and years later killed five cops. Question: was what he did right or wrong?

Clearly, given Huckabee's ignorance of the future, he did the right thing. It is wrong to sentence a young black man to a life sentence for a relatively minor crime. Now, had Huckabee known the future, he obviously would not have let him out, or if he had known and had let him out anyway, he would done something wrong (Minority Report aside!). This makes a good illustration of our point, because our moral decisions are by nature different from God's. He is in possession of facts that we are not -- namely, the contingent results of the various actions anyone will take. Had Huckabee been omniscient and let the man rot in jail, people would have accused him of being immoral. And from our limited vantage point, it would seem very much to have been immoral. But from Huckabee's omniscient viewpoint, it would be exactly the right thing to do: and he would have been right and we would have been wrong.

Shy, then, of omniscient, you do not have sufficient evidence to make a moral judgment on God's actions. Your instance on doing so only demonstrates your refusal to be rational.

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I'm not the one merely making assertions. I've provided examples but you have yet to do so. "Ought to be done" is a reason. A very vague reason, but still a reason. If you feel that you ought to do something it is always because you feel you can benefit from it. Again, please give one example of a time where you "ought to do something" but receive no benefit whatsoever. The subconscious, which drives your will, already has the notion of an end in mind. Intuition tells you you'll likely get something favorable by acting friendly with someone. Instinct tells you you won't be killed when you hastily jump out of the way of the approaching car speeding toward you. Whether or not a deed is well contemplated doesn't matter, you are always moving toward what you believe will be beneficial to you in some way. Otherwise there is no need to invoke a word such as "ought".

You cannot have obligations without them being necessary and those can't be necessary if they serve no benefit whatsoever. This is why claiming that an act simply ought to be done doesn't work because the "ought" can only be true if you are aware you are getting something from the deed. You reason to why an action is necessary. If someone asks you why they ought to do something, you've answer nothing by saying, "you just ought to." You must appeal to why it will benefit them.

Sophus, are you not reading what I am saying before you respond? I did not say that we do things without a reason. I said that we do things, or at least we ought to do them, without reference to what we will get out of them. Why I do something and what I will get out of doing something are different issues. It is perfectly possible to do something for which you receive a benefit without having done it for the benefit.

[You're going to need to define forgiveness then.

Already did. I can't keep repeating everything I say to every different user. Please read the thread carefully.

In what way is damning someone to eternal hellfire not relevant to whether or not the damner loves you? If this is a different subject then nothing anyone can ever do can possibly mean they don't love you.

See the thread on Hell.

[PoopShoot]

1. Cubits are not a standard measurement. They are about the distance from your elbow to your fingers. To say a bowl was thirty cubit around by ten cubits across is to make an approximation. It is not possible to make an exact derivation of pi based on an approximation. The fact that the bowl was round will tell us modern people that, assuming it really was round, their approximation checks out as being pretty close.

In the case of the temple, they were.  On a building project, the foreman would cut a stick to the length of a cubit and measuring lines were cut to fit it.  This was because a building project needs that kind of standardization, especially when building something as large as the temple.  Moreover, the problem isn't a matter of the unit of measure, but of the interaction between the diameter and the circumference of the object in question.  It's not the circumference or the diameter, it's that the two were used together.  Somebody failed to add "thirty cubits round and a little more".  Cubits might not be standard from person to person, but they are standard for a single project and, more importantly, are a precise measurement once set.

[Thumpalumpacus]

1. Cubits are not a standard measurement. They are about the distance from your elbow to your fingers. To say a bowl was thirty cubit around by ten cubits across is to make an approximation. It is not possible to make an exact derivation of pi based on an approximation. The fact that the bowl was round will tell us modern people that, assuming it really was round, their approximation checks out as being pretty close.

You have still ignored my point.  Either the same cubit was used in the quoted measurements, meaning that the ratio c/r would remain the same, or a different cubit was used in marking off the two variables, in which case the entire verse is meaningless.  Why would your god inject meaningless verses into his book?

2. The ED is no problem for theism because it presents a false dilemma. If God is essentially good, then His commands would be from His essentially good nature. The goodness of the commands would then come from the way God is, and the way God is would be an objective reality. Morality, then, is objective in this possibility. The ED does not consider this third alternative and is therefore invalid.

I have already shown that your god commits evil.  Therefore, this objection is irrelevant.  Try again.

3. Forgive my skepticism, but if all the babies in the Bible died peacefully in their sleep, I have my doubts you'd say, "Well, that was nice and humane. So I guess that's perfectly fine!" This objection is merely a smokescreen. I have answered the fundamental issue, which is the death of the innocent more generally. On one side, life is God's to give or take away, not ours. On the other, God can restore life if He so desires, which He may very well do. Certainly all of those children will be resurrected at the end of time, and almost as certainly to an eternity of bliss.

It troubles me that you accept "might makes right" as a moral premise, but I've tried to help you and cannot get through, so I'll leave you alone after this post.  

4. Tyre was never rebuilt. There is a modern city built on top of Tyre. Every instance of a city being "rebuilt" in Scripture refers to the actual city itself being repaired and rebuilt. Thus, Rome has been rebuilt (and added onto greatly) and has been inhabited by Romans (and other) for over two thousand years. Tyre hasn't been inhabited by any Tyrians (or however you would say that) since its destruction. Thus, the prophecy is fulfilled on two counts: it was fulfilled in extremely remarkably literal detail in terms of its destruction, and it has not been rebuilt, just as was stated.

Oh jeez, because they didn't use the same bricks, it wasn't rebuilt?

This is special pleading. You are obviously so wedded to your faith that you will grasp at any straw, rather than use the brain you allege god gave you.

5. We do not need perfect knowledge to make a proper moral judgment. We need sufficient knowledge to make a proper moral judgment.  [...]  Shy, then, of omniscient, you do not have sufficient evidence to make a moral judgment on God's actions. Your instance on doing so only demonstrates your refusal to be rational.

Contradict yourself much?  You do realize that omniscience means "having perfect knowledge?

Your position is bankrupt.  You simply cannot admit it.  

I refuse to speculate as to the motives of my interlocutor, so I'll leave you alone to your faith.  I'm tired of your pretzel-act.

[Sophus]

Sophus, are you not reading what I am saying before you respond? I did not say that we do things without a reason. I said that we do things, or at least we ought to do them, without reference to what we will get out of them. Why I do something and what I will get out of doing something are different issues. It is perfectly possible to do something for which you receive a benefit without having done it for the benefit.

You continue to assert this but never give an example.

And as I've already argued, the reason is directly related to what you will get out of it (more specifically what you wish to get out of any action). That is why I did not say "give an example of one thing you do for no reason" but "give one example of a time where you 'ought to do something' but receive no benefit whatsoever." If you read the whole post again you'll see it was showing why the reason is directly connected to the will, the reason is the will. There were many cases made you have neglected to address, but keep asserting what we already know.

I'm not the one merely making assertions. I've provided examples but you have yet to do so. "Ought to be done" is a reason. A very vague reason, but still a reason. If you feel that you ought to do something it is always because you feel you can benefit from it. Again, please give one example of a time where you "ought to do something" but receive no benefit whatsoever. The subconscious, which drives your will, already has the notion of an end in mind. Intuition tells you you'll likely get something favorable by acting friendly with someone. Instinct tells you you won't be killed when you hastily jump out of the way of the approaching car speeding toward you. Whether or not a deed is well contemplated doesn't matter, you are always moving toward what you believe will be beneficial to you in some way. Otherwise there is no need to invoke a word such as "ought".

You cannot have obligations without them being necessary and those can't be necessary if they serve no benefit whatsoever. This is why claiming that an act simply ought to be done doesn't work because the "ought" can only be true if you are aware you are getting something from the deed. You reason to why an action is necessary. If someone asks you why they ought to do something, you've answer nothing by saying, "you just ought to." You must appeal to why it will benefit them.

Where possible, forgiveness entails seeking to reestablish a positive relationship.

I completely disagree with definition. I've seen the stories on TV of hostage victims or family members of a murder victim forgive the man in jail awaiting the death penalty but they're not writing to him or trying to become new best friend or anything. I've also seen where someone in therapy decides to forgive a deceased parent. Obviously they're not trying to create a better relationship there. Forgiveness, in this sense, is only letting go of a grudge, and thus moving on with one's life.

That being said let's work with your definition anyway. If it meant to 'work toward bettering a relationship,' how does that work with dangerous relationship? How does that work with someone who currently wants to hurt you and is not seeking forgiveness? How does it work in my case, where I completely cut off all ties to the relationship?

I don't need to forgive them because I have no bitter feelings toward them. At the same time I am not going to work toward bettering the relationship because I have no interest.

In what way is damning someone to eternal hellfire not relevant to whether or not the damner loves you? If this is a different subject then nothing anyone can ever do can possibly mean they don't love you.

See the thread on Hell.[/quote]

So it is permissible to allow a great mass of people be thrown to hell through inaction?