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Morality or Obedience?

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  • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
    God doesn’t exist.
    . . . . that's your claim. You have an argument for that?

    I would suggest that it is based upon the moral values held by the society in which you live.
    I might too, if I didn't affirm God's existence.
    Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
    George Horne

    Comment


    • I keep thinking this thread is "Mortality or Obesity"



      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
        . . . . that's your claim. You have an argument for that?
        Lack of substantive evidence is the basis of my claim.

        I might too, if I didn't affirm God's existence.
        Do you have substantive evidence for affirming God's existence?
        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
          . . . . that's your claim. You have an argument for that?

          I might too, if I didn't affirm God's existence.
          . . . that's your claim. You have an argument for that?
          Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

          MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
          MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

          seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

          Comment


          • Originally posted by JimL View Post
            Many theists here argue that morality is objective, that god is the bases of morality. So my question to them, i.e. to you theists, do you consider yourself to be moral beings, or are you just obeying what you believe to be devine laws? In other words, if God did not exist would you cease to live according to the morals that you now hold to?
            That is asking a question that is, essentially, meaningless, since the notion that God could not exist is, from a Christian POV, unmeaning.

            IMHO, to apply talk of objectivity-subjectivity to Christian moral living is to apply woefully insufficient, and overly intellectualist, categories. Such an approach is too cerebral and detached and clinical. I think it makes far less inadequate sense to talk of life in Christ as communion with Christ, and as dynamic participation in His Life, and to think of Christian moral living as a natural by-product of Life in Him. The emphasis is not on law or obligation, but on what “happens naturally”, or spontaneously, when a soul is united with Christ.

            Speaking for myself, I think any source whatever is worthwhile as a source of moral teaching. I think that, in principle, any POV can illuminate, and be illuminated by, Christian ethics as interpreted by the Church. If anyone accepts anything good or true, it is a gift of God, regardless of its human historical source. I would apply this idea as much to Nietszche or Schopenhauer or Kant or Heidegger, as to Egyptian & Babylonian wisdom-literature, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, the Buddha, the Koran, or Ramanuja. The Bible has pride of place as a moral teacher, but it is not the only one; and some things are said better outside it than are said in it. It is not the Bible that is special, so much as the God to Whom the Bible bears witness.

            Sometimes, in order to be Christian, one has to go against the letter of the Bible. Case in point: the abolition of slavery. The Bible allows it. That it is no longer tolerated among Christians, is due, not to the letter of the Bible, but to the logic of faith in Christ, and to an increase in humane sentiment. It is this humane sentiment that brought an end to many conditions and features of life that had previously been widespread or even normal, such as torture, imprisonment for debt, cruelty to children, cruelty to animals, public executions, flogging in Army and Navy, the employment of young children in coalmines, and so on.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
              God doesn’t exist . . .
              Your concept of God, there can be no such thing.
              Originally posted by Tassman View Post
              Lack of substantive evidence is the basis of my claim.
              Last edited by 37818; 01-10-2018, 08:31 AM.
              . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

              . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

              Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

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              • Originally posted by 37818 View Post
                Your concept of God, there can be no such thing.
                There is no substantive evidence for any concept of God.
                “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                  God doesn’t exist and yet you do exist so your morality, whilst attributed by you to “God”, is in fact based upon a different source. I would suggest that it is based upon the moral values held by the society in which you live.
                  Whoa, there cowboy. Uh, oh. You made a claim; looks like you have the burden of proof. Prove God doesn't exist! If you don't want to, retract your claim, and deal with my counterpossible. Oh, and moral values based on societal norms leads to absurdity.
                  Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                  George Horne

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                    Whoa, there cowboy. Uh, oh. You made a claim; looks like you have the burden of proof. Prove God doesn't exist! If you don't want to, retract your claim, and deal with my counterpossible. .
                    Human history is replete with animistic spirits, totems and gods. There is no good reason to think any of them to have existed or exist. Why would I believe any of them?

                    Oh, and moral values based on societal norms leads to absurdity
                    Your bald assertion doesn't explain why the societies in which faith and religious observances are the weakest — the most secular societies — tend to rank higher on the UN Human Development Index than their more religious rivals.
                    “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                      Human history is replete with animistic spirits, totems and gods. There is no good reason to think any of them to have existed or exist. Why would I believe any of them?
                      What a hypocrite. You fault me for bald assertions below and you have no qualms making one yourself! Typical. You're retracting the claim, then? Don't like that burden of proof do you?

                      Your bald assertion doesn't explain why the societies in which faith and religious observances are the weakest — the most secular societies — tend to rank higher on the UN Human Development Index than their more religious rivals.
                      It doesn't have to because it's one, gigantic, stinky red herring. Go take your stinky fish home to your stinky abode.
                      Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                      George Horne

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                        Lack of substantive evidence is the basis of my claim.
                        Oh, didn't see this glaring argument from ignorance. Nice try! Swing and a miss . . .
                        Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                        George Horne

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                          Oh, and moral values based on societal norms leads to absurdity.
                          This discussion has been had several times. I'm curious to knwo why you think this is so.
                          The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                          I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                            What a hypocrite. You fault me for bald assertions below and you have no qualms making one yourself! Typical. You're retracting the claim, then? Don't like that burden of proof do you?
                            No bald assertion! There is no substantiated evidence for the existence of the myriad animistic spirits, totems and gods in which humans have believed throughout history.

                            It doesn't have to because it's one, gigantic, stinky red herring. Go take your stinky fish home to your stinky abode.
                            It is a fact nevertheless, not a bald assertion, that the most secular societies tend to rank higher on the UN Human Development Index than their more religious rivals. So your claim that “moral values based on societal norms leads to absurdity” can’t be sustained.
                            “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                              No bald assertion! There is no substantiated evidence for the existence of the myriad animistic spirits, totems and gods in which humans have believed throughout history.

                              1. There's no substantiated evidence of the supernatural.
                              C. Therefore, the supernatural doesn't exist.

                              Argument from ignorance.

                              It is a fact nevertheless, not a bald assertion, that the most secular societies tend to rank higher on the UN Human Development Index than their more religious rivals. So your claim that “moral values based on societal norms leads to absurdity” can’t be sustained.
                              Red herring. Show the connection between secular/human development and the idea that moral values based on societal norms leads to absurdity. Hint: you're going to be way off if you don't understand the ethico-philosophical point undergirding the claim. And I've heard the ole' talking point about the UN Human Development Index, and there's other variables you'd need to take into account before you construct your secular castle in the clouds.
                              Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                              George Horne

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post

                                1. There's no substantiated evidence of the supernatural.
                                C. Therefore, the supernatural doesn't exist.

                                Argument from ignorance.
                                So, are you suggesting someone should hold a belief for which there is no substantiated evidence?
                                The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                                I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                                Comment

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