Happy Atheist Forum

Hello all, I'm a brand new addition to the Happy Atheist group, and I thought I'd start out by presenting a theory I came up with the other day. It pertains at the very least to the god of Christianity. Let me know what you guys think.

1)   God is omnipotent. Anything that can be done, he can do.
2)   God is omniscient. Anything that there is to know, he knows.
3)   When God creates a human being with free will, due to 2), he is completely aware of the human being’s ultimate fate.

God creates Joe. Joe grows up and exercises his free will to become an atheist. Joe dies and enters Hell, where he will suffer the worst punishment imaginable.

-Christian response: Joe was given the choice by God to become faithful and enter Heaven. He used his choice, instead, to lead himself to Hell. Thus, Joe is the only one responsible for his own fate, and his existence is justified by his free will.

4)   Heaven is the best thing possible for a human to achieve. It has maximum value (it is the most valuable thing).
5)   Hell is the worst thing possible for a human to achieve. It has no value (it is the least valuable thing).
6)   Free will leads either to Heaven or Hell. Thus, much like a lottery ticket, it is worth exactly what it delivers. It is either worth maximum or minimum value.

- Negation of Christian response: If Joe uses his free will to make choices that deliver him to Hell, his free will has no value.

-Christian response: Joe’s free will had potential value, as it could have led him to Heaven.

-Negation: Due to 3), God was aware that Joe’s free will was without value. Thus, Joe's existence cannot be justified by his possession of free will.

Conclusion: God created Joe with the intent that Joe would suffer the punishment of Hell. The morally upright thing to do would be to refrain from creating Joe at all. Or, due to 1), he should have been able to create a Joe who would choose to go to Heaven. Since he did not, God is evil.

Well, first you're going to have to define "evil."

Premise 1 is false according to Judge 1:19.

Quote from: "i_am_i"Well, first you're going to have to define "evil."

I am going by the popular moral standard that it is so terribly wrong to willingly subject people to an eternity of torture, that this act makes a person, or god, evil. I understand the issue with simply citing God as qualifying for the title of "evil," but what would you call it when he is the cause of eternal torture, as outlined in my first post?

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Premise 1 is false according to Judge 1:19.

You'll have to elaborate on that. Judges 1:19 says: "The Lord was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots."

If you mean that they were unable to accomplish something even though God was "with" them, you'll have to interpret what "with" means. Does it mean he was standing there with them, or simply that he approved of their actions; that their deeds were in accordance with his will?

Thanks for the replies.

Quote from: "dgmort19"

Quote from: "i_am_i"Well, first you're going to have to define "evil."

I am going by the popular moral standard that it is so terribly wrong to willingly subject people to an eternity of torture, that this act makes a person, or god, evil. I understand the issue with simply citing God as qualifying for the title of "evil," but what would you call it when he is the cause of eternal torture, as outlined in my first post?

I don't know. I'm still waiting for your definition of "evil."

I personally disagree with 3.

Job 42:2: "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted."

Matthew 19:26: "Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Quote from: "Reginus"I personally disagree with 3.

Then you necessarily disagree with 2, because if he is not aware of a human being's ultimate fate, then he is not omniscient.

Quote from: "i_am_i"

Quote from: "dgmort19"

Quote from: "i_am_i"Well, first you're going to have to define "evil."

I am going by the popular moral standard that it is so terribly wrong to willingly subject people to an eternity of torture, that this act makes a person, or god, evil. I understand the issue with simply citing God as qualifying for the title of "evil," but what would you call it when he is the cause of eternal torture, as outlined in my first post?

I don't know. I'm still waiting for your definition of "evil."

This is highly subjective. My definition of "evil" may be the same as yours, or it may not. It is difficult to define comprehensively, but there is often an understanding of evil action when it is witnessed. We view murder as evil, we view rape as evil, etc. I view what the Bible's God does as evil.

Moreover, a Christian does have a definition of evil, and God's action, in this case, qualifies.

... and what if "Evil" is defined as anything done against God's will?

Then God would be incapable of Evil.

Yes?

And denial of God's will would be the ultimate Evil.

Just playing Devil's advocate,
JoeActor

Quote from: "dgmort19"

Quote from: "Reginus"I personally disagree with 3.

Then you necessarily disagree with 2, because if he is not aware of a human being's ultimate fate, then he is not omniscient.

Unless the fate of a human is not always something that there is to know, but God knows the future partially as a set of possibilities.
If you know everything there is to know about cars, then do you know the wheelbase of a 2017 Ford Focus?

In any case, it comes down to an argument of definition.  My point is that I don't believe that God entirely knows the future, especially the fate of humans.

Quote from: "King James Bible"And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out [the inhabitants of] the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

There is a reason for the discrepancy: the passage implies that the victory was due to god's intervention.

Quote from: "joeactor"... and what if "Evil" is defined as anything done against God's will?

Then God would be incapable of Evil.

Yes?

And denial of God's will would be the ultimate Evil.

Just playing Devil's advocate,
JoeActor

...yes, I suppose you're right about that. If the alleged inventor of morals defines "evil" as that which goes against his will, then he cannot commit evil. However, it should be highly suspicious that God does not adhere to his own standards.

"Don't hurt one another...but it's cool if I do it."

Quote from: "i_am_i"Well, first you're going to have to define "evil."

Quote from: "dgmort19"I am going by the popular moral standard that it is so terribly wrong to willingly subject people to an eternity of torture, that this act makes a person, or god, evil. I understand the issue with simply citing God as qualifying for the title of "evil," but what would you call it when he is the cause of eternal torture, as outlined in my first post?

Quote from: "i_am_i"I don't know. I'm still waiting for your definition of "evil."

Quote from: "dgmort19"This is highly subjective. My definition of "evil" may be the same as yours, or it may not. It is difficult to define comprehensively, but there is often an understanding of evil action when it is witnessed. We view murder as evil, we view rape as evil, etc. I view what the Bible's God does as evil.

Moreover, a Christian does have a definition of evil, and God's action, in this case, qualifies.

Well, then let's use the old bog-standard on-line dictionary definition:

1. a : morally reprehensible : sinful, wicked <an evil impulse> b : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct <a person of evil reputation>
2. a archaic : inferior b : causing discomfort or repulsion : offensive <an evil odor> c : disagreeable <woke late and in an evil temper>
3. a : causing harm : pernicious <the evil institution of slavery> b : marked by misfortune : unlucky

I think the first definition best describes what you're saying: that God is morally reprehensible and wicked. Would you agree?

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

Quote from: "King James Bible"And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out [the inhabitants of] the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

There is a reason for the discrepancy: the passage implies that the victory was due to god's intervention.

It looks like we're referencing the same passage from separate translations. If your translation is correct, then he is not omnipotent. But doesn't it seem silly that God could create the damn universe, generate a worldwide flood, blow Sodom and Gomorrah to smithereens, call down plagues, but not overcome a valley of chariot riders? I could do it myself with a little help from an explosives expert.


Plus, as I posted previously, it states pretty clearly that he can do anything, so your translation seems out of sync with the rest of the Bible.

Quote from: "i_am_i"

Quote from: "i_am_i"Well, first you're going to have to define "evil."

Quote from: "dgmort19"I am going by the popular moral standard that it is so terribly wrong to willingly subject people to an eternity of torture, that this act makes a person, or god, evil. I understand the issue with simply citing God as qualifying for the title of "evil," but what would you call it when he is the cause of eternal torture, as outlined in my first post?

Quote from: "i_am_i"I don't know. I'm still waiting for your definition of "evil."

Quote from: "dgmort19"This is highly subjective. My definition of "evil" may be the same as yours, or it may not. It is difficult to define comprehensively, but there is often an understanding of evil action when it is witnessed. We view murder as evil, we view rape as evil, etc. I view what the Bible's God does as evil.

Moreover, a Christian does have a definition of evil, and God's action, in this case, qualifies.

Well, then let's use the old bog-standard on-line dictionary definition:

1. a : morally reprehensible : sinful, wicked <an evil impulse> b : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct <a person of evil reputation>
2. a archaic : inferior b : causing discomfort or repulsion : offensive <an evil odor> c : disagreeable <woke late and in an evil temper>
3. a : causing harm : pernicious <the evil institution of slavery> b : marked by misfortune : unlucky

I think the first definition best describes what you're saying: that God is morally reprehensible and wicked. Would you agree?

Yes, I would agree. I thought you were going for the argument that evil can't be defined.

Okay. So here's how I see it: if you can prove that God is evil then you've actually proved that God Exists! And That He's Evil!

In which case we're all fucked no matter what we do or do not believe.

Welcome to the forum, dgmort!

Quote from: "Reginus"

Quote from: "dgmort19"

Quote from: "Reginus"I personally disagree with 3.

Then you necessarily disagree with 2, because if he is not aware of a human being's ultimate fate, then he is not omniscient.

Unless the fate of a human is not always something that there is to know, but God knows the future partially as a set of possibilities.
If you know everything there is to know about cars, then do you know the wheelbase of a 2017 Ford Focus?

In any case, it comes down to an argument of definition.  My point is that I don't believe that God entirely knows the future, especially the fate of humans.

It's an interesting analogy, but I can't see that it's totally accurate. A human who knows everything there is to know about cars will understand exactly that which exists to know, based on his human capacity for knowledge (which doesn't transcend the present, unlike what Miss Cleo would have you believe).

If God is truly omniscient, that is a term that transcends time. All knowledge. Period.

Quote from: "dgmort19"

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

Quote from: "King James Bible"And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out [the inhabitants of] the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

There is a reason for the discrepancy: the passage implies that the victory was due to god's intervention.

It looks like we're referencing the same passage from separate translations.

That's the discrepancy to which I was referring.

QuoteIf your translation is correct, then he is not omnipotent. But doesn't it seem silly that God could create the damn universe, generate a worldwide flood, blow Sodom and Gomorrah to smithereens, call down plagues, but not overcome a valley of chariot riders? I could do it myself with a little help from an explosives expert.

Of course it seems silly, but then it also seems silly that the reator of the universe would be afraid of an army that planned to march up to him on an adobe ziggurat as well.

QuotePlus, as I posted previously, it states pretty clearly that he can do anything, so your translation seems out of sync with the rest of the Bible.

It also clearly states that there are things he cannot do.  The bible is out of synch with itself.

Quote from: "i_am_i"Okay. So here's how I see it: if you can prove that God is evil then you've actually proved that God Exists! And That He's Evil!

In which case we're all fucked no matter what we do or do not believe.

Welcome to the forum, dgmort!

LOL! Okay, that makes sense. The only way he can be evil is if he does these things. And if he does these things, that means he is real. I guess I should say that, if God did exist, he would be evil. I am an atheist, so that's really what I believed in the first place.

Quote from: "dgmort19"If God is truly omniscient, that is a term that transcends time. All knowledge. Period.

This still assumes that the future is fixed.  If the future is mutable, a prerequisite for free will to begin with, then god's omniscience wouldn't be a matter of him knowing the future so much as knowing all possible futures.

QuoteIt also clearly states that there are things he cannot do.  The bible is out of synch with itself.

Good point. I guess my theory is based more on what Christians inform me about God, which is that he's all powerful. No discrepancies there. In fact, my translation is newer than yours, so it looks like it was altered to fit popular dogma. That's comforting...

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

Quote from: "dgmort19"If God is truly omniscient, that is a term that transcends time. All knowledge. Period.

This still assumes that the future is fixed.  If the future is mutable, a prerequisite for free will to begin with, then god's omniscience wouldn't be a matter of him knowing the future so much as knowing all possible futures.

But the future can only be fixed. Ultimately, there will be only a single outcome. Possibilities may exist in the trillions, but only one will become the reality. If he does not know that ultimate outcome, then he would not be omniscient, which makes him less evil and more irresponsible for potentially allowing people to enter Hell.

The Bible seems to insist that God knows all things, so based on that, I have to assume that he would know the ultimate outcome.

Quote from: "dgmort19"In fact, my translation is newer than yours, so it looks like it was altered to fit popular dogma. That's comforting...

Your translation matches the wording for the NKJV.  If that is the version you're using, then you are correct.  That said, the KJV was translated from a latin text that was translated from a greek text whose old testament was translated from hebrew texts.  I would say that newer translations that are taken from original texts are probably more accurate than a copy of a copy of a copy.  That said, the implication of EVERY translation is that god gave them the power to do it, but his power failed when they encountered iron chariots.

Damn those chariots.

Quote from: "dgmort19"But the future can only be fixed. Ultimately, there will be only a single outcome.

This is looking at the future after it has become the past.

QuotePossibilities may exist in the trillions, but only one will become the reality.

But that outcome isn't necessarily determined before the choices are made that generate that outcome.  Indeed, were it any other way, there would be no free will as you are guaranteed to make a particular choice.

QuoteIf he does not know that ultimate outcome, then he would not be omniscient, which makes him less evil and more irresponsible for potentially allowing people to enter Hell.

Unless that outcome isn't a guarantee, as inferred by the idea of free will.

QuoteThe Bible seems to insist that God knows all things, so based on that, I have to assume that he would know the ultimate outcome.

IF you assume that the outcome is guaranteed beforehand, sure.  IF you do, however, then you have to drop all premises that involve free will.

QuoteThis is looking at the future after it has become the past.

Isn't that essentially what God does?

I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. As I see it, an ultimate outcome necessitates the concept of a fixed path, but I don't see how it precludes free will. The fixed path to your ultimate outcome is still the result of your choice. Though you may be guaranteed to make said choice, it wasn't anyone's decision but your own.

It's not a choice if you don't have the choice not to make it.

Epicurus dealt with this issue very tersely:

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frichardathome.files.wordpress.com%2F2007%2F07%2Fepicurus-quote.jpg&hash=a7e0efe8399cbfc6dd72a4fa54774519d6f72df9)

Quote from: "PoopShoot"It's not a choice if you don't have the choice not to make it.

But if I offer to leap into a pool of alligators, there are two consequences.

1: I'll leap in and possibly die
2: I won't leap in at all

Ultimately, we can look back and say, "dgmort decided not to leap in after all." Does that alter the fact that I chose not to do it? I don't think so. I chose to bind myself to the timeline that would, in retrospect, be the only thing that could have happened. When you "choose" an option, it means that you're choosing to abide by the timeline that was outlined for you.

If an evil dictator offers me the option of following his orders or killing me, and I, being evil in this scenario, would have chosen to follow his orders even without a death threat, then I made a choice despite the fact that the option was forced.

Likewise, when an ultimate fate forces our options, it doesn't mean that we didn't willingly choose those options to begin with. Does that make sense?

Quote from: "dgmort19"But if I offer to leap into a pool of alligators, there are two consequences.
1: I'll leap in and possibly die
2: I won't leap in at all

Yep.

QuoteUltimately, we can look back and say, "dgmort decided not to leap in after all." Does that alter the fact that I chose not to do it? I don't think so.

And I agree with you.

QuoteI chose to bind myself to the timeline that would, in retrospect, be the only thing that could have happened.

Nope, in retrospect, it's the only thing that did happen, not could have.

QuoteWhen you "choose" an option, it means that you're choosing to abide by the timeline that was outlined for you.

If it was outlined for you, it wasn't a choice.  If it's a choice, both options are valid until AFTER you've made the choice.

QuoteIf an evil dictator offers me the option of following his orders or killing me, and I, being evil in this scenario, would have chosen to follow his orders even without a death threat, then I made a choice despite the fact that the option was forced.

This is not analogous to a future set in stone.  If you made that choice because it was the choice you were destined to make, then the choice is only an illusion.  The dictator in question has not guaranteed your choice, he's merely made one choice much more favorable.

QuoteLikewise, when an ultimate fate forces our options, it doesn't mean that we didn't willingly choose those options to begin with. Does that make sense?

No it doesn't.  If you have 20 options available it SEEMS that you have a choice, but if you're guaranteed to make a particular choice, you never had one.

New International Version (©1984)
The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.

New Living Translation (©2007)
The LORD was with the people of Judah, and they took possession of the hill country. But they failed to drive out the people living in the plains, who had iron chariots.

English Standard Version (©2001)
And the LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.
 
King James Bible
And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out [the inhabitants of] the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

American King James Version
And the LORD was with Judah; and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

I think it should be fairly easy to correctly translate a pronoun.  Evidently I am mistaken

Quote from: "notself"I think it should be fairly easy to correctly translate a pronoun.  Evidently I am mistaken

Yes, but that phrase is taken from a single word and I don't speak Hebrew.  It might not be that simple.  Regardless, they ALL imply that the victory was due to god's power, meaning the defeat was a failure of god's power.  Besides, who wants to leave "he" in it when that directly implicates god as  failure.  Gotta at least TRY to make the damned book make sense.

QuoteIf it was outlined for you, it wasn't a choice. If it's a choice, both options are valid until AFTER you've made the choice.

I should say that it's not outlined for you, but by you. You are making the decisions that compose your ultimate fate. You're stuck doing those things, but only because you chose them (and will choose them). I make choices every day (such as continuing this fruitless debate ), and those choices are made with my own reasoning faculties. If I'm not making my choices, then who is?

QuoteThis is not analogous to a future set in stone. If you made that choice because it was the choice you were destined to make, then the choice is only an illusion. The dictator in question has not guaranteed your choice, he's merely made one choice much more favorable.

If we assume that I am completely unwilling to give up my life, then being killed is not a choice I can make. I am restricted utterly. Thus, I must do what the dictator says, and the outcome is set in stone. But at the same time, I want to do it.

So if by "choice" you mean an option to do one of two things, then no, there is no choice. But if you mean we can make a decision to do that which appeals to us, though the alternatives are restricted by an ultimate fate, then there is a choice.

Quote from: "dgmort19"If I'm not making my choices, then who is?

Whatever law of physics that make the future immutable.

QuoteIf we assume that I am completely unwilling to give up my life, then being killed is not a choice I can make. I am restricted utterly. Thus, I must do what the dictator says, and the outcome is set in stone. But at the same time, I want to do it.

But it's not set in stone, it's YOUR choice you WANT to do whatever it takes to survive and live longer.  This doesn't mean that the future is immutable, this doesn't mean that the other option isn't available.  Conversely, in a universe wherein the future is immutable, the other option IS unavailable, its existence is an illusion, as I cannot make that choice.

No.  An omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god would have both the knowledge, power, and motivation to prevent a world filled with evils such as ours is.  The Christian conception of god collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

I can't agree that a law of physics somehow deprives me of my choices. I'm afraid that we cannot agree on this single point. However, I'm sure that we can both agree when Thumpalumpacus says

QuoteAn omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god would have both the knowledge, power, and motivation to prevent a world filled with evils such as ours is. The Christian conception of god collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

I mean, what more needs to be said?

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"No.  An omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god would have both the knowledge, power, and motivation to prevent a world filled with evils such as ours is.  The Christian conception of god collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

I cannot stand that Christians don't understand this.

argh, it irritates me.  

Quote from: "tymygy"

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"No.  An omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god would have both the knowledge, power, and motivation to prevent a world filled with evils such as ours is.  The Christian conception of god collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

I cannot stand that Christians don't understand this.

argh, it irritates me.  

The answer I always get is, "he could have made us robots but he loved us more than that, so he gave us freewill. Freewill is why there is evil."

Just ask them if you have freewill in heaven, and if so, will there be evil in heaven. Their face usually goes blank for a good moment. If no to the latter and yes to the former, ask why then, not simply start from the get go with everyone under those circumstances (Why did god put that Tree of Knowledge in Eden?).

Quote from: "Sophus"

Quote from: "tymygy"

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"No.  An omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god would have both the knowledge, power, and motivation to prevent a world filled with evils such as ours is.  The Christian conception of god collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

I cannot stand that Christians don't understand this.

argh, it irritates me.  

The answer I always get is, "he could have made us robots but he loved us more than that, so he gave us freewill. Freewill is why there is evil."

Just ask them if you have freewill in heaven, and if so, will there be evil in heaven. Their face usually goes blank for a good moment. If no to the latter and yes to the former, ask why then, not simply start from the get go with everyone under those circumstances (Why did god put that Tree of Knowledge in Eden?).

Thats what I do say. He set us up to fucking fail.

But they continue blindly with "faith" on their side.

This is quite funny. Here we are on an atheist forum and people are actually talking about what a right bastard God is.

Quote from: "dgmort19"I can't agree that a law of physics somehow deprives me of my choices.

Yet that's exactly what you're stating when you claim that the future is immutable.

Stupid capslock, I'm not retyping that, please ignore the yelling.

Quote from: "Sophus"Just ask them if you have freewill in heaven, and if so, will there be evil in heaven.

I'VE MADE THIS POINT BEFORE.  tHEY FALL BACK ON SOME NONSENSE ABOUT HOW THE TEST IS TO WEED OUT PEOPLE WHO WILL MAKE THE WRONG CHOICES AND PEOPLE WHO DO EVIL THINGS WILL BE IN HELL, BUT THE PEOPLE IN HEAVEN WHO CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING WILL BLAH BLAH.

Quote from: "i_am_i"This is quite funny. Here we are on an atheist forum and people are actually talking about what a right bastard God is.

lol  Your right!

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Stupid capslock, I'm not retyping that, please ignore the yelling.

Quote from: "Sophus"Just ask them if you have freewill in heaven, and if so, will there be evil in heaven.

I'VE MADE THIS POINT BEFORE.  tHEY FALL BACK ON SOME NONSENSE ABOUT HOW THE TEST IS TO WEED OUT PEOPLE WHO WILL MAKE THE WRONG CHOICES AND PEOPLE WHO DO EVIL THINGS WILL BE IN HELL, BUT THE PEOPLE IN HEAVEN WHO CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING WILL BLAH BLAH.

This reminds me of an old Dave Allen joke.
It involves two friends who die, one goes to heaven and one to hell.
The guy in hell makes a phone call to his friend in heaven.
Hell guy tells his friend about his daily routine, stoke the fire for a couple of hours and then enjoy the sinner (post) life style.
Heaven guy describes a routine of toil, dragging the sun out every morning and readying it for its journey across the sky.  There is also  endless polishing and stuff I don't remember.
Hell guy is surprised to hear things are so tough in heaven and asks why.
Heaven guy says, oh well um er there's only the two of us here.

Sorry, it was funny when Dave told it.

QuoteYet that's exactly what you're stating when you claim that the future is immutable.

So you say, PoopShoot! We have differing opinions of what choice is.

Anyway, even if an immutable timeline negates choice, this still invalidates the justification for human existence based on free will. For if the future is immutable, and God knows the outcome of our "choiceless" existence, if you will, then that still leaves a valueless free will for godless people like you and me. It is vacant of the legitimacy of allowing us opportunity to reach Heaven. And that makes God a "right bastard." :p

Quote from: "dgmort19"It is vacant of legitimacy in allowing us opportunity to reach Heaven. And that makes God a "right bastard." :p

I agree.  In fact, I personally point this out through the doctrine of original sin.

1. God created humanity and dictated what features of mankind would be inherited by their children.
2. Actions performed in life cannot be inherited by our offspring (Lamarckism).
3. The doctrine of original sin says that mankind all inherited Adam's sin (an action).

From this we can infer that god designed sin to be the one heritable action.  As an aside, this always makes me chuckle, as creationists love to denounce evolution by expounding Lamarckian concepts, yet their own doctrine of original sin is an example of Lamarckism in action.  Right, back on topic.

4. I inherited sin from previous generations, I was born with it.
5. The doctrine of hellfire says that sin is the one thing that makes me deserving of hell.

Conclusion: I have no choice in the matter of sin as inferred by 4.  I was created that way as inferred by 1-3.  Since god created me in a way that guaranteed me to be sinful, 5 implies that he created me inherently in need of going to hell.

Since god created me to go to hell, he's a right bastard.

Quote from: "dgmort19"And that makes God a "right bastard." :p

Yes, or the bastard that never was.

Quote from: "The Magic Pudding"

Quote from: "dgmort19"And that makes God a "right bastard." :p

Yes, or the bastard that never was.

It's already understood by virtue of the fact that the thread was started by an atheist that this whole conversation is a hypothetical.

I edited the wording of my sentence:

QuoteIt is vacant of the legitimacy of allowing us opportunity to reach Heaven.

But it looks like you understood my intended meaning anyway.

QuoteSince god created me in a way that guaranteed me to be sinful, 5 implies that he created me inherently in need of going to hell.

To play Devil's advocate, Christians would argue that God "reaches out" to us and allows us to override the sin nature vicariously by means of Christ's sacrifice.

This, of course, is where my ideas about the uselessness of an atheist's free will come in.

Quote from: "dgmort19"To play Devil's advocate, Christians would argue that God "reaches out" to us and allows us to override the sin nature by means of Christ's vicarious sacrifice.

I respond to that by pointing out the fact that this doesn't change my lack of free will, I'm still born with sin that I didn't choose to commit.  I then remind them that the sacrifice was unnecessary outside of god commanding it (Hebrews 9:22) which implies that god made original sin for the explicit purpose of getting a gore fix.

Yes, I agree completely. The only reason this sacrifice was necessary in the first place was because it's the very situation that God, himself, established!

Quote from: "Sophus"The answer I always get is, "he could have made us robots but he loved us more than that, so he gave us freewill. Freewill is why there is evil."

Ask them chapter and verse on that.  There is no verse in the Bible that mentions free will, to the best of my knowledge, but plenty that make mention of "God's will" being done.

Free will is apparent in our actions. Be religious or don't. A Christian would say that, since we're created by God, the free will must be a part of that package.

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"

Quote from: "Sophus"The answer I always get is, "he could have made us robots but he loved us more than that, so he gave us freewill. Freewill is why there is evil."

Ask them chapter and verse on that.  There is no verse in the Bible that mentions free will, to the best of my knowledge, but plenty that make mention of "God's will" being done.

True, yet it persists as the typical view. Unless they're Calvinists I suppose.

QuoteFree will is apparent in our actions. Be religious or don't. A Christian would say that, since we're created by God, the free will must be a part of that package.

I disagree, but that's a whole other topic, so I shan't derail.  

Quote from: "dgmort19"1)   God is omnipotent. Anything that can be done, he can do.
2)   God is omniscient. Anything that there is to know, he knows.
3)   When God creates a human being with free will, due to 2), he is completely aware of the human being’s ultimate fate.

Didn't have the time to run through ~4 pages of responses, so my apologies if this objection has already been covered.

If free will does exist, then there must exist multiple potential actions which we are able to take before we make a decision between them (i.e. in addition to actions which we take or have taken, there are also actions which we could take or could have taken in their place, each with their own set of repercussions).  So a true omniscience that holds given this condition implies that God must be aware of all possible actions which Joe could take, but does not imply that God must know what specific set of actions out of all possible ones Joe will take.

 - Diosjenin -

Quote from: "Diosjenin"If free will does exist, then there must exist multiple potential actions which we are able to take before we make a decision between them (i.e. in addition to actions which we take or have taken, there are also actions which we could take or could have taken in their place, each with their own set of repercussions).  So a true omniscience that holds given this condition implies that God must be aware of all possible actions which Joe could take, but does not imply that God must know what specific set of actions out of all possible ones Joe will take.

 - Diosjenin -

Yeah, I made this point and then we spent four pages arguing it.

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Yeah, I made this point and then we spent four pages arguing it.

Figures.  The one time I don't read things...  ah well.  I'll go back and read the whole thing when I have time on Friday afternoon.

 - Diosjenin -

Quote from: "Diosjenin"

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Yeah, I made this point and then we spent four pages arguing it.

Figures.  The one time I don't read things...  ah well.  I'll go back and read the whole thing when I have time on Friday afternoon.

 - Diosjenin -

Take your time.  I don't think you'll find it compelling.  None of the participants did.

Yeah, seriously. It was mainly just the two of us.

Quote from: "dgmort19"Yeah, seriously. It was mainly just the two of us.

Tru Dat  

Quote from: "dgmort19"

Quote from: "joeactor"... and what if "Evil" is defined as anything done against God's will?

Then God would be incapable of Evil.

Yes?

And denial of God's will would be the ultimate Evil.

Just playing Devil's advocate,
JoeActor

...yes, I suppose you're right about that. If the alleged inventor of morals defines "evil" as that which goes against his will, then he cannot commit evil. However, it should be highly suspicious that God does not adhere to his own standards.

"Don't hurt one another...but it's cool if I do it."

Well, I think every kid had his parents say "Do as I say, not as I do."

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

Quote from: "notself"I think it should be fairly easy to correctly translate a pronoun.  Evidently I am mistaken

Yes, but that phrase is taken from a single word and I don't speak Hebrew.  It might not be that simple.  Regardless, they ALL imply that the victory was due to god's power, meaning the defeat was a failure of god's power.  Besides, who wants to leave "he" in it when that directly implicates god as  failure.  Gotta at least TRY to make the damned book make sense.

It's has nothing to do, in this case, with the translation of a pronoun.

וַיְ×"Ö´×™ ×™Ö°×"וָ×" אֶת־יְ×"וּ×"Ö¸×" וַיֹּרֶשׁ אֶת־×"Ö¸×"ָר ×›Ö´Ö¼×™ לֹא לְ×"ֹורִישׁ אֶת־יֹשְׁ×'Öµ×™ ×"ָעֵמֶק

The important words here are ×™Ö°×"וּ×"Ö¸×" וַיֹּרֶשׁ (yehudah vayyoresh). Yehudah means "Judah." Vayyoresh is literally translated "and [he] drove out." Hebrew is like Spanish or Latin, in that the subject of the verb is built into the verb itself. If you want to be technical, this is a hiphil imperfect masculine third person singular.

The question is, who is "he." It is easy to assume that the "he" here is God, since Judah is a tribe of people and would be better referred to as "they drove out" (as the NIV renders it). However, it is important to note that in Hebrew, countries and tribes are often referred to by the masculine singular. Israel as a nation is often called "he," as are various tribes. This is, of course, because Israel is the name God gave Jacob. Judah was the name of Jacob's fourth son. Each of the twelve tribes comes from each of his twelve children (except Joseph - instead, we have the two half tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim, Joseph's two children). The point is that the "he" probably points back to the tribe of Judah, in which case, while the KJV has a more literal rendering, the NIV captures the concept in English more clearly.

As far as the supposed impotence of God, the point of the text is that God was with them despite their inability to drive out the stronger nations. It's important to remember that in the ANE mind, when two nations battled, the gods of the nations were also considered at war. Any loss would have been interpreted as either a defeat of the god or that the god had turned on the people for some reason. The author is emphasizing that even in the loss, God was still with them, contrary to what public opinion may have been. As far as why they lost, Deut 7:17 makes it clear enough - God would drive out their enemies, but only little by little. They simply went too far too fast. God doesn't expressly rebuke them for it, but He didn't just role over and give them a victory, either. The point is rather obvious - on the plains (unlike in the hills), the enemy was too strong for Judah because of their iron chariots. But it was never Judah's job to be the stronger (nor ever would it be). It was their job to simply do as God demanded, and he would take care of things as needed. It is, by the way, a good lesson for modern Christians to keep in mind, but that's another story.

Quote from: "Jac3510"It's has nothing to do, in this case, with the translation of a pronoun.

וַיְ×"Ö´×™ ×™Ö°×"וָ×" אֶת־יְ×"וּ×"Ö¸×" וַיֹּרֶשׁ אֶת־×"Ö¸×"ָר ×›Ö´Ö¼×™ לֹא לְ×"ֹורִישׁ אֶת־יֹשְׁ×'Öµ×™ ×"ָעֵמֶק

The important words here are ×™Ö°×"וּ×"Ö¸×" וַיֹּרֶשׁ (yehudah vayyoresh). Yehudah means "Judah." Vayyoresh is literally translated "and [he] drove out." Hebrew is like Spanish or Latin, in that the subject of the verb is built into the verb itself. If you want to be technical, this is a hiphil imperfect masculine third person singular.

Assuming this is accurate, it's still a matter of translating a pronoun, but the pronoun is built into the Hebrew verb.  Yes, it's semantics, but I see no reason for you to make the statement you did other than to make your argument appear more valid due to your apparent knowledge of Hebrew (or your possession of a good concordance, whichever is more accurate).

QuoteThe question is, who is "he."

Actually, as I stated before, it's pretty irrelevant.

QuoteAs far as the supposed impotence of God, the point of the text is that God was with them despite their inability to drive out the stronger nations. ... The author is emphasizing that even in the loss, God was still with them, contrary to what public opinion may have been.

And of what value is this presence?  You have a god who doesn't provide his own people with victory (despite a clear indication to the contrary in the verse you just "expounded"), he doesn't answer prayers in a manner that is any more reliable or meaningful than my cat does and he doesn't even bother "making men over in his image" enough to keep christians more moral than other groups.  One of my life's running jokes is the frequency with which people "find" Jesus in prison only to lose him again when they get out.  With what little he does, it's as if he doesn't exist.  You put more work into explaining away the clear implication of the scripture mentioned than your god did in helping his own chosen people obtain the land he promised to help them obtain.  THAT'S what modern christians should really take from this verse.

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

Quote from: "Jac3510"It's has nothing to do, in this case, with the translation of a pronoun.

וַיְ×"Ö´×™ ×™Ö°×"וָ×" אֶת־יְ×"וּ×"Ö¸×" וַיֹּרֶשׁ אֶת־×"Ö¸×"ָר ×›Ö´Ö¼×™ לֹא לְ×"ֹורִישׁ אֶת־יֹשְׁ×'Öµ×™ ×"ָעֵמֶק

The important words here are ×™Ö°×"וּ×"Ö¸×" וַיֹּרֶשׁ (yehudah vayyoresh). Yehudah means "Judah." Vayyoresh is literally translated "and [he] drove out." Hebrew is like Spanish or Latin, in that the subject of the verb is built into the verb itself. If you want to be technical, this is a hiphil imperfect masculine third person singular.

Assuming this is accurate, it's still a matter of translating a pronoun, but the pronoun is built into the Hebrew verb.  Yes, it's semantics, but I see no reason for you to make the statement you did other than to make your argument appear more valid due to your apparent knowledge of Hebrew (or your possession of a good concordance, whichever is more accurate).

QuoteThe question is, who is "he."

Actually, as I stated before, it's pretty irrelevant.

Just answering your translation question, PS. You guys were talking about why one translation had it one way and another translation another. Now you know.

Quote

QuoteAs far as the supposed impotence of God, the point of the text is that God was with them despite their inability to drive out the stronger nations. ... The author is emphasizing that even in the loss, God was still with them, contrary to what public opinion may have been.

And of what value is this presence?  You have a god who doesn't provide his own people with victory (despite a clear indication to the contrary in the verse you just "expounded"), he doesn't answer prayers in a manner that is any more reliable or meaningful than my cat does and he doesn't even bother "making men over in his image" enough to keep christians more moral than other groups.  One of my life's running jokes is the frequency with which people "find" Jesus in prison only to lose him again when they get out.  With what little he does, it's as if he doesn't exist.  You put more work into explaining away the clear implication of the scripture mentioned than your god did in helping his own chosen people obtain the land he promised to help them obtain.  THAT'S what modern christians should really take from this verse.

I'm not one who values relationships based on what I get out of them. Still less is God's presence only "valuable" when He employs His power on behalf of almighty man.

There's obviously an awful lot we could talk about in this short paragraph. Theological notions like the idea of God being "with" someone (the distinction between Elohim and YHWH, the nature in which God fulfills His covenants, the relationship between Israel and God (as a suzerain-vassal), the meaning and purpose of prayer, the image of God, morality, and the place of discipleship in salvation, are important here. Most people fail to understand the OT, however, not for theological reasons, but for interpretational reasons: who is the intended audience, what is relationship of Judges to the rest of the OT (specifically the Torah),what is the central theme of Judges, etc.

I don't think I've ever met an atheist who wanted to seriously look at those kinds of things. I'm sure you'll forgive me if I don't expect you to break that streak. Most Christians aren't even interested in them. People have the silly idea that they should just be able to pick up a document written thousands of years ago in another language, another culture, in another continent, and that they should just be able to read it like their Sunday morning newspaper and just immediately "get" what it "means today." It's really quite astounding.

Again, the important point is extremely simple: the Israelites to whom this was written would have been amazed to know that God was with them even in defeat. God will give what God wants to give when God wants to give t. He had promised them the land. They could rest fully in that promise. Nothing, no matter how bleak it got, would change that. Just because they didn't get it on their terms meant God couldn't be trusted. And that, I would add, is something Israel needs to understand today. They aren't living in peace today by any stretch of the imagination. But God will make good on His promise. He is still with them. They should simply rest in Him. Someday, they will. The value of that presence . . . such a fantastic way to start my day. Thanks

Quote from: "Jac3510"I'm not one who values relationships based on what I get out of them. Still less is God's presence only "valuable" when He employs His power on behalf of almighty man.

This is convenient for your faith.  For that very reason, you'd ought to question it more forcefully.

QuoteThere's obviously an awful lot we could talk about in this short paragraph. Theological notions like the idea of God being "with" someone (the distinction between Elohim and YHWH, the nature in which God fulfills His covenants, the relationship between Israel and God (as a suzerain-vassal), the meaning and purpose of prayer, the image of God, morality, and the place of discipleship in salvation, are important here. Most people fail to understand the OT, however, not for theological reasons, but for interpretational reasons: who is the intended audience, what is relationship of Judges to the rest of the OT (specifically the Torah),what is the central theme of Judges, etc.

How could the Word of a Perfect God be so imperfectly translated as to result in thousands of sects which are often at each others' throats?

QuoteI don't think I've ever met an atheist who wanted to seriously look at those kinds of things. I'm sure you'll forgive me if I don't expect you to break that streak. Most Christians aren't even interested in them. People have the silly idea that they should just be able to pick up a document written thousands of years ago in another language, another culture, in another continent, and that they should just be able to read it like their Sunday morning newspaper and just immediately "get" what it "means today." It's really quite astounding.

A god who could do anything could make this a possibility.  The fact that it isn't so means that either god exists and is an obscurantist, or he doesn't exist, and those who proclaim him are the obscurantists.  Either way, those of us with unanswered questions are dissatisfied with this state of affairs, especially when we are smugly told that we don't "want to seriously look at those kinds of things".

Talking down to people rarely buttresses anything but your ego.

QuoteThe value of that presence . . . such a fantastic way to start my day. Thanks

Yes, and I've heard many alcoholics make the same argument.  Still I don't intend on having my breakfast from a paper bag.

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"

Quote from: "Jac3510"I'm not one who values relationships based on what I get out of them. Still less is God's presence only "valuable" when He employs His power on behalf of almighty man.

This is convenient for your faith.  For that very reason, you'd ought to question it more forcefully.

I question it on a regular basis, dear sir. It always comes back a bit stronger than it was before. But while it appears you were focusing on the second sentence in the above quote, the first has the emphasis. I hold this to be true even in my own marriage. It's a fantastic way to live, I promise you.

Quote

QuoteThere's obviously an awful lot we could talk about in this short paragraph. Theological notions like the idea of God being "with" someone (the distinction between Elohim and YHWH, the nature in which God fulfills His covenants, the relationship between Israel and God (as a suzerain-vassal), the meaning and purpose of prayer, the image of God, morality, and the place of discipleship in salvation, are important here. Most people fail to understand the OT, however, not for theological reasons, but for interpretational reasons: who is the intended audience, what is relationship of Judges to the rest of the OT (specifically the Torah),what is the central theme of Judges, etc.

How could the Word of a Perfect God be so imperfectly translated as to result in thousands of sects which are often at each others' throats?

Because human beings aren't rational creatures, and we often let what we want to be the case get in the way of a clear knowledge of what is the case. Beyond that, do you speak any other languages? It's an honest question. Anyone who does translation of any kind will tell you that it virtually impossible to translate perfectly, and thus the old adage, "All translators are traitors."

Quote

QuoteI don't think I've ever met an atheist who wanted to seriously look at those kinds of things. I'm sure you'll forgive me if I don't expect you to break that streak. Most Christians aren't even interested in them. People have the silly idea that they should just be able to pick up a document written thousands of years ago in another language, another culture, in another continent, and that they should just be able to read it like their Sunday morning newspaper and just immediately "get" what it "means today." It's really quite astounding.

A god who could do anything could make this a possibility.  The fact that it isn't so means that either god exists and is an obscurantist, or he doesn't exist, and those who proclaim him are the obscurantists.  Either way, those of us with unanswered questions are dissatisfied with this state of affairs, especially when we are smugly told that we don't "want to seriously look at those kinds of things".

Assuming there is nothing logically contradictory in the notion, yes, He could. The question is what He did. I'd opt to say that God obscures to some and reveals to others. To quote, again, from someone better than myself:

To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it" (Matt. 13:10-17)

In short, those who insist on coming to the notion with preconceived ideas are wasting their time. They do not and will never "get" the text. This doesn't mean you have to be an open minded Christian to understand the Bible. A few of my favorite scholarly resources are liberal non-Christians. There is, however, a view on the non-Christian side that is comparable to the fundamentalism of many Christians, namely, a (some may say rabid) devotion to the idea that the Bible must be maximally corrupt. The SAB is perhaps an extreme example of this. Rather than viewing it as a historical document, such people look at it precisely as Christians do--the "Word of God,"--only rather with the intent of learning and worship, with the intent of fault-finding and ridicule. If you can avoid either of the extremes, you will find in the Old and New Testament documents a remarkably consistent theological history of Israel and the early Christian Church.

Again, most don't want to do this hard work. And when I say that, you argue . . .

QuoteTalking down to people rarely buttresses anything but your ego.

It's  not about talking anyone down or buttressing my ego. There are few things I care about in this world less than that. It's merely a practical observation. People would rather make the very argument you have put forward, which can be simplified as "It's too hard! God should have made it easier!!!" There's not much to say about that, is there? No other discipline is easy. Why, pray tell, should the most important of all be? For certainly, if God exists as the Bible describes Him, then nothing is as important as knowing and understanding Him, for in that knowledge lies the determination of all our eternity.

But people want it easy. They are insisting God play by their rules. In the end, it is something of a divine game of chicken. I would only encourage those who insist on their rules to reconsider, because in that game, God doesn't have much of a reason to blink.

Quote

QuoteThe value of that presence . . . such a fantastic way to start my day. Thanks

Yes, and I've heard many alcoholics make the same argument.  Still I don't intend on having my breakfast from a paper bag.

I'm sure ridiculing a person's most deeply held beliefs is somehow different than talking people down to buttress your own ego, but for the life of me, I don't see it quite yet. Personally, I was raised to be a bit more respectful than that.

Quote from: "Jac3510"I'm not one who values relationships based on what I get out of them.

Bullshit.  Everyone values relationships based upon returns.  You value a wife for the love gives you, her parenting skills, cooking ability, etc (or any combination of these and/or other traits you value).  You wouldn't make a woman your wife if she offered nothing in return.  The same for friends, if the friend offers nothing in return, he will quickly be labeled "not much of a friend".  There's even a saying "a friend in need is a friend indeed", the meaning being that a person who is willing to provide you with something valuable (even if just moral support) when you need that something.  Every relationship that we foster is based entirely on what we get from it.

QuoteStill less is God's presence only "valuable" when He employs His power on behalf of almighty man.

I would agree.  The former being is improbable and the latter being is impossible.

QuoteMost people fail to understand the OT, however, not for theological reasons, but for interpretational reasons: who is the intended audience, what is relationship of Judges to the rest of the OT (specifically the Torah),what is the central theme of Judges, etc.

But of course: most people like to pretend that the OT doesn't shine a bad light on their god's poor character.

QuoteI don't think I've ever met an atheist who wanted to seriously look at those kinds of things.

I've never met very few theists who wanted to look honestly at those things.  The ones I had soon realized that their faith was empty.

QuotePeople have the silly idea that they should just be able to pick up a document written thousands of years ago in another language, another culture, in another continent, and that they should just be able to read it like their Sunday morning newspaper and just immediately "get" what it "means today." It's really quite astounding.

That's funny, I was just thinking about how astounding it is that so many people think a bronze age document possibly could address modern issues.

QuoteAgain, the important point is extremely simple: the Israelites to whom this was written would have been amazed to know that God was with them even in defeat.

With them how?  In what way was he with them?  He certainly wasn't ACTUALLY with them, he was in heaven.  He certainly didn't support them in their pursuit of fulfillment of his commands, indeed he left them to defeat the moment things got tough.  In what way was he "with" them?

QuoteGod will give what God wants to give when God wants to give t.

And what does that even mean?

QuoteHe had promised them the land. They could rest fully in that promise. Nothing, no matter how bleak it got, would change that. Just because they didn't get it on their terms meant God couldn't be trusted.

But it wasn't on THEIR terms, it was on GOD'S terms.  God was the one who commanded them to go.  God was the one who had the men executed who reported to Joshua that their promised land was filled with fierce warriors.  God was the one who told them that he would be with them and god was the one whose presence was identical to absence the moment superior firepower entered the frame.  God was the one who empowered their voices to fell the walls of the oldest city on earth, yet their god did NOTHING when faced with a slightly harder metal than the Hebrews had access to.

Quote from: "PoopShoot"That's funny, I was just thinking about how astounding it is that so many people think a bronze age document possibly could address modern issues.

It annoys me that I'm supposed to believe the words of people purporting to represent god.
I learnt early, people lie.
They lie often, about the important and the trivial.
Why didn't god write it himself, in a manner miraculously understandable to all people?
The much criticised Tax Act does a better job setting rules than the bible.

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"

Quote from: "Jac3510"I'm not one who values relationships based on what I get out of them. Still less is God's presence only "valuable" when He employs His power on behalf of almighty man.

This is convenient for your faith.  For that very reason, you'd ought to question it more forcefully.

I question it on a regular basis, dear sir. It always comes back a bit stronger than it was before. But while it appears you were focusing on the second sentence in the above quote, the first has the emphasis. I hold this to be true even in my own marriage. It's a fantastic way to live, I promise you.

You need not promise me; I know as much myself.  Kindly don't patronize me, while you're at it.

Quote from: "Thump"How could the Word of a Perfect God be so imperfectly translated as to result in thousands of sects which are often at each others' throats?

Quote from: "Jack"Because human beings aren't rational creatures, and we often let what we want to be the case get in the way of a clear knowledge of what is the case. Beyond that, do you speak any other languages? It's an honest question. Anyone who does translation of any kind will tell you that it virtually impossible to translate perfectly, and thus the old adage, "All translators are traitors."

The question of imperfect translation is rendered irrelevant when you posit that a Perfect God made the Man, the Book, and the Language.  An omniscient god could make a testament impervious to mistranslation.  You must surrender this point, or surrender your own god's perfection.  You cannot logically have both.

Quote from: "Thump"A god who could do anything could make this a possibility.  The fact that it isn't so means that either god exists and is an obscurantist, or he doesn't exist, and those who proclaim him are the obscurantists.  Either way, those of us with unanswered questions are dissatisfied with this state of affairs, especially when we are smugly told that we don't "want to seriously look at those kinds of things".

Quote from: "Jack"Assuming there is nothing logically contradictory in the notion, yes, He could. The question is what He did. I'd opt to say that God obscures to some and reveals to others. To quote, again, from someone better than myself:

To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it" (Matt. 13:10-17)

In short, those who insist on coming to the notion with preconceived ideas are wasting their time. They do not and will never "get" the text. This doesn't mean you have to be an open minded Christian to understand the Bible. A few of my favorite scholarly resources are liberal non-Christians. There is, however, a view on the non-Christian side that is comparable to the fundamentalism of many Christians, namely, a (some may say rabid) devotion to the idea that the Bible must be maximally corrupt. The SAB is perhaps an extreme example of this. Rather than viewing it as a historical document, such people look at it precisely as Christians do--the "Word of God,"--only rather with the intent of learning and worship, with the intent of fault-finding and ridicule. If you can avoid either of the extremes, you will find in the Old and New Testament documents a remarkably consistent theological history of Israel and the early Christian Church.

Again, most don't want to do this hard work. And when I say that, you argue . . .

I have emphasized the problematic passage.  If you honestly believe what you've written therein, I take it you've not raised your child(ren) with religion?  Because that too is a preconceived notion.

Secondly, if you assert that the reading of the Bible -- and its truth value -- rely on the attitude of the reader, you are admitting that your god is not omnipresent.  If your god is omnipresent, then he lives even in my atheist heart.  If he does not live there, your god has a limit.  

Also, what the hell is a "theological history"?  I don't care what they believed.  We're talking, you and me, man to man.  I don't care what they believed.  They also believed that pi equals three, and that bats were birds.

Quote from: "Thump"Talking down to people rarely buttresses anything but your ego.

Quote from: "Jack"It's  not about talking anyone down or buttressing my ego. There are few things I care about in this world less than that.

Actions speak louder than words. Drop the patronization, that your words might ring true.

QuoteIt's merely a practical observation. People would rather make the very argument you have put forward, which can be simplified as "It's too hard! God should have made it easier!!!" There's not much to say about that, is there? No other discipline is easy.

Nonsense.  I can understand complex thought.  However, I cannot understand, say, a god who claims to be the epitome of justice, who then creates an eternal punishment for finite sin that we inherited (according to your religion) because our forebears bit an apple.  I'm not asking him to make it easy.  I'm asking him to be reasonable.

You should know that you're not lecturing a spring chicken here.  I'm accustomed to discipline, and have had a hard life.  I'm not asking for any favor from your god that I don't ask from anyone else around me:  be plain, make yourself  and your wants clear, and if I can accommodate them, I will.  Why is it that fallible humans around me can meet this simple standard, but your god cannot?  What I ask is easy, not hard, no matter your caricature.

QuoteWhy, pray tell, should the most important of all be? For certainly, if God exists as the Bible describes Him, then nothing is as important as knowing and understanding Him, for in that knowledge lies the determination of all our eternity.

And if grasshoppers had tailgunners we'd eat robins every night.  Until you demonstrate this if, your remonstrations about "eternity" sound empty.  This passage here is a disguised appeal to fear.  As such, I reject it.

QuoteBut people want it easy. They are insisting God play by their rules. In the end, it is something of a divine game of chicken. I would only encourage those who insist on their rules to reconsider, because in that game, God doesn't have much of a reason to blink.

This is a disguised Pascal's Wager.  I'm unafraid.  You know another thing Pascal said?  "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces makes me afraid."  I think in that quote you will find the root of his bullshit "wager".

QuoteI'm sure ridiculing a person's most deeply held beliefs is somehow different than talking people down to buttress your own ego, but for the life of me, I don't see it quite yet. Personally, I was raised to be a bit more respectful than that.

Ridicule?  All I did was point out that alcoholics look forward to their first drink of the morning as you look forward to your first chat with your god.  How is that "ridicule"? (Unless, of course, you consider alcoholics to be lesser than you.)

Quoteit is something of a divine game of chicken. I would only encourage those who insist on their rules to reconsider, because in that game, God doesn't have much of a reason to blink.

Poorly veiled threats, anyone?

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

Quoteit is something of a divine game of chicken. I would only encourage those who insist on their rules to reconsider, because in that game, God doesn't have much of a reason to blink.

Poorly veiled threats, anyone?

Turn it around and it sounds pretty preachy to me -

It is something of a reality-based game of chicken.  I would only encourage those who insist on their fantasies to reconsider, because in that game, reality doesn't have much of a reason to blink.

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Bullshit.  Everyone values relationships based upon returns.  You value a wife for the love gives you, her parenting skills, cooking ability, etc (or any combination of these and/or other traits you value).  You wouldn't make a woman your wife if she offered nothing in return.  The same for friends, if the friend offers nothing in return, he will quickly be labeled "not much of a friend".  There's even a saying "a friend in need is a friend indeed", the meaning being that a person who is willing to provide you with something valuable (even if just moral support) when you need that something.  Every relationship that we foster is based entirely on what we get from it.

Maybe you value relationships based on what you get out of them. I don't. I think that is an absolutely terrible way to live and ultimately makes love impossible. I have very good friends who I get nothing in return from, and these are very dear to me. Just the opposite, anyone who valued my friendship based on what they got out of me wouldn't be much of a friend at all. A parasite? Sure. A friend? Not in the least.

QuoteBut of course: most people like to pretend that the OT doesn't shine a bad light on their god's poor character.

It only shines a bad light on those who are don't understand the interpretational issues.

QuoteI've never met very few theists who wanted to look honestly at those things.  The ones I had soon realized that their faith was empty.

I can believe that. Most theists have a blind faith, unfortunately. But that doesn't change the fact that most people--at least the ones I've met, including atheists--don't want to do the hard work of doing history properly. They're more interested in their own snap judgments. There are few things more destructive to a well informed opinion than an inconvenient fact. Easier to ignore it, and easier still to never look for it.

QuoteThat's funny, I was just thinking about how astounding it is that so many people think a bronze age document possibly could address modern issues.

That's quite a shame. You know what they say about those who don't know their history.

QuoteWith them how?  In what way was he with them?  He certainly wasn't ACTUALLY with them, he was in heaven.  He certainly didn't support them in their pursuit of fulfillment of his commands, indeed he left them to defeat the moment things got tough.  In what way was he "with" them?

As I said before, that is one of the notions we would have to explore if you wanted to have a real discussion about this. God never left them, even in defeat. But the short answer to your question is that He would keep His promises, meaning they had nothing to worry about. I've already pointed you to Deut 7:22, where God expressly says, "You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once."

QuoteAnd what does that even mean?

It's a rather simple statement. If God wants to give me something, He will give it to me when He wants to.

QuoteBut it wasn't on THEIR terms, it was on GOD'S terms.  God was the one who commanded them to go.  God was the one who had the men executed who reported to Joshua that their promised land was filled with fierce warriors.  God was the one who told them that he would be with them and god was the one whose presence was identical to absence the moment superior firepower entered the frame.  God was the one who empowered their voices to fell the walls of the oldest city on earth, yet their god did NOTHING when faced with a slightly harder metal than the Hebrews had access to.

Exactly. God fulfills His promises on His terms. As noted, His own terms were that they would not receive the land all at once. They tried to defeat a people who were more powerful than them. They couldn't do it. The point is obvious. They got the land when God gave it to them, and not a second before. The Jews weren't strong enough to take the land for themselves precisely because the warriors were so fierce. Again, read Deut. 7:17-22. Those were God's terms. And it was on those terms He would fulfill His promise. No one else's.

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Bullshit.  Everyone values relationships based upon returns.  You value a wife for the love gives you, her parenting skills, cooking ability, etc (or any combination of these and/or other traits you value).  You wouldn't make a woman your wife if she offered nothing in return.  The same for friends, if the friend offers nothing in return, he will quickly be labeled "not much of a friend".  There's even a saying "a friend in need is a friend indeed", the meaning being that a person who is willing to provide you with something valuable (even if just moral support) when you need that something.  Every relationship that we foster is based entirely on what we get from it.

Maybe you value relationships based on what you get out of them. I don't. I think that is an absolutely terrible way to live and ultimately makes love impossible. I have very good friends who I get nothing in return from, and these are very dear to me. Just the opposite, anyone who valued my friendship based on what they got out of me wouldn't be much of a friend at all. A parasite? Sure. A friend? Not in the least.

Jac, your last few statements (underlined) bring all the words before it toppling down.

To me, it seems PS isn't necessarily talking about material things, rather in a very broad sense ("the love she gives you in return". It's just that everything we do in life and take time to engage in it's because we get something out of it. Always. From the same respect, if you were to tell a friend, "I don't really get anything out of being around you. No sense of pleasure, happiness, nothing...." They would probably say, "Oh, thanks! See ya. Have a nice life."

Enjoying the company of a friend does not make you a parasite. It's quid pro quo.

Quote from: "Martin TK"Well, I think every kid had his parents say "Do as I say, not as I do."

I think those parents also admit to not being perfect. Unlike God.  

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"You need not promise me; I know as much myself.  Kindly don't patronize me, while you're at it.

No patronizing, Thump. Only written in all sincerity. And I truly hope you do know what it is like to have relationships that you don't value based on what you get out of them. PS doesn't think anyone does . . . I'm sure you would agree, knowing such relationships as you do, how sad such a predicament must be.

QuoteThe question of imperfect translation is rendered irrelevant when you posit that a Perfect God made the Man, the Book, and the Language.  An omniscient god could make a testament impervious to mistranslation.  You must surrender this point, or surrender your own god's perfection.  You cannot logically have both.

What, just because God doesn't do things your way He is either not omnipotent or not omniscient? That represents a claim to omniscience on your own part. Perhaps God has a perfectly good reason you aren't aware of as to why He wants people to have to work at it. Poets do so all the time.

Besides, your objection could be extended to anything. Why wouldn't God make physics easier? Maybe He has. Who knows. If God were to make certain things impossible, you would never know it. You entire objection, then, assumes knowledge you don't have access to.

[quoteI have emphasized the problematic passage.  If you honestly believe what you've written therein, I take it you've not raised your child(ren) with religion?  Because that too is a preconceived notion.

Secondly, if you assert that the reading of the Bible -- and its truth value -- rely on the attitude of the reader, you are admitting that your god is not omnipresent.  If your god is omnipresent, then he lives even in my atheist heart.  If he does not live there, your god has a limit.  

Also, what the hell is a "theological history"?  I don't care what they believed.  We're talking, you and me, man to man.  I don't care what they believed.  They also believed that pi equals three, and that bats were birds.[/quote]
Raising my daughter to believe in Jesus Christ isn't the same thing as coming to the text with preconceived notions. When the time comes for her to start studying her Bible, I'll do my best to see to it that she approaches it absolutely objectively.

Second, I have absolutely no idea how God's location (or lackthereof) has anything to do with my attitude when reading a text. That's just a non-sequitur. In any case, you've misunderstood omnipresence. Properly speaking, God isn't located anywhere. That would be a limitation, which would contradict the notion of a limitless God. The point is that all places--and all times--are equally "near" God.

Third,you had better care what the Israelites believed, because if you don't, you can't do history. In fact, you can't have any kind of conversation at all. People's words mean very different things depending on their situation, relation to the facts, and beliefs. As far as the little contradictions you point out, our current definition of pi is an approximation, as pi is itself an irrational number, just as much as their own. Finally, ancient taxonomy is functionally different from modern taxonomy. A bird is a flying animal. A fish is a swimming creature. By these definitions, bats are birds and whales are fish. The word tsippowr may be translated properly as "bird," but it doesn't mean "winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals" (following Wikipedia; pick your source). It just means a flying animal.

QuoteActions speak louder than words. Drop the patronization, that your words might ring true.

Ah, the nature of text. Do forgive any patronization you see. None is intended.

QuoteNonsense.  I can understand complex thought.  However, I cannot understand, say, a god who claims to be the epitome of justice, who then creates an eternal punishment for finite sin that we inherited (according to your religion) because our forebears bit an apple.  I'm not asking him to make it easy.  I'm asking him to be reasonable.

I'll open a thread on hell next week as I think the second argument is winding down. It's been on my list of things to do for sometime now.

QuoteYou should know that you're not lecturing a spring chicken here.  I'm accustomed to discipline, and have had a hard life.  I'm not asking for any favor from your god that I don't ask from anyone else around me:  be plain, make yourself  and your wants clear, and if I can accommodate them, I will.  Why is it that fallible humans around me can meet this simple standard, but your god cannot?  What I ask is easy, not hard, no matter your caricature.

I hardly think you are a "spring chicken." You assertion, however, can hardly be applied universally. Is quantum mechanics clear? Perhaps, to those who study it. Is biology clear? Perhaps, to those who study it. There are certain aspects of QM and biology that are clear. There are some things that require deeper study. The same is true with theology. Some things are obvious--usually, the important things--God's existence, salvation by faith alone, the resurrection at the end of time, etc. Certainly you can examine each of these issues until you get to very difficult related questions, but almost all of them can be answered, and usually very clearly. You just have to be willing to do the hard work of looking those interpretational questions.

QuoteAnd if grasshoppers had tailgunners we'd eat robins every night.  Until you demonstrate this if, your remonstrations about "eternity" sound empty.  This passage here is a disguised appeal to fear.  As such, I reject it.

All discussion entails a level of assumption. If we have to prove every statement before we can make  it, we could never make any statement. On the assumption of Christianity, what I said is precisely true. We can continue to talk about whether or not Christianity actually is true, but I would think that you intelligent enough to look at what it would mean for various topics if it were.

As it stands, you seem to be trying to eat your cake and have it to. On the one hand, you want to say, "If God were real, He would make this clearer!" and then on the other, "You can't say what it would be like if God were real, because you haven't proven that God is real." You have to decide which conversation you want to have. Do you want to discuss what would be the case if God were real, or do you want to discuss whether or not God is real?

QuoteThis is a disguised Pascal's Wager.  I'm unafraid.  You know another thing Pascal said?  "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces makes me afraid."  I think in that quote you will find the root of his bullshit "wager".

No wager intended. Read the statement again. I am talking specifically about whether or not God should make it easy. People want God to communicate on their terms, and if He doesn't do so the way they insist, then they argue He doesn't exist. The question is simply this: why should God communicate on your terms at all? Why should God do anything on your terms? If He is real, He can do whatever the heck He wants. We play on His terms, not vice versa.

So, it is like a game of chicken. You have your rules and God has His. God breaks your rules, and what price does He pay? Nothing. You break His rules, and what price do you pay? A lot. Does that mean, then, that you should believe? Of course not. Fear is no motivation for belief. But it does mean that you have no logical basis on which to make your argument. The prudent thing to do is say, "Well, if God is real, this is what is and is not possible, therefore, etc." As I've pointed out, if God is real, He has no obligation to play by your rules. You can get mad at Him all you want over that, but it won't change His obligation or lackthereof. So, who will blink first? It won't be God. It may not be you. I am just saying that if God is there, I would hate to be the one in that collision.

QuoteRidicule?  All I did was point out that alcoholics look forward to their first drink of the morning as you look forward to your first chat with your god.  How is that "ridicule"? (Unless, of course, you consider alcoholics to be lesser than you.)

Actually, I don't consider alcoholics less than me. I do consider alcoholism, as a lifestyle, an inferior lifestyle. But with that aside, you are smart enough to see that comparing a person's faith to alcoholism is a type of ridicule (or, should I say, ridiculous). I would like to think you are a better person than that.

Quote from: "Sophus"

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Bullshit.  Everyone values relationships based upon returns.  You value a wife for the love gives you, her parenting skills, cooking ability, etc (or any combination of these and/or other traits you value).  You wouldn't make a woman your wife if she offered nothing in return.  The same for friends, if the friend offers nothing in return, he will quickly be labeled "not much of a friend".  There's even a saying "a friend in need is a friend indeed", the meaning being that a person who is willing to provide you with something valuable (even if just moral support) when you need that something.  Every relationship that we foster is based entirely on what we get from it.

Maybe you value relationships based on what you get out of them. I don't. I think that is an absolutely terrible way to live and ultimately makes love impossible. I have very good friends who I get nothing in return from, and these are very dear to me. Just the opposite, anyone who valued my friendship based on what they got out of me wouldn't be much of a friend at all. A parasite? Sure. A friend? Not in the least.

Jac, your last few statements (underlined) bring all the words before it toppling down.

To me, it seems PS isn't necessarily talking about material things, rather in a very broad sense ("the love she gives you in return". It's just that everything we do in life and take time to engage in it's because we get something out of it. Always. From the same respect, if you were to tell a friend, "I don't really get anything out of being around you. No sense of pleasure, happiness, nothing...." They would probably say, "Oh, thanks! See ya. Have a nice life."

Enjoying the company of a friend does not make you a parasite. It's quid pro quo.

I am aware of what PS is saying, and I still don't accept it. As far as my words you underlined, they are perfectly consistent with the rest of what I said. I don't value a friendship of any kind (including my marriage) based on what I get out of them. A person who claims to be my friend because of what I give them is not a friend. A parasite would be a better definition. That doesn't mean I'm not their friend. I don't require perfection or anything resembling as much for friendship. How could I as I am far from perfect myself?!?

Love is unconditional. Absolutely unconditional. I know we don't have much of that in our society, but it's the most fulfilling way to live.

Quote from: "Jac3510"Love is unconditional. Absolutely unconditional. I know we don't have much of that in our society, but it's the most fulfilling way to live.

So if your wife cheated on you, you'd be perfectly ok with it?  I doubt it.  If your friend intentionally burned your house to the ground, he'd still be a great fellow?  I don't believe it for a second.

Quote from: "Jac3510"I am aware of what PS is saying, and I still don't accept it. As far as my words you underlined, they are perfectly consistent with the rest of what I said. I don't value a friendship of any kind (including my marriage) based on what I get out of them. A person who claims to be my friend because of what I give them is not a friend. A parasite would be a better definition. That doesn't mean I'm not their friend. I don't require perfection or anything resembling as much for friendship. How could I as I am far from perfect myself?!?

Friendship is mutual.

QuoteLove is unconditional. Absolutely unconditional. I know we don't have much of that in our society, but it's the most fulfilling way to live.

There is a mature love versus an immature love, a much more encompassing one versus a petty one, which I refer to as, not love, but symbiotic attachment. But absolute unconditional love? There is no such real thing. Even the great philosopher of love, Erich Fromm, noted this off the bat in his book The Art of Loving.

Quote from: "PoopShoot"So if your wife cheated on you, you'd be perfectly ok with it?  I doubt it.  If your friend intentionally burned your house to the ground, he'd still be a great fellow?  I don't believe it for a second.

I wouldn't divorce my wife if she cheated on me, and if my friend burned my house to the ground, he would have consequences to suffer just as I do when I make mistakes. He wouldn't be a great fellow because none of us, not the least being me, are great fellows.

See, this is what I am trying to tell you: we don't love people because they are good or bad. We love them because they are the people in our lives and we want what is best for them. You can believe that or not believe it. That's not really my problem. I am telling that you we have no right to pass judgments on anyone, because all of us are fallen creatures. All judgment is the pot calling the kettle black. Sure, I can say my wife ought not cheat on me (and hopefully she won't). But that doesn't have any impact on how or why I love her. And friends ought to treat one another in one way and not in others, but that has nothing to do with whether or not, how, or why you love them.

I can only control my own actions and attitudes, PS. The moment I start placing expectations and requirements on others, I become little more than a slave master. If people want to treat others right, then the world will be a better place. If not, we'll all have a little bit of a sadder world to live in. That doesn't change the fact, though, that the only thing I can do is love without condition.

Quote from: "Sophus"Friendship is mutual.

Perhaps for you. For me, it's a one way street. If a friend wishes to befriend me, then so much the better, but my friendship is not predicated on the action of the other.

QuoteThere is a mature love versus an immature love, a much more encompassing one versus a petty one, which I refer to as, not love, but symbiotic attachment. But absolute unconditional love? There is no such real thing. Even the great philosopher of love, Erich Fromm, noted this off the bat in his book The Art of Loving.

Then I feel bad for Mr. Fromm. I used to live that way. I can't imagine going back.

Quote from: "Jac3510"If people want to treat others right, then the world will be a better place.

Non sequitur.  I never advocated treating anyone any differently than I wish to be treated.

QuoteThat doesn't change the fact, though, that the only thing I can do is love without condition.

Somehow I think the consequences mentioned for your friend who intentionally burned your house probably include loss of your friendship.

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Non sequitur.  I never advocated treating anyone any differently than I wish to be treated.

I'm not being technical here, PS. Intentions have nothing to do with the quality of the world. But if people do treat each other better, the world will be a better place. That doesn't change the fact that relationships shouldn't be valued based on how someone treats me.

QuoteSomehow I think the consequences mentioned for your friend who intentionally burned your house probably include loss of your friendship.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.." ~ Jesus (Matt. 5:43-48)

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." ~ Paul (Rom. 12:14-21)

Quote from: "Jac"

Quote from: "Sophus"Friendship is mutual.

Perhaps for you. For me, it's a one way street. If a friend wishes to befriend me, then so much the better, but my friendship is not predicated on the action of the other.

Why doesn't the Christian God do that? You either befriend him or burn in hell. You have higher standards of love then him. I have higher standards of love than him.

Quote

QuoteThere is a mature love versus an immature love, a much more encompassing one versus a petty one, which I refer to as, not love, but symbiotic attachment. But absolute unconditional love? There is no such real thing. Even the great philosopher of love, Erich Fromm, noted this off the bat in his book The Art of Loving.

Then I feel bad for Mr. Fromm. I used to live that way. I can't imagine going back.

You're reading way too much into this. Fromm never said only do stuff for people if they do stuff for you back. Quite to the contrary, he thought love was autotelic. Yet at the same time, there's no way in any action of life you can possibly do anything that you do not choose to do because you want to get something beneficial from it or avoid something negative from it.

I've cut some old ties because friends were too egocentric, judgmental and obnoxious. Doesn't mean I hate them, but it's decisions I had to make out of respect for myself.

Quote from: "Jac3510"That doesn't change the fact that relationships shouldn't be valued based on how someone treats me.

So you value a friend who treats you like shit?

The scriptures you posted make no sense as a response to the quote they follow.

Quote from: "Sophus"You're reading way too much into this. Fromm never said only do stuff for people if they do stuff for you back. Quite to the contrary, he thought love was autotelic. Yet at the same time, there's no way in any action of life you can possibly do anything that you do not choose to do because you want to get something beneficial from it or avoid something negative from it.

I've cut some old ties because friends were too egocentric, judgmental and obnoxious. Doesn't mean I hate them, but it's decisions I had to make out of respect for myself.

Are you saying that it is impossible to love your enemies?  That despite that, say, MLK preached this, he didn't actually love his enemies?

Quote from: "Reginus"

Quote from: "Sophus"You're reading way too much into this. Fromm never said only do stuff for people if they do stuff for you back. Quite to the contrary, he thought love was autotelic. Yet at the same time, there's no way in any action of life you can possibly do anything that you do not choose to do because you want to get something beneficial from it or avoid something negative from it.

I've cut some old ties because friends were too egocentric, judgmental and obnoxious. Doesn't mean I hate them, but it's decisions I had to make out of respect for myself.

Are you saying that it is impossible to love your enemies?  That despite that, say, MLK preached this, he didn't actually love his enemies?

Of course he didn't love his enemies. Do you love your enemies? Do you even have any enemies? If so, why?

I don't have any enemies, not one. If I do have an enemy I sure as hell don't know about it. I know for a fact that I am nobody's enemy unless for some strange reason someone considers me to be one.

What a primitive concept, the idea of having enemies. It's silly.

Okay, this is an argument that can spin in circles forever.

personally, I value a friend, not for what he will give to me but for what he will not take away. A friend that is just another person like me, but doesn't talk shit about me, or wouldn't care what I said abiout him/her would be a good enough friend for me. A person, who treats me like shit, takes things and doesn't return them, emotionally hurts me is NOT a good enough friend for me.

Now jac, say your wife did nothing for you exept degrade you physically and emotionally, took away your "manlyhood" if you would, would you love her? (or have ever loved her?) Now say your wife does nothing for you, but she also doesn't make you feel like shit, and she never has anything bad to say about you, would you still love her? Probably. Now imagine your wife, she is perfect, she loves you more than anything, she would give her life for you in a heartbeat. She would defend you if it meant degrading her own "image". Would you love her more than the other two options?? Why or why not?

Same goes for a friend.

Quote from: "i_am_i"

Quote from: "Reginus"

Quote from: "Sophus"You're reading way too much into this. Fromm never said only do stuff for people if they do stuff for you back. Quite to the contrary, he thought love was autotelic. Yet at the same time, there's no way in any action of life you can possibly do anything that you do not choose to do because you want to get something beneficial from it or avoid something negative from it.

I've cut some old ties because friends were too egocentric, judgmental and obnoxious. Doesn't mean I hate them, but it's decisions I had to make out of respect for myself.

Are you saying that it is impossible to love your enemies?  That despite that, say, MLK preached this, he didn't actually love his enemies?

Of course he didn't love his enemies. Do you love your enemies? Do you even have any enemies? If so, why?

I don't have any enemies, not one. If I do have an enemy I sure as hell don't know about it. I know for a fact that I am nobody's enemy unless for some strange reason someone considers me to be one.

What a primitive concept, the idea of having enemies. It's silly.

For the purposes of my argument, let's define enemy as "someone who hates you, or engages in activities antagonistic to you."  Certainly MLK had enemies in this sense.

Quote from: "Reginus"

Quote from: "i_am_i"

Quote from: "Reginus"Are you saying that it is impossible to love your enemies?  That despite that, say, MLK preached this, he didn't actually love his enemies?

Of course he didn't love his enemies. Do you love your enemies? Do you even have any enemies? If so, why?

I don't have any enemies, not one. If I do have an enemy I sure as hell don't know about it. I know for a fact that I am nobody's enemy unless for some strange reason someone considers me to be one.

What a primitive concept, the idea of having enemies. It's silly.

For the purposes of my argument, let's define enemy as "someone who hates you, or engages in activities antagonistic to you."  Certainly MLK had enemies in this sense.

Okay, let's. I very much doubt that Martin Luther King Junior loved those who hated him or engaged in activities that were antagonistic to him. I can, however, imagine that he was convinced that he should, being that he was a Christian.

MLK protested peacefully. I seriously doubt that means he loved the people who arrested him or would have "loved" the man who killed him. You can try to show them undeserved respect or be civil toward them but if one were to look at the psychology behind it, I really doubt the mental state could qualify anywhere near the warm fuzzies of love.

Quote from: "i_am_i"Okay, let's. I very much doubt that Martin Luther King Junior loved those who hated him or engaged in activities that were antagonistic to him. I can, however, imagine that he was convinced that he should, being that he was a Christian.

Did he ever do or say anything to harm an enemy?  Is there any person who knew him well who has testified that he hated or even did not love his enemies?

Quote from: "Reginus"

Quote from: "i_am_i"Okay, let's. I very much doubt that Martin Luther King Junior loved those who hated him or engaged in activities that were antagonistic to him. I can, however, imagine that he was convinced that he should, being that he was a Christian.

Did he ever do or say anything to harm an enemy?  Is there any person who knew him well who has testified that he hated or even did not love his enemies?

Why are the only options hate and love?

Quote from: "Reginus"

Quote from: "i_am_i"Okay, let's. I very much doubt that Martin Luther King Junior loved those who hated him or engaged in activities that were antagonistic to him. I can, however, imagine that he was convinced that he should, being that he was a Christian.

Did he ever do or say anything to harm an enemy?  Is there any person who knew him well who has testified that he hated or even did not love his enemies?

Reginus, do you have enemies?

Quote from: "Sophus"

Quote from: "Jac3510"I am aware of what PS is saying, and I still don't accept it. As far as my words you underlined, they are perfectly consistent with the rest of what I said. I don't value a friendship of any kind (including my marriage) based on what I get out of them. A person who claims to be my friend because of what I give them is not a friend. A parasite would be a better definition. That doesn't mean I'm not their friend. I don't require perfection or anything resembling as much for friendship. How could I as I am far from perfect myself?!?

Friendship is mutual.

QuoteLove is unconditional. Absolutely unconditional. I know we don't have much of that in our society, but it's the most fulfilling way to live.

There is a mature love versus an immature love, a much more encompassing one versus a petty one, which I refer to as, not love, but symbiotic attachment. But absolute unconditional love? There is no such real thing. Even the great philosopher of love, Erich Fromm, noted this off the bat in his book The Art of Loving.

Friendship has to be mutual, otherwise it is simply one person exploiting another for their own selfish pleasure.

Love can be unconditional, however a better word to describe that sort of love would be infatuation. Stalkers can love unconditionally. Love, unreciprocated, is simply indistinguishable from harassment. Love can be utterly selfish and bear no relationship whatsoever to the feelings of the object of that Love.

Quote from: "Jac3510"No patronizing, Thump. Only written in all sincerity. And I truly hope you do know what it is like to have relationships that you don't value based on what you get out of them. PS doesn't think anyone does . . . I'm sure you would agree, knowing such relationships as you do, how sad such a predicament must be.

Actually, I think he's merely being honest: we all derive something from our relationships, such as the emotional satisfaction Sophus mentioned.  Not all gain is material; even a materialist like me understands that.  I also understand that the Golden Rule is merely a corollary of this basic fact.

QuoteWhat, just because God doesn't do things your way He is either not omnipotent or not omniscient? That represents a claim to omniscience on your own part. Perhaps God has a perfectly good reason you aren't aware of as to why He wants people to have to work at it. Poets do so all the time.

1) It does not mean I claim omniscience.  It means I retain the right to make my own judgments.  Certainly you're smart enough to see the difference.  "Knowing better" does not mean "knowing everything."  I'm surprised one so well-versed in philosophy missed this obvious difference.

2) If your god made me the way I am, then he understands my skepticism better than I do myself.  If he truly loves me and desires me to avoid the hell your religion claims he himself made for me, he might at least reveal his thinking a little.  After all, "because I said so" insults my son's intelligence.  I'm not omniscient, and even I know how unsatisfying that answer is.

3) Poets don't murder people for not understanding, and then torment them throughout eternity.  Your analogy fails.

QuoteBesides, your objection could be extended to anything. Why wouldn't God make physics easier? Maybe He has. Who knows. If God were to make certain things impossible, you would never know it. You entire objection, then, assumes knowledge you don't have access to.

[Emphasis added]

Thank you for making plain the non-falsifiable nature of your claim.  And no, my objection assumes nothing but the qualities Christians claim for god.  I know damned well what is moral and what isn't, and it isn't moral to punish someone for ignorance when you have it in your power to enlighten them.

QuoteRaising my daughter to believe in Jesus Christ isn't the same thing as coming to the text with preconceived notions. When the time comes for her to start studying her Bible, I'll do my best to see to it that she approaches it absolutely objectively.

Nonsense. You are giving her the preconceived notion that Christ is the son of your god.  You will have already undermined her objectivity.

QuoteSecond, I have absolutely no idea how God's location (or lackthereof) has anything to do with my attitude when reading a text. That's just a non-sequitur. In any case, you've misunderstood omnipresence. Properly speaking, God isn't located anywhere. That would be a limitation, which would contradict the notion of a limitless God. The point is that all places--and all times--are equally "near" God.

If god is everywhere, why do Christians preach to invite him into our hearts?  Isn't he already there?   Further, if he's everywhere, please point to your evidence.  What markers tell you "this part is my god?"  Again, this is non-falsifiable, and thus useless for the purposes of this discussion.

QuoteThird,you had better care what the Israelites believed, because if you don't, you can't do history. In fact, you can't have any kind of conversation at all. People's words mean very different things depending on their situation, relation to the facts, and beliefs. As far as the little contradictions you point out, our current definition of pi is an approximation, as pi is itself an irrational number, just as much as their own.

Not so.  An exact number is not an approximation.  It is an exactitude, and one much less accurate than our non-divinely inspired approximation.  Were it an approximation, they would have said "Well, it's a little more than three stones on the circumference for each stone in the middle," or something to that effect.

Also, your first sentence is taking my terms out of context.  Certainly you should have been able to see that I meant that on a personal, and not scholarly, level.  Of course, their beliefs, false as they've proven to be, have had historical impact.  I'm saying that their beliefs are irrelevant to my personal faith, or lack thereof.

Finally, even a "little" contradiction shows that your god muffed a very simple thing.

QuoteFinally, ancient taxonomy is functionally different from modern taxonomy. A bird is a flying animal. A fish is a swimming creature. By these definitions, bats are birds and whales are fish. The word tsippowr may be translated properly as "bird," but it doesn't mean "winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals" (following Wikipedia; pick your source). It just means a flying animal.

Oddly enough, these people in contact with an omniscient god got this wrong.

QuoteAh, the nature of text. Do forgive any patronization you see. None is intended.

Fair enough, and thank you.

QuoteI'll open a thread on hell next week as I think the second argument is winding down. It's been on my list of things to do for sometime now.

In anticipation of you so doing, I'd ask you to ponder the justice of meting out infinite punishment for finite "crimes".  Because that is one of the big sticking points with a god who is claimed to be infinitely merciful.  

Quote from: "Thump"You should know that you're not lecturing a spring chicken here.  I'm accustomed to discipline, and have had a hard life.  I'm not asking for any favor from your god that I don't ask from anyone else around me:  be plain, make yourself  and your wants clear, and if I can accommodate them, I will.  Why is it that fallible humans around me can meet this simple standard, but your god cannot?  What I ask is easy, not hard, no matter your caricature.

Quote from: "Jack"I hardly think you are a "spring chicken." You assertion, however, can hardly be applied universally. Is quantum mechanics clear? Perhaps, to those who study it. Is biology clear? Perhaps, to those who study it. There are certain aspects of QM and biology that are clear.

This is a category error.  I am not asking a discipline to be clear.  I am wondering why this god whom you claim to be all-knowing does not seem to understand human skepticism.  I am not talking of any scientific discipline, which study can make clear.  I am talking of your god not clearing up simple questions about the deep contradictions inherent is his Christian conceptualization.

QuoteThere are some things that require deeper study. The same is true with theology. Some things are obvious--usually, the important things--God's existence, salvation by faith alone, the resurrection at the end of time, etc. Certainly you can examine each of these issues until you get to very difficult related questions, but almost all of them can be answered, and usually very clearly. You just have to be willing to do the hard work of looking those interpretational questions.

I've asked and looked much.  The problem with your argument here is that your god appears to prefer my ignorance resulting in eternal damnation, rather than simply saying, "here's why I do what I do."  

QuoteAll discussion entails a level of assumption. If we have to prove every statement before we can make  it, we could never make any statement. On the assumption of Christianity, what I said is precisely true. We can continue to talk about whether or not Christianity actually is true, but I would think that you intelligent enough to look at what it would mean for various topics if it were.

Ah, but the larger the assumption, the deeper my skepticism, and the greater my desire to see support before I lend it credence.  As far as that "if" word popping up again, if Christianity is true, it wouldn't change much for me; I already endeavor to life a right life.  "If" it were true, I'd see the evidence.  The lack of evidence, when combined with its internal contradictions, relegates it to the status of another creation-myth, in my mind, and that of many others.

QuoteAs it stands, you seem to be trying to eat your cake and have it to. On the one hand, you want to say, "If God were real, He would make this clearer!" and then on the other, "You can't say what it would be like if God were real, because you haven't proven that God is real." You have to decide which conversation you want to have. Do you want to discuss what would be the case if God were real, or do you want to discuss whether or not God is real?

A fair point, and I'll try to do better.  But I'm not telling you what you can or cannot say, I'm just asking you to justify what you do say.

QuoteNo wager intended. Read the statement again. I am talking specifically about whether or not God should make it easy. People want God to communicate on their terms, and if He doesn't do so the way they insist, then they argue He doesn't exist. The question is simply this: why should God communicate on your terms at all? Why should God do anything on your terms? If He is real, He can do whatever the heck He wants. We play on His terms, not vice versa.

[All emphases added]

The emboldened part is an easy answer: Because Christians tell me he loves me and wants me to go to Heaven, yet he will not do anything to aid the process.

The italicized part is merely the argument that "might makes right".  I'm no longer surprised by this variation on moral relativity coming from those who proclaim morality to be absolute.

QuoteSo, it is like a game of chicken. You have your rules and God has His. God breaks your rules, and what price does He pay? Nothing. You break His rules, and what price do you pay? A lot. Does that mean, then, that you should believe? Of course not. Fear is no motivation for belief. But it does mean that you have no logical basis on which to make your argument. The prudent thing to do is say, "Well, if God is real, this is what is and is not possible, therefore, etc." As I've pointed out, if God is real, He has no obligation to play by your rules. You can get mad at Him all you want over that, but it won't change His obligation or lackthereof. So, who will blink first? It won't be God. It may not be you. I am just saying that if God is there, I would hate to be the one in that collision.

Again, an appeal to fear, and a restatement of Pascal's wager: "Better safe than sorry;" try as you might to deny it, it is the case, and I'm not the only one in this thread who's seen this for what it is.

QuoteActually, I don't consider alcoholics less than me. I do consider alcoholism, as a lifestyle, an inferior lifestyle. But with that aside, you are smart enough to see that comparing a person's faith to alcoholism is a type of ridicule (or, should I say, ridiculous). I would like to think you are a better person than that.

I'm comparing Christianity to an addiction because, like the alcoholic, most Christians cannot imagine life without their escape hatch.  This is neither ridicule nor ridiculous, because the two phenomena share many parallels, and fulfill some of the same needs.  Why else do you suppose that AA's second step demands belief in a higher power?

Quote from: "i_am_i"

Quote from: "Reginus"

Quote from: "i_am_i"Okay, let's. I very much doubt that Martin Luther King Junior loved those who hated him or engaged in activities that were antagonistic to him. I can, however, imagine that he was convinced that he should, being that he was a Christian.

Did he ever do or say anything to harm an enemy?  Is there any person who knew him well who has testified that he hated or even did not love his enemies?

Reginus, do you have enemies?

Not direct enemies.  Although I suppose I could count an organization like Al-Qaeda as an enemy in some sense.

QuoteI'll let this go. If you can't see how there's no justification for comparing someone's most deeply cherished beliefs to alcoholism, I don't know what else to say.

He's not the only one:

Quote from: "Karl Marx""Religion is the opium of the people."

Lots of people use religion for comfort or to run away from their problems. I like this quote from

Quote from: "Hama Abdel Samad""In a sense, Islam is like a drug, like alcohol. A small amount can have a healing and inspiring effect, but when the believer reaches for the bottle of dogmatic faith in every situation, it gets dangerous. This high-proof form of Islam is what I'm talking about. It harms the individual and damages society. It inhibits integration, because this Islam divides the world into friends and enemies, into the faithful and the infidels."

Christianity isn't much different from Islam.

QuoteWhat do you mean by autotelic? (Too lazy to  it, and the etymology isn't helping me.) As far as your second part, that's just a simple disagreement. I think there are a great many things we do just because they ought to be done, and specifically from a moral perspective, because people are not means to an end, but rather ends in themselves. I treat my wife like I do not so that she will respond to me in a certain way, but simply because she deserves no less (in fact, far more) by shear virtue of the fact that she is my wife, regardless of how she treats me.

By autotelic I mean it's worth for its own sake.

All virtues have goals. If you want to treat someone with respect then you must want to do so for a reason.

Sophus, there is a difference in comparing Christianity to a drug verses comparing it to a drug addiction. Knowledge can be compared to a drug. Alcohol, for instance, is not necessarily bad in and of itself, whereas alcoholism obviously is. To compare Christianity, then, to something like alcoholism is vulgar at best.

As far as your point goes, yes, all virtues have goals, and yes, we do things for a reason. It does not follow, however, that those reasons must be related to what we get out of it.

QuoteYes, I value a person regardless of how they treat me, because a person's value isn't relative to their behavior.

You have successfully taken a relationship and reduced it to an internal feeling.  Mobile goalpost much?

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

QuoteYes, I value a person regardless of how they treat me, because a person's value isn't relative to their behavior.

You have successfully taken a relationship and reduced it to an internal feeling.  Mobile goalpost much?

How so? You asked how I valued a relationship. Further, I think it is pretty clear that internal feeling is the furthest thing that could be the basis of my position. We value people based on who and what they are, not how we feel about them. That's a pretty solid goalpost. Who and what a person is doesn't change. Their attitudes and behaviors might, which is exactly why you can't value relationships based on them.

It's just unconditional, unmerited love. It's grace put in action.

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

QuoteYes, I value a person regardless of how they treat me, because a person's value isn't relative to their behavior.

You have successfully taken a relationship and reduced it to an internal feeling.  Mobile goalpost much?

How so? You asked how I valued a relationship. Further, I think it is pretty clear that internal feeling is the furthest thing that could be the basis of my position. We value people based on who and what they are, not how we feel about them. That's a pretty solid goalpost. Who and what a person is doesn't change. Their attitudes and behaviors might, which is exactly why you can't value relationships based on them.

It's just unconditional, unmerited love. It's grace put in action.

We do not 'value people based on who and what they are' but who and what we perceive them to be. One is not a mind reader, one is not psychic, one does not have second sight.

EDIT. Changed comment to third person.

Quote from: "Jac3510"How so? You asked how I valued a relationship.

What relationship would you have with a person who stole from you?

QuoteFurther, I think it is pretty clear that internal feeling is the furthest thing that could be the basis of my position.

Yet you've clearly demonstrated that you're talking about FEELING as if the person were valuable.  You claim that you'd remain married to a woman who cheated on you.  I'll take that at face value, you wouldn't be the first sucker in history anyway if that's the case, but you have been markedly silent on what would happen to anyone else whom you claim to value aside form stating that a person would suffer the consequences of their actions.  The implication of this is that the friendship would cease, yet you maintain that the PERSON is valuable as the image of god.  I personally find people to be of value due to their humanity.  It seems that you and I agree on the inherent value of people and merely disagree on the fallen angel/risen ape angles.  This, however, isn't the topic.  The RELATIONSHIP is.  I would still value my wife as a person if she cheated on me.  The relationship, however, would be done.  Similar consequences would ensue from friends or even family members who abused my trust in some way.  In fact, I have a brother who I don't talk to because he is a thief who has shown time and again that he will steal the moment he is alone with something he wants.  Is he valuable as a person?  Yes.  Is he valuable as a unit of society?  No, he is a parasite.  In the end, that's the difference I'm talking about.  We value relationships based on the value of the interaction, not the value of the people involved.

Quote from: "Tank"We do not 'value people based on who and what they are' but who and what we perceive them to be.ne is not a mind reader, one is not psychic, one does not have second sight.

My wife is my wife. My daughter is my daughter. My Christian friends are brothers and sisters in Christ. People are the very image of God and thus are worthy of the deepest respect. Above all, people are loved by God, which is the absolutely object basis on which I love them, for if God loves them, what possible right could I have not to?

None of these things are a matter of perception. They are matters of fact. When I say, then, that we love people based on who and what they are, I am not speaking of something so trivial as their personalities. Personalities change. They are not who or what you are. One of my favorite songs as the following chorus:

I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling, Lord You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours

If that is true of me, how much more true is it of everyone else? Whether you believe it or not, I am convinced of the fact that you have been created by God, that you are His very image, and that you are loved dearly and incomprehensibly by this same God. You are divine royalty, a son of God. That's not perception, Chris. There's nothing in you that would cause me to believe that anymore than there is something in my wife that would cause me to believe that about her. I know it because God as told me in His Word, which I know you don't accept, but which I obviously do.

So yes, I most definitely love on the basis of who and what people are. I love based on identity, not behavior. The former is immobile and sure and the basis of true trust and unconditional support. The latter is fickle, changing, untrustworthy, and turns me into some selfish, self-serving god in my own mind, in which I declare by my sovereign right who deserves my love and who does not based on how well they keep my commands, my expectations of them.

Is it possible I am wrong? Obviously, yes. Perhaps my wife is absolutely nothing more than a bag of atoms functioning in one way or another. But, either way, I don't love her because of who she treats me, but because of who she is.

Edited to reflect third person.

Quote from: "Jac3510"My wife is my wife. My daughter is my daughter. My Christian friends are brothers and sisters in Christ. People are the very image of God and thus are worthy of the deepest respect. Above all, people are loved by God, which is the absolutely object basis on which I love them, for if God loves them, what possible right could I have not to?

Funny enough, you defined ALL of those people by your relationship to them, rather than them as individuals.  If your wife divorces you, she's no longer your wife.  If a brother in Christ leaves the church, he is no longer your brother in Christ.  While it's true that your daughter cna never stop being your genetic offspring, this is still a relationship.  Not one of your examples identifies a person as that person rather than their relationship to you.

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

Quote from: "Jac3510"How so? You asked how I valued a relationship.

What relationship would you have with a person who stole from you?

A harmed one that I would do everything to restore because it is so valuable to me.

Quote

QuoteFurther, I think it is pretty clear that internal feeling is the furthest thing that could be the basis of my position.

Yet you've clearly demonstrated that you're talking about FEELING as if the person were valuable.  You claim that you'd remain married to a woman who cheated on you.  I'll take that at face value, you wouldn't be the first sucker in history anyway if that's the case, but you have been markedly silent on what would happen to anyone else whom you claim to value aside form stating that a person would suffer the consequences of their actions.  The implication of this is that the friendship would cease, yet you maintain that the PERSON is valuable as the image of god.  I personally find people to be of value due to their humanity.  It seems that you and I agree on the inherent value of people and merely disagree on the fallen angel/risen ape angles.  This, however, isn't the topic.  The RELATIONSHIP is.  I would still value my wife as a person if she cheated on me.  The relationship, however, would be done.  Similar consequences would ensue from friends or even family members who abused my trust in some way.  In fact, I have a brother who I don't talk to because he is a thief who has shown time and again that he will steal the moment he is alone with something he wants.  Is he valuable as a person?  Yes.  Is he valuable as a unit of society?  No, he is a parasite.  In the end, that's the difference I'm talking about.  We value relationships based on the value of the interaction, not the value of the people involved.

No, I don't "feel" that people are valuable. Whatever emotions I do or do not have are just that--emotions. I regard people as valuable because of who they are. Second, as per the verses I suggest, if a person hurt me, I would respond with good rather than evil (ideally, of course -- no one knows the future; emotions, those non-rational things, are powerful at times). If someone lied on me, the proper thing to do is sit down with them, find out their reason for doing so -- most people, I take it, don't hurt others just for the shear joy of hurting others -- and find out what perceived ill I had done to them to lead them to such an action. I would forgive them fully and immediately and, to the extent of my ability, restore the relationship because it is so valuable.

That's the essence of "turn the other cheek." It even holds in non-relationships--that is, people you have no real acquaintance with. If someone takes something from you, give them something else to go along with it. Why not? What have you lost that won't rust or break eventually anyway? And the need for justice or revenge? I leave that in God's hands. If someone has done something so terrible, they've not sinned against me. They've not broken any commandment I laid down, and even if they had, what are my commandments but expressions of my own value systems? There is absolutely no reason for you to live by that! If they have done anything really wrong, if they've broken any commands, it is been God's laws. He will take care of it in His own way. I leave that to Him.

Forgive my silence on this. I was under the impression this was rather obvious given everything I've said so far . . .

edit:

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Funny enough, you defined ALL of those people by your relationship to them, rather than them as individuals. If your wife divorces you, she's no longer your wife. If a brother in Christ leaves the church, he is no longer your brother in Christ. While it's true that your daughter cna never stop being your genetic offspring, this is still a relationship. Not one of your examples identifies a person as that person rather than their relationship to you.

On the contrary, I only defined my wife and daughter with respect to my relationship with them, and they are included in the "above all," namely, those whom God loves and values. If you want to start getting technical, my relationship with them is secondary and absolutely viewed through the lens of their relationship with God. As far as my brother in Christ leaving the Church, he is still most definitely my brother in Christ. One cannot lose their salvation, and a lost member of the body of Christ is still a member of the body of Christ.

As far as those aspects go, those types of things define the relationship. A relationship, by definition, requires two people. It answers to the question, "How am I related to this person?" What I am arguing, and have been arguing throughout, is that I don't value relationships based on how the person who is so related to me treats me. I value that relationship because I am so related to another child of God. As happens, some types of relationships take precedent over others (thus, my wife comes first among human relationships). Therefore, the way in which my love is expressed will be different from relationship to relationship, but that as defined by the nature of the relationship. None of that, however, means in the least that the relationship itself is valuable or not, or that the person is valued or not, based on what they do for me.

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "Tank"We do not 'value people based on who and what they are' but who and what we perceive them to be.ne is not a mind reader, one is not psychic, one does not have second sight.

My wife is my wife. My daughter is my daughter. My Christian friends are brothers and sisters in Christ. People are the very image of God and thus are worthy of the deepest respect. Above all, people are loved by God, which is the absolutely object basis on which I love them, for if God loves them, what possible right could I have not to?

None of these things are a matter of perception. They are matters of fact. When I say, then, that we love people based on who and what they are, I am not speaking of something so trivial as their personalities. Personalities change. They are not who or what you are. One of my favorite songs as the following chorus:

I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling, Lord You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours

If that is true of me, how much more true is it of everyone else? Whether you believe it or not, I am convinced of the fact that you have been created by God, that you are His very image, and that you are loved dearly and incomprehensibly by this same God. You are divine royalty, a son of God. That's not perception, Chris. There's nothing in you that would cause me to believe that anymore than there is something in my wife that would cause me to believe that about her. I know it because God as told me in His Word, which I know you don't accept, but which I obviously do.

So yes, I most definitely love on the basis of who and what people are. I love based on identity, not behavior. The former is immobile and sure and the basis of true trust and unconditional support. The latter is fickle, changing, untrustworthy, and turns me into some selfish, self-serving god in my own mind, in which I declare by my sovereign right who deserves my love and who does not based on how well they keep my commands, my expectations of them.

Is it possible I am wrong? Obviously, yes. Perhaps my wife is absolutely nothing more than a bag of atoms functioning in one way or another. But, either way, I don't love her because of who she treats me, but because of who she is.

Edited to reflect third person.

Chris, you are extremely naive if you think you have ever seen all and understood everything about anybody. I have been married 30 years and my wife and I still fill in gaps in each others perceptions of each other.  

People often see in others what they want to see in them. The last film Peter Sellers made, Being There, deals with this issue. He plays a character who says very little and agrees a lot. Those around him treat him as a blank canvas and paint their desires onto him. It's a great film, with a great message.

As people rarely know themselves and change throughout their lives what possibility is there to understand even one other human being? I'll tell you, none, none whatsoever.

Quote from: "Jac3510"And the need for justice or revenge?

When was that brought up?  This makes me wonder if you're illegitimately ascribing actions to me.

Quote from: "Tank"Chris, you are extremely naive if you think you have ever seen all and understood everything about anybody. I have been married 30 years and my wife and I still fill in gaps in each others perceptions of each other.  

People often see in others what they want to see in them. The last film Peter Sellers made, Being There, deals with this issue. He plays a character who says very little and agrees a lot. Those around him treat him as a blank canvas and paint their desires onto him. It's a great film, with a great message.

As people rarely know themselves and change throughout their lives what possibility is there to understand even one other human being? I'll tell you, none, none whatsoever.

Oh, I don't think I've understood everything about anybody. not even myself.

That is precisely why I don't value relationships based on how they treat me. I don't know anyone, even my own wife, well enough to know why she would or would not treat me in a certain way. And I'm sure all can agree that the motivation for an action is just as important as the action itself. If my wife decides to do something as simple as give me a massage, it will mean something very different if she does so just because she wants to "be nice" rather than if she does so to make another man jealous. How, then, could I ever value her based on how she treats me, since I can never really know completely why she does anything she does? As the years pass, I learn more about her, as I'm sure you have with your own wife. But that doesn't mean I ever know such things.

That does not, however, change the fact that I know that she is a child of God, my wife, and the mother of my own child. I deeply value her and our relationship on those solid facts, and primarily and most importantly the first of those. That is something I do know, and that is why I love her as I do--without condition of any kind. She can do what she wants. I love her just the same, no matter what she does or does not do.

------------------------------------------------

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

Quote from: "Jac3510"And the need for justice or revenge?

When was that brought up?  This makes me wonder if you're illegitimately ascribing actions to me.

Not attributing anything to you. Addressing concepts generally. You asked (at least, I think it was you) about a person who burned my house down. I mentioned forgiveness. Where, then, is justice? Some demand it. I don't. I'm not saying you do. I leave all that up to God.

Quote from: "Jac3510"Not attributing anything to you. Addressing concepts generally. You asked (at least, I think it was you) about a person who burned my house down. I mentioned forgiveness. Where, then, is justice? Some demand it. I don't. I'm not saying you do. I leave all that up to God.

Fair enough.  Would you remain friends with them?  Would the relationship itself still be valuable to you?

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Fair enough.  Would you remain friends with them?  Would the relationship itself still be valuable to you?

Absolutely, if they would still have it. Either way, I would still deeply value the friendship, even if lost, and would do everything I was able to be there for them if in need.

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "Tank"Chris, you are extremely naive if you think you have ever seen all and understood everything about anybody. I have been married 30 years and my wife and I still fill in gaps in each others perceptions of each other.  

People often see in others what they want to see in them. The last film Peter Sellers made, Being There, deals with this issue. He plays a character who says very little and agrees a lot. Those around him treat him as a blank canvas and paint their desires onto him. It's a great film, with a great message.

As people rarely know themselves and change throughout their lives what possibility is there to understand even one other human being? I'll tell you, none, none whatsoever.

Oh, I don't think I've understood everything about anybody. not even myself.

That is precisely why I don't value relationships based on how they treat me. I don't know anyone, even my own wife, well enough to know why she would or would not treat me in a certain way. And I'm sure all can agree that the motivation for an action is just as important as the action itself. If my wife decides to do something as simple as give me a massage, it will mean something very different if she does so just because she wants to "be nice" rather than if she does so to make another man jealous. How, then, could I ever value her based on how she treats me, since I can never really know completely why she does anything she does? As the years pass, I learn more about her, as I'm sure you have with your own wife. But that doesn't mean I ever know such things.

That does not, however, change the fact that I know that she is a child of God, my wife, and the mother of my own child. I deeply value her and our relationship on those solid facts, and primarily and most importantly the first of those. That is something I do know, and that is why I love her as I do--without condition of any kind. She can do what she wants. I love her just the same, no matter what she does or does not do.

How you feel towards your wife is one thing, how you perceive her (your feelings would be an interpretation of your perceptions) is another and what she really is is something different still.

Quote from: "Tank"We do not 'value people based on who and what they are' but who and what we perceive them to be. One is not a mind reader, one is not psychic, one does not have second sight.

You said that we 'value people on who and what they are.' As you can not possibly know 'who and what they are' you can only be forming a value based on your perception of what they are, who you think they are. You can love your wife as I can mine and we hope they don't lie to us when they say they love us in return, but unfortunately we can never know if they really mean it or not. So we react to what they say and how they behave and form a perception of their feelings towards us based on that and nothing else. How we react to their behaviour is down to our genes, memes and experience nothing more and nothing less. Our self programming 'slimeware' does it's best. You appear to have been well programmed by the hormones that coursed through your body when you met and fell in 'love' your wife and imprinted on her. As I was with mine  

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "Jac3510"Oh, I don't think I've understood everything about anybody. not even myself.

That is precisely why I don't value relationships based on how they treat me. I don't know anyone, even my own wife, well enough to know why she would or would not treat me in a certain way. And I'm sure all can agree that the motivation for an action is just as important as the action itself. If my wife decides to do something as simple as give me a massage, it will mean something very different if she does so just because she wants to "be nice" rather than if she does so to make another man jealous. How, then, could I ever value her based on how she treats me, since I can never really know completely why she does anything she does? As the years pass, I learn more about her, as I'm sure you have with your own wife. But that doesn't mean I ever know such things.

That does not, however, change the fact that I know that she is a child of God, my wife, and the mother of my own child. I deeply value her and our relationship on those solid facts, and primarily and most importantly the first of those. That is something I do know, and that is why I love her as I do--without condition of any kind. She can do what she wants. I love her just the same, no matter what she does or does not do.

How you feel towards your wife is one thing, how you perceive her (your feelings would be an interpretation of your perceptions) is another and what she really is is something different still.

You said that we 'value people on who and what they are.' As you can not possibly know 'who and what they are' you can only be forming a value based on your perception of what they are, who you think they are. You can love your wife as I can mine and we hope they don't lie to us when they say they love us in return, but unfortunately we can never know if they really mean it or not. So we react to what they say and how they behave and form a perception of their feelings towards us based on that and nothing else. How we react to their behaviour is down to our genes, memes and experience nothing more and nothing less. Our self programming 'slimeware' does it's best. You appear to have been well programmed by the hormones that coursed through your body when you met and fell in 'love' your wife and imprinted on her. As I was with mine  

Chris, with all due respect, you are arguing against something I never said and are ignoring what I did say. Notice the word I put in red above. I've not argued once about my feelings. On the contrary, I said, concerning emotions:

"Whatever emotions I do or do not have are just that--emotions. I regard people as valuable because of who they are"

I would very kindly ask you to address my point rather than one of your own making. I'll take it you simply misread me, as I have been prone to do in the past, so we will consider this all clarification.

Again, then, without reference to emotions, I value my relationship with my wife based on who and what she is, not my perception of who and what she is. I am not talking about personality traits, which can change. I am talking about her basic essence. She is a human being and a fellow child of God. God loves her. Therefore, I love her. He loves her unconditionally. Therefore I love her unconditionally. There is no perception in that whatsoever. It is something that is simply true (assuming, of course, Christianity, which I do). I don't know in what manner you love your wife. I would not pretend to presume. Perhaps you love her unconditionally, perhaps not. I am telling you that I love my wife unconditionally because God does and because she is a human being who fundamentally should be loved. As I would never in a million years venture to tell you on what basis you love you wife, I would ask that you not tell me on what basis I love mine.

Jac,

I've tried to read all of this, but I miss stuff sometimes.  Forgive me if I'm being redundant.  It seems you have your goalposts on wheels brother.  To avoid a derail, I'll stick to the love thing.  Your definition of love seems absolutely meaningless.  If you have a friend you share weekly tea with and he burns down your house, you would still go have weekly tea with the chap. Correct?  It stands to reason that if for whatever reason you decided to kill his wife, he would still continue to have weekly tea with you if he had the same mindset as you.  Under your definition of love, we can do any manner of atrocities to one another and still say we love each other.  You can keep any kind of love that would encourage a woman to stay with a wife beater or a child to stay quiet about molestation.  

I do not in any way mean to suggest that you advocate doing anything bad to anybody, but it does seem to be the logical consequence of your definition of love.

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "Jac3510"Oh, I don't think I've understood everything about anybody. not even myself.

That is precisely why I don't value relationships based on how they treat me. I don't know anyone, even my own wife, well enough to know why she would or would not treat me in a certain way. And I'm sure all can agree that the motivation for an action is just as important as the action itself. If my wife decides to do something as simple as give me a massage, it will mean something very different if she does so just because she wants to "be nice" rather than if she does so to make another man jealous. How, then, could I ever value her based on how she treats me, since I can never really know completely why she does anything she does? As the years pass, I learn more about her, as I'm sure you have with your own wife. But that doesn't mean I ever know such things.

That does not, however, change the fact that I know that she is a child of God, my wife, and the mother of my own child. I deeply value her and our relationship on those solid facts, and primarily and most importantly the first of those. That is something I do know, and that is why I love her as I do--without condition of any kind. She can do what she wants. I love her just the same, no matter what she does or does not do.

How you feel towards your wife is one thing, how you perceive her (your feelings would be an interpretation of your perceptions) is another and what she really is is something different still.

You said that we 'value people on who and what they are.' As you can not possibly know 'who and what they are' you can only be forming a value based on your perception of what they are, who you think they are. You can love your wife as I can mine and we hope they don't lie to us when they say they love us in return, but unfortunately we can never know if they really mean it or not. So we react to what they say and how they behave and form a perception of their feelings towards us based on that and nothing else. How we react to their behaviour is down to our genes, memes and experience nothing more and nothing less. Our self programming 'slimeware' does it's best. You appear to have been well programmed by the hormones that coursed through your body when you met and fell in 'love' your wife and imprinted on her. As I was with mine  

Chris, with all due respect, you are arguing against something I never said and are ignoring what I did say. Notice the word I put in red above. I've not argued once about my feelings. On the contrary, I said, concerning emotions:

"Whatever emotions I do or do not have are just that--emotions. I regard people as valuable because of who they are"

I would very kindly ask you to address my point rather than one of your own making. I'll take it you simply misread me, as I have been prone to do in the past, so we will consider this all clarification.

Again, then, without reference to emotions, I value my relationship with my wife based on who and what she is, not my perception of who and what she is. I am not talking about personality traits, which can change. I am talking about her basic essence. She is a human being and a fellow child of God. God loves her. Therefore, I love her. He loves her unconditionally. Therefore I love her unconditionally. There is no perception in that whatsoever. It is something that is simply true (assuming, of course, Christianity, which I do). I don't know in what manner you love your wife. I would not pretend to presume. Perhaps you love her unconditionally, perhaps not. I am telling you that I love my wife unconditionally because God does and because she is a human being who fundamentally should be loved. As I would never in a million years venture to tell you on what basis you love you wife, I would ask that you not tell me on what basis I love mine.

If you wish to build your world view on superstition and belief in the supernatural, that is your choice, but do not expect me to take a word you write seriously, after that pile of cods wollop.

Quote from: "Jac3510"I value my relationship with my wife based on who and what she is, not my perception of who and what she is.

This statement is the issue everything else is irrelevent. You have the same physical senses that I do. They are imperfect. Your relationship with anybody is based on your experiences of them, witnessing their interactions with others and the received second hand impressions of other people of them, nothing else. As one can not know, with absolutly certainty, what or who a person really is one's understanding of them will always be imperfect, it will thus be a flawed perception of the reality of the person. As such your relationship with a person, any person, will be incomplete and imperfect.

Nobody has a perfect understanding of reality, our senses are not perfect, our brain is not perfect so our understanding is imperfect. We live in a world where everything we react to is based on our perception of it, not its reality. We perceive  colour, as a child we can't even name that colour until we have it explained to us what to call it by being shown something that is say Red and being told the colour is Red. There is no innate property of Redness, just what we are told by are parents we should call Red. Our reality is our perception of that which is around us and nothing else.

Is it a problem that our perception of reality is not perfect? In an everyday pragmatic sense it is not a problem. Most people get along okay with an imperfect and incomplete understanding of reality. Thus our perception of reality is good enough, it is 'fit for purpose.' It allows us to survive.

Quote from: "humblesmurph"Jac,

I've tried to read all of this, but I miss stuff sometimes.  Forgive me if I'm being redundant.  It seems you have your goalposts on wheels brother.  To avoid a derail, I'll stick to the love thing.  Your definition of love seems absolutely meaningless.  If you have a friend you share weekly tea with and he burns down your house, you would still go have weekly tea with the chap. Correct?  It stands to reason that if for whatever reason you decided to kill his wife, he would still continue to have weekly tea with you if he had the same mindset as you.  Under your definition of love, we can do any manner of atrocities to one another and still say we love each other.  You can keep any kind of love that would encourage a woman to stay with a wife beater or a child to stay quiet about molestation.  

I do not in any way mean to suggest that you advocate doing anything bad to anybody, but it does seem to be the logical consequence of your definition of love.

I can assure you I'm saying nothing different now that I did at the beginning of this. The "goalposts" have hardly been moved.

So, let's look at the issue you raise. As far as my definition of love goes, I refer you to my blog post on the matter (http://acts172.com/2010/07/30/love/).

Next, if my friend burns down my house, our relationship would be harmed, but not its value, which has been the issue under discussion. My response would be to go to the person and try to find out what caused them to take that course of action and seek reconciliation. Why? Because I still value the friendship. Upon said reconciliation, yes, I would immediately return to my weekly tea. I would, then, do everything in my power to bring about such reconciliation. The same would be the case if I killed his wife, in your example.

That does not mean, however, that we can do anything we want to each other and say we love each other. That is the entire point. To love someone is to seek what is best for them. When I am burning down someone's house, I am decidedly not seeking what is best for them, but only gratifying my own desire for revenge, destruction, or whatever other negative idea that is prompting such behavior. However, if my friend loves me, he can forgive me for not loving him, as I can others. He can only forgive if he values me as a person and our relationship, not based on what I do (or else all that would be over), but based on who and what I am.

So there are three separate issues here:

1. The value of the person and of the relationship
2. The means by which love is expressed
3. The forgiveness we offer because we love

Now, it is a standard objection across all times and cultures to grace that we can do whatever we like and get away with it. In fact, Paul received just this same objection when he preached the Gospel: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" (Rom 6:1) He had just finished explaining that salvation is by grace alone. The natural thought (and many have it) is this: oh, so I can accept God's grace and then go on sinning as much as I want! And the answer, quite frankly, is yes, you can do that. But we ought not, because in doing so we are not loving God.

In human terms, my wife knows that she can do whatever she likes and that I will never leave her--I will always forgive her. That doesn't make her want to go out and do things that will hurt me. Just the opposite, because she knows that my love for her is not conditional, she doesn't feel like she has to "earn" my love and is free to love me all the more. She is under no pressure, and she loves me more greatly than she otherwise would. And I in precisely the same way love her all the more as I know that her love is not conditional. That's the practical consequence.

The logical consequence you point to, then, is not a consequence of love, but of grace. If my wife loves me gracefully (that is, unconditionally), then I can hurt her without affecting her love for me. That is grace. In hurting her, however, I am not loving her. Love is always seeking the best for its object. I, then, choose to love unconditionally, and I leave it to God to worry about how people respond to me.

EDIT:

Tank, you can have your belief. I have mine. I have already said that I start with the assumption (in this area) that Christianity is true. On that basis, I know that God loves people unconditionally, and therefore, I love them unconditionally. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps Christianity is false. That doesn't change the fact that my love is still freely given, expecting nothing in return. Again, I'll not presume for one second whether or not you love in that way. I can only tell you that, however you do or don't relate to you spouse, don't project that onto me. I've told you plainly how I relate to mine and to others. My relationships, even with non-Christians, are absolutely lived out through the context of my faith, since I start from the belief that everyone--even you--is a child of God and should therefore be loved unconditionally.

In short, my perceptions of you mean nothing. As I grow in my relationships with people, my perceptions change, and as a result, how I may respond in any given situation changes. But the underlying issue is always there, always the same: whatever I think I know about people, I choose to love without finding fault. I hold no expectations. I am owed nothing, and I owe all everything. Or, again, to cite Paul on the matter, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves." (Phil 2:3)

Call it naive. Call it superstitious. Call it whatever you want. I can tell you, as can my wife, that unconditional love, both given and received, is an amazing experience.

Chris (not you Leslie)

So you are saying that there is absolutely nothing a person with your mindset wouldn't forgive of her spouse?  Beatings? Rape? Child molestation?  At what point does a person with your mindset separate themselves from such a marriage?

Furthermore, could that person be rightly said to be loving the abusive spouse if she cut all ties to him for fear of losing her life?

Quote from: "humblesmurph"Chris (not you Leslie)

So you are saying that there is absolutely nothing a person with your mindset wouldn't forgive of her spouse?  Beatings? Rape? Child molestation?  At what point does a person with your mindset separate themselves from such a marriage?

Furthermore, could that person be rightly said to be loving the abusive spouse if she cut all ties to him for fear of losing her life?

You always forgive, no matter what. You always love, no matter what. In the case of marriage, since that is your example, that doesn't mean you have to stay married. It means you should exhaust absolutely all means possible to save your marriage. There is a difference in forgiving a person and putting yourself in a dangerous situation. We are to live in peace with others (including our spouses) to the full extent that we are capable. Sometimes, some people will have nothing other than violence (in a literal or figurative sense of the word). In such a case, the loving thing to do is remove yourself from the situation. Love is unconditional and doesn't keep a record of wrongs. It is not, though, a pushover. Love seeks the best for its object, and love, then, is tough. To allow an abusive person to stay married to you is to give them a false sense of reality that can hurt them elsewhere (not to mention any children!).

At this point, we are moving towards a discussion on ethics. I am not a deontologist. There are no hard and fast rules on how to act in any given moment. We are to act in the most virtuous way possible at any given moment given the circumstances. But again, let me emphasize strongly, what we are to do in any given situation (what action we are to take) will differ. What does not differ is that we do everything in absolute, unconditional love, because people and relationships are inherently valuable, and that value never changes because of how we treat it. That value, however, is relative to other valuable things (i.e., our children's lives), and so all things must be held in balance. The common thread is, again, simply that we don't value or base our relationships on what we get out of them, but we love and give unconditionally regardless of what we do or do not receive.

To forgive is to excuse. You shouldn't excuse a killer because in doing so you allow the possibility for him to do it again. You cannot work toward bettering the world if every horrible thing is to be "forgiven".

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "humblesmurph"Chris (not you Leslie)

So you are saying that there is absolutely nothing a person with your mindset wouldn't forgive of her spouse?  Beatings? Rape? Child molestation?  At what point does a person with your mindset separate themselves from such a marriage?

Furthermore, could that person be rightly said to be loving the abusive spouse if she cut all ties to him for fear of losing her life?

You always forgive, no matter what. You always love, no matter what. In the case of marriage, since that is your example, that doesn't mean you have to stay married. It means you should exhaust absolutely all means possible to save your marriage. There is a difference in forgiving a person and putting yourself in a dangerous situation. We are to live in peace with others (including our spouses) to the full extent that we are capable. Sometimes, some people will have nothing other than violence (in a literal or figurative sense of the word). In such a case, the loving thing to do is remove yourself from the situation. Love is unconditional and doesn't keep a record of wrongs. It is not, though, a pushover. Love seeks the best for its object, and love, then, is tough. To allow an abusive person to stay married to you is to give them a false sense of reality that can hurt them elsewhere (not to mention any children!).

At this point, we are moving towards a discussion on ethics. I am not a deontologist. There are no hard and fast rules on how to act in any given moment. We are to act in the most virtuous way possible at any given moment given the circumstances. But again, let me emphasize strongly, what we are to do in any given situation (what action we are to take) will differ. What does not differ is that we do everything in absolute, unconditional love, because people and relationships are inherently valuable, and that value never changes because of how we treat it. That value, however, is relative to other valuable things (i.e., our children's lives), and so all things must be held in balance. The common thread is, again, simply that we don't value or base our relationships on what we get out of them, but we love and give unconditionally regardless of what we do or do not receive.

I don't think we need an ethicist for this.  We just need to have an understanding of what unconditionally means.  In the same post you agree that there are conditions under which it would be prudent for a wife to not continue to be giving and loving to her spouse and then talk of unconditional love.  

I don't think you properly addressed my last question.  If my wife is cooking cleaning and sexing, and she ceases to do those things because I'm beating the living crap out of her, is she still showing unconditional love?

edit: by ceasing to do those things I mean divorcing me and ceasing to do those things.

Quote from: "Sophus"To forgive is to excuse. You shouldn't excuse a killer because in doing so you allow the possibility for him to do it again. You cannot work toward bettering the world if every horrible thing is to be "forgiven".

I don't know if I agree with that.  I forgive my ex husband for beating me up, but I don't feel like I've excused his actions by any stretch of the imagination.  Maybe I don't understand your full meaning here?

Quote from: "pinkocommie"

Quote from: "Sophus"To forgive is to excuse. You shouldn't excuse a killer because in doing so you allow the possibility for him to do it again. You cannot work toward bettering the world if every horrible thing is to be "forgiven".

I don't know if I agree with that.  I forgive my ex husband for beating me up, but I don't feel like I've excused his actions by any stretch of the imagination.  Maybe I don't understand your full meaning here?

I think there's a difference between not holding a grudge against a person or moving on with one's life versus excusing an awful action that a person did. In a sense, to forgive can have two different meanings, the way I see it.

Quote from: "Jac"Sophus, there is a difference in comparing Christianity to a drug verses comparing it to a drug addiction. Knowledge can be compared to a drug. Alcohol, for instance, is not necessarily bad in and of itself, whereas alcoholism obviously is. To compare Christianity, then, to something like alcoholism is vulgar at best.

Any religion can be compared to an addiction of any kind for some religious people. Not all. Some people eat a lot after a death in the family. Others pray a lot or become more religious for their own soul's sake.

QuoteAs far as your point goes, yes, all virtues have goals, and yes, we do things for a reason. It does not follow, however, that those reasons must be related to what we get out of it.

This is a blatant contradiction.

Give one example of something you do that you get absolutely nothing out of.

I think you're right.  I think the forgiveness I feel toward my ex might not even be considered "real forgiveness" by some people since I won't go so far as to ignore that it ever happened or forget it completely.  Also, I don't know if I would have forgiven him were it not for our son and wanting to facilitate a relationship between the two of them.  Having said that, I don't think I'm capable of the kind of forgiveness that excuses the person's actions.  I feel like if you can excuse someone's actions, you shouldn't have to forgive them to begin with.

Quote from: "Jac3510"Certainly we may derive something from our relationships, but that does not mean that our relationships are based on what we derive from them, and that if what we get ceases to come from it that we should therefore abandon it. I would submit that isn't love at all.

Hmm.  What if your wife cheated on you?  Or what if she stopped treating you decently?

Edit: I see you've already answered this.  You can disregard this, sorry.

Quote1. The word "better" in "know better" implies that you have a superior idea than another. You can only "know" your idea is superior if you know that it better fits all the variables. If you don't know all the variables, you can't know whether or not your idea is better at all. To use a very earthly analogy, I refrain from discussing foreign policy issues (in terms of actual policy; philosophy is another matter). While I disagree in principle with some of Obama's policies, I don't criticize them for the simple reason that I know that he is in possession of far more information than I am. Perhaps there is a reason he can't reveal for security reasons that, were I aware of it, I would agree--or at least would be more likely to agree. The same is true with God. The only way to say that you have a better idea is to claim that you not only are aware of all existing facts, but of all potential facts given different circumstances. I can't make such a claim, so I can't claim to know better than God. I have my doubts that you can either.

By this logic, you cannot say anything is better than anything else.  I should hope the fallacy is plain to you.  It is obvious to me.  Demanding perfect information before a judgment is rendered is simply another way of saying "My god is perfect, and you're not, so you have no right to judge him," when in fact you've not evidenced him yet.  As such, I am entitled to use my personal judgment to assess your claim of his "perfect" morality.  Therefore, I reject this argument.  You can only claim that your god's knowledge trumps mine when you can demonstrate that 1) God exists, and 2) that he knows more than I do.

Quote2. I'll refrain from discussions on Hell until we get to that thread. Until then, I'll simply agree that God does know your skepticism better than you do, which means He knows better than you do why you are a skeptic. It will be very difficult to tell God that He was wrong about anything come judgment day (oh, look, another veiled PW!).

Then in that event, for him to judge men is immoral, as he is withholding information that he knows would prevent the evil of eternal torment.

Also, if you wish to introduce sarcasm into this conversation, I'm more than willing to oblige you.  Be forewarned.

Quote3. Poets make their ideas intentionally obscure for their own reasons. The analogy holds. The question is whether or not God could have a reason to be intentionally obscure.I answer, most emphatically, yes. Yes he could.

Until you posit a credible premise that doesn't violate his omnipotence, this sort of posting is merely dodging the point.  I ask you now:  Why could not an omnipotent, omnibeneficent god devise a more humane method of dealing with Adam and Eve's disobedience aside from sentencing to death every man, woman, and child in history?  Are you honestly arguing that this could possibly be just?  Tell me, would it be just for a teacher to fail all the children on an exam if he caught one cheating?  Was it just for Roosevelt to imprison over 100,000 Nisei simply because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor?

QuoteAgain, we can discuss questions about Hell later.

Well, it goes to the issue of omnipotence and injustice.  I will grant this deferral, on your promise to open that thread.

QuoteNonsense. This is an idea we've long ago gotten passed. Who is your favorite sports team? I'm in Atlanta, so let's say, for the sake of argument, it is the Braves. Does the fact that you like the Braves mean that you cannot give an objective account of the game? In fact, would not your fondness for the team make you more inclined to be sure that every detail is accurate? In fact, if you really love the team, you would insist that even their flaws be properly reported so that they could fix them.

Personally, yes, unless they were a jealous team, who would not tolerate me speaking ill of them, and if I did would doom me to fire for all eternity.  If when I was three or four you told me this about the Braves, you can be damned sure I would kiss Ted Turner's ass.  Every Sunday.  

Also, it's funny that you'd compare your faith to sports fandom.  

QuoteI am an extremely devout Christian. At the end of the day, after the scholarship and philosophy have done their work, I deeply love my God and savior and enjoy the communion I have with Him. When I read the Bible, which I firmly believe is the inspired, inerrant Word of God, I insist on absolute objectivity for one very basic reason: if God has something to say that contradicts what I say, I want to know it. To read into the text what I want it to say is not to love God, but a caricature of my own making. C. S. Lewis once said the greatest prayer we can utter is 'Lord, let me know You, not as I know You, but as You know Yourself to be.' (Paraphrased, of course.)

True objectivity would consist of questioning the very premise of his existence, and right now, I sincerely doubt your ability, or willingness, to do so.

QuoteFull disclosure: I am deeply in the minority opinion on this in both Christian and non-Christian scholarship. It is a common assumption that objectivity is impossible. That is another debate for another thread. But your objection that one cannot be objective because they are inclined to agree with the worldview of the text they are studying itself at least goes too far.

You would deny that social programming happens?

QuoteThey get that from Rev. 3:20, where Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (KJV) Unfortunately, they don't pay close attention to what they are reading. They read "I will come in to him" as if it says "I will come into him." It is actually rather heretical. Salvation is not by prayer. It is by faith (John 3:16). To say a person must pray a "sinner's prayer" and "invite Jesus into your heart" denies the Gospel. Here is an excellent little essay titled Seven Reasons NOT to Ask Jesus into Your Heart (http://duluthbible.org/widgets/download.aspx?file=%2ffiles%2fResources%2fPublications%2fBooklet_PDF_Files%2fSeven_Reason_3rdEdition.pdf). I highly recommend it.

Second, look again at my words. God is not, philosophically speaking, located anywhere. He is the case of every where, since He is the First Cause (see the first argument). Theologically we can say God is "everywhere," but by that we only mean that no matter where you go, you can't get away from God.

So say ye.

Quote1. Pi is an irrational number, not an exact number.

I'm well aware of this.  That is why when the Bible uses the exact number three, it is wrong.  Thank you for reinforcing my point.

 

QuoteAs far as the verse you are referring to, it says, "And he [Hiram] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick..." (1 Ki 7:23, 26). I don't see a statement there that says "pi equals three." It describes the measurements of a round object that was ten cubits in diameter and thirty cubits in circumference. Since a cubit wasn't standardized (it was the measurement from the elbow to the end of your finger, usually around 20 inches), you can hardly say that the Bible declares pi to equal three. This is rather petty.

If your god cannot finesse such a "petty" detail as this in his self-inspired book, then I dunno, he doesn't look all that grand anyway.  You expect me to believe that he can create a universe, but cannot formulate a simple equation?  

Also, have you had grade-school math?  One of the basic requirements is the ability to formulate an equation given a word problem.  Now, do I need to lay out how this passage translates into "pi=3"?  After all, you plead interpretation of your bible to explain away inconvenient passages.  Now it is you who are trying to have it boths ways.  If you can plead "interpretation", I can as well, and do so here.  Furthermore, my interpretation is unassailable, because it is based mathematically, and not on vague linguistics.

Quote2. The theology we get out of the OT is derived from its history. It makes very few normative statements. Therefore, you cannot derive prescriptive statements from the OT (or even the Gospels and Acts, for that matter) without treating the texts historically. Therefore, since you cannot do history without carrying about what the author believed (read Baruch Halpern's The First Historians (http://www.amazon.com/First-Historians-Hebrew-Bible-History/dp/0271024496/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1284828606&sr=8-1)i], no Christian, and no conservative for more on this), you cannot know what the OT means for your faith, or lackthereof, without considering what the Israelites believed.

Okay, since I need to spell out everything, I will.  I do not care what they think, because I have considered it, and I consider them to be greatly in error, both factually and morally.  I have presented examples of both.

Quote3. My use of the word "little" refers to pettiness and difficulty to overcome. There are "little" contradictions and "major" contradictions, all of which turn out to be no contradiction at all upon examinations. Now, have I looked at all the supposed contradictions in the Bible? No, but I have literally looked at hundreds (and written papers galore on them). There is no contradiction on this issue.

What you seem to not understand here is that a perfect god cannot make an imperfect communication.  Your only reasonable answer to this is that your god is obscurantist, but then than undercuts any claims of him wanting humans to be saved from hell.  If he wants us saved, he can make it so, indirectly, by making the Bible clear enough to understand -- or directly, by cancelling the evil rules he makes, like "You were born human.  Unless you worship me you will burn forever."

QuoteOdd that you would think that God would have had them write using modern taxonomic terms. Or why those terms at all? Perhaps in the future, we will classify animals differently. Perhaps God should have used those classifications instead?

Perhaps if god was really interested in saving men, he would place unmistakable signs of his presence in the bible, such as modern terminology that the Hebrews would have no way of knowing.  "Hey, Moses, bats are gonna be called Chiropterae.  I know you don't know how to spell it, just hold on, I'll spell it out for you.  Look, I know you didn't study Latin.  Would quit griping and get back to writing?"  It would've been that easy.  Now, if little old ignorant human me can think of such an easy way to remove doubt, why couldn't your god have thought so?  That is my point -- not biological accuracy.

QuoteThe fact is rather simple - a bat can properly be called a tsippowr. If you would prefer, simply translate it "winged creature."

True, but this sentence is based on a misapprehension of my argument, as explained above.

QuoteThere are no deep contradictions in the Christian conceptualization. There may be deep contradictions in the way people look at God who haven't wanted to do the hard work of studying history, theology, and philosophy. The Bible, however, is abundantly clear on the important things, i.e., that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. John 3:16 is rather clear: "For this is how God loved the world: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who puts their faith in Him will never perish, but will instead have everlasting life" (my translation, but pick any you like).

No, there are deep contradictions.  The fact that you choose to apologize for them rather than examine them is a pity, and what I regard as a misuse of an obviously fine mind.

QuoteMaybe pi and bats are what is keeping you from believing, but I'm willing to bet that isn't the case. Again, God knows your skepticism very well--better than you do. He knows the root of it--better than you do. He's provided a solution (assuming He is real, of course). If He is real, and if you stand before Him in unbelief, it will be no problem for Him to point at the exact place and moment where you made the conscious choice. Now, perhaps that place and moment hasn't come yet. I don't know. But He does. In the meantime, however, there's not much to say in regard to His being unclear. Of all the things He's been, clarity is most definitely not the problem. Or, to quote that great philosopher Mark Twain, "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

What an unfortunate choice of quote.  

To answer your supposition, I object to the obvious immorality of your god, his obvious evil, and it saddens me that Christians cannot see it.

QuoteYou are assuming God is obligated to justify Himself to you. He's told you what He has done and will do. You get to respond to it, and before you complain again about PW, I'm not saying you belief on this basis. Fear is no motivator to belief. But with that said, it does not follow therefore that God is obligated to fully explain Himself to you. He has provided sufficient reason for humans to believe. I am one of billions of people who are evidence of that, and there are people who have been far more intelligent than either one of us who have believed. Asking God to treat you differently is just special pleading. That's one of the things about God -- He's no respecter of persons.

His reasons are insufficient to rational people.  That you find them sufficient says much more about you than it does about god.

Also, I have emphasized another unjust quality of your god: he has no respect for lesser beings.  I cannot remember who it was who said, "We as a society are judged by how we treat the weakest amongst us," but I damned sure agree with the sentiment.  Simply because he is claimed to be all-powerful is no excuse for his evils.  "Might makes right" doesn't work for me.  If it does for you, I don't know what to say

QuoteIf you only view Christianity as a set of ethical teachings, then you would be right. As an aside, that is part of my beef with the western church. Because of its underlying philosophy, it has turned to moralism, which any philosophy can give you (and many have throughout history).

Remember, I believe that morality is objective, and therefore, you don't need the Bible to tell you right from wrong. You know how you ought to treat others. My complaint that you were ridiculing my faith is one simple example. If you didn't think you ought not ridicule people's most deeply cherished beliefs, you would have just said, "So what? Why should I care if you don't like it!" But you know it's wrong to do so, for whatever reason you assign it as wrong (take your pick -- you will likely be right). So, yes, on that count, if Christianity is true, it probably wouldn't change your life very much. It will, however, change your motivation in your behavior, your belief system as it relates to your position in the world, and, ultimately, your eternal fate.

Thank you for at least acknowledging this.  Being slurred by theists gets pretty old.  

QuoteMy signature answers this. God is sovereign, and my personal opinion is that this, above all, is the great offense to the non-Christian mind (and, by the way, to many a Christians!). We constantly assume that God must be under the same standard we are, which in effect makes Him accountable to us. God, however, is accountable to no one. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. He would be within His rights to throw us all into Hell for eternity just the heck of it and we could say nothing about it. We could complain "That isn't fair!" to which He could retort, "So what? Who makes fair?" And there would be nothing to say, because it would be a simple matter of our word against His.

You realize that your are arguing "might makes right" here, as well, no?

QuoteThe fact that God does not act that way is a matter of His mercy and grace and fundamental goodness. He is not under the moral law. He is the moral law. He is the standard.

Wait, you just said you believed morality was objective.  Now you're arguing that it's subjective.  Simply because your god decrees it doesn't make it objective, that makes it absolute, which is a very different thing.

Now, please, is something moral because your god says it is, or does your god say it's moral because it is objectively so?

QuoteYou aren't asking Him to aid you in the process of belief. You are asking for it on your own terms. You are asking for special treatment. You are asking Him to crown you as sovereign. There's no middle ground on this. There is no co-sovereignty. Either you rule or He does.

You don't know how long I was faithful, nor the depth of my faith, no how long or deep I prayed to retain my faith, before I lost it.  Kindly don't presume things about me.  It's rude as well as wrong.

QuoteIt is only PW if it is intended as a motivation to belief. I'm not arguing "better safe than sorry." I am answering your question as to why God doesn't play by your rules. The reason is simply that He makes the rules, not you. You can play by your own rules, but eventually, the day will come when you will run into His. Someone's rules will override the other's. It's hardly prudent or rational of you to think they will be yours.

I followed his rules.  He didn't show up. That leads me to believe that he doesn't exist.  If he does, he'll get an earful, and I'll march off to hell to burn for eternity, because he loves me.

QuoteDoes this mean you ought to believe? No. It means that you have no logical basis on which to demand that He submit to you.

I'm not demanding his submission, Jack.  I'm rejecting his existence on reasonable grounds.

QuoteI'll let this go. If you can't see how there's no justification for comparing someone's most deeply cherished beliefs to alcoholism, I don't know what else to say.

[/quote]

When your most deeply-cherished beliefs are wrong, and they are the topic of discussion, I will point out every flaw I see in them.  One of those flaws is that it has the character of a mental crutch.  If you don't like that, so be it.  If that offends you, I'm sorry.  The truth is not a kind mistress.

"You can't handle the truth."

Oh man, I've wanted to use that phrase for a long-ass time.  

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"

Quote from: "Jac"I'll let this go. If you can't see how there's no justification for comparing someone's most deeply cherished beliefs to alcoholism, I don't know what else to say.

When your most deeply-cherished beliefs are wrong, and they are the topic of discussion, I will point out every flaw I see in them. One of those flaws is that it has the character of a mental crutch. If you don't like that, so be it. If that offends you, I'm sorry. The truth is not a kind mistress.

I'll add that there is actually a bit of a "placebo effect" to alcohol. There have ben experiments done where they'll tell a guy they're giving him vodka or something but it's really a non-alcholic liquid that just tastes as nasty as vodka. Yet he still begins to act more drunk with each drink and actually liking the taste of the fake vodka. He believed it would have that effect on him. In a similar manner, people believe their religion will take a certain effect on them, make them lighter, take away their problems; like alcohol.

Quote from: "pinkocommie"I feel like if you can excuse someone's actions, you shouldn't have to forgive them to begin with.

I think so too. There's something ironic about forgiveness. It is often considered an important mark of character to have in oneself, yet if we are to have strong morals how can select individuals to be exempt from them? Usually when I hear forgiveness now, I only think of it as letting go of a grudge or bitter feelings that are causing hang ups in ones own life; or seeing things from another perspective, perhaps, if it is something much less black and white or severe.

Sorry about you situation, by the way. Hope it's working out for the best now.

Quote from: "Sophus"To forgive is to excuse. You shouldn't excuse a killer because in doing so you allow the possibility for him to do it again. You cannot work toward bettering the world if every horrible thing is to be "forgiven".

I disagree. To forgive and to excuse are deeply opposed. If there is an excuse, there is, by definition, no need for forgiveness. For example, if I am speeding and run a red light and a cop sees me and tries to pull me over, but I don't until I get to my destination, I'd pretty clearly be in serious trouble. Now suppose, however, I offer this excuse: my child is dying, and I didn't have time to stop for any of those things. I am not asking for forgiveness because I did nothing wrong. I have an excuse.

It's rather interesting that few people ask for forgiveness. We typically say something like, "I'm really sorry I did that. It is just that <insert excuse>." The implication in such a statement is, "If you really understood why I did what I did, you would see that it wasn't so much my fault after all. I didn't really do anything wrong." In such a case, there is no need for forgiveness. To ask for forgiveness is to fully admit wrong doing without excuse. It stops at "I'm sorry."

So, no, to forgive is not to excuse. The two are mutually exclusive.

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Quote from: "humblesmurph"I don't think we need an ethicist for this.  We just need to have an understanding of what unconditionally means.  In the same post you agree that there are conditions under which it would be prudent for a wife to not continue to be giving and loving to her spouse and then talk of unconditional love.  

I don't think you properly addressed my last question.  If my wife is cooking cleaning and sexing, and she ceases to do those things because I'm beating the living crap out of her, is she still showing unconditional love?

edit: by ceasing to do those things I mean divorcing me and ceasing to do those things.

It is possible to your wife to show unconditional love even if she leaves you. This is where we do need to get into ethics, because the moment you start talking about specific actions (rather than values and the definition of love) you are talking about ethics. Let me give you three example of how this could go several way:

1. Suppose your wife, unbeknownst to you, has met someone else. She is looking for a reason to get out of the marriage so that she can be with Mr. X. She then uses this as an excuse to leave you. Is she loving you unconditionally? Obviously not.

2. Suppose you have children, and you not only beat your wife, but you also beat them. Suppose she loves you unconditionally, but she also loves them. In other words, she is looking for what is best for you and what is best for them. If she stays with you, she may or may not be doing what is best for you, but she is almost certainly not doing what is best for them. Here, then, we have competing interests. So suppose she leaves you. Does that mean that she does not want what is best for you in every way? Of course not. She could still be loving you unconditionally, but other factors necessarily enter into the equation as to what to do.

3. Suppose you have no children, but you are abusive to your wife. She only wants what is best for you. She decides that it is in your best interest to leave, because to remain in the situation is tantamount to endorsing your behavior. She recognizes that your abusiveness, while a problem for her, is actually your problem, and you, like all people with a problem, cannot get help until you admit you have a problem. Further, you will not admit to the problem so long as you have her in your life.

In all of these situations, she leaves you, but in two of them she can be said to be really loving you, but in one, not. To love someone, quite simply, is to act in their best interest (or, at least, to act in a manner you sincerely belief is in their best interest; we can, of course, be wrong in our beliefs) out of a concern for them (whatever the connotation of that concern may be). What is "best," of course, is highly contingent, and sometimes means doing something we actually don't want to do because it may bring the person we love pain. We can graphically illustrate that as follows: suppose you walk in and find me kneeling over my semi-conscious wife, and just as you walk in, you see me stab a metal pin into her throat. That hardly seems loving! Murder, after all, doesn't top the "what-best-for-you" list . . . but suppose you come rushing in to discover she is suffocating, and I am having to perform an emergency procedure to allow her to breathe until medical help arrives. Though I am certainly bringing her pain in the short term, it is intended for her good.

And again, all this is further complicated when you consider that what is best for one person may possible conflict what is best for another (i.e., I manage a local company, and I have two friends desperately in need of a job, but I only have one opening). An ethicist, then, distinguishes between the goal of an action and the action in itself. To close with one last example, suppose a person breaks into my home and I use deadly force to stop him. Did I do something right or wrong? That depends on many things, first of which being my intentions. On one hand, if the man is black, and I am looking for a reason to kill a black man, then whatever else may be true, the action was simply murder (even if such force would have been necessary to stop him!). On the other hand, suppose I have no desire to kill anyone, but I do have a desire to protect my family, and it so happens that deadly force is necessary to stop him. In that case, the goal is not to kill him; that is simply an accidental aspect (that is, an unintended, albeit necessary, aspect) of my action. The goal was good: protecting my family.

So if actions are right or wrong in some part contingent on our motivations, then the question of whether divorce can be an expression of love likewise depends on motivations. It can be, depending on a wide set of circumstances, or it obviously cannot be.

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Quote from: "Sophus"

Quote from: "Jac"As far as your point goes, yes, all virtues have goals, and yes, we do things for a reason. It does not follow, however, that those reasons must be related to what we get out of it.

This is a blatant contradiction.

Give one example of something you do that you get absolutely nothing out of.

I didn't say we ever do something we don't get anything out of. I said we can, and often do, things that are not based on what we will get out of them. For instance, suppose I see a man mugging a woman, and I step in to protect her. In the scuffle, I kill the man. What do I get out of that? Harassment by the police and all sorts of legal headaches? You may say, "The feeling that you did something right," but is that to say that the only reason I protected the woman was so that I would have a nice-feeling? Who is to say that entered the calculation at all? I find that notion deeply cynical and far more negative than we should entertain. Perhaps some people are so extremely selfish that the only reason they would protect another would be for an emotional high, by I venture to say that wouldn't be the case in many, and possible even most.

In other words, who is to say that I can't do things just because they ought to be done?

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Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"

Quote from: "Jac3510"1. The word "better" in "know better" implies that you have a superior idea than another. You can only "know" your idea is superior if you know that it better fits all the variables. If you don't know all the variables, you can't know whether or not your idea is better at all. To use a very earthly analogy, I refrain from discussing foreign policy issues (in terms of actual policy; philosophy is another matter). While I disagree in principle with some of Obama's policies, I don't criticize them for the simple reason that I know that he is in possession of far more information than I am. Perhaps there is a reason he can't reveal for security reasons that, were I aware of it, I would agree--or at least would be more likely to agree. The same is true with God. The only way to say that you have a better idea is to claim that you not only are aware of all existing facts, but of all potential facts given different circumstances. I can't make such a claim, so I can't claim to know better than God. I have my doubts that you can either.

By this logic, you cannot say anything is better than anything else.  I should hope the fallacy is plain to you.  It is obvious to me.  Demanding perfect information before a judgment is rendered is simply another way of saying "My god is perfect, and you're not, so you have no right to judge him," when in fact you've not evidenced him yet.  As such, I am entitled to use my personal judgment to assess your claim of his "perfect" morality.  Therefore, I reject this argument.  You can only claim that your god's knowledge trumps mine when you can demonstrate that 1) God exists, and 2) that he knows more than I do.

Not at all. There are many times when people offer their reasons for doing something, and we can see that they are simply wrong. If I run a red-light because I don't want to be late for work, I'm wrong. There's no other hidden reasons. In fact, the vast majority of discussions are exactly like this. People do something and they tell us precisely why they did it.

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.

Finally, far from making any such judgments impossible, your stance actually justifies a horrible tyranny: it would allow juries to render verdicts at the beginning, rather than at the end, of a trial. If you have the right to judge an accused God without hearing all the evidence, what don't you have the right to judge an accused person without hearing all the evidence?

QuoteAlso, if you wish to introduce sarcasm into this conversation, I'm more than willing to oblige you.  Be forewarned.

There was absolutely no sarcasm in my statement, Thump. I know text is hard to read such things. That's why I don't use it.

Quote

Quote3. Poets make their ideas intentionally obscure for their own reasons. The analogy holds. The question is whether or not God could have a reason to be intentionally obscure.I answer, most emphatically, yes. Yes he could.

Until you posit a credible premise that doesn't violate his omnipotence, this sort of posting is merely dodging the point.  I ask you now:  Why could not an omnipotent, omnibeneficent god devise a more humane method of dealing with Adam and Eve's disobedience aside from sentencing to death every man, woman, and child in history?  Are you honestly arguing that this could possibly be just?  Tell me, would it be just for a teacher to fail all the children on an exam if he caught one cheating?  Was it just for Roosevelt to imprison over 100,000 Nisei simply because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor?

Roosevelt was wrong, as would the teacher be, and as would God be if we died for Adam's sin. Now, I fully admit that there is a large part of the Christian theological community that holds to variants of this absolutely absurd position, usually expressed in seminal or federal headship (although always adhering to the concept of the imputation of Adam's sin). They base that on Romans 5:12, which says, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned" (NIV).

I reject this view, as does a substantial part of the Christian community (both theological and lay). No one dies because Adam sinned. Rom. 5:12 should be translated, "For just as through one man Sin came into the world and death came through sin, even in the same way death spread to all men, because all men sin." (For a very detailed argument between myself and a Reformed theologian who holds the traditional view that you and I both reject, in which I defend this translation, see this thread (http://discussions.godandscience.org/viewtopic.php?p=77001#p77001)). Men die because they sin, not because Adam sinned.

Now, this raises other theological questions that we can address if you would like (such as why we sin, why children die, the relationship between sin and spiritual death, etc.), but I'll hold off on preemptively answering those.

Quote

QuoteNonsense. This is an idea we've long ago gotten passed. Who is your favorite sports team? I'm in Atlanta, so let's say, for the sake of argument, it is the Braves. Does the fact that you like the Braves mean that you cannot give an objective account of the game? In fact, would not your fondness for the team make you more inclined to be sure that every detail is accurate? In fact, if you really love the team, you would insist that even their flaws be properly reported so that they could fix them.

Personally, yes, unless they were a jealous team, who would not tolerate me speaking ill of them, and if I did would doom me to fire for all eternity.  If when I was three or four you told me this about the Braves, you can be damned sure I would kiss Ted Turner's ass.  Every Sunday.  

Also, it's funny that you'd compare your faith to sports fandom.

Then the point is simply that just because a Christian or Jew wrote an Old or New Testament account doesn't mean that what they said can't be trusted as history.

QuoteTrue objectivity would consist of questioning the very premise of his existence, and right now, I sincerely doubt your ability, or willingness, to do so.

Hey, another personal attack. Again, as I've said, I question it on a regular basis. I find the arguments in favor of His existence absolutely compelling.

QuoteYou would deny that social programming happens?

No.

Quote

QuoteThey get that from Rev. 3:20, where Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (KJV) Unfortunately, they don't pay close attention to what they are reading. They read "I will come in to him" as if it says "I will come into him." It is actually rather heretical. Salvation is not by prayer. It is by faith (John 3:16). To say a person must pray a "sinner's prayer" and "invite Jesus into your heart" denies the Gospel. Here is an excellent little essay titled Seven Reasons NOT to Ask Jesus into Your Heart (http://duluthbible.org/widgets/download.aspx?file=%2ffiles%2fResources%2fPublications%2fBooklet_PDF_Files%2fSeven_Reason_3rdEdition.pdf). I highly recommend it.

Second, look again at my words. God is not, philosophically speaking, located anywhere. He is the case of every where, since He is the First Cause (see the first argument). Theologically we can say God is "everywhere," but by that we only mean that no matter where you go, you can't get away from God.

So say ye.

You asked me.

Quote

Quote1. Pi is an irrational number, not an exact number.

I'm well aware of this.  That is why when the Bible uses the exact number three, it is wrong.  Thank you for reinforcing my point.

The Bible doesn't say "Pi is three." You are factually mistaken. It says a round object was ten cubits in diameter and thirty cubits in circumference, which is perfectly acceptable.

Quote

QuoteAs far as the verse you are referring to, it says, "And he [Hiram] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick..." (1 Ki 7:23, 26). I don't see a statement there that says "pi equals three." It describes the measurements of a round object that was ten cubits in diameter and thirty cubits in circumference. Since a cubit wasn't standardized (it was the measurement from the elbow to the end of your finger, usually around 20 inches), you can hardly say that the Bible declares pi to equal three. This is rather petty.

If your god cannot finesse such a "petty" detail as this in his self-inspired book, then I dunno, he doesn't look all that grand anyway.  You expect me to believe that he can create a universe, but cannot formulate a simple equation?

Also, have you had grade-school math?  One of the basic requirements is the ability to formulate an equation given a word problem.  Now, do I need to lay out how this passage translates into "pi=3"?  After all, you plead interpretation of your bible to explain away inconvenient passages.  Now it is you who are trying to have it boths ways.  If you can plead "interpretation", I can as well, and do so here.  Furthermore, my interpretation is unassailable, because it is based mathematically, and not on vague linguistics.

How precise would you like for Him to have been? If 3 wasn't precise enough, what about 3.14? No? What about 3.1415? 3.141592? It is impossible to give a precise measurement of pi. You are just as wrong when you say pi is 3.14 as when I say pi is 3.14159265.

Also, I really am going to insist that you stop with the personal insults. Our conversation isn't helped in the least by them.

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Quote2. The theology we get out of the OT is derived from its history. It makes very few normative statements. Therefore, you cannot derive prescriptive statements from the OT (or even the Gospels and Acts, for that matter) without treating the texts historically. Therefore, since you cannot do history without carrying about what the author believed (read Baruch Halpern's The First Historians (http://www.amazon.com/First-Historians-Hebrew-Bible-History/dp/0271024496/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1284828606&sr=8-1)i], no Christian, and no conservative for more on this), you cannot know what the OT means for your faith, or lackthereof, without considering what the Israelites believed.

Okay, since I need to spell out everything, I will.  I do not care what they think, because I have considered it, and I consider them to be greatly in error, both factually and morally.  I have presented examples of both

You have no rational basis on which to consider them in moral error, as I have demonstrated, and from a historical perspective, if you say you don't care what they believe, you aren't capable of doing history, as I've demonstrated. You can make bare assertions all you like, but shy of demonstration, they carry no weight and they matter about as much as my opinion on ice cream.

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Quote3. My use of the word "little" refers to pettiness and difficulty to overcome. There are "little" contradictions and "major" contradictions, all of which turn out to be no contradiction at all upon examinations. Now, have I looked at all the supposed contradictions in the Bible? No, but I have literally looked at hundreds (and written papers galore on them). There is no contradiction on this issue.

What you seem to not understand here is that a perfect god cannot make an imperfect communication.  Your only reasonable answer to this is that your god is obscurantist, but then than undercuts any claims of him wanting humans to be saved from hell.  If he wants us saved, he can make it so, indirectly, by making the Bible clear enough to understand -- or directly, by cancelling the evil rules he makes, like "You were born human.  Unless you worship me you will burn forever."

And I've demonstrated that God wasn't making an imperfect calculation. A cubit isn't a set measurement. It is only an approximate. You keep talking about evidence this, evidence that. Fine, let's do a little Hebrew if you want evidence. If you want to render "cubit" into appropriate modern fixed distances, we must render the verse as follows:

"And he [Hiram] made a molten sea,

about 200 inches from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of about 600 inches did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick..." (1 Ki 7:23, 26).[/list]

Now, if you insist on being so technical, you should be able to se how this is no contradiction.

Finally, as for God being an obscurantist keeping people how of Hell, the way to salvation is very clear: trust Jesus to save you (see John 3:16, Acts 16:31, or about a hundred other such verses if you want support). What you do with that is up to you.

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QuoteOdd that you would think that God would have had them write using modern taxonomic terms. Or why those terms at all? Perhaps in the future, we will classify animals differently. Perhaps God should have used those classifications instead?

Perhaps if god was really interested in saving men, he would place unmistakable signs of his presence in the bible, such as modern terminology that the Hebrews would have no way of knowing.  "Hey, Moses, bats are gonna be called Chiropterae.  I know you don't know how to spell it, just hold on, I'll spell it out for you.  Look, I know you didn't study Latin.  Would quit griping and get back to writing?"  It would've been that easy.  Now, if little old ignorant human me can think of such an easy way to remove doubt, why couldn't your god have thought so?  That is my point -- not biological accuracy.

And if He had done that, then the people to whom He was writing would not have understood what He was talking about. You are making the common mistake of assuming that Scripture was written to you. It wasn't. It was written to them.

Besides, there is an analogy in our own conversations. You complain that I use too technical language in the philosophy discussions. You want me to communicate more clearly in more understandable terms. And yet you demand God communicate in terms that His readers couldn't follow? That's rather disingenuous of you. Further, why should God write based on 21st century terminology? What makes you so special? Why not write in 31st century terminology? In fact, why not just have Moses write in detailed mathematics that no human yet understands, but someday, we will?

Your request is just special pleading, which is a logical fallacy. You want God to forget the needs of His immediate readers and instead communicate on your level, but why yours? Why not of people from one hundred years ago or one hundred years in the future? God inspired the biblical writers to write to certain people. If they couldn't understand what they were reading, then it wouldn't have been much in terms of a message, now would it have?

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QuoteThe fact is rather simple - a bat can properly be called a tsippowr. If you would prefer, simply translate it "winged creature."

True, but this sentence is based on a misapprehension of my argument, as explained above.

No "but." You are saying there is a contradiction in tsippowr by calling a bat a bird. There is no such contradiction. You are committing the fallacy of equivocation. I thoroughly expect you to retract your accusation of contradiction here.

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QuoteThere are no deep contradictions in the Christian conceptualization. There may be deep contradictions in the way people look at God who haven't wanted to do the hard work of studying history, theology, and philosophy. The Bible, however, is abundantly clear on the important things, i.e., that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. John 3:16 is rather clear: "For this is how God loved the world: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who puts their faith in Him will never perish, but will instead have everlasting life" (my translation, but pick any you like).

No, there are deep contradictions.  The fact that you choose to apologize for them rather than examine them is a pity, and what I regard as a misuse of an obviously fine mind.

Then present them. Start a thread. I've shown why all the ones suggested so far are nothing of the sort. Shy of your demonstration, all we have, again, is your bare assertions.

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QuoteMaybe pi and bats are what is keeping you from believing, but I'm willing to bet that isn't the case. Again, God knows your skepticism very well--better than you do. He knows the root of it--better than you do. He's provided a solution (assuming He is real, of course). If He is real, and if you stand before Him in unbelief, it will be no problem for Him to point at the exact place and moment where you made the conscious choice. Now, perhaps that place and moment hasn't come yet. I don't know. But He does. In the meantime, however, there's not much to say in regard to His being unclear. Of all the things He's been, clarity is most definitely not the problem. Or, to quote that great philosopher Mark Twain, "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

What an unfortunate choice of quote.  

To answer your supposition, I object to the obvious immorality of your god, his obvious evil, and it saddens me that Christians cannot see it.

It saddens me that you make a judgment call you have no rational right to make.

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QuoteYou are assuming God is obligated to justify Himself to you. He's told you what He has done and will do. You get to respond to it, and before you complain again about PW, I'm not saying you belief on this basis. Fear is no motivator to belief. But with that said, it does not follow therefore that God is obligated to fully explain Himself to you. He has provided sufficient reason for humans to believe. I am one of billions of people who are evidence of that, and there are people who have been far more intelligent than either one of us who have believed. Asking God to treat you differently is just special pleading. That's one of the things about God -- He's no respecter of persons.

His reasons are insufficient to rational people.  That you find them sufficient says much more about you than it does about god.

Rational people recognize that they can't make judgment calls until they are in possession of all the facts, which you are not. Rational people don't call reasons that they don't have insufficient.

QuoteAlso, I have emphasized another unjust quality of your god: he has no respect for lesser beings.  I cannot remember who it was who said, "We as a society are judged by how we treat the weakest amongst us," but I damned sure agree with the sentiment.  Simply because he is claimed to be all-powerful is no excuse for his evils.  "Might makes right" doesn't work for me.  If it does for you, I don't know what to say

Who says he is no respecter of lesser beings? On the contrary, "what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" (Ps. 8:4)

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QuoteIf you only view Christianity as a set of ethical teachings, then you would be right. As an aside, that is part of my beef with the western church. Because of its underlying philosophy, it has turned to moralism, which any philosophy can give you (and many have throughout history).

Remember, I believe that morality is objective, and therefore, you don't need the Bible to tell you right from wrong. You know how you ought to treat others. My complaint that you were ridiculing my faith is one simple example. If you didn't think you ought not ridicule people's most deeply cherished beliefs, you would have just said, "So what? Why should I care if you don't like it!" But you know it's wrong to do so, for whatever reason you assign it as wrong (take your pick -- you will likely be right). So, yes, on that count, if Christianity is true, it probably wouldn't change your life very much. It will, however, change your motivation in your behavior, your belief system as it relates to your position in the world, and, ultimately, your eternal fate.

Thank you for at least acknowledging this.  Being slurred by theists gets pretty old.

I've acknowledge it since our earliest discussions (remember the thread on PW?). My point, however, stands: if Christianity were true (and you believed it), it would change a great deal of your life--not necessarily your ethical behavior, but life is obviously more than how you behave.

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QuoteMy signature answers this. God is sovereign, and my personal opinion is that this, above all, is the great offense to the non-Christian mind (and, by the way, to many a Christians!). We constantly assume that God must be under the same standard we are, which in effect makes Him accountable to us. God, however, is accountable to no one. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. He would be within His rights to throw us all into Hell for eternity just the heck of it and we could say nothing about it. We could complain "That isn't fair!" to which He could retort, "So what? Who makes fair?" And there would be nothing to say, because it would be a simple matter of our word against His.

You realize that your are arguing "might makes right" here, as well, no?

No. It's saying that someone has to make the rules. Someone has the right to make the rules, either you or society or God or something more powerful than all of us. So long as their are moral obligations (i.e., don't murder), there is someone who sets them. God setting them is no more "might makes right" than if some super-God did or if you did or if society does.

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QuoteThe fact that God does not act that way is a matter of His mercy and grace and fundamental goodness. He is not under the moral law. He is the moral law. He is the standard.

Wait, you just said you believed morality was objective.  Now you're arguing that it's subjective.  Simply because your god decrees it doesn't make it objective, that makes it absolute, which is a very different thing.

Now, please, is something moral because your god says it is, or does your god say it's moral because it is objectively so?

I've answered this before. God wills morality from His goodness. Let me try to make this clear by putting your argument in a logical form.

1. If God willed the moral law arbitrarily (that is, subjectively), then He is not essentially good; and if He willed it according to an ultimate standard beyond Himself, then He is not God (because there is something ultimate beyond Him).
2. But God willed the moral law either arbitrarily or according to an ultimate standard.
3. Therefore, God is either not essentially good or not God.

Now, the form of this argument is perfectly appropriate. It is valid in every way. In response, there are always two ways to get out of a dilemma. The first is to deny one of the propositions in the major premise. If either one is false, the entire argument falls apart. That won't work here, because both propositions are true. The other is to deny the minor premise, which we can only do if it does not exhaust all logical possibilities. In this case, it is very easy to deny the minor premise, because we can offer another way by which God wills the moral law: from His own goodness.

In fact, the argument itself suggests this answer to us. In both the major premise and conclusion, the problem is that if God wills something objectively, then He is not good. Look at those last few works: "He is not good." But if God is good, then what He wills will be good!

So, your argument is easily answered. Things are not moral because God wills them, and God does not will things because they are moral; rather, God wills certain things because He is moral.

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QuoteYou aren't asking Him to aid you in the process of belief. You are asking for it on your own terms. You are asking for special treatment. You are asking Him to crown you as sovereign. There's no middle ground on this. There is no co-sovereignty. Either you rule or He does.

You don't know how long I was faithful, nor the depth of my faith, no how long or deep I prayed to retain my faith, before I lost it.  Kindly don't presume things about me.  It's rude as well as wrong.

No, I don't, nor am I pretending to, but your past has nothing to do with the present fact. You are right now asking God to answer you on your terms, which is to ask for special treatment. You are asserting, in the present, that God submit to your sovereignty. It's a logical fact here -- if you are sovereign, God is not; if God is sovereign, you are not. In placing demands, you assume sovereignty, which is not your place. In short, you have no right to make your claim.

So we see now that not only have you assumed omniscience in your argument against God, but now you have assumed sovereignty. Now, omniscience and sovereignty are only attributes of God. You are, in effect, making yourself out to be God Himself. In other words, you reject the claim that God exists because you, exercising your rights as God, have found tried Him and found Him to not fulfill His obligation to you. It looks very much like you have committed your own "might makes right" argument.

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QuoteIt is only PW if it is intended as a motivation to belief. I'm not arguing "better safe than sorry." I am answering your question as to why God doesn't play by your rules. The reason is simply that He makes the rules, not you. You can play by your own rules, but eventually, the day will come when you will run into His. Someone's rules will override the other's. It's hardly prudent or rational of you to think they will be yours.

I followed his rules.  He didn't show up. That leads me to believe that he doesn't exist.  If he does, he'll get an earful, and I'll march off to hell to burn for eternity, because he loves me.

And someone will pay dearly for giving you the impression that this is what God is after. On the contrary:
"However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness" (Rom. 4:5)
"Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort [works]?" (Gal. 3:3)
"All who rely on observing the law are under a curse" (Gal 3:10)

I could go on and on and on. I'm terribly sorry that someone told you that God expects us to follow a big rulebook. It's a terrible shame, and people will pay very dearly for that. You, however, are more than capable of finding out what God actually does expect. It's written down in black and white (and sometimes, red and white).

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QuoteDoes this mean you ought to believe? No. It means that you have no logical basis on which to demand that He submit to you.

I'm not demanding his submission, Jack.  I'm rejecting his existence on reasonable grounds.

But you are demanding his submission. You have given Him the conditions by which you will believe. If He chooses to condescend to you, you will believe. If not, you won't. That's demanding He play by your rules.

I'd just encourage you to reconsider. God does love you. Unconditionally. Nothing you can ever do will ever change that in the least, anymore than anything my wife could do would ever stop me from loving her. He isn't going to force Himself on you, though. Divine rape is just as evil as human rape.

QuoteI disagree. To forgive and to excuse are deeply opposed. If there is an excuse, there is, by definition, no need for forgiveness. For example, if I am speeding and run a red light and a cop sees me and tries to pull me over, but I don't until I get to my destination, I'd pretty clearly be in serious trouble. Now suppose, however, I offer this excuse: my child is dying, and I didn't have time to stop for any of those things. I am not asking for forgiveness because I did nothing wrong. I have an excuse.

Then what exactly is forgiveness?

Jac,

Do you love me?

Quote from: "Jac3510"Divine rape is just as evil as human rape.

Human rape is evil? There sure is a lot of "God-approved" rape taking place in the Old Testament. Lot offered his daughters to be raped by a whole crowd of angry guys. It all worked out in the end for old Lot, though. He got to have sex with both of them, although he swears that they got him drunk and he didn't know what was going on.

What a life that must have been!

Quote from: "humblesmurph"Jac,

Do you love me?

Yeah. What about me, Jac? Do you love me too?

Quote from: "Jac"I disagree. To forgive and to excuse are deeply opposed. If there is an excuse, there is, by definition, no need for forgiveness. For example, if I am speeding and run a red light and a cop sees me and tries to pull me over, but I don't until I get to my destination, I'd pretty clearly be in serious trouble. Now suppose, however, I offer this excuse: my child is dying, and I didn't have time to stop for any of those things. I am not asking for forgiveness because I did nothing wrong. I have an excuse.

It's rather interesting that few people ask for forgiveness. We typically say something like, "I'm really sorry I did that. It is just that <insert excuse>." The implication in such a statement is, "If you really understood why I did what I did, you would see that it wasn't so much my fault after all. I didn't really do anything wrong." In such a case, there is no need for forgiveness. To ask for forgiveness is to fully admit wrong doing without excuse. It stops at "I'm sorry."

So, no, to forgive is not to excuse. The two are mutually exclusive.

From the Oxford dictionary:

excuse - 1 to forgive somebody for something that they have done, for example not being polite or making a small mistake

From thefreedictionary.com:
excuse -To explain (a fault or an offense) in the hope of being forgiven or understood
1. An explanation offered to justify or obtain forgiveness.
2. A reason or grounds for excusing: Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law.

forgive-
1. To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon.


The examples you gave are why I think there can be two different meanings to forgiveness. In those cases, it's simply clarifying a misunderstanding by seeing things from another's perspective, who happens to have a valid excuse.

QuoteI didn't say we ever do something we don't get anything out of. I said we can, and often do, things that are not based on what we will get out of them. For instance, suppose I see a man mugging a woman, and I step in to protect her. In the scuffle, I kill the man. What do I get out of that?

The intention would have been most likely to get a sense of moral gratification. You would have most likely acted on empathy. It could have been done just as easily to avoid any feeling of guilt, just as it could have been to make a friend, feel you did the honorable thing, be happy with yourself, have an interesting story to tell. It is all an act of will, which is why every action you do is based on what you want. How well thought out it was is irrelevant.

Quote from: "PoopShoot"

QuoteI disagree. To forgive and to excuse are deeply opposed. If there is an excuse, there is, by definition, no need for forgiveness. For example, if I am speeding and run a red light and a cop sees me and tries to pull me over, but I don't until I get to my destination, I'd pretty clearly be in serious trouble. Now suppose, however, I offer this excuse: my child is dying, and I didn't have time to stop for any of those things. I am not asking for forgiveness because I did nothing wrong. I have an excuse.

Then what exactly is forgiveness?

Broadly, it is to pardon someone for something they have done. That is, to not hold something against them. More technically, it is to separate the offense from the person who committed it so that it can no longer be held against them.

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Quote from: "humblesmurph"Jac,

Do you love me?

As a Christian, of course. [silly]I luvs evrybodiez!!1![/silly]

Seriously, though, love isn't an emotion, although it is accompanied by it. It is best reduced to grace in action. The nature of our relationship is of course highly limited, and therefore any expression of such is highly limited. But, in general, do I hold toward you a generally benevolent attitude that seeks your best in whatever means I can offer? Yes, of course.

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Quote from: "i_am_i"

Quote from: "Jac3510"Divine rape is just as evil as human rape.

Human rape is evil? There sure is a lot of "God-approved" rape taking place in the Old Testament. Lot offered his daughters to be raped by a whole crowd of angry guys. It all worked out in the end for old Lot, though. He got to have sex with both of them, although he swears that they got him drunk and he didn't know what was going on.

What a life that must have been!

Just because the Bible says something happened doesn't mean it approves of the action. Moses assumes, like any other writer does, that some things are obvious and don't need to be commented upon.

QuoteYeah. What about me, Jac? Do you love me too?

Just as I do HS.

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Quote from: "Sophus"

Quote from: "Jac"I disagree. To forgive and to excuse are deeply opposed. If there is an excuse, there is, by definition, no need for forgiveness. For example, if I am speeding and run a red light and a cop sees me and tries to pull me over, but I don't until I get to my destination, I'd pretty clearly be in serious trouble. Now suppose, however, I offer this excuse: my child is dying, and I didn't have time to stop for any of those things. I am not asking for forgiveness because I did nothing wrong. I have an excuse.

It's rather interesting that few people ask for forgiveness. We typically say something like, "I'm really sorry I did that. It is just that <insert excuse>." The implication in such a statement is, "If you really understood why I did what I did, you would see that it wasn't so much my fault after all. I didn't really do anything wrong." In such a case, there is no need for forgiveness. To ask for forgiveness is to fully admit wrong doing without excuse. It stops at "I'm sorry."

So, no, to forgive is not to excuse. The two are mutually exclusive.

From the Oxford dictionary:

excuse - 1 to forgive somebody for something that they have done, for example not being polite or making a small mistake

From thefreedictionary.com:
excuse -To explain (a fault or an offense) in the hope of being forgiven or understood
1. An explanation offered to justify or obtain forgiveness.
2. A reason or grounds for excusing: Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law.

forgive-
1. To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon.


The examples you gave are why I think there can be two different meanings to forgiveness. In those cases, it's simply clarifying a misunderstanding by seeing things from another's perspective, who happens to have a valid excuse.

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.

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QuoteI didn't say we ever do something we don't get anything out of. I said we can, and often do, things that are not based on what we will get out of them. For instance, suppose I see a man mugging a woman, and I step in to protect her. In the scuffle, I kill the man. What do I get out of that?

The intention would have been most likely to get a sense of moral gratification. You would have most likely acted on empathy. It could have been done just as easily to avoid any feeling of guilt, just as it could have been to make a friend, feel you did the honorable thing, be happy with yourself, have an interesting story to tell. It is all an act of will, which is why every action you do is based on what you want. How well thought out it was is irrelevant.

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.

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Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"

Quote from: "Jac3510"Not at all. There are many times when people offer their reasons for doing something, and we can see that they are simply wrong. If I run a red-light because I don't want to be late for work, I'm wrong. There's no other hidden reasons. In fact, the vast majority of discussions are exactly like this. People do something and they tell us precisely why they did it.

And why does god command genocide?  You don't know, I know.  But you'll accept that without question, while you parse every doubting word you read.

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.

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QuoteSecondly, 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.

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?

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

God gives life. He has the right to take it away. Your life is not yours anymore than mine is mine. 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.

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QuoteFinally, far from making any such judgments impossible, your stance actually justifies a horrible tyranny: it would allow juries to render verdicts at the beginning, rather than at the end, of a trial. If you have the right to judge an accused God without hearing all the evidence, what don't you have the right to judge an accused person without hearing all the evidence?

What evidence am I lacking?  Be specific.  Exactly how does your god justify his evil acts?  Be specific, or resign the point.  Don't plead "Well, we don't  know."  If you have exculpatory evidence, present it now.  If you don't, quit begging it, because that's only an appeal to faith, and I am faithless.

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.

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.

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QuoteThere was absolutely no sarcasm in my statement, Thump. I know text is hard to read such things. That's why I don't use it.

Sorry, but your attempt to portray me as hypersensitive to mention of Hell is an obvious bit of sarcasm.  Don't dissemble, lest you lose credibility.  You haven't much left.

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

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QuoteNow, I fully admit that there is a large part of the Christian theological community that holds to variants of this absolutely absurd position, usually expressed in seminal or federal headship (although always adhering to the concept of the imputation of Adam's sin). They base that on Romans 5:12, which says, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned" (NIV).

I reject this view, as does a substantial part of the Christian community (both theological and lay). No one dies because Adam sinned. Rom. 5:12 should be translated, "For just as through one man Sin came into the world and death came through sin, even in the same way death spread to all men, because all men sin." (For a very detailed argument between myself and a Reformed theologian who holds the traditional view that you and I both reject, in which I defend this translation, see this thread (http://discussions.godandscience.org/viewtopic.php?p=77001#p77001)). Men die because they sin, not because Adam sinned.

Gen 3:22

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

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QuoteThen the point is simply that just because a Christian or Jew wrote an Old or New Testament account doesn't mean that what they said can't be trusted as history.

Simply because something is written does not make it so.  I don't trust your Bible.  Show me why it is right.  Don't appeal to my "trust."

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

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Quote from: "Thump"True objectivity would consist of questioning the very premise of his existence, and right now, I sincerely doubt your ability, or willingness, to do so.

Quote from: "Jack"Hey, another personal attack. Again, as I've said, I question it on a regular basis. I find the arguments in favor of His existence absolutely compelling.

That's not an attack, it's an observation.  If you think it is a personal attack, by all means notify the staff, and I will accept their decision.  The gyrations you're performing in this defense of yours reveal much, and I am entitled to speak about what they reveal.

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.

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Quote from: "Thump"You would deny that social programming happens?

Quote from: "Jack"No.

But what you do isn't programming, is it now?

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

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QuoteThe Bible doesn't say "Pi is three." You are factually mistaken. It says a round object was ten cubits in diameter and thirty cubits in circumference, which is perfectly acceptable.

Acceptable?  To whom?  A "perfect" god?  Or a Bronze-Age crowd?

Also, 30/10=3.  Pi = 3.14159 ... You might find this acceptable, and I'd be surprised if you didn't.  Because your god is perfect.

QuoteHow precise would you like for Him to have been? If 3 wasn't precise enough, what about 3.14? No? What about 3.1415? 3.141592? It is impossible to give a precise measurement of pi. You are just as wrong when you say pi is 3.14 as when I say pi is 3.14159265.

You're the one claiming your god to be perfect, not me.  I'll let you define perfection, and we'll see how that flies.

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.

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QuoteAlso, I really am going to insist that you stop with the personal insults. Our conversation isn't helped in the least by them.

Again, if you feel insulted, report me.  I'll take what staff metes out.  You're insulting my intelligence when you pretend to not understand that 30/10 doesn't equal pi.  If you're going to play dumb, you'll be treated that way.  Quit whining.

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. 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.

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QuoteYou have no rational basis on which to consider them in moral error, as I have demonstrated, and from a historical perspective, if you say you don't care what they believe, you aren't capable of doing history, as I've demonstrated. You can make bare assertions all you like, but shy of demonstration, they carry no weight and they matter about as much as my opinion on ice cream.

Nonsense.  You assert that they are morally correct, yet you cannot demonstrate it, unless you wish to defend stoning adulterers to death.  I'd be interested in reading that post.

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.

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QuoteAnd I've demonstrated that God wasn't making an imperfect calculation. A cubit isn't a set measurement. It is only an approximate. You keep talking about evidence this, evidence that. Fine, let's do a little Hebrew if you want evidence. If you want to render "cubit" into appropriate modern fixed distances, we must render the verse as follows:

"And he [Hiram] made a molten sea,

about 200 inches from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of about 600 inches did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick..." (1 Ki 7:23, 26).[/list]

Now, if you insist on being so technical, you should be able to se how this is no contradiction.

I'm pretty sure I didn't say a goddamned thing about cubits.  Why are you trying to pull a shell-game on me?  That's the sure mark of a failed argument.  I mentioned pi, bats, and whales.  Also, 600/200 still doesn't equal pi.  It equals three.

Also, ;)

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.

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QuoteSo we see now that not only have you assumed omniscience in your argument against God, but now you have assumed sovereignty.

Sophistry.  But I'm glad I've offended you that much.

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

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QuoteNow, omniscience and sovereignty are only attributes of God. You are, in effect, making yourself out to be God Himself.

Sophistry, and bullshit, to boot.  I have a hard-enough time with my 12 year old boy; a universe is a little out of my league.  I'm modest enough to know my limits.

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.

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QuoteIn other words, you reject the claim that God exists because you, exercising your rights as God, have found tried Him and found Him to not fulfill His obligation to you. It looks very much like you have committed your own "might makes right" argument.

No.  I find your definition of god contradictory and, even worse, shallow.  If there is a god at all, which I highly doubt, I think he's much more subtle than the cardboard cutout figure you've presented here.  My biggest question, really, is "What is there worth worshipping by your definition?"  You maintain worship for a spiteful, petty, jealous god, who can create a Universe but forget about words he had with Moses, who is perfectly merciful but makes an eternal Hell, who is perfectly just but metes the death penalty to all humans for the sin of two.

In short, the god you worship is a caricature of a worldly king, placed in the heavens so as to be out of reach of politics while still exerting control.

You'll see that, one day.

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.

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Quote from: "Thump"

Quote from: "Jack"It is only PW if it is intended as a motivation to belief. I'm not arguing "better safe than sorry." I am answering your question as to why God doesn't play by your rules. The reason is simply that He makes the rules, not you. You can play by your own rules, but eventually, the day will come when you will run into His. Someone's rules will override the other's. It's hardly prudent or rational of you to think they will be yours.

I followed his rules.  He didn't show up. That leads me to believe that he doesn't exist.  If he does, he'll get an earful, and I'll march off to hell to burn for eternity, because he loves me.

Quote from: "Jack"And someone will pay dearly for giving you the impression that this is what God is after. On the contrary:
"However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness" (Rom. 4:5)
"Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort [works]?" (Gal. 3:3)
"All who rely on observing the law are under a curse" (Gal 3:10)

I could go on and on and on. I'm terribly sorry that someone told you that God expects us to follow a big rulebook. It's a terrible shame, and people will pay very dearly for that. You, however, are more than capable of finding out what God actually does expect. It's written down in black and white (and sometimes, red and white).

Perhaps, with my emphasizing your line, you'll see my point.  Also, how are writen expectations not a "rulebook"?  Does this mean I can ignore the Bible and still ascend?

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?

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

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QuoteBut you are demanding his submission. You have given Him the conditions by which you will believe. If He chooses to condescend to you, you will believe. If not, you won't. That's demanding He play by your rules.

Yes.  If he loves me, he will make such love as he has apparent.  If he doesn't do so, I have no reason to believe your words, or the Bible's, or the Quran's, or the Rig-Veda's, or the .....

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

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QuoteI'd just encourage you to reconsider. God does love you. Unconditionally. Nothing you can ever do will ever change that in the least, anymore than anything my wife could do would ever stop me from loving her. He isn't going to force Himself on you, though. Divine rape is just as evil as human rape.

Suuuuuure.  He'll still toast me for all time in Hell because I didn't kiss his Holy ass; how's that for unconditional!

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

Quote from: "Jac3510"

Quote from: "PoopShoot"Then what exactly is forgiveness?

Broadly, it is to pardon someone for something they have done. That is, to not hold something against them. More technically, it is to separate the offense from the person who committed it so that it can no longer be held against them.

And form of action does it take?

Quote from: "PoopShoot"And form of action does it take?

As with any ethical question, that will vary from situation to situation (see my response to HS on love and ethics). Where possible, forgiveness entails seeking to reestablish a positive relationship. Very often, if not usually, that is possible, but in some circumstances, it may not be.

I really am rather surprised at the negative reaction to the concept of unconditional love. I expected this to be sort of like moral arguments -- yes, we can agree that we ought to do this and not that, but we just disagree on the reason for such statements. This has been informative if nothing else.

I don't have a problem with unconditional love.  In fact, I disagree that it exists, but also agree that hate is stupid.  If a person deserves my hate, they're not worth the emotional investment.  I've personally been trying to understand your views on actions associated with it.  IMO, love is just a feeling, it's the actions attached that make an opinion about it something I would agree or disagree.  As for your view of forgiveness, I would disagree both with how you define it and the action it produces.  Forgetting a person's wrongdoings and then seeking a new relationship with them is just asking to have it done again.  I had a friend who stole my bank card.  I forgave him and didn't hold it against him, but I didn't forget and I didn't have a relationship with him until he verbalized a desire to BE forgiven.  I had already forgiven him, but I still had to protect me and my family from future shenanigans.  The running example ITT has been the cheating wife.  If my wife cheated on me, I would still love her and I would forgive her, but I would still divorce her.  Staying with her is permission to do it again by virtue of my actions.  I can completely agree with the emotional aspect of valuing people for who they are, forgiving people and not wasting an emotional investment of negativity, but I can't agree with the actions you promote.  While the actions you promote will be received well and reciprocated by honorable people, dishonorable people will walk all over you.  That said, honorable people generally don't need to be forgiven in the first place.

Quote from: "Jac3510"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.

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QuoteSecondly, 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?

QuoteSarcasm 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?

QuoteRegarding 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.

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

Agreed.

QuoteGod 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.

QuoteHow 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.

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

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

QuoteYour life is not yours anymore than mine is mine.

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

 

QuoteHe 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.

QuoteI 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.

QuoteHere, 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.

QuoteNo 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.  

QuoteWhat 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.

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

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

QuoteTell 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.

QuoteNo 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.

QuoteWhich 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.

QuoteIs 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.  

QuoteIf 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.

QuoteWrong. 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.

QuoteOf 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.

QuoteI 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.

QuoteNow, 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.

QuoteOr 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.

QuoteAs 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.  

QuoteSure 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.

QuoteYou 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]  

QuoteNo. 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.

QuoteHe 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.

QuoteWhat 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:

Quote from: "Ezekiel, quoting your god, in ch 26 v 14""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:

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsophismata.files.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F02%2Ftyre_today_satellite.jpg&hash=d47b9e524670a31c689b227c110e5b9fef488a5a)

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

QuoteThere 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.

QuoteThere 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.

QuoteWhy don't you answer my question?

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

QuoteYes, 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.

QuoteThat'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.

QuoteOr 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.

QuoteSee 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.  

QuoteThen 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.  

 

QuoteYou 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.

QuoteAh, 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.

QuoteWhich 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.

QuoteI 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?

QuoteThat 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.

QuoteWith 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?

Quote[,] 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.

QuoteNot 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.

QuoteProjection. 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.

 

QuoteHere, 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.

QuoteThen 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.

QuoteInteresting. 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.

QuoteYes, 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.

QuoteAs 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.

QuoteI'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.

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

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

QuoteAgain, 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.

<dbl post deleted>

Quote from: "Jac"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.

QuoteWords, 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.

QuoteAgain, 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.

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote from: "Sophus"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.

Quote[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.

QuoteIn 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 from: "Jac3510"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.

Quote from: "Jac3510"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?

Quote2. 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.

Quote3. 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.  

Quote4. 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.

Quote5. 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.

Quote from: "Jac3510"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.

QuoteI'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.

QuoteWhere 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.

QuoteIn 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?