Re: If Christians Believe Morality Comes From God

[Whitney]

It really doesn't matter how athiest,agnostics,ethical nihilist and ect. define christianity it is a relationship with the living Triune God of the Bible. There is only one God and no other that's why christians and Jews have a relationship with a supreme deity. All others practice religion including those who do not believe in God.YES I do tell others I'm a christian and I live in a relationship with God and that means I do not practice a religion.Oh yeah they look at me like I'm crazy but they like you do not understand so whats a christian to do.I'm perfectly sane just a sane as you are I have no imaginary friend and I do not talk with the wall I walk in life with a real living God who loves me and takes care of me. :facepalm:  Godschild the only reason some (not many really) Christians are suddenly shying away from the word religion is because they know it has negative connotations in the minds of a growing minority of people who are tired of the religious bs.  Dictionary definitions of words are not created by atheists, agnostices ect...we are a minority.  The majority creates the definitions.  Religion applies to christianity.  You  can call it a relationship if you want but unless you can prove Jesus or God is real...I'm not going to call it a relationship anymore than I'd call a child's talking to an imaginary friend a relationship.

[Sophus]

Why can't it be a relationship and a religion? I mean, like I said, do they really think they're the first and only ones to talk to their god?

[Godschild]

Why can't it be a relationship and a religion? I mean, like I said, do they really think they're the first and only ones to talk to their god?

Also Whitney the imaginary friend a child talks to could be God working in His special way with a child,God says we must believe and trust as a child does.

[Sophus]

You make a lot of assertions but don't really argue for them.

[JillSwift]

You make a lot of assertions but don't really argue for them.

Par for the course, is it not?

[PipeBox]

Christianity . . . is completely unique and the only one that truely has a living God no matter what you may believe. Our relationship with God depends on our response to Gods grace and has nothing to do with earning any part of the relationship.

Can you or God show me?  If you can't show me, can you really show yourself?

Forgive me, but I think you're giddy with a belief you know cannot be proven wrong, and not because it is right, but because you believe that it should only manifest in death and dreams.  Small coincidences, to you, represent providence, that otherwise only represent nature.  It has been said that the bowels of the universe do not speak to man, except as man.  I agree.  If there is an all-powerful God, he isn't talking to you.  He wouldn't use a flawed, esoteric, ancient and unrevised, semi-relevant book or the feelings in your gut to talk to you.  I'm sorry.  You're wrong for many reasons, ranging from the philosophical to the scientific, but the one that nobody wants to say to you or any other believer is the most obvious.  It's common sense.  Look around you.  Look with your eyes.  Buy thermal goggles, an EM gauge, and a barometer if you like.  Do you see God?  Or is God only apparent to you from the pressure in your chest that begs you to shrug me off?  Is God only apparent to you in the part of your mind that insists that God must be visually there, hiding right behind the veil of reality?  Are you only with God because you feel like you are?

If you have that uneasy pressure in your chest right now, be honest with yourself about what it is.  Be honest with yourself about what you see, and what you feel.  Feelings are not observations of the universe, they are not some transcendent contact between you and God, they do not convey information.  They are only the status of your mind.  The only thing you're feeling is a disdain for the information I'm providing you, not God pulling on you trying to protect you.  It is hard to bear the truth sometimes, but to me it is important.  Whether you face it or not, I wish you well.

Feel free to answer with indignance.  I have not been very considerate in my writing.  I have been civil, though, and ask you be as well.

Peace.

[Godschild]

You make a lot of assertions but don't really argue for them.

You make a lot of assertions but don't really argue for them.

Par for the course, is it not?

I'm not sure what you mean by your statement. I thought I made myself quite clear. If you mean the existance of God why should I argue that. God Himself does not try to prove His existance through His own word "the Bible". When Jesus was on earth He did not come to prove God the Father but to reveal His nature. Now you tell me why that is if you can. Most of you claim to be former christains so someone should know.

[Sophus]

You make a lot of assertions but don't really argue for them.

You make a lot of assertions but don't really argue for them.

Par for the course, is it not?

I'm not sure what you mean by your statement. I thought I made myself quite clear. If you mean the existance of God why should I argue that. God Himself does not try to prove His existance through His own word "the Bible". When Jesus was on earth He did not come to prove God the Father but to reveal His nature. Now you tell me why that is if you can. Most of you claim to be former christains so someone should know. lol

[Karras]

The whole "objective morality comes from God" argument is one I'm having a great deal of trouble understanding. It may simply be there is no understanding it but I'm not quite ready to admit defeat yet.

If objective morality (I do not believe there is any such thing tbh) is supplied by God, what is necessary to live by thie objective morality?

Do you simply have to read and understand the Bible? Well that kind of depends on how you feel about stoning people, animal sacrifices, genocide, etc. Clearly, the Bible is not in itself a reasonable source for an objective moral code, as anyone who obeys a 100% literal interpretation of the Bible would certainly be punished by society. Even most fundamentalist leave out large portions of the old testament. It seems to me that either God has changed his mind since then (and somehow communicated this to most followers), in which case even God does not have objective morality, or that Christians apply secular morality to the Bible, in which case their morality is not objective or really from the Bible.

Do you have to accept God as your creator and Jesus as your saviour? This is clearly is not sufficient either as plenty of practising Christians, including those in positions of responsibility within their church, do very bad things. Plenty of atrocities in hostory have been motivated by religion, no matter how controversial the interpretation of that religion may be.

Other points that are apparent to me are that non-Christians, including those who have never even heard of their God, are fully capable of following (and generally do follow) a comparable moral code and that even animals in most cases do not just kill for the sake of it.

I do not believe for a second that any form of morality is imposed upon us by any god figure but I am still curious about the mentality that tries to justify this claim.

[thenolan]

"Godschild" has made it clear he is here only as a character witness, to claim a personal relationship with the Triune god of the Christian bible, not to discuss the reasons for his belief or to answer objections. Unfortunately he's on a fool's errand because this is a secular discussion forum on religion, after all.

You won't find a more eager and willing debating opponent and intellectual apologist for Christianity than William Lane Craig. You can be sure that he knows the philosophical history of any objection you can think of, and has already attempted to give a reasonable, fact-based apology for the Christian position.

In the 3rd edition of his book "Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics", on pages 172 - 183, he gives the most comprehensive and coherent defense of the proposition that objective morality comes from the Christian god, can only come from the Christian god, and since, as he claims, objective morality is an undeniable fact of the human social condition, ergo the Christian god exists. QED.

As a secular humanist, scientific naturalist and atheist, I agree with Craig that there is an objective basis for morality, namely our genetically inherited sentiments of social rights and wrongs, molded and adapted within natural limits by the cultures in which we were raised. Our sentiments of right and wrong evolved by natural selection. Craig implicitly uses a definition of "objective" morality begs the question of god's existence.

Look for the non-sequiturs in Craig's tightly reasoned arguments, the subtle question-begging in which Craig effectively resorts to the same appeal to undeniable personal experience that "Godschild" starts and ends with.