Morals are rules invented to make bad people act good.
Morals are rules invented to make bad people act good.
Augusto E. Perez wrote:
thejeff wrote:2. Some people want to judge God and tell Him He has no right to judge us... Or they might want to tell God He judged us too harshly. My problem with that response: The infinite, almighty, creator of all that is did not give a hint, or a suggestion, but a very clear warning: If you do this, then you will die.
If I tell a child, "Do not stare at the sun, or you will go blind," and the child goes ahead and defiantly stares at the sun and goes blind, is it my fault or the child's fault?
You, the adult, didn't create the sun. You're giving fair warning about something out of your power. A more appropriate comparison would be if I were a dictator and I provided everything to the people I ruled except for education and I banned all reading and education as capital crimes. I, the dictator, have provided every worldly need to my people, but have forbidden them to learn, and will give them death if they defy me.
Absolutely false, my atheist friend. God educated Adam; Adam acted in spite of his education, not out of ignorance.
Wtfunny wrote:
thejeff wrote:Working on it :-)
I don't have the expertise to respond to them point by point, but I will do my best:
1. Authority: You recognize these things as bad. Rape is bad. Murder is bad. My question is: how do you know they are bad?
How do you know these things are "bad"? I KNOW THEY ARE BAD, BUT MY STATEMENT WAS BIBLICALLY BASED.
If there is no God, then there are no absolutes, no moral standards.
This is unsupportable gibberish. Jeff, read this again. People all over the world, all all creeds or no creeds, have managed to develop moral standards. AND THEY ARE ALL ESSENTIALLY THE SAME. THEY ARE NOT RELATIVE. EXACTLY MY POINT.
As for "no absolutes" ... Your bible says thou shall not kill and promptly commands people to kill.
The standard you use then is your own.
That's what being a grown up is all about.
Do you realise that countless species of other social animals have very similar moral codes to our own? These ideas are simply fundamental to living as a collective.
SEE ABOVE
But really .... Don't kill and dont rape are what you have you have to show for listening to the omnipotent creator of all that is? Your God is all knowing and that's it? Penguins follow a pretty similar moral code, fwiw.
Without God, then, you would have no foundation upon which to make these moral judgements; they would all be relative.
They ARE all relative. Weren't you lot arguing earlier that slavery was justified by the harsh economics of 2000-3000 years ago? (The correct answer is "yes")
NO. MY ARGUMENT IS THAT THE BIBLE WAS SPEAKING TO CHRISTIAN SLAVES, NOT SLAVES OF CHRISTIANS.
This raises an interesting question: on what authority are you judging God? You dismiss God's authority to judge others while simultaneously asserting your authority to judge others. This seems odd.
On the authority of being an adult, and understanding that rape and murder don't play. AND THE FACT THAT YOUR MORALS ARE ESSENTIALLY THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE'S... SEE ABOVE :-) And slavery.
thejeff wrote:
Augusto E. Perez wrote:You, the adult, didn't create the sun. You're giving fair warning about something out of your power. A more appropriate comparison would be if I were a dictator and I provided everything to the people I ruled except for education and I banned all reading and education as capital crimes. I, the dictator, have provided every worldly need to my people, but have forbidden them to learn, and will give them death if they defy me.
Absolutely false, my atheist friend. God educated Adam; Adam acted in spite of his education, not out of ignorance.
Some people claim
There's a woman to blame...
btw, WTF, I wasn't yelling; I was just highlighting my answers...I am not as good at using LR's quotes as you are :-)
Wtfunny wrote:
This is unsupportable gibberish. Jeff, read this again. People all over the world, all all creeds or no creeds, have managed to develop moral standards.
Do you realise that countless species of other social animals have very similar moral codes to our own? These ideas are simply fundamental to living as a collective.
Here is some support for your argument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le-74R9C6Bcde Waal does a good job of framing morality I think. To paraphrase, he argues that the two pillars of morality are reciprocity and empathy. Very apt.
thejeff wrote:
Reply appreciated wrote:theJeff, would you kindly respond to these examples? Thanks
Working on it :-)
I don't have the expertise to respond to them point by point, but I will do my best:
1. Authority: You recognize these things as bad. Rape is bad. Murder is bad. My question is: how do you know they are bad? If there is no God, then there are no absolutes, no moral standards. The standard you use then is your own. Without God, then, you would have no foundation upon which to make these moral judgements; they would all be relative. This raises an interesting question: on what authority are you judging God? You dismiss God's authority to judge others while simultaneously asserting your authority to judge others. This seems odd.
2. More to the point, just because the Bible records violent acts does not mean it endorses them. This is old hat in this thread. So for example, the raping of children. God doesn't support rape. Every narrative of what happened is not pleasing to God. In fact, if you stop to think about it, why would "a god" include information about Himself or His people that is not flattering? The point is to say, He is holy. And that His people are obviously not. God doesn't shy away from recording stories of sinful people doing sinful things. Other religions might hide their imperfections, but not Christianity. Christianity, separate from every other religion, shines the light on our imperfections and our total inability to be Holy. Hence the absolute need to cry out for dependence on God.
In the meantime, let me share a very interesting debate with you:
http://andynaselli.com/my-favorite-debate-on-the-existence-of-god-bahnsen-vs-steinI am still working thru it myself, but they have already touched on several topics in this thread. Good stuff :-)
How we might come to our morals is irelevant to the question. All we need to do is agree that slaughtering women and children is immoral. Do you agree that slaughtering women and children is immoral? If so, how do you justify your god commanding an immoral act.
thejeff wrote:
BTW, I am with you, I really am. I have asked all of these same questions. Look into the bible study I posted earlier. Certain types of prayer are obviously "untestable" (would the cancer have gone into remission if I hadn't prayed?" Other prayers DO have "testable" results, however. Please look it over.
Actually this type of prayer is very testable. It's the same way we test cancer drugs to see if they work. The problem is that prayer of this very sort has been tested. It fails.
Demonstrating the efficacy of prayer would be incredbly simple. Just pray for an amputee to be healed. This takes the probability, such as cancer naturally going into remission, out of the equation. All it would take is for one person to regrow a limb to show prayer to be effective.
I await talk of god healing the spirit of amputees.
Sloetry in Motion wrote:
thejeff wrote:BTW, I am with you, I really am. I have asked all of these same questions. Look into the bible study I posted earlier. Certain types of prayer are obviously "untestable" (would the cancer have gone into remission if I hadn't prayed?" Other prayers DO have "testable" results, however. Please look it over.
Actually this type of prayer is very testable. It's the same way we test cancer drugs to see if they work. The problem is that prayer of this very sort has been tested. It fails.
Demonstrating the efficacy of prayer would be incredibly simple. Just pray for an amputee to be healed. This takes the probability, such as cancer naturally going into remission, out of the equation. All it would take is for one person to regrow a limb to show prayer to be effective.
I await talk of god healing the spirit of amputees.
This would be an excellent way to test prayer if we had reason to believe that all of our prayers will be answered. The Bible does not teach that, however. Check out the study I provided :-)
How we might come to our morals is irelevant to the question. All we need to do is agree that slaughtering women and children is immoral. Do you agree that slaughtering women and children is immoral? If so, how do you justify your god commanding an immoral act.
Check out my post on the bottom of p38 :-)
thejeff wrote:
Sloetry in Motion wrote:Actually this type of prayer is very testable. It's the same way we test cancer drugs to see if they work. The problem is that prayer of this very sort has been tested. It fails.
Demonstrating the efficacy of prayer would be incredibly simple. Just pray for an amputee to be healed. This takes the probability, such as cancer naturally going into remission, out of the equation. All it would take is for one person to regrow a limb to show prayer to be effective.
I await talk of god healing the spirit of amputees.
This would be an excellent way to test prayer if we had reason to believe that all of our prayers will be answered. The Bible does not teach that, however. Check out the study I provided :-)
Does prayer ever work to heal people? If so, to test it, it doesn't have to work every time. For cancer, it just has to work at a better percentage than not praying. This is how we test effectiveness.
For an amputee, prayer would only have to work once. So far its batting zero.
thejeff wrote:
How we might come to our morals is irelevant to the question. All we need to do is agree that slaughtering women and children is immoral. Do you agree that slaughtering women and children is immoral? If so, how do you justify your god commanding an immoral act.
Check out my post on the bottom of p38 :-)
So you think there are times when the slaughtering of children is the morally correct thing to do?
Sloetry in Motion wrote:
thejeff wrote:How we might come to our morals is irelevant to the question. All we need to do is agree that slaughtering women and children is immoral. Do you agree that slaughtering women and children is immoral? If so, how do you justify your god commanding an immoral act.
Check out my post on the bottom of p38 :-)
So you think there are times when the slaughtering of children is the morally correct thing to do?
Do I think that? No. But, I rarely have all the facts, either. Were these, possibly, the younger versions of Hitler, Attila, Dahmer, and bin Laden? If only I were omniscient...
Sloetry in Motion wrote:
thejeff wrote:This would be an excellent way to test prayer if we had reason to believe that all of our prayers will be answered. The Bible does not teach that, however. Check out the study I provided :-)
Does prayer ever work to heal people? If so, to test it, it doesn't have to work every time. For cancer, it just has to work at a better percentage than not praying. This is how we test effectiveness.
For an amputee, prayer would only have to work once. So far its batting zero.
I am not sure I have every prayed for someone to get an additional arm. I am not sure that would fall into the "conditions of answered prayer" that the study I posted goes into...
thejeff wrote:
Sloetry in Motion wrote:Does prayer ever work to heal people? If so, to test it, it doesn't have to work every time. For cancer, it just has to work at a better percentage than not praying. This is how we test effectiveness.
For an amputee, prayer would only have to work once. So far its batting zero.
I am not sure I have every prayed for someone to get an additional arm. I am not sure that would fall into the "conditions of answered prayer" that the study I posted goes into...
Not an additional one, just a replacement. Or a healed severed spinal cord.
The conditions are apparently 'things that get better on their own".
thejeff wrote:
Sloetry in Motion wrote:So you think there are times when the slaughtering of children is the morally correct thing to do?
Do I think that? No. But, I rarely have all the facts, either. Were these, possibly, the younger versions of Hitler, Attila, Dahmer, and bin Laden? If only I were omniscient...
So the slaugter of children is justified if they would grow up to be a mass murder? Do you think all of the children that god commanded to be murdered fell into that category or were there children who's murders were unjustified and therefore immoral?
thejeff wrote:
Sloetry in Motion wrote:Does prayer ever work to heal people? If so, to test it, it doesn't have to work every time. For cancer, it just has to work at a better percentage than not praying. This is how we test effectiveness.
For an amputee, prayer would only have to work once. So far its batting zero.
I am not sure I have every prayed for someone to get an additional arm. I am not sure that would fall into the "conditions of answered prayer" that the study I posted goes into...
I read the study sheet you posted, but couldn't find anything that defined the "conditions of answered prayer." Could you repost it for me?
Sloetry in Motion wrote:
thejeff wrote:Do I think that? No. But, I rarely have all the facts, either. Were these, possibly, the younger versions of Hitler, Attila, Dahmer, and bin Laden? If only I were omniscient...
So the slaugter of children is justified if they would grow up to be a mass murder? Do you think all of the children that god commanded to be murdered fell into that category or were there children who's murders were unjustified and therefore immoral?
Obviously, baby Hitler had no free will to choose his path in life. It is some comfort for thejeff, to see a friend's child dying of cancer and think, "probably a future mass murder," not giving any thought to all the mass murderers that do come about and make millions suffer.
Do you think thejeff gives much thought to the conflict omniscience and free will offer one another?
Sloetry in Motion wrote:
So the slaugter of children is justified if they would grow up to be a mass murder? Do you think all of the children that god commanded to be murdered fell into that category or were there children who's murders were unjustified and therefore immoral?
who's = who is
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