How do you attempt to rationalise with the completely irrational?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Well that is false,

It is entirely correct with regard to this thread.

No one has presented a rationally laid out argument to demonstrate the contention that one particular concept of deity does “offer a source for universal moral truths. And an absolute moral character”.

There is also a plethora of evidence in the world to show that even if some creative being/god did exist it is certainly neither all powerful nor all good.

[whag]

Because only rich people live near coastlines.

Very poor people live near coastlines because it's closest to the fish. How very sinful of them to live near where their food and work comes from. Heathens!

Some poor people live near volcanoes, where the soil is richest so they can grow food. How selfish of them!

Because governments are the source of diseases.

What?

Right, and how many people are affected by those things as a result of their own or others choices? Things don't happen in a vacuum, you know.

The question you're dodging is how many millions are affected that weren't asking for it, which invalidates your ridiculous assertion that natural evil is essentially moral evil.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

I love how you stuck [in every precise detail] in there, knowing nobody has claimed that

It denies my interlocutor "wriggle room"

Here is some quotes compiled by your favorite bud, Matt Slick on the Early church believing that Jesus was God, and the Holy Spirit too, making a Trinity.

Is that the best you could come up with?

By the mid second century the itinerant Jewish Galilean peasant holy man had been transformed into a divinity but the nature of his divinity was far from being decided.

We know from studies that have been carried out based on evidence that still exists for various early Christian groups, in particular those in Edessa, Egypt, Asia Minor, Rome, Macedonia, and Antioch, that those disparate early Christian communities in those early centuries did not all hold to one single orthodoxy. It is clear that Christianity embodied a large number of divergent forms none of which represented the clear majority theological viewpoint.

Within some of those early communities versions of Christianity were accepted that would, only later, be deemed "heretical". In other communities beliefs that would later be condemned existed quite comfortably alongside beliefs that would later be accepted by the Christian church.

The fact remains that Christianity in its first 250 years was entirely fluid. This is something so many Christians, especially those on the fundamentalist evangelical wing of the religion either do not know, or choose not to want to know. Many seem to prefer the nonsense that the religion was established once and for all with no dissent and no questions in 33 CE [or thereabouts].

[Whateverman]

According to the dictionary, I have an objective standard for goodness if that standard is written down on a piece of paper.

Thus, Christians have objective standards for morality, and so do atheists. It's not that impressive...

[mikewhitney]

It denies my interlocutor "wriggle room"

Is that the best you could come up with?

By the mid second century the itinerant Jewish Galilean peasant holy man had been transformed into a divinity but the nature of his divinity was far from being decided.

We know from studies that have been carried out based on evidence that still exists for various early Christian groups, in particular those in Edessa, Egypt, Asia Minor, Rome, Macedonia, and Antioch, that those disparate early Christian communities in those early centuries did not all hold to one single orthodoxy. It is clear that Christianity embodied a large number of divergent forms none of which represented the clear majority theological viewpoint.

Within some of those early communities versions of Christianity were accepted that would, only later, be deemed "heretical". In other communities beliefs that would later be condemned existed quite comfortably alongside beliefs that would later be accepted by the Christian church.

The fact remains that Christianity in its first 250 years was entirely fluid. This is something so many Christians, especially those on the fundamentalist evangelical wing of the religion either do not know, or choose not to want to know. Many seem to prefer the nonsense that the religion was established once and for all with no dissent and no questions in 33 CE [or thereabouts].

Funny how you don't expect that discussions help clarify the meaning of complex things.

[Mountain Man]

Very poor people live near coastlines because it's closest to the fish. How very sinful of them to live near where their food and work comes from. Heathens!

Some poor people live near volcanoes, where the soil is richest so they can grow food. How selfish of them!


What?


The question you're dodging is how many millions are affected that weren't asking for it, which invalidates your ridiculous assertion that natural evil is essentially moral evil.

I never said their actions were selfish or sinful or that they were "asking for it", so you're just burning a straw man. Now why don't you go back and see if you can figure out what point I was actually making.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Funny how you don't expect that discussions help clarify the meaning of complex things.

Discussion is perfectly acceptable. However, terms need to defined and parameters established, thereby preventing confusion and ambiguity.

[mikewhitney]

Discussion is perfectly acceptable. However, terms need to defined and parameters established, thereby preventing confusion and ambiguity.

Exactly!!! That's what the councils were doing. Finally you are making sense.

[whag]

I never said their actions were selfish or sinful or that they were "asking for it", so you're just burning a straw man. Now why don't you go back and see if you can figure out what point I was actually making.

You: "Even as far as that's concerned, suffering from a natural disaster is ultimately down to man's decisions....I think one would be very hard pressed to come up with any evils in the world that are not ultimately the result of man's choices."

Since it's incorrect that most natural evil is the result of human decisions--and I explained to you the necessity of human beings living near rivers (food and work), oceans (food and work), volcanos (food and work), tornado pathways (because it's cheaper than New York and California), etc.--you have some explaining to do.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Exactly!!! That's what the councils were doing. Finally you are making sense.

What? If you are referring to the various ecclesiastical councils that took place from the fourth century you need to do some serious reading. Those events comprised a great deal of argument and dissent often extremely vicious, with, on occasion, bribery and/or a goon squad. Read up on the behaviour of Cyril of Alexandria at the Council of Ephesus.

[mikewhitney]

What? If you are referring to the various ecclesiastical councils that took place from the fourth century you need to do some serious reading. Those events comprised a great deal of argument and dissent often extremely vicious, with, on occasion, bribery and/or a goon squad. Read up on the behaviour of Cyril of Alexandria at the Council of Ephesus.

I take it that you see history repeating itself with what the BLM/Antifa rioters are doing now.

[whag]

I take it that you see history repeating itself with what the BLM/Antifa rioters are doing now.

The only difference being one group put your Bible together.

[Mountain Man]

You: "Even as far as that's concerned, suffering from a natural disaster is ultimately down to man's decisions....I think one would be very hard pressed to come up with any evils in the world that are not ultimately the result of man's choices."

Since it's incorrect that most natural evil is the result of human decisions--and I explained to you the necessity of human beings living near rivers (food and work), oceans (food and work), volcanos (food and work), tornado pathways (because it's cheaper than New York and California), etc.--you have some explaining to do.

If someone chooses to live near a river for whatever reason, and the river floods and destroys his home, how is that not ultimately a consequence of his choices? Looks like you have some explaining to do.

[mikewhitney]

The only difference being one group put your Bible together.

If she has stated something with any accuracy, this just admits that humans can act like humans. That would be a big surprise, wouldn't it?

[whag]

If someone chooses to live near a river for whatever reason, and the river floods and destroys his home, how is that not ultimately a consequence of his choices? Looks like you have some explaining to do.

Because he has no choice but to eat and work. You realize civilization dawned at the margins of rivers and coasts, right?

If a girl is born with a cleft palate, how is that the ultimate consequences of her choices? I wasn't "hard-pressed" to think of that example there being so many.