Learning To Think Spiritually

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EX-ATHEIST.COM (http://www.ex-atheist.com)

Learning To Think Spiritually

By A.S.A. Jones

My twenty years of atheism ended when I discovered Biblical truths through a change in the way I had been interpreting scripture. My autobiographical account can be read here: From Skepticism To Worship (www.ex-atheist.com/6.html)

Learning to think spiritually isn't about accepting the supernatural. I am referring to that part of the human intellect that allows the mind to understand things that are not readily made obvious or explicitly stated. It is the same skill involved in interpreting poetry or in detecting the nuances that are present in higher literature. Most people already have this ability; they just need to learn how to apply it when it comes to the issue of God.

If you are an atheist who is interested in seeing if he can tune into God, I recommend that you first read "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff. It's short, sweet and easy to understand. Atheistic in its philosophy, this book will put you on the path to understanding truth in paradox. A paradox is that which appears to contradict, but upon closer examination, really does not. "The Tao of Pooh" removed much of my arrogance and knocked the owl right out of me, effectively diminishing two barriers that had allowed me to shut God out of my perception.

Okay! Now that you ran out and did that, I've devised some lessons in spiritual thinking for you. Think about the following examples and how they apply to the concept of God before reading my analysis. No peeking! Have fun!

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LESSON 1: THE TRUTH OF AN ILLUSION

http://www.ex-atheist.com/images/twofaces.jpg

Which do you see? A face behind a candlestick, or two faces looking at a candlestick?

ANALYSIS

There is no change in information yet the information can be interpreted in two ways. Neither interpretation can logically be proven to be more correct. For more optical illusions, visit this link http://www.geocities.com/buddychai2/Opticals/02Optical.html#TWOFACES. We all have access to the same data concerning reality, but our interpretation of that reality can be a matter of focus. It's the same with seeing the reality of God; Focus on the material (for which there is concrete and objective evidence) and the immaterial (character assessment, basis of morality, etc.), along with God, will vanish.

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LESSON 2: THE HIDDEN PICTURE

http://www.ex-atheist.com/images/horse.jpg

There is a 3-dimensional object embedded within the pattern. Seeing it is a matter of focusing your eye beyond the scribbles. If you focus on the design of scribbles that you know is there, you will never see the object that you don't know is there. For more stereograms, visit Eyetricks at http://www.eyetricks.com.

ANALYSIS

Like many others, I saw the gospel as a bunch of scribbles; I thought it was just a bunch of nonsense until my focus changed.
This is a stereogram. At first glance, the eye detects only patterns of scribble. You may try to make sense of the scribbles in the same way that people will look up into the sky and pick out clouds that resemble familiar objects. If you look at this picture long enough, you may imagine seeing faces or animals in it, but if you only look directly at the picture, anything you see will only have a subjective reality. In other words, what you are seeing isn't really there, but merely a construct of your imagination.
However, this picture contains an objective reality. If you aren't familiar with this type of artwork, and if you haven't experienced seeing one of these hidden three dimensional images pop into view, you may think that I am a liar or a lunatic when I tell you that this poster contains a definitive and detailed image of a galloping horse. I am telling you that something exists based on my own visual perception and, until you see it for yourself, you won't have any reason to believe me.

When I read the Bible with the mindset in which it was intended to be read, I perceived the objective reality of its god. Just like with this poster, if you only look at it superficially, you won't see the hidden picture. The visual effect of a stereogram is produced through the careful placement of points comprising one image from two slightly different perspectives. You need two eyes to see the hidden 3-D picture. If you cover one eye, you will lose the image; its picture is a function of depth. The Bible is a spiritual stereogram and its effect, the perception of the reality of God, is produced through a careful design of ambiguity and paradox, which allow you to discover truth from different perspectives. You need two aspects of the intellect to see the reality of God in its pages; you need to utilize both the logical and spiritual (or poetic) component of your thinking to see Him. If you use only one in the absence of the other, you will lose the effect. It's like covering one eye. The truth of the Bible, like the poster, is also a function of depth. I think that the reason why a lot of people aren't seeing its truth today is because we have become a nation of shallow thinkers.

The spiritual, or intellectual effect that is produced in the Bible is no less powerful than the visual effect found in the stereogram. When you 'see' it, you'll know it. The hidden picture in both the Bible and the stereogram isn't the product of a child's random scribbling. Both are a product of intentional design. The Bible was written in three different continents over a span of 1500 years and in three different languages, yet it remains consistent in its inconsistencies, ambiguities, paradoxes and ironies. It may have been penned by over forty men, but it is evident to me that it was designed and directed by one author, by one mind. His signature is all through it! To create such a book, with no higher direction to maintain these common threads and produce the effect, would be the equivalent of creating the stereogram by accident. It ain't gonna' happen. And that's why I believe this book is inspired by the God it describes.

When you find yourself being criticized for your belief in God, keep in mind the following: You know that something exists from a primary perception and you are being told by one who has not yet had the perception that it cannot be real. It's like being at Kitty Hawk and witnessing the Wright brothers' first flight only to come home and have some egghead patronizingly explain to you, in great scientific detail, that heavier than air flight is 'utterly' impossible. This really did happen. Up to a year after their initial flights, Scientific American, the U.S. Army and most American scientists still thought that the Wrights were guilty of playing a hoax on the American public. What would you do if you found yourself in this dilemma? You were there! You saw the plane take off and land! So did many others. You can either dismiss the argument of the egghead as coming from his own ignorance and lack of perception, or you can begin to doubt your own perception and question your sanity along with your ability to reason. Did you REALLY see that plane take off? Maybe you just imagined it all. Our senses can play tricks on us, but they can also inform us of reality. How do you know if your senses are being deceived?
If I ever begin to doubt that I actually saw a galloping horse in the above stereogram, all I have to do is look at it again and when it comes back into focus, I have my confirmation that it is there. This is why a Christian always keeps his good book handy. If I ever begin to doubt that my perception of God is valid, all I have to do is pick up the Bible and start reading, and, sure enough, His reality comes back into focus and I have my confirmation. I get the impression that a lot of Christians who were raised up in the church take their faith for granted. Their belief that the horse is real, isn't based on their own perception of it, because they've never managed to see it for themselves. Instead, their belief that the horse is real is based only on the testimony of others who claim to have seen it. See Him for yourself! If you haven't yet seen it first hand, it will blow you away when you finally do. It's the difference between knowing God and knowing about God.

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LESSON 3: CURIOSITY & INTERACTION

Very good! If your browser presented you with a black rectangle devoid of any visible text, you have successfully completed an example in spiritual thinking. Lesson: Some things that are really present aren't always obvious. You may have had prior experience with using your mouse and discovered that it could reveal hidden text. In other words, you were prompted to check for hidden text based on subjective experiential reasoning. How did you know there was text in this black field? What objective evidence did you find that led you to search for hidden text? Chances are good that you either simply guessed correctly, without any evidence, or perhaps you discovered the text by accident. Think about how many other times you perform actions that are based on subjective reasoning as opposed to objective deduction. If you had to be told to highlight this box, then you must admit that perhaps there are other hidden realities of which you may not be aware.

Is this an error on the part of the web designer? Not!

ANALYSIS

Use your mouse to highlight the black box. Discoveries usually require a seeker.

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LESSON 4: THE MOBIUS STRIP

The Mobius strip is a figure that has only a single surface. If you take a narrow strip of paper, give it a 180 degree twist and join its ends together, you have created a Mobius strip. You have taken a piece of paper that had two sides (front and back) and turned it into a model with only one side. Take a marker and try to color one side of the Mobius strip. You will find that there is only one surface to color.

ANALYSIS

The Mobius strip is a paradox; logically, an object with only one surface can't exist - one dimensional reality would be a point having no breadth, no height, and no width - yet you have just constructed a model of one that you can hold in your hand. The Mobius is used in topology and theoretical physics to explain more complex properties.

The closer a model approaches reality, the more of a reality it becomes. For example, you can have a model car at 1/5th scale. It looks like a car, but its wheels are plastic and it only has a non-functional engine under its hood. It isn't really a car, but just a model of a car. But if you start to make changes to make it a better representation of a true car, changing its size to full scale and giving it a working combustion engine and rubber tires, soon you will have an actual car.

In an atheistic philosophy, there are certain things that concern the reality of life that must be accepted as illusion because, without God, that is the only thing they can be. We live our lives as if they have a real and genuine purpose. Most people will say that their lives have meaning, regardless of their philosophy. But a life that is created by chance, and natural selection, can have no inherent or objective purpose or meaning. Instead, such a life can only have a self-assigned, subjective meaning. A non-objective, self-assigned meaning is purely imaginary! It is a subjective opinion of what can only be a subjective reality. Conversely, a life created by design and a designer, such as the one described in Christianity, is given an objective purpose; its meaning is genuine and inherent. We may have different, subjective opinions as to what that purpose is, but these are subjective opinions concerning an objective reality.

We say that all people should be treated equally, yet it is evident that not all of us are equal. Some of us are born with physical attributes that allow us to succeed on the basketball court; others of us trip over our own feet. Some of us are born with a higher capacity for intelligence; others aren't very bright. When we say that we should be treated equally, despite the fact that we are all not equal, we are appealing to an idea that is baseless in an atheistic philosophy. In Christianity, however, our equality is based on the existence of our souls, which are all equal in the sight of God. We see how Christianity defines a property that is necessary for equality to be asserted.

Atheism doesn't allow for people to be genuinely special. But if a couple presents their newborn baby to you and say, "Look at how special and beautiful she is!," it will not be well received if you reply, "Not really. She is only a product of your copulation, a random selection of your genes." But if the Christian God is real, we can claim that people are special without being hypocritical, because every person would be uniquely created.

If morality is relative, then morality can only be a subject reality. In other words, morality is reduced to opinion. When we legislate any morality, we are actually forcing other people to live by our opinions. Majority rule is an ad populum fallacy; so is rule by force, because might does not make right. When we throw a person in jail because he has robbed a house, he is being imprisoned because of another man's opinion that stealing is wrong. Once again, the opinion in question concerns a subjective reality and is, therefore, purely subjective and a matter of preference. Our entire justice system becomes illusory. In order for our justice system to have credibility, it has to be based on an authority that exceeds the mere opinion of men. But with a God who establishes morality as an objective reality, we are no longer dealing with the opinions of man's preference, but the opinions of men concerning God's preference.

The above is not a demonstration of God's existence through an appeal to consequence. In reality, we do think our lives have meaning. We do think that we should all be treated equally, and we do think of some people as special. We do believe in a right and a wrong, even though we may disagree over what is right and wrong. We see all of these matters as realities, yet atheism does not allow us to logically maintain these beliefs as real. God becomes a better model for reality as we know it, than atheism.

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LESSON 5:TRUTH IN HUMOR

A skeptic is about to enter the forest to conduct a scientific study of great importance. Just as he begins his hike, he is met by a six-year-old boy who frantically warns, "Mister! Don't go into those woods on account of there's a monster that lives there and he'll eat you for lunch!"

The skeptic condescendingly pats the boy's head and smugly explains that there are no such things as monsters, and then he enters the woods and promptly gets eaten by a bear.

ANALYSIS

Moral of the joke: The skeptic is smart enough to know that there are no such things as monsters but dumb enough not to take heed. Like the boy, Christians are attempting to describe that which they can't fully comprehend.

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LESSON 6: PARADOX IN POETRY

Here is a poem that I wrote. Some readers will understand what the poem intends to convey and some will not. Try to explain the poem to yourself before going to my explanations of logical vs spiritual interpretation.

The Paradox of Biblical Jabberwocky
by A.S.A. Jones

The sky was dark, the earth was bright,
Its green was all a gray.
It dawned on me that very night,
I must leave this world to stay.

No bricks or wood could my home make,
No fire could keep me warm.
The truth had been a grave mistake,
Its safety had brought harm.

The Son of Man, The Son of God,
By chance, there was a plan.
What made sense was very odd,
That God should be a man.

I found my life in dying, then;
My weakness made me strong.
Self-hatred let me love again,
Set apart, I now belong.

ANALYSIS

It occurred to me that I had been reading the Bible with the mind of a scientist when it was written to be read by the mind of a poet. In science, we aim to be explicit. We try to state directly what we mean so that what we have to say will be uniform in interpretation. Conversely, much of the reading and writing of poetry takes place between the lines and not within the lines. Much of what is written in poetry is implied and relies upon the subjective experience of both its author and reader in order to relay its truth.

Now, I am no stranger to poetry and I enjoy reading it. When Lovelace wrote 'to Althea from prison', "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage," I would never have become indignant and accused Lovelace of not making sense. Logically, stone walls do make a prison, and iron bars certainly do make a cage! If you break this statement down into its components, it won't make any sense. But I knew what he meant. He was saying that even though one can be confined to a cell, one can be free in their mind. You have to examine the writing within the context of what you know to be true about human nature in order to understand it. This is why logic alone is an insufficient tool by which to examine the human condition and that is what the Bible is all about.

The following is a presentation of logical vs. spiritual interpretation of my poem:

The sky was dark, the earth was bright...

Mr. Owl: "Logically, if the sky was dark, the earth under the sky would also be dark."
ASAJ: "However, when the moon is out, the sky remains dark but the earth is lit."

Its green was all a gray...

Mr. Owl: "Green cannot be any other color except green. If green was gray, it would be gray. One can have a greenish gray, but that isn't what the text says."
ASAJ: "When lighting conditions are just right at night, the green grass does appear to be gray."

It dawned on me that very night...

ASAJ: "This isn't a true paradox but irony; get it?"
Mr. Owl: "No, I do not 'get it'."

I must leave this world to stay...

Mr. Owl: "This sentence cannot logically make sense because to stay is to stay and to leave is to leave."
ASAJ: "Look beyond the understanding that logic permits. I had to 'leave the world', that is, I had to leave the material world and turn to God in order to live and not die by my own hand (stay)."

No wood or bricks could my home make, no fire could keep me warm...

Mr. Owl: "Of course, bricks and wood can make a home! Show me a fire that won't give off heat! This is nonsense!"
ASAJ: "Is it? I was cold and alienated and nothing - not a house, not a family, not a good career - could provide me any comfort."

The truth had been a grave mistake; its safety had brought harm...

Mr. Owl: "What is truth cannot be in error and what is safe, brings no harm."
ASAJ: " But I was mistaken about the truth I perceived and my perception of that truth had indeed brought me harm. I considered death to be final, an end to suffering, but also an admission to the futility of life, and I found myself eagerly anticipating the grave (note the irony of the truth being a 'grave' mistake, a mistake about the afterlife). Also, I thought that God belief was illogical and indefensible. Atheism was a safer, but not necessarily more truthful intellectual viewpoint. In any case, my atheistic philosophy had failed me. It had sucked all of the life out of my existence (yes! Another paradox!)."

The Son of Man, The Son of God...

ASAJ: "Here's another one! Isn't it odd that a title of deity refers to such as 'The Son of Man' and becomes allegedly fulfilled by one proclaiming to be the Son of God?"
Mr. Owl: "No comment."

By chance, there was a plan...

Mr. Owl: "Things either happen by chance, or they are planned. To say that an event occurred by both chance and plan violates the law of non-contradiction!"
ASAJ: "The expression 'by chance' is also used in place of 'it just so happened'."

What made sense was very odd, that God should be a man...

Mr. Owl: "An oddity does not make sense! What makes sense, makes sense! God can't be God and be a man at the same time!"
ASAJ: "Yes, Mr. Owl, I agree it is very odd for God to come as a man but it makes sense to me and other Christians!"
Jesus came as a man so we could relate to Him and be taught by Him in person, but He was fully God.

I found my life in dying, then...

Mr. Owl: "You found no such thing! If you die, you are not alive to find anything."
ASAJ: "I died to my self and in doing that I found a new life in Jesus Christ."

My weakness made me strong...

Mr. Owl: "A weakness does not make you stronger. By definition, it makes you weaker!"
ASAJ: "I was psychologically weak. I had no integrity, no enthusiasm for life. But because of my weakness, I was broken by adversity. I was too weak to have faith in myself because I had failed miserably. In my acknowledged weakness, I turned to Christ and I was made strong through Him."

Self-hatred let me love again...

Mr. Owl: "I can love people without hating myself. You're a nut who deserves to be shot!"
ASAJ: "I'm glad that is the case with you. However, I didn't know how to love people until I was born again. I had to hate the evil things that I saw in myself in order to allow Jesus to fix them. When he took over my heart, I found that I could forgive people for any real or perceived fault they had. That's the key to loving people."

Set apart, I now belong...

ASAJ: "In the world, not of the world, I now belong to the Kingdom of God."
Mr. Owl: "The only thing that you belong to is the Imaginary Friends Club."

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TRUTH IN PARADOX

'soul': the spiritual principle embodied in human beings.
I didn't think that I had a 'spiritual principle'. I prided myself on pure intellect and logical thinking and 'spiritual' things didn't make any sense to me. I discounted spiritual matters as emotional matters and I had made myself as unemotional as I could in order to avoid having emotions interfere with my rationality of thought. When I began reading the bible differently, I no longer saw contradictions of logic, but paradox after paradox. Being confronted with paradox forces one's mind to think ABOVE logic but not against it. For example, examine the statement, "Never less alone than when alone". If you break this sentence down into its components, logically it cannot make sense. Yet this phrase describes a very real type of individual; it is describing a person who considers himself to be his own best company. It tells of an individual who is content to spend hours lost in his own thoughts. You have to examine the paradox in the context of what you know to be true about human nature in order to understand it. It is assumed by the author that the reader will not be ignorant of this information.

All the way from beginning to end, the bible contains paradoxes that push one's mind to look beyond what is written to that which is being implied. Skeptics view these paradoxes as errors but if they are indeed errors, they are consistent in the writings of the more than 40 men who authored the books of the bible. I find it strange that men who were intelligent and literate enough to write in that early time could be so ignorant of their own culture and religion to have made mistake after mistake after mistake in issues regarding it. Instead, I think it is more probable that the skeptics are ignorant of the matters about which these men wrote and unable to grasp their culture and way of thinking. Many of these alleged errors are due to poor reading comprehension and the inability to grasp what is being said within the context of the whole.

Some of these paradoxes are presented as a unit, making them unlikely errors. For example, Proverbs 26:4-5 states, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." A contradiction in logic would render these two statements as meaningless but there is a truth to be found in them (See "The Games Skeptics Play"). Other paradoxes are not so obvious and do not occur in close proximity to each other.
A second type of paradox deals with morality. Paradoxes of this nature deal with the law and push the reader into the spirit of the law (See 'Why I Believe God is Real') in order to understand them. Examples of moral paradox include issues of divorce, adultery (Deut 24:1-4 vs Mark 10:2-12), and God setting Himself above His own commandments. What appears to be ambiguity or contradiction or nonsense in the 'absolute declaration of law' can be reconciled or deemed as irrelevant when the reader understands the spirit of the law.

Not all of the paradoxes contain meaning, but serve as arrows to direct the reader toward higher meaning. The accounts of the death of Judas and many other alleged discrepancies are irrelevant to the truth of God, yet they serve as stumbling blocks to those who are shallow or legalistic in their thought. In this way, the Word of God becomes a sieve, separating its readers through a series of screens. Paul describes this sieve in 1 Cor: 1. Those who have made themselves too big, get trapped in the holes, while those who have allowed themselves to be made small, pass through to see the hidden truth. Jesus Christ makes reference to his own device of conveying God's truth in parables (Luke 8:10) so that "...though hearing, they may not understand."

If you are a skeptic, you are probably scoffing at the above. I would like to take this opportunity to point out to you that Friedrich Nietzsche, poster boy for existentialism, was very fond of intentionally using words that would be misinterpreted by careless, superficial readers. Walter Kaufmann, who edited Nietzsche's 'Ecce Homo', included this in his introduction:
"Nietzsche had an almost pathological weakness for one particular kind of ambiguity, which, to be sure, is not irremediable: he loved words and phrases that mean one thing out of context and almost the opposite in the context he gives them... The former is bound to lead astray hasty readers, browsers and...nonreaders."

When a man does this type of thing, it is considered a matter of genius. When similar devices are employed in the bible, there is no reason to discount them as foolishness. Of course, it is not the 'hasty' reader that is being sifted out in the Bible, but the spiritual Pharisee who is being left in the dark.

The reason for doing this can be found in the Zen philosophy. The Masters of Zen don't seek to enlighten their students with the truth; they seek to confound them in order that they discover the truth for themselves. Herein lies the difference between knowing how to do multiplication and merely memorizing and regurgitating multiplication tables. If the truth about God could be told, we could know ABOUT Him, but in seeking and finding Him for ourselves, we can KNOW Him. For me to have been so profoundly changed through a minute faith in Jesus Christ is a miracle. Psychology tells us that the hardest thing to change in a person is their personality; we can modify our behavior, but our nature remains. The words of Christ didn't TELL me how to change. Like a Zen Master, He gently led my mind to experience truth. That's why the changes were so powerful.

Paul goes on to explain the hidden stereogram in 1 Cor 2. What is the hidden picture created by paradox? It's a mirror. A mirror without flaw or distortion that allows a person to view his own soul through the eyes of a perfect, good and just God. It's the perception that results in being born again. It's the truth about one's own nature and the nature of the One above it. Skeptics see differences in scriptural interpretation as proof that there is no biblical truth. But these differences exist because the mirror reflects the soul of each person that stands before it. Only a person completely devoid of a selfish nature can see the truth perfectly. Only a man without sin, without any fault, is able to perceive moral truths or to judge any action as right or wrong. Only a good and perfect judge can know the soul that drives the deeds of any man.

MORE TO LIFE THAN LOGIC

When one starts thinking spiritually, it isn't that they are thinking unclearly or illogically. They are simply thinking from a different perspective.

Many principles, such as love, kindness, unselfishness and mercy, which are readily accepted as good by both Christians and non-Christians, can be destroyed by logic. For example, examine the following logical argument:

To be just, one must give to another exactly what that individual deserves to get, no more and no less.
To be fair, one must treat everyone equally.
To be merciful is to give an individual more than what they deserve to get (in reward) or less than what they deserve to get (in punishment).
Being merciful is therefore unjust.
Unless everyone can be treated with the same degree of mercy or kindness, to be merciful or kind to any one person is to be unfair.

The consequence of attempting to live by this logical, sound and valid conclusion wouldn't be desirable. The above argument would demand that we not give to one person in need if we couldn't give the same amount to every person in need. Before we gave anything to anyone, they must be worthy of it. We would find ourselves living in a world without grace, without mercy, without forgiveness and without kindness. We would find ourselves justifying revenge and holding grudges and keeping score, all in order to be fair and just. How can logic result in such a world? What is wrong with the above argument? (See "The Games Skeptics Play")

Because logic or surface thinking can destroy that which is good and logically justify both good and bad behavior, the spiritual mind is not only useful when it comes to discerning that which is good, but it is necessary to have in order to actually do that which is good, especially when a person finds themselves outside of the influence of societal pressures. I can give you all kinds of logical reasons not to give any of my hard-earned money away to charity. In fact, years ago, when I had an excellent salary, I managed to not donate a dime to anyone and I felt totally justified. But in loving Jesus Christ, I acquired His spirit of giving. This spirit became me; I owned it, I didn't have to act it. Spiritual thinking allows a person to be changed from the inside. Our minds and our laws might OBLIGATE us to do good, but our spirit DESIRES us to do good.

TUNING INTO GOD

As a skeptic, I always asked Christians for proof of their souls or proof of their god; how did they KNOW, as they claimed, that their belief was sound? When I finally 'saw' what they 'saw', I tried to convey this evidence, but found that I was no more articulate in my attempts than they were in theirs.
In John 18:37, Jesus says, "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." In Mark 4:9, He says, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." As an atheist, this seemed nothing more to me than a bit of circular logic. Nevertheless, when my ears were opened, it proved itself to be true.

To those who are blind, we can intellectually explain how color is created by varying wavelengths of light and how those wavelengths are detected by the eye, but we can't tell them what the color red looks like. To those who are deaf, we can intellectually explain how sound waves are produced and how it is that sound waves are detected, but we can't explain what a noise sounds like. It is no different with the spiritually deaf. We can try to explain but we can't make a non-believer recognize the truth that has become obvious to us. No one is able to transfer a perception to another, but we can try to remove the intellectual barriers that allow people to remain blind to that truth.
It wasn't that I was without the capability to perceive the truth; my obstinacy wouldn't allow me to see it. I was too full of myself and too blinded by what I thought were logically sound arguments to see that which was right under my nose.
Just as God can be perceived, He can also be shut out. We train our senses to tune out certain stimuli, such as the noise of traffic, or joint pain, which comes with age (I never knew how much pain I was in until a pain pill took it all away!). A large ego doesn't want to submit to any authority. A self-sufficient and self-righteous person believes they have no need of God. The immoral want to continue in their activities with a free conscience. Pride in my intellect and my anti-Christian bigotry allowed me to shut Him out for over twenty years.

It's as if the truth of God is being spoken all around us, but we can't always hear it. This world teaches us to tune Him out. His spirit is like the low pitched hum of a fluorescent light. If you busy yourself with distraction, or if you keep your own thoughts turned up so high in your head, you won't even notice the light. Picture yourself in a large crowd of people. If you are in the midst of the crowd, concentrating on your own thoughts, the conversations around you become a drone in which no particular words can be discerned. But if you focus your hearing on one voice or another, you find that you can follow a conversation. You have to be still. You have to be quiet. You have to train yourself to listen for it, and if you do all of those things, you will hear Him. You will have tuned into God.

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The spiritual mission of Ex-atheist.com (www.Ex-atheist.com) is to present the truth of Christianity from an ‘outsider’s’ perspective and to remove the intellectual barriers and misconceptions that can inhibit serious consideration of that truth.

Many Christians say that their faith in God is based on Biblical inerrancy, the historicity of the gospels, or the inadequacies of evolution, yet none of these issues played a significant role in my decision, after 20 years of atheism, to believe in the divinity of Christ. I created the site in an effort to encourage those whom I had once tried to dishearten.

A.S.A. Jones
I wasn’t born again yesterday.


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From the article :-

'It was New Year's Day, 1998. I made a resolution to read the entire Bible again, only this time I was going to read it as I would poetry or fiction, and not as a proposal of fact.'

Fascinating! I wonder how many Christians on Theology Web will take to hear the authors advice to read the Bible as if it were fiction.

'In the months that followed, I kept my resolution and I began noticing a change in my way of interpreting the Bible. Intellectually, I found that my mind could logically accept two very different interpretations of almost everything I was reading. One interpretation of any verse or passage would render the whole story as nonsensical. But the other interpretation allowed the whole story to make sense.'

And practice double-think (literally).

'If my mind was capable of accepting interpretations that allowed the whole book to make sense, then what was it in me that wanted it not to make sense? This book was reading me as surely as I was reading it. Every time I found fault with its god, I ended up finding a fault of my own. What was I doing when I condemned this god for commanding Moses to kill?'

Don't question orders to kill.

Good advice for atheists reading Theology Web

[Hired Gun]

'It was New Year's Day, 1998. I made a resolution to read the entire Bible again, only this time I was going to read it as I would poetry or fiction, and not as a proposal of fact.'

Fascinating! I wonder how many Christians on Theology Web will take to hear the authors advice to read the Bible as if it were fiction.

Reading it as fiction took the 'pressure' off of me to hyper-analyze the text. In other words, I sat back and actually understood what I was reading instead of playing lawyer with every line. This statement wasn't intended to advise anyone of anything; It is merely an objective statement describing my mindset as I attempted to understand the Bible. If anything, it is my advice to non-believers , specifically, the type of non-believer that I was, that being a legalistic, anti-Christian Pharisee, to approach the Bible as a work of fiction in order to be fair-minded. Please note that I did not say that the Bible is a work of fiction; I simply said that I read it as I would have read a book of fiction. I did this to change my attitude and to get past any preconceived ideas that I may have had toward Christianity in general.

I can see how quickly scanning through the text of the article would allow one to mistakenly infer that I am equating 'reading the Bible as fiction' with 'reading the Bible, which is fiction'. I can also appreciate intentional misunderstanding, but that would be accusing you of double-think (reading the Bible as fiction = Bible is fiction).




'In the months that followed, I kept my resolution and I began noticing a change in my way of interpreting the Bible. Intellectually, I found that my mind could logically accept two very different interpretations of almost everything I was reading. One interpretation of any verse or passage would render the whole story as nonsensical. But the other interpretation allowed the whole story to make sense.'

And practice double-think (literally).

'Double-think' is the practice of denying what the mind knows to be true. If you read the above quote carefully, you will see that it is referring to 'equal-think', not double-think. Is double-think what Nietzsche required of his readers? Is double-think the quality necessary to understand double-entendres? Is there no such thing as legitimate ambiguity in your philosophy? Or do simply discount all Biblical understanding as 'double-think'?




'If my mind was capable of accepting interpretations that allowed the whole book to make sense, then what was it in me that wanted it not to make sense? This book was reading me as surely as I was reading it. Every time I found fault with its god, I ended up finding a fault of my own. What was I doing when I condemned this god for commanding Moses to kill?'

Don't question orders to kill.

Good advice for atheists reading Theology Web

I did question the order to kill and this led me to a new view of God, when taken in context of the whole Bible. If one places God on the same level as men, then God is a murderer. But recognizing God as 'God', as portrayed in the text, allowed me to accept that God's divine characteristics would permit Him to take human life without rendering Him immoral. When a man takes another's life, he can't restore it. God, however, can.

[Dee Dee Warren]

What happened to my post?? Hmmmm, well I will say it again. I as one of the owners of TheologyWeb am very appreciative of the support that Ex-Atheist.com gives to this site, and have always enjoyed that article so it is our pleasure to be able to host it here.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 09:53 AM
Hired Gun:


I did question the order to kill and this led me to a new view of God, when taken in context of the whole Bible. If one places God on the same level as men, then God is a murderer. But recognizing God as 'God', as portrayed in the text, allowed me to accept that God's divine characteristics would permit Him to take human life without rendering Him immoral. When a man takes another's life, he can't restore it. God, however, can.

It was Moses, Joshua and the Israelites who took the lives of their fellow humans, according to Exodus and Joshua.

That makes them murderers according to your definition.

Was it murder for human beings to kill other human beings?

Did God restore the Amalekites to life.........?

You wrote 'But if the Christian God is real, we can claim that people are special without being hypocritical, because every person would be uniquely created.'

What made the Amalekites so special?

[Hired Gun]

[quote]Today @ 08:04 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=105417#post105417)
stevencarrwork:



It was Moses, Joshua and the Israelites who took the lives of their fellow humans, according to Exodus and Joshua.

According to the text, God used Moses, Joshua and the Israelites as instruments to take the lives of those whom GOD described as 'wicked'.


That makes them murderers according to your definition.

When a man takes it upon himself to murder other human beings for selfish reasons, that qualifies the man as a murderer, by human standards. These men were allegedly acting in obedience to God, not their own selfish desires.


Was it murder for human beings to kill other human beings?

You tell me. Was it? I notice that you make a distinction in the above statement between 'murder' and 'kill'. If there is no distinction between these two words, your statement would read, "Was it murder for human beings to murder other human beings?"

Is taking the life of other human beings always wrong? If so, we have just discovered a moral absolute. As an atheist, I used to point to this slaughter by Moses as despicable, yet I had to admit that I thought that the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima was a necessary act. I chose to see the killing of the Amalekites as evil because it was a convenient way to condemn Christianity's god.

God tells us not to kill, yet directly orders Moses to kill. Were the U.S. soldiers murderers? If men can take lives and not be considered immoral, then why can't God do the same and not be considered immoral?



Did God restore the Amalekites to life.........?

When one considers the Bible in its entirety, God restores all to life, though their eternal fate may differ.



You wrote 'But if the Christian God is real, we can claim that people are special without being hypocritical, because every person would be uniquely created.'

What made the Amalekites so special?

Are you asking, "If the Amalekites were so special, why did God destroy them?" Please clarify.

[Alien]

In an atheistic philosophy, there are certain things that concern the reality of life that must be accepted as illusion because, without God, that is the only thing they can be. We live our lives as if they have a real and genuine purpose. Most people will say that their lives have meaning, regardless of their philosophy. But a life that is created by chance, and natural selection, can have no inherent or objective purpose or meaning. Instead, such a life can only have a self-assigned, subjective meaning. A non-objective, self-assigned meaning is purely imaginary! It is a subjective opinion of what can only be a subjective reality. Conversely, a life created by design and a designer, such as the one described in Christianity, is given an objective purpose; its meaning is genuine and inherent. We may have different, subjective opinions as to what that purpose is, but these are subjective opinions concerning an objective reality.


This argument has always bothered me. "Purpose" is essentially subjective because it can only be applied to something with a mind (a rock can't be said to have a purpose) and the purpose is something generated within that mind. Thus, I can form a decision to attempt something and that becomes my purpose. So, to say that an atheist can't have a "real and genuine purpose" is untrue; he forms the purpose within his mind and that's as "real and genuine" as purposes get. Adopting someone else's purpose as your own doesn't alter this. God's purpose is "real and genuine" in His mind and your purpose is to follow it - also "real and genuine". My purpose (one of them) is to lead as happy and fulfilling a life as I can while allowing others to pursue the same aim. That's "real and genuine" too.

I suspect that what Christians really mean here is that God's purposes are better than ours can ever be, and therefore more worthy of adoption.

Just as an aside, I found the "white on black" format of the page accessed by the "From Skepticism to Worship" link made it difficult to read.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 02:26 PM
Hired Gun:



According to the text, God used Moses, Joshua and the Israelites as instruments to take the lives of those whom GOD described as 'wicked'.



When a man takes it upon himself to murder other human beings for selfish reasons, that qualifies the man as a murderer, by human standards. These men were allegedly acting in obedience to God, not their own selfish desires.



What are 'selfish reasons'? How can we tell? When Iraq was invaded the Iraiq soldiers tried to kill British soldiers for the very selfish reason that they wanted to avoid being killed.

What can be more selfish than preferring yourself to be alive, rather than somebody else?

Is that what you mean , or have I misunderstood?

Am I morally allowed to kill for selfless reasons, as suicide bombers do? Do you think that suicide bombers are acting for their own personal gain?





You tell me. Was it? I notice that you make a distinction in the above statement between 'murder' and 'kill'. If there is no distinction between these two words, your statement would read, "Was it murder for human beings to murder other human beings?"



As far as I can understand, you claimed any killing of one human being by another was murder and that only God could kill.





Is taking the life of other human beings always wrong? If so, we have just discovered a moral absolute. As an atheist, I used to point to this slaughter by Moses as despicable, yet I had to admit that I thought that the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima was a necessary act. I chose to see the killing of the Amalekites as evil because it was a convenient way to condemn Christianity's god.




The US soldiers did not kill every Japanese man, woman and child.





God tells us not to kill, yet directly orders Moses to kill. Were the U.S. soldiers murderers? If men can take lives and not be considered immoral, then why can't God do the same and not be considered immoral?



Were the US soldiers obeying God's orders when they bombed Hiroshima?





When one considers the Bible in its entirety, God restores all to life, though their eternal fate may differ.



So God can kill people ,because he has the power to restore the killed people to life. But if they are beng restored to life , just to have further punishment, how does that justify God killing them?

If I take something from you, and explain that it is morally OK because I can restore it to you, and then restore it in such a way that you suffer because of the restoration, why should you agree to me taking that thing from you?





Are you asking, "If the Amalekites were so special, why did God destroy them?" Please clarify.

Don't put words in my mouth.

I just asked why the Amalekites were so special. Which word in particular did you want me to clarify? Of course, your answer might then give me food for thought, about why such special people had to be destroyed man, woman and child, but I can't comment on your answer until I have seen it.

[Hired Gun]

This argument has always bothered me. "Purpose" is essentially subjective because it can only be applied to something with a mind (a rock can't be said to have a purpose) and the purpose is something generated within that mind.

I disagree. A car has a real and genuine purpose, yet it does not have a mind. Its purpose is to transport people. It is specifically designed by an intelligence to fulfill a specific task, although a car doesn't have a mind that would allow it to fully appreciate its inherent purpose.


Thus, I can form a decision to attempt something and that becomes my purpose. So, to say that an atheist can't have a "real and genuine purpose" is untrue; he forms the purpose within his mind and that's as "real and genuine" as purposes get. Adopting someone else's purpose as your own doesn't alter this. God's purpose is "real and genuine" in His mind and your purpose is to follow it - also "real and genuine".

Once again, I disagree. Let's assume, for the case of argument, that a car did have a mind. My car may get the impression that it is a container for discarded toys and fast food wrappers. That would be my car's subjective, imaginary purpose. It's inherent purpose of transportation, however, would still remain.



My purpose (one of them) is to lead as happy and fulfilling a life as I can while allowing others to pursue the same aim. That's "real and genuine" too.

We disagree on the definitions involved. I feel that my understanding of these terms more accurately reflects their usage. Inherent purpose implies design. A stick may be used to dig a hole in the dirt, but this is not its inherent purpose. When a stick is used to accomplish such a task, it is because its user subjectively applied it to the task.



I suspect that what Christians really mean here is that God's purposes are better than ours can ever be, and therefore more worthy of adoption.

No, my argument needn't go that far. What I really mean is exactly what I said.



Just as an aside, I found the "white on black" format of the page accessed by the "From Skepticism to Worship" link made it difficult to read.

Arrgghh! This has been brought to my attention once before. I guess I should sacrifice style for clarity, but that cross looks so cool on black. Would it help if I made the text bigger? In any case, thank you for letting me know because now I have to give serious consideration to changing it.

[Hired Gun]

What are 'selfish reasons'? How can we tell? When Iraq was invaded the Iraiq soldiers tried to kill British soldiers for the very selfish reason that they wanted to avoid being killed.
What can be more selfish than preferring yourself to be alive, rather than somebody else?

Is that what you mean , or have I misunderstood?

Am I morally allowed to kill for selfless reasons, as suicide bombers do? Do you think that suicide bombers are acting for their own personal gain?

This is exactly my point. We can only guess and speculate using our own reasoning as to what constitutes a moral or immoral act. Christianity bypasses moral relativism by allowing us to position ourselves within the context of a divine personality who represents absolute righteousness. Our actions become judged by our state of heart, not the actions alone. A suicide bomber who is a sadist and who hates people and life to the degree that enables him to carry out a bombing for the sole purpose of destruction will be judged more harshly than a suicide bomber who believes he is sacrificing himself for the good of his country.

I made these statements in reference to atheists condemning the actions of God when moral relativism doesn't permit this type of condemnation.



As far as I can understand, you claimed any killing of one human being by another was murder and that only God could kill.

Yes, that is what I said.



The US soldiers did not kill every Japanese man, woman and child.


I detect some fallacious reasoning here. Is it moral to kill some percentage of the population? Does percentage of occupants killed determine the morality of the killing? If God commanded Moses to kill 90% of the population instead of 100%, would that make His orders more moral?



Were the US soldiers obeying God's orders when they bombed Hiroshima?

I certainly am in no position to give a qualified answer.




So God can kill people ,because he has the power to restore the killed people to life. But if they are beng restored to life , just to have further punishment, how does that justify God killing them?

If I take something from you, and explain that it is morally OK because I can restore it to you, and then restore it in such a way that you suffer because of the restoration, why should you agree to me taking that thing from you?


Your argument, restated, would read:

1. You can restore the life, which you take from me.
2. I will suffer BECAUSE of the restoration.
3. Therefore, taking my life away from me is immoral.
4. Therefore, I shouldn't agree to allow you to take it from me.

I disagree with the truth of the second premise. You are not going to suffer because of the restoration itself. You are going to suffer because of your sin. The #3 conclusion is therefore a non-sequitur. The #4 conclusion may be correct, but taking away your life does not entail agreement on your part.



Don't put words in my mouth.

It was my desire not to put words in your mouth that led me to ask you to clarify.



I just asked why the Amalekites were so special. Which word in particular did you want me to clarify? Of course, your answer might then give me food for thought, about why such special people had to be destroyed man, woman and child, but I can't comment on your answer until I have seen it.

The Amalekites were each seen by God as special and unique, in the same manner that all free will agents are special and unique. God's order to destroy a part of His creation in order to ensure the establishment of Israel, does not destroy the unique qualities of that creation.

[Alien]

Main Entry: pur·pose
Function: noun
1 a : something set up as an object or end to be attained : INTENTION b : RESOLUTION, DETERMINATION
2 : a subject under discussion or an action in course of execution
[M-W]


Today @ 11:36 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=105686#post105686)
Hired Gun:
I disagree. A car has a real and genuine purpose, yet it does not have a mind. Its purpose is to transport people. It is specifically designed by an intelligence to fulfill a specific task, although a car doesn't have a mind that would allow it to fully appreciate its inherent purpose.

I would tend to refer to a car's "function" in this context, and reserve "purpose" for the designer, but lets not quibble over definitions. :)


Once again, I disagree. Let's assume, for the case of argument, that a car did have a mind. My car may get the impression that it is a container for discarded toys and fast food wrappers. That would be my car's subjective, imaginary purpose. It's inherent purpose of transportation, however, would still remain.

In that case, would the "purpose" of transportation have any more force as an "inherent" purpose than one that the car thought up for itself? Not being a travelling garbage can maybe, but say it decides to go off and drive around the world by itself in search of enlightenment?

There was a case where a child was conceived for the purpose of providing bone marrow for its sibling. (I'm grossly over-simplifying the parents' motives but lets pretend that was their only purpose). What is the child's inherent purpose, what is assigned to it by its parents (its creators) or whatever it might decide for itself? Or its "evolutionary" purpose of being a vehicle for its genes? Or whatever God might have in mind for it?


We disagree on the definitions involved. I feel that my understanding of these terms more accurately reflects their usage. Inherent purpose implies design. A stick may be used to dig a hole in the dirt, but this is not its inherent purpose. When a stick is used to accomplish such a task, it is because its user subjectively applied it to the task.

And a screwdriver makes a perfectly good opener for paint cans. :)

Are you saying that there is no value in the use of the stick as a digging tool? Is this so because the tree originally "intended" the stick as a bearer of leaves or whatever and that makes it forever unavailable for any other use?

But let's return to what you said.


But a life that is created by chance, and natural selection, can have no inherent or objective purpose or meaning.

Correct, if you define "inherent" as something designed into it.


Instead, such a life can only have a self-assigned, subjective meaning.

As opposed to a God-assigned, subjective meaning?


A non-objective, self-assigned meaning is purely imaginary! It is a subjective opinion of what can only be a subjective reality.

Imaginary as in non-existent? Are you suggesting that something subjective, like an opinion, doesn't exist?


Conversely, a life created by design and a designer, such as the one described in Christianity, is given an objective purpose; its meaning is genuine and inherent.

You seem to be of the opinion that a thought, opinion or judgement by God is somehow objective, while our thoughts etc are subjective. Can you explain why this is so?


Arrgghh! This has been brought to my attention once before. I guess I should sacrifice style for clarity, but that cross looks so cool on black. Would it help if I made the text bigger? In any case, thank you for letting me know because now I have to give serious consideration to changing it.

Bigger might be better, but have you considered yellow on black? Its a lot easier to read for most people and looks good too. :)

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 07:32 PM
Hired Gun:



This is exactly my point. We can only guess and speculate using our own reasoning as to what constitutes a moral or immoral act. Christianity bypasses moral relativism by allowing us to position ourselves within the context of a divine personality who represents absolute righteousness. Our actions become judged by our state of heart, not the actions alone. A suicide bomber who is a sadist and who hates people and life to the degree that enables him to carry out a bombing for the sole purpose of destruction will be judged more harshly than a suicide bomber who believes he is sacrificing himself for the good of his country.

I made these statements in reference to atheists condemning the actions of God when moral relativism doesn't permit this type of condemnation.



'Our actions become judged by our state of heart, not the actions alone'.

I think actions should be judged by how much suffering they cause, not whether the person sincerely believed he was doing it for the sake of his country.

Why do you say that one sin will be judged more harshly than another?

Does God not abhor all sin? Are some sins less heinous than others, in God's judgement? (Humans judge some acts as less heinous than others, but we are not God)

As for your claiming that we can only guess and speculate about what consitutes and immoral act, I am happy to state that I believe torturing children for fun is an immoral act.

You may say that you can only speculate that that is immoral, but I think you can actually say with confidence that , deep down, you know that is wrong.





1. You can restore the life, which you take from me.
2. I will suffer BECAUSE of the restoration.
3. Therefore, taking my life away from me is immoral.
4. Therefore, I shouldn't agree to allow you to take it from me.

I disagree with the truth of the second premise. You are not going to suffer because of the restoration itself. You are going to suffer because of your sin.


The Amalekites were not going to suffer because of their sin - they were dead.

Only when God restores them to life will they suffer.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 09:27 PM
Alien:


You seem to be of the opinion that a thought, opinion or judgement by God is somehow objective, while our thoughts etc are subjective. Can you explain why this is so?



By definition , God's opinion on what is moral is just an opinion.

If opinions are subjective, then God's opinion is subjective.

How do we know God is good?

God says so.

How do we know that what God says is objective?

Because God said so.......

This is circular reasoning.

It can be hard to see why the morality of God is objectively good.

2 Samuel 6:6-7 When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.

Was it objectively good to kill Uzzah when he steadied the Ark to stop it falling when the oxen stumbled?

[JCA]

Today @ 06:00 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=105939#post105939)
stevencarrwork:

You may say that you can only speculate that that is immoral, but I think you can actually say with confidence that , deep down, you know that is wrong.


I think this is an important thing to note. Some of this is based upon our life experiences and how we are brought up.. but I think the majority of our 'conscience' comes from the simple understanding of what we don't like to happen to us..

For instance, I'm less liable to cause others pain if I have lived through it myself and come to the conclusion that pain is 'bad'. This is how it is easy to understand the 10 commandments.. they spoke of things that we all 'know' are 'bad', because they are things we would not want done to us.

This is what surprises me when people claim that Atheists can have no reference to base 'good' and 'evil' upon.. or moralistic thinking.. just from living I can come to sound moral decisions..

The fact that they then get backed up by Christs/Gods word, only makes it all the more sweet :)

IMHO.

Love and Peace

JCA

PS - Didn't mean to interrupt, but I saw that and had to ;)

[Dee Dee Warren]

Hired Gun!!! I am thoroughly enjoying your posts!! Good job :thumb:

[Hired Gun]

The analogy is definitely going to get a bit bizarre if we stick with cars. Let's go back to people! By 'force', do you mean value?

Subjectively speaking, there is no difference in the imagined, self assigned purpose of driving around the world in search of enlightenment than there is in sitting around in a state of rust, being a receptacle for garbage. By the same standard, an obsessive compulsive mental patient, who is consumed with the 'nonsensical' task of stacking and re-stacking tooth picks, has as much subjective purpose to his life as does a four star general in the heat of battle. The mental patient's purpose in life is purely his own making; he is isolated in his own mind and he has assigned himself the task of stacking tooth picks in order to provide his life with meaning. Conversely, the general has been assigned a task by the U.S. Army. His objective is to win the war. Both of these men have a meaningful life in their own mind, but how does their subjective view of their life's 'purpose' measure up to objective reality?

Are there any legitimate purposeless tasks? If any task or goal I set is sufficient to provide my life with meaning, is anything really aimless? If nothing is truly without purpose or merit, why do we persist in the belief that some things are a waste of time?

As a demonstration of the imaginary quality of self-assigned, subjective purpose, examine the tumultuous life of 'Andy'. When Andy was in school, he decided that his goal in life was to become a doctor and help alleviate the pain of his patients. This was the self-assigned purpose he gave to his life; without this purpose, his life would have very little meaning. For 6 years, this self-assigned purpose motivated him to get up each morning. Then he became very ill and his hopes of becoming a doctor vanished. So he married a very handsome woman and put her on a pedestal. Her love gave his life meaning. His sole life's purpose was to love this incredible woman; without her, his life would have very little meaning. Unfortunately, his wife felt the same way about another man and, after 5 years of marriage, she divorced Andy. Andy then decided to buy a Harley, because he knew that his bike would never leave him for another man. That bike gave Andy's life meaning; his purpose was to become one with the wind. Then he wrecked it...so he turned to chess...he would become the best chess player in the world...

The above scenario doesn't allow me to equate subjective, self-assigned purpose with objective, inherent designed purpose. I see the above as latching on to one diversion after another in a desperate attempt to avoid the reality of a meaningless life.

Would an objective purpose, that is assigned by the type of God in Christianity, have more value (force) than any self-assigned purpose? I would have to say yes! If God made Himself visible to you (we're talkin' GOD here, the creator of the universe!) and told you, "Alien, it is your objective purpose in life to succeed in the field of bio-chemistry because one day, your work will enable another to prevent the loss of many lives," wouldn't you consider that revealed objective purpose more meaningful than your own thoughts of "This experiment isn't going very well. I could have an equally meaningful life as a janitor."

Nihilists also consider life to be inherently meaningless and without purpose. The logic that I am presenting here isn't an isolated Christian construct.



There was a case where a child was conceived for the purpose of providing bone marrow for its sibling. (I'm grossly over-simplifying the parents' motives but lets pretend that was their only purpose). What is the child's inherent purpose, what is assigned to it by its parents (its creators) or whatever it might decide for itself? Or its "evolutionary" purpose of being a vehicle for its genes? Or whatever God might have in mind for it?

The above presents one of those tricky perspective problems. You ask "What is the child's 'inherent' purpose. Once again, I take 'inherent' to imply design. While the parents may have had their own objective reasons for bringing the child into the world, I would not label them as the child's creators; they didn't 'design' the child, they were only the vehicle for the child's earthly entry. The same holds true for the proposal of the child's purpose being a vehicle for its genes. Unless the genes were designed by a designer, there can be no 'inherent' purpose associated with their product. Whatever purpose the child would assign to itself would not be inherent, it would be subjective.



And a screwdriver makes a perfectly good opener for paint cans. :)

Indeed! But I wouldn't pay for a screwdriver to open a paint can, because any number of things will serve just as well.



Are you saying that there is no value in the use of the stick as a digging tool? Is this so because the tree originally "intended" the stick as a bearer of leaves or whatever and that makes it forever unavailable for any other use?

I'm saying that there is more value in a shovel, which is intentionally designed for the job of digging, and therefore a more efficient tool.



But let's return to what you said.Correct, if you define "inherent" as something designed into it.

Inherent is defined as existing in someone as a natural and inseperable quality. When the quality involved is a 'purpose' I have to credit such a purpose with design because I can't imagine a 'purpose' being produced through chance mutation and natural selection.




As opposed to a God-assigned, subjective meaning?

If a purpose was assigned to us by our designer, I would hardly consider this purpose to be subjective. It would be objective, intentional, actual...real. Going back to the car with a mind...Was the car designed with only a subjective purpose? Does Ford advertise its vehicles with the motto, "A Great Car...Or A Unique Lawn Ornament. It's All Up To YOU!"

The purpose that we are aiming to describe is "What is the purpose of my life on earth?"



Imaginary as in non-existent? Are you suggesting that something subjective, like an opinion, doesn't exist?

Not at all. I'm saying that a subjective opinion concerning that which can only have a subjective reality, is a mental construct. This is the type of opinion that is relatively worthless. Opinions of this nature are cheap because of their great supply and low demand. On the other hand, subjective opinions that involve an objective reality lend themselves to dialectic. These are the opinions that may have some worth. For example, a well informed stock broker may be able to give you his subjective opinion on the objective reality of the stock market.



You seem to be of the opinion that a thought, opinion or judgement by God is somehow objective, while our thoughts etc are subjective. Can you explain why this is so?

As far as I know, no one has been able to answer the questions, "What is the meaning of life" and "What is my purpose in life" in a way that can be objectively stated. We are all mindful cars, attempting to discover the reason for our existence. We all have different thoughts as to what our purpose may be. In short, we can only speculate. But if we are approached by our designer and told of the purpose for which we were designed, would this not be the definitive and objective answer to our question? Would a mindful car be in a position to subjectively argue its true purpose with the one who was responsible for its design and creation?




Bigger might be better, but have you considered yellow on black? Its a lot easier to read for most people and looks good too. :)

Awe, man. It will remind me of a bumble bee but I'll give it a go.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 05:35 AM
Hired Gun:

The mental patient's purpose in life is purely his own making; he is isolated in his own mind and he has assigned himself the task of stacking tooth picks in order to provide his life with meaning. Conversely, the general has been assigned a task by the U.S. Army. His objective is to win the war. Both of these men have a meaningful life in their own mind, but how does their subjective view of their life's 'purpose' measure up to objective reality?



Should we ask ourselves which person is responsible for the most deaths? That is an objective measure - it is a number and we can say that one number really is bigger or smaller than another. There would be nothing subjective about that.

Which aspect of objective reality , in your subjective opinion, should we measure their purpose against? There are many measures of objective reality. Simply measuring their purpose against objective reality is still totally subjective, as you have to choose which measure of objective reality you wish to use as a yardstick.

HIRED GUN
If God made Himself visible to you (we're talkin' GOD here, the creator of the universe!) and told you, "Alien, it is your objective purpose in life to succeed in the field of bio-chemistry because one day, your work will enable another to prevent the loss of many lives," wouldn't you consider that revealed objective purpose more meaningful than your own thoughts of "This experiment isn't going very well. I could have an equally meaningful life as a janitor."

CARR
Why would that be objective? Because God is powerful and might makes right? Because God knows more than us, and cleverer people are more morally right than ignorant people?

Why would Alien not be able to work out on his own that succeeding in the field of bio-chemistry would help another to prevent the loss of many lives, and that saving lifes is a good thing?


Suppose God said 'Alien , it is your objective purpose in life to kill this tribe of people because I say they are wicked', would Alien then feel morally obliged to kill people?
'

[stevencarrwork]

CARR
Were the US soldiers obeying God's orders when they bombed Hiroshima?



Yesterday @ 07:32 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=105783#post105783)
Hired Gun:




I certainly am in no position to give a qualified answer.



An interesting answer. I assume you are in a position to give an unqualified answer :-)

Why do you not know whether the US soldiers were obeying God's orders when they bombed Hiroshima?

You are the one who boasts that you can tell what is objectively morally right, and when I ask a question , you say 'I don't know'.

What happened to your objective morality? Can something be morally right if it is not in line with God's commands? Was the bombing of Hiroshima in line with God's commands?

[Hired Gun]

'Our actions become judged by our state of heart, not the actions alone'.

I think actions should be judged by how much suffering they cause, not whether the person sincerely believed he was doing it for the sake of his country.

Thank you for your opinion. However, in my opinion, I disagree.


Why do you say that one sin will be judged more harshly than another?

I have four reasons for believing that sins will be punished according to varying degrees.

1) Biblically, heavenly rewards are proportionate to one's goodness...Some will receive 'crowns'; Those who are first here will be last. Therefore, this supplies me with good reason to think that hellish punishment will also be metered out in degrees, (levels, not Fahrenheit!).

2) The Biblical God is described as 'just' and a 'just' god, in my opinion, would not ascribe the same punishment to those who are guilty of minor infractions as He would to those who revel in their sins.

3) Extending the concept of 'fairness' to Hell, I believe that it is the condition of one's own mind that creates its own Hell when faced with the prospect of eternity. Since all minds, or souls if you will, differ, they would also differ in their capacity to create their own hell.

4) On earth as it is in heaven...I believe that man's justice attempts to mimic divine justice. The punishment that we give out to 'criminals' on earth is not the same across the board. One does not receive a life sentence for littering. Therefore, the view that hell will punish people according to their sin reflects reality as I know it.



Does God not abhor all sin? Are some sins less heinous than others, in God's judgement? (Humans judge some acts as less heinous than others, but we are not God)

Yes, God abhors all sin; This establishes our position with Him. We are all guilty, every one of us. Because of our guilt, we need to seek forgiveness. Are some sins less heinous? I will say that some sins are described in stronger language than others :cool:



As for your claiming that we can only guess and speculate about what consitutes and immoral act, I am happy to state that I believe torturing children for fun is an immoral act.

On what basis do you state this? Can you objectively and logically prove to me that torturing children for fun is an immoral act without appealing to an emotional argument? How could you objectively convince a sadist that his acts against children were wrong?

Of course, I am in agreement with you that torturing children for fun is wrong. What about torturing adults for fun? Is that also morally wrong? The Khmer Rouge apparently thought that torture was just.

Without a higher authority than ourselves, and with no objective, absolute morality, you will be hard pressed to convince a sadist that your subjective opinions of right and wrong are preferable over his own.



You may say that you can only speculate that that is immoral, but I think you can actually say with confidence that , deep down, you know that is wrong.

Yes, deep down in ME I know that it is wrong. But logically I can't hold another to my own experience. There are sadists who torture others and who have no regrets, no conscience. And while it may be convenient for us to pretend that 'way down deep inside' they knew that their acts were wrong, we would have to go against evidence of their own written accounts describing their lack of conscience and dismiss them all as liars.



The Amalekites were not going to suffer because of their sin - they were dead.

Only when God restores them to life will they suffer.

You have taken the argument out of its original context. We were discussing if taking a life was an immoral act for God. Now we are discussing the morality of Hell, which I will gladly address, if you so desire.

[Hired Gun]

By definition , God's opinion on what is moral is just an opinion.

If opinions are subjective, then God's opinion is subjective.

An appeal to authority, although always a fallacy when the area of expertise is being questioned, does carry more weight when the authority is authentic. I would think that the Christian god, who is the maker of all things, and who closely associates Himself with the establishment of morality (giving the 10 commandments, etc.) would be qualified as an authentic authority on morality. Thusly, if His opinion were purely subjective, although given His nature, I would say that God does not have an 'opinion' because He is the objective standard, His opinion would carry more weight than any man's.

Applying your reasoning to another example,

By definition, a doctor's opinion on what is proper treatment for a heart condition is just an opinion. If opinions are subjective, then the doctor's opinion is subjective. However, I doubt that Aunt Mary's heart remedy of drinking cocoa spiked with liquor would be taken over that of a qualified cardiologist.



How do we know God is good?

God says so.

How do we know that what God says is objective?

Because God said so.......

This is circular reasoning.

It can be hard to see why the morality of God is objectively good.

Tautologies are, by definition, circular.



2 Samuel 6:6-7 When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.

Was it objectively good to kill Uzzah when he steadied the Ark to stop it falling when the oxen stumbled?

I'm not the one here claiming that morality can be objectively proven.

[Undomiel]

What a great conversation. I am especially enjoying how the two of you are discussing these difficult concepts without the need for ad hominems.

If I may interject, I believe the human race would not be able to distinguish right from wrong were we left to our own devices initially. Our planet would resemble a simplistic and significantly less organized macro version of "Lord of the Flies." The best we could hope to achieve is the knowledge that hurting someone may result in getting hurt yourself. That eating food makes one feel better. That jumping off a cliff could result in broken bones or worse. The animal kingdom has a certain set of social laws preprogrammed into it that humans don't. We are socially, blank slates. The only things we do naturally from birth are eat, cry, coo, wiggle, and expel byproducts. Our formation and successful co-habitation requires the input of moral codes from our parents. Our parents learned these codes from their parents or other adults. This human learning cycle has an origin. We are not pre-programmed. Some call this free will.

Just thought I'd toss that in for the sake of conversation.

[Hired Gun]

Should we ask ourselves which person is responsible for the most deaths? That is an objective measure - it is a number and we can say that one number really is bigger or smaller than another. There would be nothing subjective about that.

This is a non-sequitur.



Which aspect of objective reality , in your subjective opinion, should we measure their purpose against? There are many measures of objective reality. Simply measuring their purpose against objective reality is still totally subjective, as you have to choose which measure of objective reality you wish to use as a yardstick.

I'm not sure that I follow. However, the point is that moral relativism provides no yardstick at all.




HIRED GUN
If God made Himself visible to you (we're talkin' GOD here, the creator of the universe!) and told you, "Alien, it is your objective purpose in life to succeed in the field of bio-chemistry because one day, your work will enable another to prevent the loss of many lives," wouldn't you consider that revealed objective purpose more meaningful than your own thoughts of "This experiment isn't going very well. I could have an equally meaningful life as a janitor."

CARR
Why would that be objective? Because God is powerful and might makes right? Because God knows more than us, and cleverer people are more morally right than ignorant people?

It would be objective because only the designer of a life is in a position to objectively know the purpose of the life that it creates. God, by definition, does know more than us, and has created us for a specific purpose.

A person who has not had exposure to laboratory instrumentation can only speculate as to the purpose of the instruments he is looking at. He can only know the objective purpose of a gas chromatograph when he is told by another who knows its objective purpose.



Why would Alien not be able to work out on his own that succeeding in the field of bio-chemistry would help another to prevent the loss of many lives, and that saving lifes is a good thing?

He may indeed arrive at that conclusion, but setting up an objective for oneself is not the same as being able to declare that one's life has an objective purpose. An objective task, or a series of objective tasks, no matter how 'important' society may label them, do not necessarily reveal the objective purpose of our life. For example, the majority of people on earth have either set objective tasks for themselves, or have objective tasks set for them by others. There is no doubt that a person who works for McDonald's is there for the objective purpose of flipping burgers. Is this the purpose of their life? Is the objective answer, 'flipping burgers', the answer to The Big Question, "Why Am I Here? What Is The Purpose of My Life?"



Suppose God said 'Alien , it is your objective purpose in life to kill this tribe of people because I say they are wicked', would Alien then feel morally obliged to kill people?


I can't speak for Alien, but I can speak for myself. If the God that I so powerfully 'feel' (use perceive if you think that 'feel' can only define emotion) would objectively reveal Himself along with that truth to me, yes I would kill.

[Hired Gun]

Why do you not know whether the US soldiers were obeying God's orders when they bombed Hiroshima?

You are the one who boasts that you can tell what is objectively morally right, and when I ask a question , you say 'I don't know'.

What happened to your objective morality? Can something be morally right if it is not in line with God's commands? Was the bombing of Hiroshima in line with God's commands?

You have woefully misunderstood me. You are the one who is arguing as if morality can be objectively proven. I stated very early on that morality is relative and that Christianity bypasses this problem by allowing for a positioning of absolute righteousness, for which God, in the context of His divine personality, serves as an objective moral standard. I can only tell you what I subjectively think is right, just as you can only subjectively tell me what you think is morally right. The difference in our subjective opinions is that I base mine on the desire to honor and please the personality of the god I know.

You ask me if the soldiers were obeying God's orders. You are asking me to relay the truth concerning an experience of others. I was not among these men. I didn't hear God give them the order. Logically explain to me how I am to know information of perception that was delivered to others.

[Hired Gun]

What a great conversation. I am especially enjoying how the two of you are discussing these difficult concepts without the need for ad hominems.


I'm enjoying it, also. The sound of steel sharpening steel is music to my ears!
:huh: :whip:

I never insult those who provoke me to think with more depth.

And I agree with the rest of your post.

[Vorkosigan]

I'm not sure that I follow. However, the point is that moral relativism provides no yardstick at all.

Incorrect. Relativist ethics provide all the yardsticks needed. What they don't provide, however, is some basis to compel others to accept our ethical claims. Generally, people who argue for objective ethics argue that one facet of them is that they are binding on all. Relativists generally do not make that argument.

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 10:55 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=107237#post107237)
Vorkosigan:

I'm not sure that I follow. However, the point is that moral relativism provides no yardstick at all.

Incorrect. Relativist ethics provide all the yardsticks needed. What they don't provide, however, is some basis to compel others to accept our ethical claims. Generally, people who argue for objective ethics argue that one facet of them is that they are binding on all. Relativists generally do not make that argument.

Agreement of opinion is nothing more than an ad populum fallacy. Any 'yardstick' you may have for morality is subjective and therefore can't be considered to be a yardstick, which is an objective standard.

[Vorkosigan]

Agreement of opinion is nothing more than an ad populum fallacy.

No, you've missed the point. Subjectivists do have yardsticks. They aren't the same as yours. Or rather, they are as subjective as yours, they just don't attempt the rhetorical aggrandizement of calling them "objective."

For the subjectivist, morals must be negotiated; for the "absolutist" the point of the sword is OK. The issue is not "agreement of opinion" but how subjectivists solve moral conflict. Absolutists like Christians, Communists, Nazis, Facists, Nationalists, Muslims, and other authoritarians solve them by suppressing differing opinions. The "objective" claim is pure rhetoric, designed to provide a basis for enforcing their particular subjective moral claims on the minds and bodies of others.


Any 'yardstick' you may have for morality is subjective and therefore can't be considered to be a yardstick, which is an objective standard.

Moral standards may be subjective or "objective" but they remain moral standards. You may or may not accept them; but all you do is demonstrate the subjectivity of ethics when rejecting the ethics of others.

Vorkosigan

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 09:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=107656#post107656)
Vorkosigan:



No, you've missed the point. Subjectivists do have yardsticks. They aren't the same as yours. Or rather, they are as subjective as yours, they just don't attempt the rhetorical aggrandizement of calling them "objective."

For the subjectivist, morals must be negotiated; for the "absolutist" the point of the sword is OK.

issue is not "agreement of opinion" but how subjectivists solve moral conflict. Absolutists like Christians, Communists, Nazis, Facists, Nationalists, Muslims, and other authoritarians solve them by suppressing differing opinions. The "objective" claim is pure rhetoric, designed to provide a basis for enforcing their particular subjective moral claims on the minds and bodies of others.

Moral standards may be subjective or "objective" but they remain moral standards. You may or may not accept them; but all you do is demonstrate the subjectivity of ethics when rejecting the ethics of others.


Vorkosigan

Summary: According to you, there is no objective basis for determining right or wrong. Note, we are speaking of an objective vs subjective BASIS for determining morality, not morality itself.

A relative ethicist simply has no ground on which to stand. You criticise that an objective claim is [flame deleted] designed to provide a basis for enforcing 'their' particular subjective moral claims on the minds and bodies of others. Enforcing moral claims upon others translates into our modern justice system as we know it. When we incarcerate a person for homicide, we (who are 'we'?) are forcing 'our' moral belief that murder is wrong on the mind and body of the killer. Yet you have just implied that this is somehow wrong, according to your ethical relativism. If punishment results in inflicting one's subjective morality upon another, then how can your 'yardstick' provide any basis for justice? If inflicting one's subjective morality upon another in the form of punishment can be right, wouldn't that contradict your above statement that forcing one's subjective morals upon others is wrong?



As far as 'suppressing differing opinions', do you mean like how the ACLU and the laws work together to prevent school teachers from wearing crosses, and allow only evolution and not creationism to be taught in the schools and how some private companies attempt to stop employees from sharing the truth about God as they know it, and how public schools won't permit a speaking valedictorian to give credit for his success to the God in which he believes, and how college professors openly ridicule and intimidate their young Christian students' faith, effectively ending their willingness to open their mouths about that faith?

Do you really think that any group of people, no matter what that group may stand for, is above suppressing the opinions of others?

[prgmrdave]

Today @ 06:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=107656#post107656)
Vorkosigan:

No, you've missed the point. Subjectivists do have yardsticks. They aren't the same as yours. Or rather, they are as subjective as yours, they just don't attempt the rhetorical aggrandizement of calling them "objective."

Y'know, Hired Gun has not claimed here that there is any such thing as an "objective" moral "yardstick:"


05-23-2003 @ 11:32 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=105783#post105783)
Hired Gun:We can only guess and speculate using our own reasoning as to what constitutes a moral or immoral act.

What he has referred to as objective is reality and purpose, neither of which are the same thing as morality.


Vorkosigan:

For the subjectivist, morals must be negotiated; for the "absolutist" the point of the sword is OK.

I think that it is painting with an overly broad brush to say that merely because one has come to the conclusion that there is a moral standard to be lived to that is outside of humanity, that one automatically therefore goes about attempting to compel by force others to live to that moral standard.


The issue is not "agreement of opinion" but how subjectivists solve moral conflict.

By "negotiating" morals, subjectivists solve moral conflict either by agreement of opinion or consensus of opinion. Absolutists can have moral conflicts, too, over which absolute set of morals to use as a standard. No, the difference is not in how moral conflict is solved, but in where the standard lies: internally, for subjectivists, and externally, for absolutists.


Absolutists like Christians, Communists, Nazis, Facists, Nationalists, Muslims, and other authoritarians solve them by suppressing differing opinions.

Absolutism does not suppress differing opinions (implying the compulsion not to differ), it disregards differing opinions (implying that the other opinions simply do not matter). Granted, some absolutists on your list have so used force, but not all.


The "objective" claim is pure rhetoric, designed to provide a basis for enforcing their particular subjective moral claims on the minds and bodies of others.

Yes, history is replete with examples of this behavior, but such enforcement is not the sole province of absolutists, nor are all absolutists guilty of it.


Moral standards may be subjective or "objective" but they remain moral standards. You may or may not accept them; but all you do is demonstrate the subjectivity of ethics when rejecting the ethics of others.

Vorkosigan

The difference between subjectivity and objectivity boils down to whether the point or frame of reference is within or without. If a group subscribes to a standard (moral or otherwise) that has been defined outside the group, the standard is objective to that group, not subjective. If I, as an ordinary citizen, reject another's ethic that it is allowable to exceed the speed limit, I am not being subjective in the matter, because the moral standard has been created externally to me. I surely make a subjective decision whether or not to adhere to the standard, but that does not make the standard itself subjective.

Redirecting, the original point being made was not whether there are or are not objective/absolute moral standards, but whether our lives can or can not (do or do not) have objective purpose.

[Vorkosigan]

Y'know, Hired Gun has not claimed here that there is any such thing as an "objective" moral "yardstick:"

Y'know, implicitly he did, when he claimed that moral relativism provides no yardstick at all.

What he has referred to as objective is reality and purpose, neither of which are the same thing as morality.

Hired Gun:
I stated very early on that morality is relative and that Christianity bypasses this problem by allowing for a positioning of absolute righteousness, for which God, in the context of His divine personality, serves as an objective moral standard.

You'll pardon me for thinking that when Hired Gun said God was an objective moral standard, he meant God was an objective moral standard.

I think that it is painting with an overly broad brush to say that merely because one has come to the conclusion that there is a moral standard to be lived to that is outside of humanity, that one automatically therefore goes about attempting to compel by force others to live to that moral standard.

Didn't say that. But relativists are notorious for not going around committing wholesale authoritarian crimes, unlike absolutists. Far too many absolutists feel that they can run around forcing their ideas on others.

y "negotiating" morals, subjectivists solve moral conflict either by agreement of opinion or consensus of opinion. Absolutists can have moral conflicts, too, over which absolute set of morals to use as a standard. No, the difference is not in how moral conflict is solved, but in where the standard lies: internally, for subjectivists, and externally, for absolutists.

No, the standard is internal, for all. The difference is in the solution process. Absolutists often consider that their possession of a moral system with a transcendent seal of approval entails the ability to enforce their system of thought upon others. Thus, absolutists feel justified in cutting short the negotiation process, and often make only token attempts to live with other groups. This is the difficulty we subjectivists have in attempting to live with absolutists: their constant short-circuiting of the negotiations process.

Absolutism does not suppress differing opinions (implying the compulsion not to differ), it disregards differing opinions (implying that the other opinions simply do not matter). Granted, some absolutists on your list have so used force, but not all.

Thanks at least for acknowledging that. The sad fact is that absolutists disregard differing opinions where some outside power compels them to. However, when they come to power, out comes the re-education camps, the book banning, etc, etc. It is impotence, not lack of desire, that turns suppression into indifference. Do you know of any Communist, Facist, theocratic or Nazi states in which there is freedom of thought, speech, and religion?

Yes, history is replete with examples of this behavior, but such enforcement is not the sole province of absolutists, nor are all absolutists guilty of it.

Quite true. But the tendency and preponderance is there, much more so than us tolerant and easygoing relativists.

The difference between subjectivity and objectivity boils down to whether the point or frame of reference is within or without. If a group subscribes to a standard (moral or otherwise) that has been defined outside the group, the standard is objective to that group, not subjective.

The standard always lies within the group. The issue is how the standard is framed to outsiders, and to the group itself. Claim of a transcendant ethical standard is generally a rhetorical trick designed to short-circuit discussion and get the group to accept some individual's mode of behavior and thought as its own. In other words, it is simply will-to-power.

If I, as an ordinary citizen, reject another's ethic that it is allowable to exceed the speed limit, I am not being subjective in the matter, because the moral standard has been created externally to me.

No, it has not. Remember the democratic process? The speed limit is set by elected officials whom we negotiate over through the ballot box and other channels.

I surely make a subjective decision whether or not to adhere to the standard, but that does not make the standard itself subjective.

The standard does not become less subjective for having someone outside me set it. All you have done is decided that your subjective moral position is to accept the subjectivity of others as ethically binding on yourself. In other words, that you will cease to function as an independent ethical entity for the duration of this decision. I will leave it to the happy lurkers to work out the consequences of that decision.....that is why, in freethought, there is so much emphasis on the thinking self....and why Protestants, having eliminated the Pope, immediately set about recreating him by the thousands in every local church.

Redirecting, the original point being made was not whether there are or are not objective/absolute moral standards, but whether our lives can or can not (do or do not) have objective purpose

If they do, it hasn't been demonstrated.

Vorkosigan

[Hired Gun]

You don't appear to be so easy-going and tolerant over at infidels.org. :hrm:

I'm not sure how those seeking justice would appreciate an 'easy-going and tolerant' justice system. I think that such a justice system would have to be somewhat hypocritical to function, or ineffective if it attempted to function at all. I will go so far as to say that moral relativism is a smoke screen, designed to disguise the same system of justice we presently have as something better, while discarding the offensive concept of God and redefining certain morals that a select group of individuals wants redefined.

Your statement concerning freedoms in absolutist countries - Regardless of the claims of Christians that America was founded on Christian principles, the majority of our nation's founders more resembled absolutists than relativists. I don't think that it is fair or even intellectually honest for proponents of a very young and recent philosophy to attempt to lay claim to the freedom's that were established by the very people that they oppose. Also, being a relatively new philosophy, moral relativism hasn't yet acquired the seat of power. It is very easy to condemn others of abusing power when one hasn't possessed power. People being what they are, that being all the same, no matter the labels they choose to apply to themselves, if moral relativists ever gain political power, I doubt that they will be any different in their actions than those they now condemn.

In any case, I shall butt out because I haven't the time to begin answering or commenting on anything that isn't directly aimed at me, even if it concerns my words.

[Korihor]

Yesterday, I wrote an email to Hired Gun. He wrote back, asking that I take the discussion over to the TheologyWeb. I wasn't aware that he was posting here. :smile: I made a copy of this email over at Infidels too, if some desire to get involved in the discussion there:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54401

Anyways, here's what I wrote:



Hello,

I was just browsing through your website and looked through some of your articles. I just had some questions and comments. :-)

First, to let you know about myself, I am an atheist or agnostic and would consider myself a humanist as well. Right now I'm a 31 year old student who hopes to become a high school math teacher some day. I was raised in the Anglican church, and was not really commited that religiously overall. It was during my university years where I discarded my faith. I don't take on the stereotype of the 'Madalyn Murray O'Hair' religion bashing heathen who seeks to demean or attack Christians or whoever else might have a different worldview. I used to have some good Mormon friends, and a current friend of mine is an evangelical Christian. When I converse with Christians, it's not my desire to sway them or whatever. I don't care if someone else is a theist or not -- only if they're a good person. I just find exchanging or debating metaphysical views in a calm and rational matter interesting. I might add that the 'Madalyn Murray O'Hairs", or worse, can be found from the Christian side too.

As for my questions, I was just curious about how you viewed evolution. From the gist of what I've read so far, I would guess that you're either a YEC or OEC (forgive me if I'm making unwarranted assumptions). What particular view do you take? What's your view on evangelical Christians that accept evolution? (e.g. like Denis Lamoureux, Glenn Morton, and Keith Miller).

I was also curious about how you viewed people that have gone in the absolute opposite direction that you have taken. A good example would be Robert Price, who was a former evangelical apologist:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/humanist.html

I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but there's also a good book called "Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists" by Ed Babinski. I've read other 'deconversion' testimonies and they usually seem pretty sincere. They, along with Price, were good, honest people who were determined seekers of the truth and they just changed their minds about evangelical Christianity.

I noticed one thing in your testimony that touches on what I feel are one of the strongest objections that would prevent me from accepting evangelical Christianity. You stated the following:

"Every time I found fault with its god, I ended up finding a fault of my own. What was I doing when I condemned this god for commanding Moses to kill? Was I arrogantly making my morality superior to that of the being who allegedly authored all of morality?"

The problem I have with this view is that it confers a "might makes right" moral attribute to God. It's like that old dilemna -- does God command actions because they are right, or are actions right because God commands them? If we cannot condemn any atrocious behaviour by God, then what does "good" mean? Is goodness defined by who has the biggest stick? In effect, if God commanded that torturing and molesting toddlers was "good" then that would make the action "good." If you were to say that God would never command that because it's against his nature, then you would be implying a level of morality that's independent of God.

Here's another thing that I find perplexing. Let's take Deut. 25:11-12.

"If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity."

You're probably aware of C.S. Lewis's argument that each human being has a sense of right and wrong, and thus a conscience. Why is that this very essence that you think God made in each of us is telling me... (no, screaming at me!)... that actions prescribed in this verse are utterly cruel and monstrous? As a Christian, you are required to accept a rule like that as a form of divine justice, regardless if you think Jesus 'fulfilled the Law' and is no longer binding. Why is that my conscience, that is supposedly derived from God, will prevent me from ever accepting Deut. 25:11-12 as a 'righteous' thing to do? Also, forgive me if it sounds like I'm asking a rhetorical question, but if you were put in back in time as an Israelite, would you really amputate the poor woman's hand and "show no pity"?

There are plenty of other passages like that in the OT that give me the same revulsion. When I look at the big picture, it just makes far, far more sense to me that the OT laws were simply a product of an ancient barbaric superstitious culture rather than the wisdom of a universe spanding omnibenevolent deity that sought to micromanage a tribe of desert nomads' social affairs. God becomes a petty vindictive deity like the role one would take in the PC game "Black and White."

Anyways, these are just some of my thoughts and I imagine you had similar views when you thought these issues through too. When I get some time, I might look at some of your reading suggestions (even Tektonic's J.P. "no link" Holding ;-). I'm no Bertrand Russell or William Craig intellectually, but I would like to think I'm an honest seeker of the truth and am willing to change my beliefs even if I won't like the truth.

Take care,

Jason

[Hired Gun]

Korihor:[/i]

Yesterday, I wrote an email to Hired Gun. He wrote back, asking that I take the discussion over to the TheologyWeb. I wasn't aware that he was posting here. :smile: I made a copy of this email over at Infidels too, if some desire to get involved in the discussion there:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54401

Anyways, here's what I wrote:


As for my questions, I was just curious about how you viewed evolution. What's your view on evangelical Christians that
accept evolution?

When I first made the decision to believe in Jesus Christ as God, and God as a reality, I was still an evolutionist. The issue of evolution had nothing to do with the truths that I saw that led to my belief. Because of this, I feel that the subject of evolution is totally irrelevant to the subject of my faith. In my opinion, it is illogical for an atheist to apply Occam's razor and claim that God is an unnecessary hypothesis on the grounds that 'nature' contains everything necessary to allow men to evolve from lower forms when the Being in question is credited with creating nature and the properties that formed that nature. I don't believe in a supernatural god. I believe in a god that we are yet unable to explain.

I believe in ID only because I believe in God. I am not saying that ID cannot stand alone, apart from religion, in its theory, but that to believe in a Creator is to believe in life that is intentionally designed. If that life was intentionally produced through the 'design' of evolution, then I can accept that. However, evolution always has had its share of problems and perhaps ID will help to resolve those problems.



I was also curious about how you viewed people that have gone in the
absolute opposite direction that you have taken.

Belief and non-belief in God is such a personal thing that I can't begin to make a blanket statement.



I noticed one thing in your testimony that touches on what I feel are one
of the strongest objections that would prevent me from accepting evangelical
Christianity. You stated the following:

"Every time I found fault with its god, I ended up finding a fault of my
own. What was I doing when I condemned this god for commanding Moses to
kill? Was I arrogantly making my morality superior to that of the being who
allegedly authored all of morality?"

The problem I have with this view is that it confers a "might makes
right" moral attribute to God.

I never thought that it was God's power that made Him right. I simply recognized that moral relativism didn't provide me with any basis to logically prove Him wrong.



It's like that old dilemna -- does God
command actions because they are right, or are actions right because God
commands them?


This is called the Euthyphro Dilemma. For an excellent critique, see http://www.theism.net/article/29.



If we cannot condemn any atrocious behaviour by God, then
what does "good" mean?

Can a moral relativist condemn any behaviour at all, without becoming an absolutist?



Is goodness defined by who has the biggest stick? In
effect, if God commanded that torturing and molesting toddlers was "good"
then that would make the action "good."
If you were to say that God would
never command that because it's against his nature, then you would be
implying a level of morality that's independent of God.

I would say that it would be against His nature but I don't hold to the belief that everyone's morality is dependent upon God.



Here's another thing that I find perplexing. Let's take Deut. 25:11-12.

If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes
to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and
seizing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity."

You're probably aware of C.S. Lewis's argument that each human being has
a sense of right and wrong, and thus a conscience. Why is that this very
essence that you think God made in each of us is telling me... (no,
screaming at me!)... that actions prescribed in this verse are utterly cruel
and monstrous?

I disagree that God has given us a conscience. I believe that God has supplied us with the hardware for having a conscience, but that its performance depends on the software that is loaded into it. I think that it is more than a bit naive, and somewhat ego-centric, to think that we are so right minded that we consider ourselves to be above the cultural, and circumstantial influences that shape our conscience.

Is it right for a woman to squeeze a man's genitals in the above situation? I would say that the woman is in the wrong, but I live in a society that would consider such an act to be a minor infraction. Also, one has to wonder how many times something like this ever happened and one would also have to question the sanity/intelligence of a woman who would let her hand go anywhere near the genitals of another man, knowing that it would mean the loss of that hand. 3500 years ago, given the status of women and sexual conservatism, I'm sure that this type of behaviour would be considered particularly revolting. So in your subjective opinion, you find the punishment outrageously harsh. But you live in a culture where the average time served for homicide is eight years in a facility that provides reasonable comfort to its inmates. If Moses saw how we treat our modern day criminals, I'm sure that he would probably think that we were doing an injustice to the victim.

Now you may say that I am defending an 'atrocity', but put yourself in the shoes of those whom you condemn. If militant vergetarians manage to sway some part of the popular culture to their agenda, 100 years from now, you may find that you are being viewed as a carnivorous barbarian. They will find that photo of you tearing into a chicken leg at a Memorial Day picnic and say, "They slaughtered thousands of these precious feathered lives and ate them because they tasted good. I don't know about you, but I find this man's actions cruel and monsterous."



As a Christian, you are required to accept a rule like that
as a form of divine justice, regardless if you think Jesus 'fulfilled the
Law' and is no longer binding.

Yes, and I do.



Why is that my conscience, that is supposedly
derived from God, will prevent me from ever accepting Deut. 25:11-12 as a
'righteous' thing to do?

Let's clarify something first...'as a 'righteous' thing to have done', not 'do', because in the culture in which we now find ourselves, this wouldn't be appropriate. I think that we are in agreement, but it never hurts to make things clear.

I don't think that it's your conscience that's preventing you from accepting this as righteousness. I think that it is your inability to intellectually grasp the influence that culture has on one's conscience that is prohibiting you from seeing this act from another perspective. I also think that you believe yourself to be a superior moral being to the likes of those ancient, hand amputating Israelites, just as the militant vegetarian considers himself to be a far more superior moral being than you, given that you are not one already.



Also, forgive me if it sounds like I'm asking a
rhetorical question, but if you were put in back in time as an Israelite,
would you really amputate the poor woman's hand and "show no pity"?

In 2003, would you, do you, eat chicken?



There are plenty of other passages like that in the OT that give me the
same revulsion. When I look at the big picture, it just makes far, far more
sense to me that the OT laws were simply a product of an ancient barbaric
superstitious culture rather than the wisdom of a universe spanding
omnibenevolent deity that sought to micromanage a tribe of desert nomads'
social affairs.

Taken as isolated fragments, I know very well that these passages can indeed be viewed as such. But taken in the context of the Bible's entirety, I see a totally different picture taking shape.




God becomes a petty vindictive deity like the role one would
take in the PC game "Black and White."

I'm two months away from 40. I've no idea of that which you speak.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Excellent post!!

[Korihor]

Yesterday @ 09:04 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=108559#post108559)
Hired Gun:
I never thought that it was God's power that made Him right. I simply recognized that moral relativism didn't provide me with any basis to logically prove Him wrong.


Hi HG.

Thank you for your thoughtful and clever response. Here are my thoughts concerning your reply.

To me, I try to base morality on what we can see objectively. Simply, actions that are harmful to human survival are wrong, and actions that are beneficial are morally right. In a sense, I suppose this could be seen as 'absolutist' but not in a cosmic black and white sense. It often depends on the situation, and this is where relativism and situational ethics comes in.



This is called the Euthyphro Dilemma. For an excellent critique, see http://www.theism.net/article/29.


I'm afraid your link didn't work. Maybe the server's busy?


Can a moral relativist condemn any behaviour at all, without becoming an absolutist?

Kai Nielsen, who debated William Craig on morality and ethics had these comments which sum up my position as well:

"Suppose they say, "We don’t see anything wrong with suffering. We don’t see anything wrong with pain or human degradation." If they say that, then, as Wittgenstein said, I couldn’t "find my feet" with such people. It would be like people in science who said they wouldn’t pay attention to a properly-conducted experiment. If you've really got people who said that, there would be nothing you could say to them. But this would be equally true for the believer. You’ve got people who are entirely out of the moral ballgame, as we understand it. There is not way of reasoning with them."
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/craig-nielsen4.html



Is it right for a woman to squeeze a man's genitals in the above situation? I would say that the woman is in the wrong, but I live in a society that would consider such an act to be a minor infraction. Also, one has to wonder how many times something like this ever happened and one would also have to question the sanity/intelligence of a woman who would let her hand go anywhere near the genitals of another man, knowing that it would mean the loss of that hand. 3500 years ago, given the status of women and sexual conservatism, I'm sure that this type of behaviour would be considered particularly revolting. So in your subjective opinion, you find the punishment outrageously harsh. But you live in a culture where the average time served for homicide is eight years in a facility that provides reasonable comfort to its inmates. If Moses saw how we treat our modern day criminals, I'm sure that he would probably think that we were doing an injustice to the victim.


Regardless of a 'cultural context', I cannot see how it can justify actions that are obviously needless cruelty. You claim to reject moral relativism, but it seems almost as if you are taking that position. For example, it's morally wrong to chop off women's hands if they grab men's genitals in fights, but it's okay to do it in ancient Israel. It's bad to stone someone to death for adultery, working on the Sabbath, or not being a virgin on one's wedding night, but it was okay back then. In war, it's bad to commit genocide, but it was okay back in Moses' days... etc.... It just seems like to me that anything can be justified as long as God commands it. Morality just seems relative to one's religious interpretations of God's commands.



Now you may say that I am defending an 'atrocity', but put yourself in the shoes of those whom you condemn. If militant vergetarians manage to sway some part of the popular culture to their agenda, 100 years from now, you may find that you are being viewed as a carnivorous barbarian.

[snip]

I don't think that it's your conscience that's preventing you from accepting this as righteousness. I think that it is your inability to intellectually grasp the influence that culture has on one's conscience that is prohibiting you from seeing this act from another perspective. I also think that you believe yourself to be a superior moral being to the likes of those ancient, hand amputating Israelites, just as the militant vegetarian considers himself to be a far more superior moral being than you, given that you are not one already.


In a way, I have tried to put my shoes in an ancient Israelite. I imagine myself as a person holding an axe who's about to chop off a woman's hand while trying to "show no pity." I imagine myself with an army in bloodlust marauding through an Amalekite village hacking up frightened children and infants with swords and spears. I imagine myself hurling stones with a mob at a young woman who was found that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night.

Yes, it is my conscience that screams against stuff like this, not an "intellectual inability." Coming from a humanist perspective, I believe in the intrinsic value of human life. I feel empathy for people who are submitted to cruelty and suffering regardless of what 'cultural context' it takes place in.

I don't mean to sound offensive, but this is probably the greatest concern I have towards religious fundamentalism. I've known evangelical Christians who are honourable decent people whom I respect immensely. But the fact that they can somehow justify cruelty and murder as long as it was commanded by God, frankly scares the crap out of me sometimes. :eek: I might add that there are Christians today who would like to apply OT laws to modern day. Perhaps you've heard of the 'Christian Reconstructionist' movement.


I'm two months away from 40. I've no idea of that which you speak.

"Black and White" is a PC game where you take the role of a deity, and through a carrot or stick, try to get a population to worship you.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/blackwhite/review.html

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 09:50 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=108866#post108866)
Korihor:



Hi HG.

Thank you for your thoughtful and clever response. Here are my thoughts concerning your reply.

To me, I try to base morality on what we can see objectively. Simply, actions that are harmful to human survival are wrong, and actions that are beneficial are morally right. In a sense, I suppose this could be seen as 'absolutist' but not in a cosmic black and white sense. It often depends on the situation, and this is where relativism and situational ethics comes in.

First of all, actions which are harmful or beneficial to human survival aren't always obvious and, therefore, their determination is usually based on subjective opinion; these actions
cannot be 'seen objectively'.

Secondly, we would need to define 'human survival'. Are you referring to the survival of the species as a whole? Or groups within the species? Or individuals?

I can logically justify some very 'atrocious' actions using the criteria that you have just used as a basis for morality. For example, the Nazis considered the Jews to be an inferior race that had to be exterminated for the greater good of mankind. There is documentation of Eskimoes abandoning their elderly and young family members, leaving them to the elements, in order to ensure the survival of the members who could contribute the most capture of food. The survival of the weak was not 'beneficial' to the family as a whole, and therefore the elimination of these weak members was not seen as unethical. Ask that Israelite why he thought it proper to chop off the hand of a testicle-grabbing woman and he would most likely tell you that, in his opinion, to allow a woman to show a man that much disrespect would be harmful to the infra-structure of their society.

Thirdly, situational ethics would have to take into account the weighting of the harmful actions in order to declare appropriate punishment. This weighting would always be a matter of opinion.

The basis of morality that you quote is a matter of one's perspective and isn't absolutist in any sense, even in the 'cosmic' sense, whatever that is.



Kai Nielsen, who debated William Craig on morality and ethics had these comments which sum up my position as well:

"Suppose they say, "We don’t see anything wrong with suffering. We don’t see anything wrong with pain or human degradation." If they say that, then, as Wittgenstein said, I couldn’t "find my feet" with such people. It would be like people in science who said they wouldn’t pay attention to a properly-conducted experiment.

HA!!!! Oh my goodness! This guy is saying that people are UNREASONABLE because they don't believe what he believes and then he has the audacity to compare his 2 cent opinion to a 'properly-conducted' experiment! At least this concept is something that bio-ethicist Peter Singer, and other philosophical atheist big guns, like Nietzsche, have been able to grasp.

Ironically, Nielsen is implying that people who don't see anything wrong with suffering, pain or human degradation are abnormal. But the label of 'abnormal' is also relative. Homosexuals were considered to be abnormal less than 20 years ago. This is how psychology tagged them. Perhaps what society calls abnormal today will be considered perfectly acceptable tomorrow. Who knows? It's all relative.



If you've really got people who said that, there would be nothing you could say to them. But this would be equally true for the believer. You’ve got people who are entirely out of the moral ballgame, as we understand it. There is not way of reasoning with them."
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/craig-nielsen4.html

I certainly can't argue over that with which I agree.



Regardless of a 'cultural context', I cannot see how it can justify actions that are obviously needless cruelty.

'Needless' is a matter of opinion. How harsh must a penalty be in order to keep members of a society from doing something harmful to the survival of society as a whole?



You claim to reject moral relativism, but it seems almost as if you are taking that position. For example, it's morally wrong to chop off women's hands if they grab men's genitals in fights, but it's okay to do it in ancient Israel. It's bad to stone someone to death for adultery, working on the Sabbath, or not being a virgin on one's wedding night, but it was okay back then. In war, it's bad to commit genocide, but it was okay back in Moses' days... etc....

Every bit of evidence that we have points to the validity of moral relativism in human practice. The majority of men, in their circumstance, believe that what they do is right; that is why they do it. The members of Al-Queida who flew planes into the Towers didn't think that they were doing wrong; in fact, they were doing what they considered right and necessary.

However, in realizing that morality is relative and, therefore, subjective, one must conclude that morality can only have a subjective reality. There simply isn't any evidence that would lead us to believe in an objective moral reality, other than the fact that we as individuals 'feel' that our own opinions are somehow more right than the opinions of others. When we give our subjective opinions concerning that which can only have a subjective reality, what are those opinions really worth? We find ourselves desperately scratching at an illusion that we must deceptively maintain in order to preserve our justice system and maintain the 'order' of our society.

If we are interested in truth and not persisting in an illusion simply because of the negative consequences of rejecting that illusion, we have to admit that there really is no right or wrong. And if no real standard of right and wrong exists, then why bother to try and find it and exert energy trying to convince others that your morality is superior to theirs? Wouldn't that be the equivalent of chasing a rainbow? In fact, trying to legislate morality (making laws) would simply become a selfish, egotistical indulgence of those who are in the position to do so.

Once we have become enlightened to the nature of non-existant morality, logically we should become apathetic to both 'right' and 'wrong' doings. When we watch the evening news, we would receive the facts of violence with the same non-reaction to acts of kindness. There could be no more crime because we would have no basis to judge any action as wrong; no more heroism, because no act could be judged as right.

Don't tell me this couldn't possibly happen because it happened to me and it is happening in our children. Knowledge of the truth about the nature of morality is creating a slacker generation of liquid moralists (liars) who have little regard for truth because they don't believe it exists. We are witnessing the beginning of the destruction of the conscience. (In my humble, unsupported and subjective opinion)

What is the solution to the problem of moral apathy, which I would consider to be a greater threat to human existence than any moral incorrectness could bring upon us?

Belief in God provides us with yet another opinion concerning morality. Whether or not this divine opinion is arrived at arbitrarily, or through independent human reasoning, makes no difference, because I am not addressing what God's opinion may be, but rather the possibility that His opinion is an objective reality. Why would God's 'opinion' be any less subjective than the opinions of men? I believe I described this in an earlier post. I would think that the designer of any instrument or creature would be the one to consult in matters of the design and purpose of his creation. If the designer states that one purpose of his instrument is to detect and recognize his standard of morality, then he has declared that standard as an objective reality. The opinion of such a designer, wouldn't qualify as an opinion, but rather it becomes a standard by definition of the role that a designer fulfills.

I would like to stress, for the sake of the less sophisticated reader, that the above is not an argument for God's existence. It is a case that attempts to demonstrate the necessity of God as a basis for any concept of morality, no matter what that morality may entail. Now if you don't accept my argument, you are 'like a scientist who refuses to pay attention to a properly-conducted experiment'. :ahem: Hey! You thought this was a pearl of wisdom when you agreed with Nielsen. See how arrogant and unfair it sounds when it comes from one with whom you disagree?




It just seems like to me that anything can be justified as long as God commands it. Morality just seems relative to one's religious interpretations of God's commands.

It can be. But by the same reasoning, I gave some examples that just about anything can be justified, period. The more important point is that a subjective opinion concerning an objective reality can be considered more valid than a subjective opinion concerning what can only be a subjective reality. It is one thing to say that in your opinion the sun appears to be triangular, not round, and another to say that in your opinion, the sun may or may not exist, but if it does, it looks round.



In a way, I have tried to put my shoes in an ancient Israelite. I imagine myself as a person holding an axe who's about to chop off a woman's hand while trying to "show no pity." I imagine myself with an army in bloodlust marauding through an Amalekite village hacking up frightened children and infants with swords and spears. I imagine myself hurling stones with a mob at a young woman who was found that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night.

Yes, it is my conscience that screams against stuff like this, not an "intellectual inability." Coming from a humanist perspective, I believe in the intrinsic value of human life.

Logically explain to me on what grounds you believe human life to have 'intrinsic' value.



I feel empathy for people who are submitted to cruelty and suffering regardless of what 'cultural context' it takes place in.

Always? Do you have empathy for someone who would skin a man alive, keeping in tact all of his major arteries in order to prolong his life while he underwent this torture, reducing him into a living skeleton before his very eyes? What would you think about a person who did something like that? It's one thing to sit back in the relative safety of an established nation and say in a detached manner, "Well. I believe that such an immoral person should be locked up, but in a humane manner." But put yourself in the position of peasants in rural Thailand, who have lost family members to this practice. Do you feel that it would be too harsh a punishment to begin subjecting torturers to their own punishment in order to stop the practice of torture? Not every country has an effective government that one can run to for justice.



I don't mean to sound offensive, but this is probably the greatest concern I have towards religious fundamentalism. I've known evangelical Christians who are honourable decent people whom I respect immensely. But the fact that they can somehow justify cruelty and murder as long as it was commanded by God, frankly scares the crap out of me sometimes. :eek:

I know people who can justify cruelty and murder and they don't need to appeal to the concept or reality of a deity to do so.



I might add that there are Christians today who would like to apply OT laws to modern day. Perhaps you've heard of the 'Christian Reconstructionist' movement.

There are militant atheists today who would like to bring back a Roman arena wherein Christians could once again be slaughtered for entertainment. Of course, they are only joking. For now.



"Black and White" is a PC game where you take the role of a deity, and through a carrot or stick, try to get a population to worship you.

How strange. I worship the deity of Christ, not because of carrot or stick, but because I consider His beautiful, offensive and holy standard worthy of worship by its own merit. But that wouldn't lend itself to exciting graphics, would it?

[Dee Dee Warren]

You are right HG, I did thoroughly enjoy that post. You are fast turning me into your cheerleader.

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 04:24 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=109756#post109756)
Dee Dee Warren:

You are right HG, I did thoroughly enjoy that post. You are fast turning me into your cheerleader.

:yipee: + :thumb: = :blush:

It's easy to when the game when one is on the side of truth because truth always wins!

[Ryokan]

Hired Gun, I am an athiest, a moral reletavist, and a man, unless my avatar throws you off:smile:
Okay. I am going to ask you a few questions:
1. purpose: what does it mean? Is purpose something poeple need? Or is it a means to an end?
2. I find butchering innocents for entertainment repulsive. As a reletavist, I have no ground to stand on aside from my own opinion to say that is wrong. However, if I saw such a thing, or some other wrong thing happening, I would attempt to stop it. I recognize that is hypocritical, but my world view allows for hypocrisy. So, if my world view allows for hypocrisy, do I need any more legs to stand on?
3. Where from and how does God derive objective moral authority?

[Vorkosigan]

You don't appear to be so easy-going and tolerant over at infidels.org. :hrm:

LOL. I am by nature extremely tolerant and easy-going of the rights of others to hold whatever ideas they want. MY wife, after all, is a Tibetan Buddhist, and my son goes to Christian school and is Christian.

I'm not sure how those seeking justice would appreciate an 'easy-going and tolerant' justice system. I think that such a justice system would have to be somewhat hypocritical to function, or ineffective if it attempted to function at all.

I think this shows you aren't clear on one of the major differences between a relative and an absolute system. A relative system evolves, like our modern justice system, as knew facts and values come in. An objective system is frozen, unable to adapt to changing conditions. An "objective" justice system would soon become a tyrannical one. Like the one in Iran or Soviet Russia or Calvin's Geneva.

In our relativistic justice system, justice is negotiated between individuals with the state establishing a constantly revised playing field. 12 individuals pass judgment, each using their own point of view, negotiating the outcome amongst themselves after review of evidence, also negotiated, and expert opinion and witness testimony, all negotiated. There's nothing at all absolute about our system. Even the vague idea of justice evolves.

I will go so far as to say that moral relativism is a smoke screen, designed to disguise the same system of justice we presently have as something better, while discarding the offensive concept of God and redefining certain morals that a select group of individuals wants redefined.

Relativism is not about redefining morals or God. Many relativists believe in God. Relativism is about recognizing that "absolute" morals is a claim intended to bring power to its wielder by short-circuiting normal negotiation processes. All absolutists are relativists, they simply refuse to admit it. Find me an "absolute" moral system that accounts for all aspects of moral behavior.

Your statement concerning freedoms in absolutist countries - Regardless of the claims of Christians that America was founded on Christian principles, the majority of our nation's founders more resembled absolutists than relativists.

No, because ultimately, freedom of conscience and thought are bedrock relativist claims. There is no freedom in the absolutist domain. The Fathers realized that there was no one philosophy that was right, and designed our national polity to reflect that. They themselves agreed on a number of points, but that does not make them objectivists.

I don't think that it is fair or even intellectually honest for proponents of a very young and recent philosophy to attempt to lay claim to the freedom's that were established by the very people that they oppose. Also, being a relatively new philosophy, moral relativism hasn't yet acquired the seat of power.

Moral relativism is the oldest philosophy of all. And absolutism isn't a philosophy but a simple-minded claim about power.

It is very easy to condemn others of abusing power when one hasn't possessed power.

<shrug>There is no state founded on some absolutist view that is a democracy. Simple as that. States founded on relativist views -- freedom of thought, speech, assembly, and religion -- are all successful democracies. By contrast, moral absolutism has given us the Holocaust, the gulags, the Killing Fields and 20 centuries of religious warfare. Do I need more evidence of its complete failure to govern the affairs of human beings in a loving and tolerant way? How many Cultural Revolutions does it take?

People being what they are, that being all the same, no matter the labels they choose to apply to themselves, if moral relativists ever gain political power, I doubt that they will be any different in their actions than those they now condemn.

They are already in power, in the US, in Europe, and in democracies everywhere.

Vorkosigan

[Hired Gun]

Yesterday @ 03:52 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=110266#post110266)
Ryokan:

Hired Gun, I am an athiest, a moral reletavist, and a man, unless my avatar throws you off:smile:
Okay. I am going to ask you a few questions:


Okay. I am going to ask you a few questions:
1. purpose: what does it mean? Is purpose something poeple need? Or is it a means to an end?

Purpose: 1 a : something set up as an object or end to be attained : INTENTION b : RESOLUTION, DETERMINATION

Purpose is what gives our life meaning. Is purpose something people need…for what? Please clarify. One doesn't need to have a purpose or a meaningful life in order to exist. However, existing is not of the same quality as living. Every purpose designed by men is a means to an end. The purpose designed by God is a means to a beginning.


2. I find butchering innocents for entertainment repulsive. As a reletavist, I have no ground to stand on aside from my own opinion to say that is wrong. However, if I saw such a thing, or some other wrong thing happening, I would attempt to stop it. I recognize that is hypocritical, but my world view allows for hypocrisy. So, if my world view allows for hypocrisy, do I need any more legs to stand on?

Hypocrisy is a violation of logical thinking in action; it is a fallacy of contradiction. Your philosophy boils down to "Yeah, I'm wrong. I can't help the way I feel. So what?" In other words, "What is wrong with being wrong?" I don't think that this would be an appropriate way to grasp at moral concepts, but you are welcome to try.



3. Where from and how does God derive objective moral authority?

God is, by definition, the author or designer of life. A designer designs with intention. Only the designer is in a position to know his intention; all others can only speculate concerning his intention. For example, players, without the set of instructions for a new board game, can only have opinions as to how the game is designed to be played. They don't know, with certainty, the objective intent of its designer. But when the designer reveals the objective purpose of the game through written instructions and rules, he objectively states his intention. The designer is the authority concerning his design; he is the objective authority when it comes to purpose of the design because only he can know, with certainty, its purpose. He may attempt to make that purpose known to others, but that attempt would make it open to interpretation. To deny this would be like saying to another, "We know what you think you mean, but we disagree."

The only way that morality can be conceptualized is through the actions of free will agents. The Christian God, by definition, has created the free will agents and has established a purpose and a plan involving the resulting morality of these free will agents. Therefore, God, and only God, is in a position to be the objective moral authority.

[Jezz]

This thread has been very interesting.

I think there is some confusion here regarding the definition of "moral relativism".

I agree, and I think HG would too, that morality changes as society changes. What is moral in one society would not necessarily be moral in another society.

However, the question is - why do they change? It is my opinion (and correct me if I an wrong, but probably HG's opinion too), that the reason they change is because they are "higher-level" or "derived" morals. The derivation of these morals depends on two things:

1. The existence of lower-level, more universal morals.
2. The society in which the lower-level morals are being applied.

Thus as the society changes, the higher-level morals change, though the lower-level morals change less or not at all.

An example: Suppose "Don't cause people offence" is a moral law. Now, if you were in a society where belching at the table was offensive, the higher-level, derived moral law would be "Don't belch at the table." However, if you were in a society where to not belch was offensive to the cook, the moral law would be "Belch at the table." In this case, the higher-level morality was relative to the culture in which you lived. But this is not true moral relativism, because in both cases it is derived from a lower-level, more absolute law - "Don't cause offence", which hasn't changed.

This difference is what we mean when we talk about the "spirit of the law" versus the "letter of the law" (HG talks about in a couple of his other articles). The letter of the law is derived from the spirit of the law and societal factors. This makes the letter of the law relative to societal factors. On the other hand, the spirit of the law (we believe) is absolute. This is what we mean when we say that morality is absolute - it's not to say that morality doesn't change as society and situations changes, rather, it's to say that while moral decisions might change as circumstances change, ultimately they are derived from an absolute core (the spirit of the law). For the Christian, this absolute core is God's will.

However, moral relativism, in the truest sense, means that there isn't even any absolute "spirit of the law". In such a system, anything is ultimately justifiable by choosing the appropriate "spirit of the law" from which to start.

[Jezz]

Korihor:
I'm afraid your link didn't work. Maybe the server's busy?
The link probably didn't work because the period at the end of it got absorbed into the URL. Try this one:

http://www.theism.net/article/29

[Hired Gun]

Well, I couldn't have said it better myself! Thank you, Jezz. I was in the process of composing a lengthy rebuttal, but you have summarized its content. A collection of people who legislate laws can appeal to the absolute objective authority of God without becoming the type of absolutist tyranny that Vorkosigan claims.


By contrast, moral absolutism has given us the Holocaust, the gulags, the Killing Fields and 20 centuries of religious warfare. Do I need more evidence of its complete failure to govern the affairs of human beings in a loving and tolerant way?

So you consider it loving and tolerant of our government to go in and 'liberate' Iraq? Didn't we break off the negotiations with the U.N.? And it was loving and tolerant of us to relieve the Indians of their land by shooting the majority and rounding up those who were left, sentencing them to near starvation on the reservations? And it was loving and tolerant of us to enslave millions of Africans and keep them in bondage for over a hundred years? All of these atrocities have been brought to you by a government that is based on moral relativism. See friend, it's easy to point your finger at everyone except the group to which you belong.

Hired Gun :cheers: Jezz

[Korihor]

05-27-2003 @ 10:03 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=109647#post109647)
Hired Gun:
First of all, actions which are harmful or beneficial to human survival aren't always obvious and, therefore, their determination is usually based on subjective opinion; these actions
cannot be 'seen objectively'.


But I think the overall goal is objective though –- human survival and making the most of our lives.



Secondly, we would need to define 'human survival'. Are you referring to the survival of the species as a whole? Or groups within the species? Or individuals?


I don’t see any inconsistency in accepting all three, given a situation. For example:

Individually: eat right, read some self-help books, learn self acceptance and self esteem

Groups: Ensure that my family is well cared for, housed, educated, fed, etc..

As a whole: join Amnesty International or protest against corporate sweatshop labour



I can logically justify some very 'atrocious' actions using the criteria that you have just used as a basis for morality. For example, the Nazis considered the Jews to be an inferior race that had to be exterminated for the greater good of mankind.


No argument there. Some secular systems of morality, like Stalinism for example, can be pretty brutal – to err is human, after all. But religious forms of morality suffer the exact same Achilles heel. All sort of atrocities can be justified if it’s deemed to support God’s will. Kind of like how Osama thinks God will be happy if he kills as many Americans as possible. Or say..... how some think the order to Samuel to kill every "man and woman, infant and suckling" (I Sam. 15:3) was a "good" thing to do. http://smilies.crowd9.com/contrib/blackeye/medievalsmile.gif :teeth:



Ironically, Nielsen is implying that people who don't see anything wrong with suffering, pain or human degradation are abnormal. But the label of 'abnormal' is also relative. Homosexuals were considered to be abnormal less than 20 years ago. This is how psychology tagged them. Perhaps what society calls abnormal today will be considered perfectly acceptable tomorrow. Who knows? It's all relative.


I agree that things can be relative given the situation. For example, let’s say you’re living in Nazi Germany and you're hiding Jews in your home. The Gestapo comes to your door and asks if you know where some Jews might be. Normally, honesty is a virtue, but in this case, deceit would be the moral thing to do. After all, if you tell the truth or refuse to answer, it’ll be an instantaneous death sentence for you, your family, and the Jews you're hiding. Although there’s relativism happening here, I think there’s still a common objective value -- that is to preserve human life. No need to appeal to a deity here. In this sense of relativism, I don’t have a problem. Conditions change, humans learn more about their world, and social evolution can occur given the circumstances. Yes, sometime people screw up and take a reactionary or extreme position when circumstances change, so there is a danger. Again, to err is human. But I think a theistic moralist response has the exact same problem. (For example, you might point to the Kmer Rouge as an example where secular moralists attempt to change values to adjust to a situation, but I can point to Al Quaeda as they see their way to respond to a perceived injustice based on theological morality).



'Needless' is a matter of opinion. How harsh must a penalty be in order to keep members of a society from doing something harmful to the survival of society as a whole?


If I understand you correctly, are you saying that extreme cruelty can be justified as a means to an end? If I assume you think it was okay by in OT times (e.g. stoning someone to death), then why not apply this principle today? Let’s say a Christian Right politician advocated slow torture over hot coals for people on death row. He justifies it by saying it’s a good deterrent. Would you support it? If not, why? You seem to agree that the principle worked for ancient Israelite purposes. :uhoh:



In fact, trying to legislate morality (making laws) would simply become a selfish, egotistical indulgence of those who are in the position to do so.


Well, there are degrees of immoral behaviour I think we can agree to based on their harm and suffering they cause. For example, intentionally eating as much chile as you can and passing gas in a crowded elevator would be rather obnoxious, but passing a law against it seems rather silly. But something like child molestation or rape has serious lasting and harmful consequences to human life. I don’t see how it would be egotistical to legislate against that since it would benefit the well being of many.



Once we have become enlightened to the nature of non-existant morality, logically we should become apathetic to both 'right' and 'wrong' doings. When we watch the evening news, we would receive the facts of violence with the same non-reaction to acts of kindness. There could be no more crime because we would have no basis to judge any action as wrong; no more heroism, because no act could be judged as right.

Don't tell me this couldn't possibly happen because it happened to me and it is happening in our children. Knowledge of the truth about the nature of morality is creating a slacker generation of liquid moralists (liars) who have little regard for truth because they don't believe it exists. We are witnessing the beginning of the destruction of the conscience. (In my humble, unsupported and subjective opinion)


I agree that’s quite unsupported. I think there's the matter of empathy we need to consider. I’d like to ask something. Why is it that someone like me who does not believe in a deity or supernatural, can feel empathy for others in pain and disdain for cruelty? This doesn’t come as a choice to me or simply an ‘opinion.’ I cannot intentionally inflict cruelty on someone for close to the same reason I cannot take a hatchet to my wrist. Most human beings feel this way about cruelty as well. You can find this sometimes in the animal kingdom too. Having a conscience appears to be natural. I think I’m quite justified in considering people who don’t feel this way (e.g. serial killers or psychopaths) as abnormal.



Belief in God provides us with yet another opinion concerning morality. Whether or not this divine opinion is arrived at arbitrarily, or through independent human reasoning, makes no difference, because I am not addressing what God's opinion may be, but rather the possibility that His opinion is an objective reality. Why would God's 'opinion' be any less subjective than the opinions of men? I believe I described this in an earlier post. I would think that the designer of any instrument or creature would be the one to consult in matters of the design and purpose of his creation.


Yes, but whose designer (assuming even if one exists)? And if the Christian God, then whose particular theology? That can be very ‘subjective’ too. I’m afraid that religious moralists are stuck in the same position that us secular moralists are -– it ultimately comes down to ordinary human beings who decide on and implement morality. Who decides what form of theistic morality is right? You? The Pope? Billy Graham? President Hinkley? Jerry Falwell? Fred Phelps? Osama bin Laden?



I would like to stress, for the sake of the less sophisticated reader, that the above is not an argument for God's existence. It is a case that attempts to demonstrate the necessity of God as a basis for any concept of morality, no matter what that morality may entail. Now if you don't accept my argument, you are 'like a scientist who refuses to pay attention to a properly-conducted experiment'. :ahem: Hey! You thought this was a pearl of wisdom when you agreed with Nielsen. See how arrogant and unfair it sounds when it comes from one with whom you disagree?


Science is based on empirical reasoning from what we observe from the physical world. We make deductive and inductive reasoning and eventually come to a conclusion that best fits the data. Sometimes there can be flaws and misunderstandings, but things are open to later correction and improvement. Similarly, a non-theistic morality is grounded from human experience of our physical reality too. We observe consequences of good and bad behaviours and come up with solutions to solve these problems. Again, not perfect, and there will be mistakes, but it’s open to improvement. By contrast, the analogy of a “properly conducted experiment” (based on scientific analysis of the natural world) doesn’t quite mesh with supernaturalism. Now I agree that scientific testing and morality are two different things conceptually, but by observation, they are both rooted in this natural world if we look at the results of actions and human experience.



It can be. But by the same reasoning, I gave some examples that just about anything can be justified, period. The more important point is that a subjective opinion concerning an objective reality can be considered more valid than a subjective opinion concerning what can only be a subjective reality.


But that supposed ‘objective reality’ offered by a particular theology is still subjective depending on the believer. Again, whose god? Yours? Whose theological interpretation of “what God wants”? See the first quote in my sig, which sums it up. Unfortunately, God doesn’t seem to want to show up in person to tell us what he really wants. It all comes down to ordinary human beings, warts and all, regardless of their worldview.



Logically explain to me on what grounds you believe human life to have 'intrinsic' value.


That’s a good question. I’ll have to ponder on that a little. But it seems to me to be a rather odd question as well… kind of like asking “prove logically that God is love.” I’ve made a value judgement, but I think it’s a good value judgement based on my awareness of the workings of human experience and consequences of human actions. I’ll probably have to get back to you when I can articulate a better answer.



Always? Do you have empathy for someone who would skin a man alive, keeping in tact all of his major arteries in order to prolong his life while he underwent this torture, reducing him into a living skeleton before his very eyes? What would you think about a person who did something like that? It's one thing to sit back in the relative safety of an established nation and say in a detached manner, &quot;Well. I believe that such an immoral person should be locked up, but in a humane manner.&quot; But put yourself in the position of peasants in rural Thailand, who have lost family members to this practice. Do you feel that it would be too harsh a punishment to begin subjecting torturers to their own punishment in order to stop the practice of torture? Not every country has an effective government that one can run to for justice.


I would have empathy for his victim, that’s for sure. But I don’t think two wrongs make a right. I think tit for tat revenge like that would probably invite more violence and suffering. I’m curious, is this notion of revenge compatible with the virtue of Christian forgiveness?



I know people who can justify cruelty and murder and they don't need to appeal to the concept or reality of a deity to do so.


No argument there. I disdain cruelty and murder regardless of what worldview it’s from.



There are militant atheists today who would like to bring back a Roman arena wherein Christians could once again be slaughtered for entertainment. Of course, they are only joking. For now.


I’m curious, when you were an atheist, did you personally know many other atheists? Yes, some I’ve encountered can be bigoted and dogmatic towards theists, but none I’ve ever encountered personally think that Christians should be “slaughtered for entertainment.” This just seems like projection to me.

I guess my point about the Christian Reconstructionists was that if through biblical study, you came to the realization that the CR’s theology was correct, then you would have no choice but to approve of them.

Anyways, I’m afraid I can’t maintain these long responses for now. It takes me forever to articulate my thoughts in these kinds of debates and I have other pressing issues right now. I’ll continue to follow this thread though and respond to the odd point here and there. By the way, I'm usually floating around in the science/biology forum. Anyways, for the record, you’re a challenging and thoughtful debater and I’ll keep an eye on your posts both here and at Infidels.

Korihor/Jason

[Socrates]

Today @ 05:23 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112442#post112442)
Korihor:

No argument there. Some secular systems of morality, like Stalinism for example, can be pretty brutal – to err is human, after all.

And why not, since Korihor is a self-confessed "evolutionary infudgel" who believes we're just rearranged pond scum who arose by survival of the fittest.


But religious forms of morality suffer the exact same Achilles heel. All sort of atrocities can be justified if it’s deemed to support God’s will. Kind of like how Osama thinks God will be happy if he kills as many Americans as possible.

Simple. Osama believes in a counterfeit God.


Or say..... how some think the order to Samuel to kill every &quot;man and woman, infant and suckling&quot; (I Sam. 15:3) was a &quot;good&quot; thing to do.

Yep, if the Creator of life commanded it, as He did specifically.


I agree that things can be relative given the situation. For example, let’s say you’re living in Nazi Germany and you're hiding Jews in your home. The Gestapo comes to your door and asks if you know where some Jews might be. Normally, honesty is a virtue, but in this case, deceit would be the moral thing to do. After all, if you tell the truth or refuse to answer, it’ll be an instantaneous death sentence for you, your family, and the Jews you're hiding. Although there’s relativism happening here, I think there’s still a common objective value -- that is to preserve human life.

Not relativism, but the biblical teaching of a hierachy of moral absolutes, as amply explained in the thread » Theology Wing » Theology 102 » Why is lying worse than murder? (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=89417#post89417)


Yes, but whose designer (assuming even if one exists)? And if the Christian God, then whose particular theology?

The theology of Christ as stated explicitly in His teachings and implicitly by His endorsement of biblical authority.


Science is based on empirical reasoning from what we observe from the physical world. We make deductive and inductive reasoning and eventually come to a conclusion that best fits the data. Sometimes there can be flaws and misunderstandings, but things are open to later correction and improvement.

Here we go with more amateurish ideas about science. But you've hit on the main point of why it's futile to make "science" the ultimate authority. Because it is self-correcting, it can never be correct.


See the first quote in my sig, which sums it up. Unfortunately, God doesn’t seem to want to show up in person to tell us what he really wants.

Talk about question-begging, but this is par for the course for "evolutionary infudgels". The Christian claim is that God has done just that, in particular in taking on human nature in Jesus Christ. He proved His claims by rising from the dead and leaving the tomb empty, and appearing to more than 500 reliable eye-witnesses at once. But the evolutionary infudgels just don't want to believe Him. So they are not really serious about wanting God to show up--unless it's on their terms.

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 03:02 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112451#post112451)
Socrates:



And why not, since Korihor is a self-confessed &quot;evolutionary infudgel&quot; who believes we're just rearranged pond scum who arose by survival of the fittest.


This is the type of statement that intends to inflame and defame another person. Korihor's view on evolution, and evolution itself for that matter, is totally irrelevant to this thread. By the way, so far, he has demonstrated a more civilised attitude than you have.




Simple. Osama believes in a counterfeit God.


If it could only be that simple...







Science is based on empirical reasoning from what we observe from the physical world. We make deductive and inductive reasoning and eventually come to a conclusion that best fits the data. Sometimes there can be flaws and misunderstandings, but things are open to later correction and improvement.


Here we go with more amateurish ideas about science. But you've hit on the main point of why it's futile to make &quot;science&quot; the ultimate authority. Because it is self-correcting, it can never be correct.



Non-sequitur. From a Christian perspective, I was wrong in my atheism but I corrected my philosophy, became a Christian and now I am 'correct'. It does not follow that a system that corrects itself can never achieve a correct position.






See the first quote in my sig, which sums it up. Unfortunately, God doesn’t seem to want to show up in person to tell us what he really wants.

Talk about question-begging, but this is par for the course for &quot;evolutionary infudgels&quot;. The Christian claim is that God has done just that, in particular in taking on human nature in Jesus Christ. He proved His claims by rising from the dead and leaving the tomb empty, and appearing to more than 500 reliable eye-witnesses at once. But the evolutionary infudgels just don't want to believe Him. So they are not really serious about wanting God to show up--unless it's on their terms.



The original point of this thread concerned itself with moral authority, not specific morals. Basically, the Bible progressively reveals the truth of its God, "Love one another." Now it is one thing to have a person reveal this noble truth to another, and most people will agree with it. But just because most people will agree with it, doesn't make it carry weight.

It is difficult to love people. They can be rude and obnoxious, just as Socrates has proven. Our instinct is to throttle such people. When we are about to do just that, and we recall the words of our co-workers, fellow students, professional colleagues, or whomever, instructing us to 'love each other because that is our logical conclusion', frankly, we find ourselves in a state of mind that doesn't give a damn about another's logical conclusion because we have logically concluded that the world would be a better place without such offensive people. We find ourselves saying, "Who are they to tell me what to do?" But when we believe that instruction to love each other comes from God, we realize how short of the objective standard we have fallen. It is the difference between giving into 'peer pressure', to which logic tells us we shouldn't succumb, and being convicted by a higher authority.

Socrates, I don't know you that well. I will be the first to admit that sometimes debate requires an attitude, but that a Christian should always be the last to have it. I can understand the need to match your opponent's demeanor when one is playing with the likes of Till & Company, but Korihor is many steps above that crowd, at least on this thread. I would say that you owe him an apology.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Hired Gun, I think you bring up a good point in that we must be careful not to always come off with an us versus they demeanor. Sometimes it is warranted, a great many others times it is not. The problem is in the extremes... i.e. on one hand there is NO place for agression and satires etc... and the other hand that such a tone must be used in every circumstance.

[Socrates]

Socrates:


And why not, since Korihor is a self-confessed "evolutionary infudgel" who believes we're just rearranged pond scum who arose by survival of the fittest.

Hired Gun: This is the type of statement that intends to inflame and defame another person. It's his own self-chosen status line, so stop whinging.Korihor's view on evolution, and evolution itself for that matter, is totally irrelevant to this thread. That's right, totally ignore my point. Which is, evolution can provide no basis for objecting to Stalin's atrocities -- if we're just rearranged pond scum, then his purges are no more evil than a penicilium mould wiping out a colony of millions of bacteria with secreted penicillin.By the way, so far, he has demonstrated a more civilised attitude than you have.Mainly because you have no idea of the biblical challenge/riposte paradigm www.tektonics.org/madmad.html and nor do you have any idea what he and his fellow infidels have been up to. But like many WFJs, you wade in without knowing the facts.


Simple. Osama believes in a counterfeit God.

HG:If it could only be that simple...Yes it is. Jesus rose from the dead, Muhammad rotted in his grave.


Here we go with more amateurish ideas about science. But you've hit on the main point of why it's futile to make "science" the ultimate authority. Because it is self-correcting, it can never be correct.

HG:Non-sequitur. From a Christian perspective, I was wrong in my atheism but I corrected my philosophy, became a Christian and now I am 'correct'. It does not follow that a system that corrects itself can never achieve a correct position. But if it is ALWAYS self-correcting, it cannot, yet this is alleged to be a strength of science. Rather, it shows the folly of Christians reinterpreting the Bible to fit with current science.



K: See the first quote in my sig, which sums it up. Unfortunately, God doesn’t seem to want to show up in person to tell us what he really wants.

S: Talk about question-begging, but this is par for the course for "evolutionary infudgels". The Christian claim is that God has done just that, in particular in taking on human nature in Jesus Christ. He proved His claims by rising from the dead and leaving the tomb empty, and appearing to more than 500 reliable eye-witnesses at once. But the evolutionary infudgels just don't want to believe Him. So they are not really serious about wanting God to show up--unless it's on their terms.

HG:The original point of this thread concerned itself with moral authority, not specific morals. Basically, the Bible progressively reveals the truth of its God, "Love one another." Now it is one thing to have a person reveal this noble truth to another, and most people will agree with it. But just because most people will agree with it, doesn't make it carry weight.And you complain about my (alleged) non-sequiturs :whack:. Yet I demolished Korihor's begged question about God never having revealed Himself.It is difficult to love people. They can be rude and obnoxious, just as Socrates has proven.At least I'm up front with defending the faith, which HG mistakes for these characteristics he has accused me of, and only to enemies of the Gospel, unlike WFJs who spend more time attacking fellow Christians but being wimpy towards atheists. However, my "Poster of the Month" award shows that at least some people here appreciate a Christian following 2 Corinthians 10:5:


We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ

HG: Our instinct is to throttle such people. When we are about to do just that, and we recall the words of our co-workers, fellow students, professional colleagues, or whomever, instructing us to 'love each other because that is our logical conclusion', frankly, we find ourselves in a state of mind that doesn't give a damn about another's logical conclusion because we have logically concluded that the world would be a better place without such offensive people. We find ourselves saying, "Who are they to tell me what to do?" But when we believe that instruction to love each other comes from God, we realize how short of the objective standard we have fallen.
And this instruction must be understood in its Biblical context, which was a love that included the good of the community, not some wimpish sentimentality -- www.tektonics.org/whatlove.html Socrates, I don't know you that well. I will be the first to admit that sometimes debate requires an attitude, but that a Christian should always be the last to have it. I can understand the need to match your opponent's demeanor when one is playing with the likes of Till & Company, but Korihor is many steps above that crowd, But that's not saying much at all. at least on this thread. I would say that you owe him an apology.I would say that you are wrong, and you owe me an apology for jumping in when you know nothing of any history between us.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Whhooooaaaa, let's back up a sec here. Soc, I think you have misjudged Hired Gun. He is a great supporter of Tekton and is aware of those articles. You two have vastly different styles, and are bound probably to rub the wrong way at times. I would not have characterized your post as completely rude and obnoxious BUT I do think it was out of keeping with the tone of the thread thus far. We have to be careful not always to use a club when a mallet will do even if we do have a prior history with certain people. I have a prior history with Till but we have had some very civil and unconfrontational conversations by email as well when the tone went that way. We do not always have to come out with both barrells blazing.....

Okay, I am interested in seeing the rest of the conversation that was going on... I was thoroughly enjoying it. Let's not let this get into bickering. The Featured Article is Hired Gun's and that does give him the perogarative to control up to a point the direction and tone of the thread, so I ask that his wishes be respected that the aggression level be kept down.

[Korihor]

Today @ 01:02 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112451#post112451)
Socrates:
And why not, since Korihor is a self-confessed &quot;evolutionary infudgel&quot; who believes we're just rearranged pond scum who arose by survival of the fittest.


Oh Soc :smile: we all just know deep down you're just a loveable cudly fuzzball. :kiss:

Thank you for coming to my defence, HG. I appreciate that. If I see you at Infidels in a similar situation, I'll return the favour. Kinda reminds me of a scene from Ben Hur.. :wink:

[Socrates]

Today @ 03:22 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112733#post112733)
Dee Dee Warren:

Whhooooaaaa, let's back up a sec here. Soc, I think you have misjudged Hired Gun. He is a great supporter of Tekton and is aware of those articles.

:idea: Well, he can't be all bad then :thumb:

[Undomiel]

Socrates,


That's right, totally ignore my point. Which is, evolution can provide no basis for objecting to Stalin's atrocities -- if we're just rearranged pond scum, then his purges are no more evil than a penicilium mould wiping out a colony of millions of bacteria with secreted penicillin.

Good point, Peter Ibn Socrates. :thumb:

Go easy on HiredGun. She/he is new here and new in the Lord. Step out of line like that one more time and I'll.... I'll, well I'll pray that you become as sweet as Christopher Robin, as loving as Winnie the Pooh and as gentle as little Piglet. :teeth: Right now you're doing a fine impression of Owl, who despite his great wisdom, was cantankerous and grouchy. *ducks thrown tomatoes and pleads for forgiveness* :bow:

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 11:55 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112709#post112709)
Socrates:

Socrates:



Hired Gun: This is the type of statement that intends to inflame and defame another person. It's his own self-chosen status line, so stop whinging.

I see, so any attempt to correct you will be seen as whining.



[quote] Korihor's view on evolution, and evolution itself for that matter, is totally irrelevant to this thread.

That's right, totally ignore my point. Which is, evolution can provide no basis for objecting to Stalin's atrocities -- if we're just rearranged pond scum, then his purges are no more evil than a penicilium mould wiping out a colony of millions of bacteria with secreted penicillin.

Well, perhaps if you had stated that in an intelligent manner, minus all of the emotionalism, I would have been able to focus on it better. You see, when you resort to name calling, etc., it has a tendency to distract people from the content of what is being said. Your attitude was the equivalent of a disheveled man, running into the midst of a quiet tea party and shouting out even the most profound of statements. His message will be lost because of the spectacle that he makes of himself.




By the way, so far, he has demonstrated a more civilised attitude than you have.

Mainly because you have no idea of the biblical challenge/riposte paradigm www.tektonics.org/madmad.html and nor do you have any idea what he and his fellow infidels have been up to.

Oh, I may have a suspicion or two. The fundy games aren't that distant of a memory for me. However, I did qualify my statement with the phrase, 'so far'.



But like many WFJs, you wade in without knowing the facts.

You'll have to excuse me if I create my own history with people.




HG:If it could only be that simple...Yes it is. Jesus rose from the dead, Muhammad rotted in his grave.





HG:[list]Non-sequitur. From a Christian perspective, I was wrong in my atheism but I corrected my philosophy, became a Christian and now I am 'correct'. It does not follow that a system that corrects itself can never achieve a correct position.

But if it is ALWAYS self-correcting, it cannot, yet this is alleged to be a strength of science. Rather, it shows the folly of Christians reinterpreting the Bible to fit with current science.

We can't assume that science is ALWAYS correcting the same subject. For example, science has pretty much concluded that the earth is round. Prior to this discovery, the church was very hesitant to reinterpret the Bible to fit that discovery, but eventually it did.




HG: The original point of this thread concerned itself with moral authority, not specific morals. Basically, the Bible progressively reveals the truth of its God, &quot;Love one another.&quot; Now it is one thing to have a person reveal this noble truth to another, and most people will agree with it. But just because most people will agree with it, doesn't make it carry weight.

And you complain about my (alleged) non-sequiturs :whack:.

I have not stated a non-sequitur. I merely pointed out that the agreed opinions of many do not necessarily validate the opinion being held. For example, many people in the 1700's believed that slavery was moral. Trying to determine the truth by popular belief is an ad populum fallacy.




Yet I demolished Korihor's begged question about God never having revealed Himself.


[quote]It is difficult to love people. They can be rude and obnoxious, just as Socrates has proven.

At least I'm up front with defending the faith, which HG mistakes for these characteristics he has accused me of, and only to enemies of the Gospel, unlike WFJs who spend more time attacking fellow Christians but being wimpy towards atheists.

I'd say that I am very up front with defending the faith. I'm also confident that I can handle that defense and I feel no need to squash my opponents when I am already squashing their arguments. If this fits your definition of wimpy, then by all means, pass me a pink drink with an umbrella in it. Do you consider every attempt of correction to be an 'attack'?


However, my &quot;Poster of the Month&quot; award shows that at least some people here appreciate a Christian following 2 Corinthians 10:5:

Yes, but you conveniently take that verse alone, paying no attention to 1 Peter 3:15, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, BUT do this with gentleness and respect keeping a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander."





HG: Our instinct is to throttle such people. When we are about to do just that, and we recall the words of our co-workers, fellow students, professional colleagues, or whomever, instructing us to 'love each other because that is our logical conclusion', frankly, we find ourselves in a state of mind that doesn't give a damn about another's logical conclusion because we have logically concluded that the world would be a better place without such offensive people. We find ourselves saying, &quot;Who are they to tell me what to do?&quot; But when we believe that instruction to love each other comes from God, we realize how short of the objective standard we have fallen.

And this instruction must be understood in its Biblical context, which was a love that included the good of the community, not some wimpish sentimentality -- www.tektonics.org/whatlove.html

So politeness is the equivalent of 'wimpish sentimentality'? You are talking with one of the coldest, unsentimental minds that has ever received salvation. I'm not exactly letting my opponents walk all over me, if you haven't noticed.

Also, a love that included the good of the community doesn't necessarily have to be promoted by ridiculing the 'enemies' of the community. We are to love our enemies as well, although not at the expense of our friends.


Socrates, I don't know you that well. I will be the first to admit that sometimes debate requires an attitude, but that a Christian should always be the last to have it. I can understand the need to match your opponent's demeanor when one is playing with the likes of Till &amp; Company, but Korihor is many steps above that crowd, But that's not saying much at all. at least on this thread. I would say that you owe him an apology.I would say that you are wrong, and you owe me an apology for jumping in when you know nothing of any history between us.

If I have misjudged you, brother, I am sorry.

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 12:33 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112743#post112743)
Korihor:



Oh Soc :smile: we all just know deep down you're just a loveable cudly fuzzball. :kiss:

Thank you for coming to my defence, HG. I appreciate that. If I see you at Infidels in a similar situation, I'll return the favour. Kinda reminds me of a scene from Ben Hur.. :wink:

Don't thank me. Run back to infidels.org and tell them all about how YOU, yes! YOU! caused discord between a brother and sister on T-web! (That's what I would have done) With a little luck, I may even find the post!

[Alien]

Today @ 01:47 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112983#post112983)
Hired Gun:
Don't thank me. Run back to infidels.org and tell them all about how YOU, yes! YOU! caused discord between a brother and sister on T-web! (That's what I would have done) With a little luck, I may even find the post!

Phew! The mask came off there didn't it?

He didn't cause any discord, it was all between you and Socrates. And it was only a couple of posts ago that you were praising him. I'm quite genuinely disappointed, why I don't know.

[Undomiel]

Today @ 01:47 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=113229#post113229)
Alien:



Phew! The mask came off there didn't it?

He didn't cause any discord, it was all between you and Socrates. And it was only a couple of posts ago that you were praising him. I'm quite genuinely disappointed, why I don't know.


Hmm, fascinating...

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 08:47 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=113229#post113229)
Alien:



Phew! The mask came off there didn't it?

He didn't cause any discord, it was all between you and Socrates. And it was only a couple of posts ago that you were praising him. I'm quite genuinely disappointed, why I don't know.

Lighten up, pal. I was joking. Years ago, I would brag about such a thing and attempt to take credit for it, even though I wasn't directly involved.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Hired Gun, I think this article is the most viewed one we have ran to date.

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 09:50 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=113296#post113296)
Dee Dee Warren:

Hired Gun, I think this article is the most viewed one we have ran to date.

Well, then! We have to go back to giving them something good to read!

[Undomiel]

Factoid: The salvation experience is a hard fact for the saved. You can't argue what you've never experienced. This is the bulk of the problem for the atheist. It's impossible to critique what you don't understand. You can point to math and science and logic but it can't supercede the life experience of the believer.

[Korihor]

Today @ 07:37 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=113267#post113267)
Hired Gun (to Alien):
Lighten up, pal. I was joking. Years ago, I would brag about such a thing and attempt to take credit for it, even though I wasn't directly involved.

Just for the record, no worries, I pretty much took it as a joke. :smile:

Now I'll run to Infidels and brag that I helped get this article the most viewed to date... :yipee: j/k :wink:

[Dee Dee Warren]

Please tell them I did something rotten to you as well. I do have a reputation to think of.

[Hired Gun]

The following comments were made concerning Korihor's second to last post. The text contained in the quotes are fragments of that post.

Many of the issues that you address have already been presented in this thread. While you may disagree with my reasoning, I feel no need to repeat it. But let's get on with the new questions!




I’d like to ask something. Why is it that someone like me who does not believe in a deity or supernatural, can feel empathy for others in pain and disdain for cruelty? This doesn’t come as a choice to me or simply an ‘opinion.’ I cannot intentionally inflict cruelty on someone for close to the same reason I cannot take a hatchet to my wrist. Most human beings feel this way about cruelty as well. You can find this sometimes in the animal kingdom too. Having a conscience appears to be natural. I think I’m quite justified in considering people who don’t feel this way (e.g. serial killers or psychopaths) as abnormal.

Many secular studies imply that there is a connection between a poor home environment and violence in the children raised in that environment. If you were molested or beaten as a child, chances are higher that you will molest or beat your own children.

Since you are grown, we can't see what type of a person you would be, had you not had the fortune of a loving family and stable societal influence. But you can intellectually erase the conscience that your parents and culture helped to create, which is exactly what I managed to do for over a decade.

You say that you 'can' feel empathy for others in pain, but that your empathy isn't a choice. Do you ALWAYS feel empathy for others in pain? How much empathy do you feel for them? Is it always an equal amount? Or do you have more empathy for those with whom you are emotionally close?

When we hear of mudslides that kill 10,000 people in a remote village of India, how much empathy do we really have? There is nothing that we can do about it. Does our empathy for others depend on our ability to prevent or lessen their tragedy? I would say that it doesn't, so why can we continue to eat our breakfasts with the morning news that calls our attention to these horrors?

Thousands of people die horribly every day. We only hear about the *special* cases, involving the bizarre or famous. Why don't we express empathy for the unkown dead and dying?

How sincere is our empathy? We know that we could alleviate the pain and suffering of a great many others through monetary donations, yet how much are we willing to sacrifice to do that? If we truly had empathy for the plight of others, we would all die as paupers.

One can become desensitized to the degree where one realizes that they don't have to experience the uncomfortable feeling of empathy. People suffer and die every day. Why should you allow yourself to have an emotional response for one dying child when you know there are a thousand more. How does her death directly affect you? Are you going to feel sad about it all day?

You begin to realize that you [i]do[/do] choose to have empathy. Subject yourself to intense exposure of tragedy every day for a year and you will soon find that your empathy can be conveniently tucked away.

We feel emotional and have empathy when we experience the hurt of a loved one. But we must realize that our loved one is only a statistic to someone else. You have to face the fact that your empathy isn't doing your loved one any good and it is making you emotionally uncomfortable. If you can choose to not have empathy for others, you can also choose to not have empathy for your loved one.

Death is a natural process and sometimes that process is accompanied by pain. Every person who was ever born has to go through it. That is a fact of life. Just keep reminding yourself that one day, you too may have to face the prospect of a tortuous death. When that day comes, eventually, whether it takes months, days, or hours, or seconds, you will feel nothing and you will no longer have to deal with it. When you imagine going through that, do you have empathy for yourself? Strangely, I don't. I realize that would be self pity and I frown upon self pity.

We seem to have an unfounded fear of death. If all parts of our consciousness cease to exist at the point of death, then to die is to experience nothing. This isn't as terrible as it sounds; except for the few dreams that I can recall, I experience nothing for 8 hours every day. If death is natural and it isn't terrible, then why would we choose to have empathy for the dying?

What significance does death have to us as individuals or to societies as a whole? We mourn the loss of our loved ones, but they are experiencing nothing, so our tears are for ourselves, not them. Nazis killed over 6 million Jews. 6 million people wiped off of the earth, yet it is as if they never existed to us now. So how significant is death when it doesn't seem to impact any one society or individual for any length of time? And if our deaths are insignificant, then how significant were our lives in the first place?

Just think about it. All day. Every day. We had a primitive fear of death and injury that could lead to death and we project this fear into our empathy for the dying. But there is nothing to fear. Empathy is an illogical emotion, the same as hate, which is also based on fear.

Once you own this mindset, you discover that you can also reason yourself out of an entire spectrum of emotion. Once you are able to completely control your emotions, you stop having them. The conscience is nothing more than an emotion of guilt.

Viola! No conscience.

[Jezz]

Korihor:
But I think the overall goal is objective though –- human survival and making the most of our lives.
A very simple question for you, Korihor: Why? What makes the goal human survival, and not human destruction?

[Hired Gun]

Instinct for survival is based on the fear of death. But humans have the ability to reason and can conclude that, logically, this fear is unfounded. And if it be unfounded, then that instinct is something to be overcome. There really can be no logical preference for life over death.

Now if we are to reason to this conclusion, then why do we persist in delusion, pretending that life is preferable to death?

[Dee Dee Warren]

/ot Jezz and Hired Gun, you both need bylines and avatars. The very fabric of the universe is at stake.

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 10:17 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=113592#post113592)
Dee Dee Warren:

/ot Jezz and Hired Gun, you both need bylines and avatars. The very fabric of the universe is at stake.

Here I am, with a way, cool avatar, without anyone to argue with me!

[Undomiel]

I am an Arnie fan. :teeth:

[Ryokan]

but, really, what is logic? a couple chemical interactions? Against stronger, older chemical reactions like survival?

[Ryokan]

Also, Undomiel, if IO have never had such an experience, how can I be expected to understand, as you pointed out? How can I be blamed for not having an experience like that?

[Undomiel]

Typically you find out how and then do it.

Door, walk through door.

Err, that's the best way I can explain it.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Today @ 02:20 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=113735#post113735)
Hired Gun:



Here I am, with a way, cool avatar, without anyone to argue with me!

:thumb:

[Merthsoft]

It is all a ver intersting outlook/thought on things.

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 03:02 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=113753#post113753)
Ryokan:

but, really, what is logic? a couple chemical interactions? Against stronger, older chemical reactions like survival?

Reducing human reasoning and human instinct down into their respective chemical/electrical reactions doesn't remove their properties. You are asking, "What is acquired human reasoning when compared to the more primitive and powerful instinct to survive?"

If you agree with the argument that I gave, the instinct to survive is based on the fear of death. So, "What is acquired human reasoning when compared to the more primitive and powerful fear of death?" My answer is , "Everything!"

We speak of truth in these forums. It does no good to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the truth that human reason has brought to us. Our primitive fear of death may have been responsible for our will to survive in the past, but with an educated human population, this fear may be erased.

In the absence of this fear, what can motivate us? Logic will provide us with no motivation; in fact, I am confident that it will always discourage us when we attempt to find the answer to this question. If we want to validate our illogical will to survive, we must acknowledge a spiritual reality.

[Jezz]

Ryokan:
but, really, what is logic? a couple chemical interactions? Against stronger, older chemical reactions like survival?
If that's all logic is, then it raises the following questions:

1. Why does everyone agree on the fundamental principles of logic? They are implemented in each person by completely different chemical reactions.

2. Why can we implement computer programs that apply laws of logic (eg Prolog)? Again, a completely different set of reactions implements the logic in this case.

These observations tend to indicate that logic has properties that are independent of the particular configuration of material particles used to implement it. Ie, logic is not merely chemical reactions. Logic can be implemented by chemical reactions, but it can be implemented by a completely different set of chemical reactions, or even implemented by physical or electrical reactions instead of chemical. Thus logic is not merely chemical reactions.

[Hired Gun]

Yesterday @ 03:24 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=113767#post113767)
Ryokan:

Also, Undomiel, if IO have never had such an experience, how can I be expected to understand, as you pointed out? How can I be blamed for not having an experience like that?

We are all presented with many opportunites to see the truth that leads to the experience of salvation. But it is an ugly, frightening truth and we quickly turn our heads when we see it coming. Is it fair to blame a person for not hearing when he keeps both hands firmly placed over his ears?

[Ryokan]

Is it fair to suggest I have both hands on my ears when you know they are on a keyboard?:huh: :teeth:

Actually, gun, its like this: We don't all agree on what logic is or what is logical. In fact, many people would have trouble defining it, and would misuse the word. The reason we like logic is our experience tells us that things in reality generally conform to some sort of pattern called "logic", and if we can interpret reality correctly, we survive better. Logic is a tool shaped by evolution to aid survival. But that doesn't mean we use it, (or even that it is always right, but I am not going to go there). Case in point: In the face of danger, logical a person choose a. flight, or b. fight, or c. stay right there. But sometimes, fear causes us to ignore logic and freeze like a bunny in front of headlights when we ought to fight. Fear beats logic. Pow!:fight:

And yeah, computers can use logic, but again logic doesn't determine action.

Aristotle, I think, dealt with the problem of people refusing to act logically a heck of alot better, but I am going to look and see what he and Plato had to say about it.

[Dee Dee Warren]

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Hired Gun]

Yesterday @ 03:01 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=115155#post115155)
Ryokan:

Is it fair to suggest I have both hands on my ears when you know they are on a keyboard?:huh: :teeth:

Actually, gun, its like this: We don't all agree on what logic is or what is logical. In fact, many people would have trouble defining it, and would misuse the word.

In other words, you pick and choose what you think to be logical. Isn't it strange how atheists judge theists for being illogical, but the moment they confront one who uses logic, suddenly logic isn't sufficient.



The reason we like logic is our experience tells us that things in reality generally conform to some sort of pattern called &quot;logic&quot;, and if we can interpret reality correctly, we survive better.

Isn't this begging the question? Haven't I just logically demonstrated that, in reality, our fear of death is based on a primitive fear of the unknown? In reality, there is nothing to fear from death; it is a natural process. Yet because this knowledge would work against our will to survive, you interpret this knowledge as 'incorrect'. You assume that the will to survive is somehow better than the will to die. There is no logical basis for you to make that assumption.



Logic is a tool shaped by evolution to aid survival.

Once again, you are guilty of begging the question. Logic is simply the means by which we determine the truth of our reality. Logic may be used to aid in our survival or it may be used to destroy our will to live. It isn't appropriate to redefine logic to suit your argument. In fact, it's equivocation, another fallacy of logic.



But that doesn't mean we use it, (or even that it is always right, but I am not going to go there). Case in point: In the face of danger, logical a person choose a. flight, or b. fight, or c. stay right there. But sometimes, fear causes us to ignore logic and freeze like a bunny in front of headlights when we ought to fight. Fear beats logic. Pow!:fight:

I agree that, in the moment of circumstance, emotion and physiological response may cause a person to react contrary to their logical, intellectual conclusion. But this does not take away from the truth of that conclusion; it only verifies that people act illogically.



And yeah, computers can use logic, but again logic doesn't determine action.

Logic doesn't ALWAYS determine action in those who are content to be hypocrits to logic. However, many people aren't content to ignore the reality that logic reveals to them.

Patient to Psychiatrist: "I dunno, Doc. I feel that life isn't worth living. What was that reason that you gave for life being preferable over death?"

Psychiatrist: "We have the instinct to survive. Therefore, survival must be preferable to death."

Patient: "Oh yeah. Thanks. I keep forgetting that."

:cool:

[Ryokan]

HUUUURRRRRRRRRKKK! (the sound of Ryokan being eviscerated):doh:
Ouch, that went badly. I knew it was a mistake to wander out of the poli sci wing.

But, Vigo in Ghostbusters 2, I refuse too just die.

Alright, I agree what I said was a bunch of incoherent, flawed nonsense, except for the joke at the beginning, which I still think is funny. :teeth: So, I am going to try again. My position is that people act can and do act illogical, and that they do is no proof of an inner spiritual life, and that such behavior needs no validation.

I am going to say this: Living or dying, donuts to oranges, my desire to obtain a yacht and beach house vs. my probable reality of living in Cincinnati driving a Yugo:eek: are not really any better than each other. I know that.

However, that isn't how I behave. I do and will avoid death when at all possible, except possibly under a few set cicumstances. I eat donuts for breakfast when I can get them, and I work hard at school so that I can be wealthy some day.

So, why do I do that? Something spiritual? Maybe, but I find this equally, perhaps more plausible. Humans are not rational creatures. We are hard-wired to do certain things, and only a select few of us are actually capable of overcoming those with reason. Your patient is one of those people. I am not. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably. But I am willing to accept the possibliity my actions can't be validated. But just because hypocrisy is "bad" doesn't mean it isn't possible, or that the vast majority of humanity who isn't theistic doesn't behave in such a way. Those who don't tend to die. I think humans have a proud tradition of being logical hypocrites. Ask Mr. Spock.

Another point you made is that if fear of death is an illogical instinct, than it is something to be overcome. That is a very Buddhist sentiment. However, why does it need to be overcome? It doesn't really matter, does it? And since overcoming it, at least according to Buddhist monks, is very hard, most don't, as they are still slaves to that illogical death and work fearing nature.

My point on what the definition and nature of logic is that most people don't even know what it is, or think and choose their actions in a rational fashion. This, too me, is another good explaination besides spirituality as to why atheist go on living.

My point with the :bunny: story was just that can act illogically because of hormone influxes, again, something that isn't spiritual.

I am sure I screwed this up, but I have an illogical hunch that I can beat you if I take enough punches.:cheers:

[Ryokan]

and Dee Dee, were you laughing at my bad joke or bad arguement?:bawl: :rofl:

[Ryokan]

also, hired gun, I don't think the Amphitheater has any threads about T3, if your interested in starting one as a post count boost.:em7:

[Hired Gun]

Yesterday @ 10:16 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=116021#post116021)
Ryokan:

My position is that people act can and do act illogical, and that they do is no proof of an inner spiritual life, and that such behavior needs no validation.

The above quote is a summary of your argument. I am not disputing the fact that people can and do act illogically, nor am I saying that their illogical actions are evidence of a spiritual reality. But when you say that such behavior needs no validation, I disagree. What you are saying, in effect, is that people can exist in their behaviours and that it is not necessary to analyze or examine those behaviours. You are saying that the world makes sense to those who don't question! I agree with you, that if one can manage to go through life, never asking the tough questions, never asking 'why', then it will never occur to them how pointless it all really is. I find this stance, not only hypocritical, but also anti-intellectual and unscientific, since all science begins with obervations and questions.



Another point you made is that if fear of death is an illogical instinct, than it is something to be overcome. That is a very Buddhist sentiment. However, why does it need to be overcome? It doesn't really matter, does it? And since overcoming it, at least according to Buddhist monks, is very hard, most don't, as they are still slaves to that illogical death and work fearing nature.

If we are seeking truth of reality, and if we are using logic, which is the means that we have to determine truth, and if we realize through the application of logic that our fear of death is unfounded, then it is something that our human reasoning would tell us to overcome. Overcoming ignorance wouldn't matter to those who have little regard for logic.



My point on what the definition and nature of logic is that most people don't even know what it is, or think and choose their actions in a rational fashion. This, too me, is another good explaination besides spirituality as to why atheist go on living.

Careful here...are you saying that most atheists go on living because they don't even know what logic is and live by rationalization?

The point that I try to make, concerning spirituality, is that if we examine our reality with logic and without the idea of God, then we must admit that our instinct to survive is based on an illogical fear. We also must admit that any concept we may have of morality, or equality is equally illogical. We have created an effect that these things are real, but in fact, they must be accepted as illusion, because they go against that which logic tells us is real. But when we examine that same reality, after having introduced the idea of God, then all of these ideas suddenly become logical. Of course, the idea of God may be illusory as well.

Going back to the first illusion that was illustrated in the article, the profiles of the Egyptians are unusally elongated; that view is distorted when compared to profiles of real people. The front view of the Egyptian is also distorted, because the face is abnormally broad when compared to real faces. But what is real, is the design of the illusion that allows the two distortions of reality to take place. You can't erase the frontal view without destroying the profiles, because the reality of each is interwoven.

When a hypothetical construct, such as God, can make better sense of reality, then logic tells me to use it.



I am sure I screwed this up, but I have an illogical hunch that I can beat you if I take enough punches.:cheers:

A boxer wins by delivering, not taking, punches.

[Ryokan]

1. Yes, I am saying the world can make sense, or enough sense to live your everyday life, with out philosophical analyses. It isn't necessarilly that you don't ask questions, but rather you don't apply all the answers. What we know intellectually, like the pointlessness of existence, doesn't necessarilly have to be lived. Kinda like Christian doctrine. If you don't internalize it, force it over, around, and above your old thought patterns, perhaps genetic precondition, etc. your not going to live by it. i.e. working like the Buddhists do. And maybe it is anti-intellectual and anti-scientific, but science that don't apply to some practical matter often get the short end of the stick on funding, don't they? Maybe most people ARE anti-intellectual and unscientific.

2. Who says we are all seeking truth. Aristotle would say we are seeking eudaimonia, or well being. For everyone, that is not truth. When you aren't a truth seeker, you use logic only as far as it can get you towards your goal.

3.Yes, most athiest I know, including myself, (and most people) live as much by or more by rationalization than logic or reason. And many many athiest don't really understand logic or reason.

4. I agree, a hypothetical God makes the things people do make more sense if you assume people are rational entities seperate from and easily able to overcome their biological components. However, I am suggesting their are equally plausible naturalistic arguements.

5. Really, as a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do I can tell you from personal experience that it is often good to take a few shots from your opponent, to size him up, and maybe sense his weak points. And don't forget that if you are confident you can deflect the hardest blows, you can wear out your opponent. Remember Ali?:fight:

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 09:25 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=117167#post117167)
Ryokan:

1. Yes, I am saying the world can make sense, or enough sense to live your everyday life, with out philosophical analyses. It isn't necessarilly that you don't ask questions, but rather you don't apply all the answers.

I see. You choose to ignore the answers that you don't like.



What we know intellectually, like the pointlessness of existence, doesn't necessarilly have to be lived.

Yes, we can ignore this fact.



Kinda like Christian doctrine. If you don't internalize it, force it over, around, and above your old thought patterns, perhaps genetic precondition, etc. your not going to live by it. i.e. working like the Buddhists do.

I didn't become a Christian to live as a hypocrite. It required me to change. As an atheist, I was at peace with my selfish nature; as a Christian, I work to overcome it. I realize that I can't convince a person, who admits having no regard for the truth, of the truth, but the only positive thing about atheism is its hypocrisy.



And maybe it is anti-intellectual and anti-scientific, but science that don't apply to some practical matter often get the short end of the stick on funding, don't they? Maybe most people ARE anti-intellectual and unscientific.

Are you saying that the study of morality and behaviours (ethics) has no practical application?



2. Who says we are all seeking truth. Aristotle would say we are seeking eudaimonia, or well being. For everyone, that is not truth. When you aren't a truth seeker, you use logic only as far as it can get you towards your goal.

Translation: we should disregard any truth that doesn't fit into our agenda.



3.Yes, most athiest I know, including myself, (and most people) live as much by or more by rationalization than logic or reason. And many many athiest don't really understand logic or reason.


Woe be it for me to argue against this!



4. I agree, a hypothetical God makes the things people do make more sense if you assume people are rational entities seperate from and easily able to overcome their biological components. However, I am suggesting their are equally plausible naturalistic arguements.

I've yet to see an equally plausible and naturalistic argument that stands up to logic. Do you have such an argument?



5. Really, as a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do I can tell you from personal experience that it is often good to take a few shots from your opponent, to size him up, and maybe sense his weak points. And don't forget that if you are confident you can deflect the hardest blows, you can wear out your opponent. Remember Ali?:fight:

Boxers are scored on blows landed, not on their ability to take a punch, nor on their endurance. I'm not saying that these factors won't come into play, giving a boxer the opportunity to land a good punch, but that a blow must be delivered in order to be scored.

As far as I can see, the bell rang, I took two steps out of my corner and watched in amusement as you delivered one punch after another to your own face. You have admitted that the only way that people can live successfully (and no, I am not referring to income, housing, etc..), by an atheistic philosophy, is to ignore the truth that logic brings and persist in their ignorance, giving into their 'instincts', even when those instincts are grounded in the air.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Yesterday @ 10:17 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=116023#post116023)
Ryokan:

and Dee Dee, were you laughing at my bad joke or bad arguement?:bawl: :rofl:

I only laugh at jokes, not bad arguments of people I like. I would never laugh at your arguments Ry, I like you too darned much....

[Dee Dee Warren]

Whoa HG..... (hold on let me grab my pom poms)......

AWESOME!!

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 06:33 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=117795#post117795)
Dee Dee Warren:

Whoa HG..... (hold on let me grab my pom poms)......

AWESOME!!

I would like to thank the founders of Theology Web for inviting me here and for posting my article to the site. I would also like to thank Jezz and the Christian participants on this thread for offering their comments and support, and stevencarrwork, Alien, Korihor, Vorkosigan, and Ryokan for their thought provoking challenges.

This was a lot of fun, being back in the action, something that I miss tremendously. I wish T-Web the best and hope to see it grow to its full potential.

In His Grace,
A.S.A. Jones

2 Thessalonians 2:10; They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

[Jezz]

Ryokan:
What we know intellectually, like the pointlessness of existence, doesn't necessarilly have to be lived.
In other words, you've just admitted that atheists who don't live as though life were pointless are just kidding themselves.

Isn't this one of the most common criticisms that atheists level at religious people? :smile:


4. I agree, a hypothetical God makes the things people do make more sense if you assume people are rational entities seperate from and easily able to overcome their biological components. However, I am suggesting their are equally plausible naturalistic arguements.
I'm actually of the opinion that "naturalistic" and "God" are not mutually exclusive. I mean, if God is the author of nature (as Christians believe), then any natural explanation is also a description of God's action in the world. I think this is a minority opinion among Christians, but I seem to get the impression that it is reasonably common around TWeb - it seems that Hired Gun (correct me if I am wrong) shares this opinion.

But anyway, I'll assume for a minute "naturalistic" means what you probably think it means - ie, excluding any personal force(s) known as "god(s)".

At best, any naturalistic argument of this type can explain why we behave in certain ways. But it can never tell us you why we should behave in some ways, and not others.

Everyone feels that there are certain ways that we should act (which we call "good"), and certain ways that we shouldn't ("bad"). I am quite certain that you can come up with a plausible, naturalistic explanation for why you believe it is wrong to kill people, for example. However, I am equally certain you cannot come up with any plausible naturalistic explanation for why you should continue to believe this. Hopefully, you will continue to believe it anyway even if you can't find a naturalistic reason for doing so - or even better still, hopefully you'll realise that there is a reason for doing so - and that is the reason that Christianity gives us.

[Ryokan]

1. Exactly. We DO ignore answers we don't like. That doesn't require spirituality at all.
2. Exactly, but you DID have to change. It doesn't happen automatically. Believing in atheism doesn't require an individual to ignore the genetic urges that drive him. He has to fight them. Just as Christian fight urges that go against their belief system.
3. No, I am a social scientist:teeth: . But, many people don't percieve that it does, lending to the idea that people don't percieve it that way, even if its true. Because they don't want truth. They want to be happy.
4. good:wink:
5. The naturalistic arguement runs as such: People aren't rational, andare driven as much by subconcious biological urges as reason. Believing life is pointless is no requirement for living as such, because people are hypocrites and their thought processes are stongly influenced by the biological equipment and preprogramming that runs those processes. It's just as believing Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior is no guarantee a individual will overcome his biology and live in such a way. This is possible because from the get go people are motivated by goals biologically born, and not truth, for the most part. So while they may know life is pointless, and their goal trivial, they will still pursue it because they have too overcome their biological drive
6. That is my arguement, but I think it does provide an adequete desription of how athiest go on day to day, and it doesn't include any spiritual elements. That it is unpleasant and hypocritical, and the fact that you have disdain for this behavior, makes it no less plausible. So, in that way, I think I have achieved my goal. And in boxing and Tae Kwon Do, if one fighter can't go on, points in the beginning don't mean anything. And its seems to me is all you have to say is, "you athiests are hypocrites", not that I am wrong. So, unless you come back, which I earnestly hope, I think I can declare victory.

[Ryokan]

1. Yeah. But remember, I established already most athiests are hypocrites.:teeth:
2. their is NO reason for an athiest to be moral. Rational anyway. However, the brain that runs the athiests thoughts has been conditioned, and is predisposed, to being moral the way his culture dictates. And since life is pointless, so is everything else, including breaking down these predispositions to morality. So, since the athiests is predisposed towards being happy, and finds happiness in morality, he is moral.

[Ryokan]

I am sad this thread died. I was having fun fighting Hired Gun. He is very clever, even if I think he was making the # 1 error of intellectuals. He assumed people are rational.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Psst, Ry, Hired Gun is a she.

[prgmrdave]

Oh, I bet you could find one or two that would like to carry on in her stead, if you're so inclined :smile:

:thumb:

[prgmrdave]

Today @ 03:24 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119699#post119699)
Dee Dee Warren:

Psst, Ry, Hired Gun is a she.

By my count, HG let that fact slip precisely once, unless you count all the times it could have come up but did not :smile:

[Ryokan]

oops! sorry dee dee. She is very clever. and of course, I am inclined to continue, or I wouldn't be whining!:smile:

[Dee Dee Warren]

Here is another hint.. don't ever tell GrayPilgrim anything you don't want brought up years later. The man has an uncanny memory for snippets.

[Dee Dee Warren]

And keep it going Ry... I have a dastardly plot to keep her posting here more on the site.....

[Ryokan]

:thumb: Your plotting abilities are a boon to us all Dee Dee. And what is that grey Pilgrim thing all about? I feel in the dark, and need a :idea:

[Dee Dee Warren]

Well see how her article is already up an extra week? It has beenour most popular feature to date, highly successful.

With GrayPilgrim, he will come up with some strange fact about sojmeone in the middle of a conversation and say, "Oh he mentioned that in passing about six months ago" and it is just like wierd. I think he has files on all of us.

[Ryokan]

Gray Pilrim=Big Brother:eek: ?

[Hired Gun]

06-05-2003 @ 04:03 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=118509#post118509)
Ryokan:

And its seems to me is all you have to say is, &quot;you athiests are hypocrites&quot;, not that I am wrong. So, unless you come back, which I earnestly hope, I think I can declare victory.


Call Homeland Security. I've found the Iraqi Minister of Information!

We have reached a point of agreement in this thread, and so there is no need to continue it. I agree with you completely that irrational, illogical, non-thinkers, who hide from the truth that logic reveals, have no need of God, nor a spiritual life of any kind, in order to persist in their delusions of morality and will to survive.

If you can honestly sit upon the statue of atheism, which you have just toppled, and declare victory, then I will celebrate your victory with you!

Attention T-web! Ryokan has won this debate and I formally concede to the following points that he has made:

Atheists are irrational, illogical, non-thinkers, who hide from the truth that logic reveals, have no need of God, nor a spiritual life of any kind, in order to persist in their delusions of morality and will to survive.

Oh, if only the bitter taste of defeat could always be this sweet, I should declare myself a loser in every contest.

[Ryokan]

"There are no American forces in Baghdad!"

But... So, you agree that, because athiests are capable of rationalization and hypocrisy, there is an equally plausible explanation for why all of us aren't dead as spirituality? Good! That is an actual victory for me!:yipee:

However, you seem to think that believing in a unprovable God inorder to a. make your moral code consistent and b. alleviate your fear of death, is better. I disagree. Especially when many many believers arbitrarilly change the positions of that "God" to fit their personal morality at the moment, ignore the logical inconsistency that a God does raise, even though he solves moral ones, and come to their belief in a fundamentally illogical way. Seems like the same thing to me.

What you said about athiests applies to just about everyone, I think.

But, I am glad my victory was good for you.:brow:

[Hired Gun]

Today @ 09:10 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120124#post120124)
Ryokan:

&quot;There are no American forces in Baghdad!&quot;

But... So, you agree that, because athiests are capable of rationalization and hypocrisy, there is an equally plausible explanation for why all of us aren't dead as spirituality? Good! That is an actual victory for me!:yipee:

Atheists are spiritually dead by definition. To an atheist, there is no such thing as 'spirituality'. If you are referring to 'attitude', then I will agree that a positive attitude can be maintained, but ONLY through blissful ignorance, or willful ignorance.



However, you seem to think that believing in a unprovable God inorder to a. make your moral code consistent and b. alleviate your fear of death, is better.

I never said these things. I did say that believing in God allows me to logically accept certain principles, which can only be illusory in His absence, as reality, and in this manner, Christianity supplies us with a better model to explain our accepted reality than does atheism. I never said that belief in God makes for a consistent moral code; I merely said that belief in God is necessary for man to logically have any basis for a preferable set of ethics, regardless of what that set may consist of. I never said that belief in God was necessary to alleviate fear of death; I said that belief in God is necessary for a logical reason to go on living, once a person overcomes his illogical fear of death.



I disagree. Especially when many many believers arbitrarilly change the positions of that &quot;God&quot; to fit their personal morality at the moment, ignore the logical inconsistency that a God does raise, even though he solves moral ones, and come to their belief in a fundamentally illogical way. Seems like the same thing to me.

I'm not interested in the hypocrisy of the followers of any particular philosophy. I consider it more appropriate to judge a philosophy by its content. It is fruitless to judge the movement of animal rights activism by examining a member who kicks his own dog. Therefore, it is equally unproductive to point at Christians who seek to justify their misbehaviour and hypocrisy. Personally, I didn't change the Biblical God to suit me. I had to change to suit Him.

I see no logical inconsistencies being raised by God. Would you care to present these alleged logical inconsistencies?

One of the points that I make in the article is that many who profess a belief in God do arrive at that belief in an illogical way. However, why would I point to those when I have logically arrived at the same conclusion?


What you said about athiests applies to just about everyone, I think.

Yes, theists and atheists can both be ignorant and illogical, that is why I only consider the logic of the arguments that they present.


But, I am glad my victory was good for you.:brow:

Thank you. It will be a long time before I ever lose a debate like this again.

[Ryokan]

I hope that it is a long time before I win a debate like that again. I am still hot glue gunnign my ego back together.:frown:

[chimera]

These debates about purpose and the meaning of life are inevitably circular because they completely depend on adopting a particular world view. If you believe in a Creator, then of course the purpose and meaning of life is the Creator's purpose and meaning. If you don't believe in a Creator then there is a sense in which life (speaking generally) has no purpose, or at least no intentionality, but it does have a history and a continuity which is worth understanding. Life in particular, my life for example, does have intentionality and direction and that is purpose (and responsibility) in a very real sense.

You are making a judgment that a life created by and for the purpose of another (albeit higher) intelligence has more value. That's your judgment and if it gives you comfort then great, but you can't offer the comfort that comes from belief in a Creator as an argument for the existence of one.

[Raptor]

:mummy:

[naturaldoc]

These debates about purpose and the meaning of life are inevitably circular because they completely depend on adopting a particular world view. If you believe in a Creator, then of course the purpose and meaning of life is the Creator's purpose and meaning. If you don't believe in a Creator then there is a sense in which life (speaking generally) has no purpose, or at least no intentionality, but it does have a history and a continuity which is worth understanding.

Really? On what basis then?

You are making a judgment that a life created by and for the purpose of another (albeit higher) intelligence has more value. That's your judgment and if it gives you comfort then great, but you can't offer the comfort that comes from belief in a Creator as an argument for the existence of one.

I don't believe that HG was ever trying to offer this logical conclusion as an argument for the existence of a creator. In fact, I believe she said as much... :teeth:

[Teluog]

whatever happened to HG's website? :sad: I loved that site, and wish it would come back online. Thankfully at least this article from the site has been persevered here on t-web, except for the images.

[justgin]

whatever happened to HG's website? :sad: I loved that site, and wish it would come back online. Thankfully at least this article from the site has been persevered here on t-web, except for the images.



Teluog, she told me that she is too busy with the demands of family life to maintain it. I'm sad too. Gin

[princesa]

Teluog, she told me that she is too busy with the demands of family life to maintain it. I'm sad too. Gin

you....know her? i want her brain.

[justgin]

you....know her? i want her brain.

Is it so hard to believe that i actually KNOW some smart people?? :brood: Her phone number was listed somewhere on the internet. After seeing her website, i called her for help.

Yeah, i want her brain too.

[justgin]

Here's the link to the entire website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020922003451/http://ex-atheist.com/

This is for anyone who doubts or disbelieves but is earnestly seeking the truth. This won't help a scoffer one bit.

[Teluog]

Here's the link to the entire website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020922003451/http://ex-atheist.com/

This is for anyone who doubts or disbelieves but is earnestly seeking the truth. This won't help a scoffer one bit.

Thank you!

[Teluog]

Here's the link to the entire website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020922003451/http://ex-atheist.com/

This is for anyone who doubts or disbelieves but is earnestly seeking the truth. This won't help a scoffer one bit.

Thank you!

[princesa]

i'm so glad there is a link to her site, haven't been there in a bit. thank you jg

[justgin]

Princesa, Teluog, forget that link i sent. This one is the most recent version of her site. (and you can thank Chrs181818 for giving me the link to the archives site to begin with!)

http://web.archive.org/web/20080309203436/http://www.ex-atheist.com/index.html




Gin

[princesa]

awesome, her website is back up.

edit- oh no, i thought it was but when i typed it in my browser it doesn't show up. When i clicked on justgins link an archived version does show up however.