INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[1robin]

Love, morals, values are feelings. They do not exist as an entity. You cannot say "Morals gave His only son".

Then why do morals normally defy our "feelings"? Morals stand in the way of what I want to do more often than not. There is nothing moral about feelings (most of the time). Morality built on feelings would not resemble the moral systems we have. By your definition the murder of a million people was only an act contrary to someone’s feelings and not actually wrong in any way. Prove without God that killing everyone on Earth is actually wrong, or that right and wrong as categories of truth actually exist at all. This modern moral ambiguity is terrifying as it inevitably leads to the moral schizophrenia of abortion on innocent lives by the millions and the resistance to killing a convicted murderer. Modern secularists are like moral pied pipers leading us into chaos and calling it progress.

 

[1robin]

There's a saying "keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out." The problem with all of the linguistic gymnastics apologetics perform to justify the Bible is that they can be applied equally well to any other document. If the Bible is the inspired word of God, then why shouldn't we take it literally?

You have repeated this mantra quite often yet have not provided a single example of it. Many times Bias assertions are code words for: The source does not say what is convenient for your valuable presuppositions. Countless scholars and theologians spent thousands of years establishing what parts of the Bible are meant to be literal and what parts are allegory or symbolic. It is not a: “to each his own procedure”. I am not even saying your efforts in this context were wrong just that you seem to be choosing them based on things other than exegesis or hermeneutics.

This verse proves that the Bible condoned slavery, and not the watered down version you call servitude, but the lifelong possession of another human being.

I am still digging into this verse and it's context as anyone who wishes an actual answer, and not a sound bite for propaganda purposes should have done. The more I learn, the more sophisticated what God was doing becomes. I will counter your claim when I am satisfied I understand the issue sufficiently.

By the way claiming God allowed for slavery is not new and not something I have denied. I think you are saying that since he allowed this life long slavery then he is evil and it is in that context I have been reasearching and will respond.

 

[1robin]

Thanks for affording me the opportunity to use one of my favorite sayings, "proof is for alcohol and mathematics." Science is about evidence and unless all of our theories on gravity are wrong, the evidence tells us there is something out there besides what we can see. The fundamental difference I see between theoretical dark matter and your theory that God did it, is that dark matter doesn't involve any logical contradictions.

I appreciate the humor but I am not sure I value being an enabler, but it could be worse I suppose. Please remember that I do not challenge that claim that something completely unknown and called "dark matter" might very well exist. The point I had is it is the exact same methods used to reach this conclusion as for God. Neither can be seen, neither can be tested, and neither are sufficiently quantifiable (though God is far more quantifiable than dark matter). Both are posited given the insufficiency of things in nature to explain reality.

If there was any significant logical inconsistency or contradictions with God then dozens and dozens of history’s greatest philosophers would not have been men of faith. The same is true of science, history, geneticists and all other fields. What is it you consider a contradiction about God.

 

[1robin]

Have you taken a brain to pieces and checked?

So an act of murder is against my brain structure. How does that make it wrong? Which molecule decided that the Taj Mohal is a beautiful building? Did three hundred thousand Christians agree to risk and suffer death to free 9 million slaves they never met because their olfactory lobe was telling them to? If so then Turkey Vultures should be the most heroic animals on Earth.

 

[SkepticThinker]

If you take morality seriously then you are importing concepts that only have sufficient foundation if God exists. You are confusing moral ontology with epistemology (which seems to be chronic lately for the non-theists).

In your opinion (and in the opinion of William Lane Craig) that is the case. That is not the case, in my opinion.

An atheist may know murder is wrong because he has a God given conscience and other reasons. He however can't prove it wrong without God. This is a foundation not an apprehension issue.

Sure I can. As an atheist I believe that we only get one life to live, therefore life is precious. Therefore taking someone’s life is immoral. Furthermore, I don’t want to be murdered, because I think this is the only life I get and therefore I can understand that other people don’t want to be murdered for the same reason, since I have no reason to believe other humans don’t have the same desires and needs as every other human on the planet. Plus, if I murder someone I go to prison, because everyone else that lives in the society I live in, also agree that murder is wrong and/or immoral.

As the world becomes more secular we see greater moral chaos. It is simply an obvious fact but that does not mean any individual atheist is immoral but it does mean if he is he is borrowing outside some survival (not moral) value system that without God is illusory speciesm not objective right and wrong. There are two undeniable facts. 1. The world is becoming more secular. 2. The world is becoming vastly more morally ambiguous and chaotic.

I completely disagree. Historically speaking, we’re a lot more moral now than we’ve ever been. We no longer own slaves, we don’t beat our children or stone them for acting disobediently, we’re no longer burning witches and heretics at the stake, we care a lot more about minimizing the death of innocents during war, we generally treat men, women, coloured people, disabled people, etc. equally. Just to name a few obvious differences.

There doesn’t have to be an objective right and wrong for morality to exist. There doesn’t need to be a Christian god either because as I’ve mentioned before, in my opinion, Christianity isn’t a moral system anyway – it’s a system of obedience to authority without question. That is not morality.

Man, I can sure sense the resentment of the Bible in your posts.

I wasn’t trying to hide it. I think your Bible and the god contained in it are immoral. And I think your system of obedience to authority is immoral as well.

Let me ask you this. If there is a Biblical God that knows all, including the future, the thoughts of individuals and not only moral truth but is in fact moral truth himself then in what way if God decides to take back a life he gave is that unjust and who is it that can make such a change and by what standard can it be proven? The idea that God has sovereignty that you do not and takes actions you would not (even though you may wel should have) is not an argument against God. It is a complaint.

I don’t think your god has a right to take away life simply because he created it in the same way my mother doesn’t have a right to snuff out my life simply because she made me.

What kind of god tells you not to murder, then turns around and commands you to murder? Not a moral one, in my opinion.

Did I say that? I said it is a modern view that abortion is somehow a "sacred right" and is practiced at an industrial scale. It has always existed, it has only recently been enshrined, declared a moral right, and practiced as a common form of birth control millions of times a year.

Practiced as a common form of birth control millions of times a year? Where are you coming up with that?
Where does the Bible say abortion is wrong?

Society deems that human beings have a right over their own body that others don’t have over you. It hasn’t been declared a “moral” right, just a right, given what I just said. Unless you feel like locking people up until they give birth is a viable option. And just on a side note, the apparent need for abortion would be lessened to a great degree if certain religious factions didn’t fight tooth and nail to have basic birth control and sexual education banished from society. If people on your side of this really cared about reducing abortion, they’d support birth control all the way. And yet they don’t.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I do not even know what to contend here. What does Aids is no longer a stigma even mean? Is it now a virtue or a blessing? Immoral acts kill millions a year (some who did not even commit them) that would if they were not committed have lived. Sin poisons the good and the bad. Why is it always the non-theist that argues he can justify morality and then proceeds to deny the harm of immorality and obscure simple moral facts?

What immoral acts kill whom? And who are the people not committing them that are dying anyway?

According to the Bible they are all a result of our telling God to get lost and therefore he did so and left nature to self-destruct, as a lesson.

The nature he created in the first place? That nature?

Is it not possible or practice to avoid cancer (except for immoral actions that directly produce some forms of it). It is a fact that an unnecessary act of self-gratifying lust that has no comparable positive justification produces millions of unnecessary deaths a year and costs billions. It is literally killing of large portions of Africa. Not even on the false but commonly claimed evolutionary moral "model" are these acts justified. Only self-gratification is possible as a "defense" for many of these diabolical actions. You are defending the indefensible and calling it progress.

Nope, most of the time cancer cannot be avoided by practicing anything. It just happens. Same goes for the other illnesses I mentioned, which you completely ignored. What immoral acts directly produce cancer, pray tell? And where is the empirical evidence of this? 2000 Year old books written by people who didn’t know about germs doesn’t count.

This statement of yours is actually pretty outrageous, particularly this: “Unnecessary acts of self-gratifying lust that has no comparable positive” produces millions of deaths. How do you justify such a statement, and what exactly are you talking about? And just to touch on what I talked about above, if a certain church didn’t preach abstinence only nonsense and deny these people access to birth control, perhaps the problem wouldn’t be as great as it is.

I am unsure why that is relevant but about 80% claim to be these days. However when the public school systems were originally begun well over 90% claimed to be Christians and the purpose was mainly to teach literacy for the goal of reading the Bible.

The relevancy has to do with the fact that you keep talking about how secularizing the world causes moral chaos, and yet 80% of the culture you actually live in profess religious belief – a Christian religious belief, to be more exact. And yet you go on about the rise in violence in your culture as a direct result of the secularization of morality. Those pieces don’t fit together to support your argument, quite the opposite, in fact.

 

[SkepticThinker]

This is uncontestable, in general. The last 20 years of life are by far a net negative drain on society..

Maybe, maybe not. Medical technology has come a long way, and will continue to do so, thus increasing quality of life well into our 90s. On an anecdotal note, both of my grandfathers are well into their eighties and still remain productive members of society. In fact, one of them still runs a successful business and continues to work every single day.

I can justify life in those circumstances An honest evolutionist must condemn them as not conducive to overall survival or health of the "tribe".

Who says I can’t justify it? As I said above, I believe this is the only life we get, which in my opinion, makes life infinitely more precious than if I had the belief that this is just some holding place until the our more important afterlife begins in eternity. I think every minute of this life should be enjoyed. I don’t intend to waste any of it.

And just so you’re aware, “evolutionist” and “atheist” are not synonymous terms.

No doubt, but science and the adoption for example of Stalin of a non-theological world view thereby removed any foundation for thinking human life has inherent worth and value so killing 20 million biological anomalies is no big deal. There exists no method without God to give human life actual value. Evolution only allows subjective assumed value and worth for life to exist and is only as valid as the agreement of others and that does not exist consistently.

Wow, how did Stalin make his way into this? Oh I get it, you’re trying to obfuscate the fact that the Bible is full of war and destruction, much of it resulting from commands made by your god and much of it also actually carried out by your god. Nice try. Stalin didn’t do what he did in the name of atheism, and given that most atheists denounce Stalin as a monster doesn’t help. I would further assert that most atheists wouldn’t agree that human life has no inherent worth. In fact, you can’t really tell much about a person’s world view based only on the fact that they are atheist.

There does indeed exist a method of giving human life actual value without god. It is exactly what I described in my last post to you (and several earlier ones). I don’t know how much value your god really places on life anyway, given that he so freely destroys it.

I never said any of that. You are the king or argument revisionism. I said they knew things their ignorance does not allow for, in many cases things our top minds were screwing up until recently and some we still are. Paul was no smarter than Dawkins but he was plugged into a source that at times enabled Paul in a few hundred words to say more of merit than everything Dawkins has ever said or written combined.

Right, except that you couldn’t actually demonstrate that they knew things their ignorance doesn’t allow for. You haven’t provided any examples of anything at all that would indicate they actually knew anything they couldn’t have known just by learning it on their own without being “plugged into a source.” In fact, the Bible is full of exactly what we would expect to find from people living 2000 years ago who knew next to nothing, compared to what we know today.

Dawkins explains to us how biology works. Let’s see Paul do that.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I recently wrote quite a bit on Biblical "servitude". It that didn't help this won't either but the heck with it: If I was in dept in 300BC Persia and couldn't get out I would be thrown into prison for years, starve in the streets, or if in debt to the wrong person killed. Maybe thrown to the lions or gladiators in Rome. In Israel I could voluntarily enter into contract to have my debts paid, be given food and lodging and serve an agreed numbers of years and be guaranteed by law to be freed no matter what happened after 6 with in many cases provision to survive.

So what you’re telling me is that there is a context in which it is moral to own another person. I see nothing moral about it.

I mean, seriously, the people who brought the slaves from Africa to the US could have justified their actions in the same way, “Well, look how they live in huts and dirt, they kill each other and have no food. We’re actually doing them a favour by bringing them to our enlightened country and having them do all our chores for no pay, until they’re dead. They’re definitely better off.” Except that they have no freedom and have to answer to other people in making choices that affect their own lives, for which they are not the master of. Come on! Stop justifying this nonsense!

Non-believers create death and God creates life and you yell foul. On almost every complaint you have derives from some viewpoint that is invalid about Biblical history. I have explained concerning Tyre, Biblical warfare, and Biblical slavery what the accurate and contextual view is yet you insist it is something that scholarship does not justify because it fits your narrative. What is the point in explaining anything to someone who does this? You are certainly free to believe what you wish (true or not) but it makes a discussion non-profitable.

I’m sorry but you just admitted that slavery is in the Bible, and furthermore, you tried to justified it and put it into some kind of context in which you find it acceptable, but it exists there, nonetheless. Not to mention the part about where it indicates how you can beat a slave within inches of his life, so long as he doesn’t die within a certain number of days. The fact that you have to perform mental gymnastics to justify such an immoral act speaks volumes about the morality of your religion.

I think your entire position is based on simply denying any inconvenient reality. I was a amateur historian, and specialized in military history long before I became a Christian and most of you contentions are a denial of historical probability.

Do. You. Think. Slavery. Is. Moral?

 

[SkepticThinker]

You have no frame of reference to judge the morality of the Bible and once again the more we learn about cosmology the more it lines up with the Bible and the more you insist it doesn't. If using only the Bible as a guide I would construct a universe identical to this one.

The cosmology contained in the Bible is not accurate and doesn’t line up with reality or science.

And yes, I do have a frame of reference to judge the morality of the Bible – my own moral judgment. Same as you and everyone has and uses on a regular basis.

This is exactly what I mean:

You say "some vague passages": The sophistication and complexity of the Bible has been a marvel to scholars for hundreds and hundreds of years. Its teachings are the most valued moral instruction in human history. You do not think it vague when you wish to use it out of context for your purposes.

Its teachings are not the most valued moral instruction in human history, especially given the fact that every human throughout history (and presently) have not been Christians, and arguably have not even practiced the particular brand of Christianity you adhere to.
And the very fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands of Christian denominations supports my assertion that the Bible is not nearly as clear as you claim it is.

Some dusty old book: That dusty old book is the most studied and cherished book in human history, burying its critics along the way, and converting the most powerful empires in human history who sought to destroy it. Its principle character is the most studied and loved individual in history.

These are mere opinion claims.

I don’t cherish it as anything other than a book, and neither do billions of other people.

The Bible didn’t convert anyone – human beings did that. And quite forcefully in many instances.

No original copies: Again double standards. Caesar’s Gallic wars is taught as history in colleges around the world, the gap between original and oldest copy is over 900 years, yet you complain about a book that has fragments that go back to within a few years of the originals, hundreds of entire manuscripts shortly after, and apparently you do not have the knowledge that with early, numerous, and independent manuscripts the original can be virtually certain. That is how we know where it has mistaken and indicate them as such.

People don’t generally center their lives, their worldview and their morality around Caesar’s Gallic wars so the point doesn’t make much sense.

The originals of the Bible cannot be virtually certain. Most of the scholars you love so much would agree with that. Fragments that go back to within 30-50 years of the supposed originals aren’t equivalent to the originals.

And just another note, why did god allow such mistakes to occur in the first place? I mean, if your god’s whole thing is that we need to follow the Bible in order to be moral human beings who live on in some afterlife based on what the book tells us, why did he allow for any changes or errors at all?

This argumentation is an optimal expectation fallacy. What we have no matter how extraordinary and impressive in every way especially in comparison to everything else in ancient history is dismissed and mischaracterized and the demand for more is asserted without anything to merit the demand. I suspect a little bias in every claim, even mine, but I have seldom seen more obvious and flagrant bias in a non-theist's argumentation. It depends completely on a distorted view of reality or a less attested historic
al conclusion in almost every instance. BTW your statement "Masters submit to your slaves?" I do not think exists in the Bible but if so it is an argument against your case not for it.

The Bible is not extraordinary and impressive in every way, in my opinion, or in the opinion of billions of others who don’t follow it. That’s merely an opinion claim, on your part.

1 Peter 2:18:
Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

What kind of moral instruction is that?

Again, I will point out, this is not a system of morality. It is a system of obedience to authority based on fear of that authority.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I have to do that because you remain vague on such assertions (though I’m not sure what’s been taken out of context here). Try making a specific claim to better clarify what it is you’re talking about.

I pointed many of the great scientific discoveries of the 1800s because you were trying to tell me that the ancient Hebrews knew all kinds of things they couldn’t have known without some kind of divine intervention or knowledge passed down to them from your god. In actuality, they knew what we would expect people living in their time to know, and not much more. You tried to denigrate science in comparison to what you claim the Hebrews knew when in actuality the comparison is absurd.

You may call having a better blender just compensation for the threat and ability to annihilate all known life in existence many times over and the moral insanity that almost did it at least twice. I do not.

Um no. I look around and see that we don’t enslave people anymore, that we don’t treat women and children as chattel anymore, that we have medical technology that saves and prolongs life. That in itself, is progress.

Yes. Do you live in another reality that has a universe in no need of a cause nature can't supply, where men of "science" were not killing tens of thousands for lack of the understanding of sanitation the Hebrews knew of 3000 years ago, even in the 1860's, or do you live in another world where preference, arbitrary self-centered species specific survival, or in which opinion is a better ground for morality than a perfectly moral being that invented morality itself.

Which men of science were killing tens of thousands of people?
What did the Hebrews know about sanitation that they couldn’t have known without divine authority?

I have no idea what the rest of this says. Sorry.
Quote:

You could not even do so if it were true. By what standard, yours, Hitler's, or Stalin’s made using the same reason and survival methods you prize?

I just did.

By mine. The one I described above. Why would I use Hitler’s standard?

You don’t think as human beings we’re more moral than we were 5000 years ago? 2000 Years ago? 1000 Years ago?

For the Godly ones eternity.

How about the actual life span?

Since I have already said these men were relatively naturally ignorant and that makes the stuff they knew that science discovered in the last 100 years even more amazing long ago this is redundant.

What stuff did they know? You keep saying this without citing any examples.

I don’t find anything about what they knew remarkable or at odds with what we would expect of an ancient civilization at all.

 

[SkepticThinker]

This is pointless, is the amount of surgeries the measure of a society. Many of the surgeries we perform are made necessary by immoral actions we have talked ourselves into believing aren’t. How many millions of Africans died of aids in 1000BC, how many times did the Hebrew’s border on Nuclear annihilation of every form of life in existence. As you have done before you are simply redefining "good' to mean surgeries in this case, or anything else necessary to make a invalid point. The Hebrew's time frame had many disadvantages compared to us and many advantages in comparison. That was never my point.

I didn’t say the amount of surgeries was a measure of a society. You keep talking about scientists killing tens of thousands of people (where you got that number, who knows) by performing surgeries on people I guess implying that if they had just known what the ancient Hebrews knew, never would have happened. So I want to know, how many surgeries did the Hebrews perform? You know, since they were such an advanced society and all.

And again, thousands of Africans might not be dying if a certain church would keep their abstinence-only, no birth control crap to themselves.
Quote:

Again you are restating Biblical claims in an invalid way to prove nothing. The Bible states we get what we choose. If you view that as punishment then very well, but it is punishment for using the most complex arrangement of matter in the universe to rebel against it's creator, for example to make immorality appear moral. That deserves punishment and your side often indicates that God's lack of punishment is proof against his reality. Heads you win tails he looses, is not an argument, it is propaganda.

I’m replying directly to what you said, not what the Bible says (which apparently you are claiming the Bible says).

Yeah, I think it’s weird to punish people for using the brains you gave them.

God is not interested primarily in stereo lithography.

How do you know?

He has condemned this train wreck of a world we have created in our rebellion. His overwhelming concern is to save people out of the condemnation placed upon this world

This is the world your god created. Maybe he should condemn and punish himself.

He gave instructions that would have saved millions of lives from the hands of "science" for the past thousands of years yet you reject that and demand more.

What instructions are those?

The issue is not what he gives or provides it is in your acceptance.

Another reason why such a system is immoral. It’s based on obedience and acceptance, not moral actions.

Many of those laws given in the OT have practical application. Pork could not be cooked sufficiently to stop a certain illness (forgot the name) and so he forbid them to eat it. He casts out demons and critics yell he is doing it by the power of Satan, he cures the sick and the critics run him out of town, he feeds five thousand and critics plant lies about him. The problem is not with what he did, it is what you do with what he did. This reminds me of General McClellan in the civil war. He was famous for over estimating the confederate troops and demanding more and more reinforcements. The brilliant Lincoln said if I sent him a quarter of a million troops he would sit down in the mud and demand half a million. God has done vastly more than enough that if anyone would ever accept him they would need no more, and anyone who would not do so would never have enough. If 1/3 of the population believes in something so absurd (if untrue) the problem is not the evidence. People that saw Christ heal and feed men by the thousands killed him. The problem is in the heart not the historical record or your wish list and seldom is as obvious.

I used to be a Christian. I stopped buying it when it stopped making sense to me.

Big deal about the pork. They probably figured that out that the way humans have always figured things out: by experience and learning. In the same way we learned to avoid poison ivy without divine knowledge having to be handed down to us.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No, I wonder why you think a moral judgment of God is a meaningful statement or one, even if true, you would even theoretically be capable of making. He literally died in agony we can't imagine to save everyone (including the men who killed him) and you will think that good enough unless he cures the diseases you name or invents what you choose. This is an absurd argument. God is not Santa Claus that he can be rejected because you did not receive the toy you wanted.

I just made it. And I will do it again, and again, and again. I find your god to be immoral, arbitrary and cruel. I’m not saying that to offend, that’s just how I feel about it. I do not find slavery moral. I do not find genocide moral, I don’t care what your god says about it.

And the part about dying in agony … well come on, he got to rise from the grave after only 3 days and then live for eternity at the right hand of god. That doesn’t sound like such a giant sacrifice to me. Not to mention the fact that it’s bizarre that your god even thought human sacrifice was necessary to begin with.

Type in Biblical miracles. You will get 6 million sites. happy reading.

How about actually citing examples?

What value do you think these false tests have? You are quite literally inventing tests that have no justification whatever and actually violate any expected amount of evidence based on revelation.

I’m pointing out that the existence of your god is theoretically demonstrable. What is it that you think I’ve invented? I assure you, I didn’t invent science or empirical testing.

I am weary of this stuff and you have no desire for answers so I will demand them from you. Prove that you should have more evidence than you do if God existed?

I will do so by reiterating what I have already said. What you in fact, just responded to. (Right above this).

Why is the same not true of a valid scientific hypothesis like Dark matter? It's fine if it can't be detected by natural means (which it lies within) because it is science and science is valid because it is called science. Yet God not being detected by means concerning a nature he is not bound by and which his revelation excludes is proof of absence. I cannot justify these responses to irrational arguments much longer.

The existence of dark matter is inferred from its gravitational pull. Gravitational pull is a natural means of measuring something.
And you missed the point about demonstrating your god’s existence. It doesn’t matter that you think your god exists outside of time and space or whatever, it’s irrelevant to what I’m saying. According to you, your god exerts his influence on humans and the natural world in some ways (like answering prayer, for example) and therefore, his actions should be detectable and/or observable in the natural world in some way. Get it?

 

[1robin]

In your opinion (and in the opinion of William Lane Craig) that is the case. That is not the case, in my opinion.

I will go with the tenured, professional, and universally respected philosopher. However this issue does not depend on the word of any one person. Apprehension is different from justification as an objective fact.

Sure I can. As an atheist I believe that we only get one life to live, therefore life is precious.

Precious to you, is not a moral foundation, it is a contrived personal valuation not based on any moral law but on self-centered specieism. The lives of the Jews were not precious to Hitler and in this lies the bankruptcy of this contention. A cow’s life is precious to the cow and in your world view just as valuable, but you have taken many of their lives, not to preserve but only to enhance your own life. With no God this is as immoral as it is possible to get, with God and all these gaping moral holes are closed and everything once again works as intended.

Therefore taking someone’s life is immoral.

Not in your view, it is only inconvenient or undesired. You have given no reason to think it wrong as of yet.

Furthermore, I don’t want to be murdered, because I think this is the only life I get and therefore I can understand that other people don’t want to be murdered for the same reason, since I have no reason to believe other humans don’t have the same desires and needs as every other human on the planet. Plus, if I murder someone I go to prison, because everyone else that lives in the society I live in, also agree that murder is wrong and/or immoral.

Once again you have proven that murdering someone is against what they want you have not said anything about why it is wrong. By this method taxes, long lines, and having to work are now immoral. No matter what language a non-theist uses (and they use quite a bit of self-contradictory, inconsistent, but flowery words) it all equals opinion not moral right and wrong. You may have a bad but valid system that given a lot of qualifiers and modifications might provide a foundation for some ethics but it makes nothing actually right or wrong.

I completely disagree. Historically speaking, we’re a lot more moral now than we’ve ever been. We no longer own slaves, we don’t beat our children or stone them for acting disobediently, we’re no longer burning witches and heretics at the stake,

If you added all the witches burned at the stake in the entire history of Christianity, children stoned to death in the entire Hebrew history, slaves in the entire history of the US (slavery still exists in other places), they would not total the number killed in Stalin's purges alone, nor in the war Hitler started alone, nor the number of babies killed in the womb in just the past few decades alone.

we care a lot more about minimizing the death of innocents during war, we generally treat men, women, colored people, disabled people, etc. equally. Just to name a few obvious differences.

You are right we (meaning the still predominantly Christian US, but things are a changing) Americans spend great amounts of money and loose lives in the effort to save civilian casualties. Atheistic Russia sure didn’t, nor atheistic China, nor atheistic N Korea. In fact it is almost a direct relationship between the dominance of Christian's or Christian doctrines in nations that produce the benevolence you speak of. If a secular nation has proper moral systems aimed a justice then they smuggled Christian based values in even if they told God to wait outside.

There doesn’t have to be an objective right and wrong for morality to exist.

Yes there does. Morality becomes inevitably opinion without God.

I wasn’t trying to hide it. I think your Bible and the god contained in it are immoral. And I think your system of obedience to authority is immoral as well.

There is very little about obeying any mere man in the Bible. If it did say I was to obey someone on Earth, I have no idea who that would even be. I think rather you find accountability immoral and inconvenient and so have cast it in whatever light needed to allow rejection, though where you got it from is quite a mystery.

I don’t think your god has a right to take away life simply because he created it in the same way my mother doesn’t have a right to snuff out my life simply because she made me.

If God exists then there is no argument to his having a right. It is a silly statement, like screaming at the wind. Your life will be taken either way, however with God it is not taken without the knowledge of an all knowing God. You seem to prefer a life with no ultimate meaning, no ultimate purpose, no ultimate morality, no ultimate justice, and no ultimate hope. Only inevitable heat death, of you and everyone that you ever cared about within a dying and meaningless universe, yippy secularism. I for the life of me can't find anything comforting in that and definitely nothing desirable. Desirability does not make something true. It just so happens that what is true also happens to be the most universally valued and associated with benevolence concept, in human history. I will add that contrived non-desirability does not make something untrue either.

What kind of god tells you not to murder, then turns around and commands you to murder? Not a moral one, in my opinion.

God as a Biblical concept created the life, knows everything about the future and past, gave them free will they did not create or earn and if sufficiently abused might result in the loss of that life which was granted them and used to rebel against it's creator. With or without God we still die. With God there is hope, without God there is none even theoretically possible, yet you desire this, and condemn the hope. In your world Hitler never had to answer for anything, Mother Theresa never was rewarded. The worst genocidal leaders in history and the most humanitarian folks ( a very large portion Christians) met the same futile and unjust fate decided by mindless matter in motion. What you value I find depressing and counter intuitive on a primal level. Yet you condemn the only possible remedy to this meaninglessness as immoral. I used to make the exact same argument to Christian's when I was an atheist. I now look back on that period and those statements as the most shameful and dark of my life.

Continued below:

 

[1robin]

There doesn’t need to be a Christian god either because as I’ve mentioned before, in my opinion, Christianity isn’t a moral system anyway – it’s a system of obedience to authority without question. That is not morality.

There are a lot of things I hear Christianity falsely criticized for. Forcing obedience to authority is about the most wrong I have ever heard unless you were speaking about Catholicism before Luther tore it apart. I feel no compulsion to obey any religious authority figure on Earth, I am not asked to , nor is there any direct teaching in the Bible about doing so that applies. I have no idea what you were talking about here. If Jesus was in the subject making business then why did he and his apostles say:
Aramaic Bible in Plain English (©2010)
“If The Son therefore will set you free, you will truly be the children of liberty.”
New International Version (©2011)
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,
New International Version (©2011)
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1 ESV / 134 helpful votes
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
http://biblez.com/search.php?q=free
1 Peter 2:16 ESV / 104 helpful votes
Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
Galatians 5:13 ESV / 98 helpful votes
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
John 8:32 ESV / 82 helpful votes
And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Romans 8:1-4 ESV / 45 helpful votes
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 6:22 ESV / 38 helpful votes
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
Isaiah 61:1 ESV / 36 helpful votes
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 Corinthians 3:17 ESV / 34 helpful votes
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Timothy 1:7 ESV / 28 helpful votes
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Isaiah 58:6-7 ESV / 22 helpful votes
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
John 10:10 ESV / 11 helpful votes
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Romans 8:1 ESV / 10 helpful votes
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Isaiah 40:31 ESV / 7 helpful votes
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Hebrews 2:14-15 ESV / 6 helpful votes
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
John 8:36 ESV / 6 helpful votes
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
John 3:16 ESV / 6 helpful votes
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Luke 10:36-37 ESV / 5 helpful votes
Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Romans 8:21 ESV / 4 helpful votes
That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
http://www.openbible.info/topics/freedom
Yeah, we need to stop that guy and get rid of this awful teaching, and shut down all those Christian hospitals, public schools systems, and take back all the billions donated to world relief given by the most charitable group on Earth (the Christian conservatives).
Continued below:

 

[1robin]

Practiced as a common form of birth control millions of times a year? Where are you coming up with that?

I do not understand the contention. In just the US 500,000 plus abortions are carried out without any medical necessity other than convenience for them and death to the child.

Where does the Bible say abortion is wrong?

It gives absolute value and sanctity to all human life. I don't think I need to explain that the destruction of something sanctified because of someone else’s sin is wrong. Of course with many critics of God you never know.

Society deems that human beings have a right over their own body that others don’t have over you. It hasn’t been declared a “moral” right, just a right, given what I just said. Unless you feel like locking people up until they give birth is a viable option. And just on a side note, the apparent need for abortion would be lessened to a great degree if certain religious factions didn’t fight tooth and nail to have basic birth control and sexual education banished from society. If people on your side of this really cared about reducing abortion, they’d support birth control all the way. And yet they don’t.

I did not say moral right. I said "sacred right", that was meant as a play on words to illustrate the irony. Women claim to have some "given" right (given from who I wonder) to take away every right of an individual that it has or ever will have. They demand this unimpeachable right to their own body to justify destroying another’s body. This is about the most indefensible, ironic, and morally insane concept possible. A woman has the "sacred right" to kill a baby her sin instigated, but God is immoral if he takes the life he created and gave when it is seriously misused to do evil and cause vast misery. Only in non-theist land do these things make sense I guess. I am not debating against any facts you have, I am debating your preference. You certainly have the right to dismiss any truth you find inconvenient but it makes a discussion quite pointless. You still have as of yet to show that anything is actually morally wrong without God. I will make it easier, simply show that wrong even exists as an absolute category of moral truth. You have shown what it is you might or might not like (morality and God wise) but that has little to do with morality or God.

This certainly didn't seem that long when I typed it. My apologies for the length.

 

[F0uad]

Have you taken a brain to pieces and checked?

Again this has noting to do with what i said you are talking about how the brains function under certain circumstances i am talking about the weight of those words and that science can't measure those things.

 

[1robin]

[

What immoral acts kill whom? And who are the people not committing them that are dying anyway?

The deviant sexual practices of some kill people not doing them.

The nature he created in the first place? That nature?

This is what he created:

New Living Translation (©2007)
Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day

This is what he said when we told him to hit the bricks, and that us secular folks can do a better job with nature:

New Living Translation (©2007)
By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return."
http://bible.cc/genesis/3-19.htm

For crying out loud death did not even exist for anyone until we rebelled. Unless you think this better than paradise then we caused creation to fall. Of course your side has a strange way of viewing progress so it may have gotten better by your way of reckoning but not the vast majority of humanity.

Nope, most of the time cancer cannot be avoided by practicing anything. It just happens. Same goes for the other illnesses I mentioned, which you completely ignored. What immoral acts directly produce cancer, pray tell? And where is the empirical evidence of this? 2000 Year old books written by people who didn’t know about germs doesn’t count.

I can't believe you asked this. Lung Cancer (smoking), throat cancer (chewing tobacco). If you want I can call me corpsman buddy from the Navy and have him run down a list of the bizarre things they have to treat now that homosexuality is allowed in the military (you can't possibly imagine what they do and what it tears up). One of many reasons I and countless good soldiers got out starting when Clinton was elected.

This statement of yours is actually pretty outrageous, particularly this: “Unnecessary acts of self-gratifying lust that has no comparable positive” produces millions of deaths. How do you justify such a statement, and what exactly are you talking about?

If you do not know what I am talking about then what are you complaining of. This is like my saying Isaac Newton there is no way that calculus can ever work, it is a stupid idea, and has many problems: No how does it work. Off the top of my head alcohol abuse and homosexuality greatly increase suffering and misery and have no comparable good reason to allow.

And just to touch on what I talked about above, if a certain church didn’t preach abstinence only nonsense and deny these people access to birth control, perhaps the problem wouldn’t be as great as it is.

Good night nurse, has it really come to the point that an organization that teaches against sex outside of marriage is to blame for pregnancy? What a crock? Of course I have heard that the book that teaches though shall not murder is to blame for killing, so I guess I should not be surprised.

The relevancy has to do with the fact that you keep talking about how secularizing the world causes moral chaos, and yet 80% of the culture you actually live in profess religious belief – a Christian religious belief, to be more exact. And yet you go on about the rise in violence in your culture as a direct result of the secularization of morality. Those pieces don’t fit together to support your argument, quite the opposite, in fact.

We are in a transition. In fact all of western society is. Secularism even if not dominant has still inserted it's tentacles into the administration of nations that it has cloaked anti-religion as a sacred secular right. Again a right from who I do not know but they have even strangled the effect of a dominant Christian population by the use of courts rooms, media outlets, and the capital building. Since something even this obvious will be contended, without evidence and probably will anyway then let me illustrate.

Was it secular institutions or the Catholics that pushed for an abortion law to legalize murder?

Was it secular institutions or the Lutheran’s passing out birth control instead of knowledge in schools despite having more money per student than any country in history?

Is it the Methodists or secular folks that are pushing to legitimize deviant sexual tastes that produce deaths by the millions and cause even vast numbers of people who do not practice them misery and costing them billions?

I can do this all day but it won't help so I won't.

Our society may be Christian dominated but the reins of power are not. Secularism is a cancer on western society and it behaves as such. I will concede that many of the actions by the Catholic Church over the years have been as atrocious but that is an indictment of man not God or the Bible. If you are a skeptical thinker it is a selective skepticism.

 

[1robin]

Again this has noting to do with what i said you are talking about how the brains function under certain circumstances i am talking about the weight of those words and that science can't measure those things.

Me and FOuad on the same side of an issue. Who would have thunk it? He still has not answered my response to his response to your statement.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Was it secular institutions or the Catholics that pushed for an abortion law to legalize murder?

That's a matter of perspective. Abortion isn't murder, no matter what knee-jerk, reactionary position you take to the subject.

Was it secular institutions or the Lutheran’s passing out birth control instead of knowledge in schools despite having more money per student than any country in history?

Isn't it mostly religious institutions that disapprove of sex education in schools? As far as I'm aware, most secular organisations are in favour of greater sex education.

Is it the Methodists or secular folks that are pushing to legitimize deviant sexual tastes that produce deaths by the millions and cause even vast numbers of people who do not practice them misery and costing them billions?

This is just plain old bigotry.

Our society may be Christian dominated but the reins of power are not.

How many Presidents and Congressmen are non-Christians, again?

Secularism is a cancer on western society and it behaves as such.

Oh, I see, you have no idea what you're talking about and are just spuriously throwing out insinuations without any kind of rational basis while making massive, generalized remarks about a subject of which you clearly have absolutely no understanding.

 

[camanintx]

You have repeated this mantra quite often yet have not provided a single example of it. Many times Bias assertions are code words for: The source does not say what is convenient for your valuable presuppositions. Countless scholars and theologians spent thousands of years establishing what parts of the Bible are meant to be literal and what parts are allegory or symbolic.

And yet after thousands of years, these countless scholars and theologians still cannot agree on what is literal and what is allegory or symbolic.

By the way claiming God allowed for slavery is not new and not something I have denied. I think you are saying that since he allowed this life long slavery then he is evil and it is in that context I have been reasearching and will respond.

What I am saying is that your Bible, while not exactly evil, is not the perfect basis of morality you claim it be either. We've come a long way in the last two thousand years.

If there was any significant logical inconsistency or contradictions with God then dozens and dozens of history’s greatest philosophers would not have been men of faith.

Hence the claim of cognitive dissonance.

What is it you consider a contradiction about God.

That depends. Tell me how you define God first.