posted
I don't think I'm completely sane anyway. But then again, can anyone claim to be completely sane in this insane world?
Hmm... well, I've never been hostile toward my friends. I respect everyone's opinion though I have my moments. But I seem to run into the hostility anyway after I tell them I respect their opinion.
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We can assume God is good, if God exists as a something that is at least all-knowing and all-powerful, because being all-knowing and all-powerful necessarily implies that one is good.
After all, if there is standard of "good" against which God could be measured, it would have to be an objective fact not only what is good but also that good itself is good. In order to be all-knowing, God would have to always know both what is good and also that good is preferable to not good. Given this, it logically follows that God would always intend to do good.
So that would only leave the possibility that God intends good but is somehow unable to do it. That directly conflicts with the omnipotence of God. If God knows what good is and knows that good is preferable to not good, and if God can do anything He intends to do, then He would definitely do good.
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quote:After all, if there is standard of "good" against which God could be measured, it would have to be an objective fact not only what is good but also that good itself is good. In order to be all-knowing, God would have to always know both what is good and also that good is preferable to not good. Given this, it logically follows that God would always intend to do good.
I'm not following the logic there. Why is good preferable to non-good? Some people do pretty well for themselves and achieve great success towards their own goals through being non-good. Non-good is "preferable" to good for these people. Why would this not be the case for God?
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Is non-good the same as bad? "Non" means the absence of, and like dark is the absence of light, bad is the absence of good (or so the claim is made.) So by the very definition of the words, Good is ---well, I would say "better," not "preferable," but the point is the same--- better than bad.
Kinda the long way around, it's all in the meaning of the word. Good is better, is preferable, because it is good, and anything else would not be as good, and therefore not preferable.
Somthing like that, right Tresopax? Or would you explain it differently?
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Constipatron , Hmm, I think my last post came off a bit more prickly than I meant it to. Your reasoning irked me, but be that as it may, my apologies.
But to more substantially address what you're saying,
quote:In other words, everyone’s got to find out ON THEIR OWN, FOR THEMSELVES and in the end they can’t rely on anyone else’s opinion, belief, etc.
I have to disagree with this also. Or, I can agree with it in the sense that no one can make up my mind on these matters for me. It's just that that statement isn't very useful. Of course people have got to decide for themselves.
But really, we're social animals. We rely on each other, not just for raw data with which to decide, but for pre-built conclusions. I do it all the time. There's too much requisite knowledge to be a good human being for us to not take some shortcuts. Most people take them for granted most of the time. I do.
You mentioned one of those shortcuts earlier: "If everyone else is doing X, it's probably a good idea for me to do X also." In certain situations, that's a pretty useful maxim; traffic would be hell if no one followed that one. As myself and others pointed out though, it has limits of usefulness. The point I was trying to make in my last post was that, while this maxim makes a useful shortcut, it makes a pretty poor justification, especially for what amounts to a lifetime commitment.
Here's another maxim: "Your elders have more experience than you do, it's a good idea to obey them, or at least heed their advice." Undeniably useful. It's more or less hardwired into kids below a certain age. But what if your parents take advantage of that fact to fill your head with a lot of nonsense? As far as atheists see things, that's what's happening (though we sometimes forget that it's done with the best of intentions).
quote:Of course, if Christianity is wrong, or any other established religion, then what’s the problem? Those people (not the militant extremists the news is so fond of portraying, but the honest worshipers who try to live as best they can) will invariably lead a better life than someone who lives an unstructured, chaotic life. Such a perspective is more appealing to me than someone who has no direction or higher purpose.
Well, there's all the time spent worshiping a non-entity. It's time that could, arguably have been better spent. Assuming there isn't an afterlife, that time is all the more precious.
And I can't disagree strenuously enough when you say that religious faithful will invariably lead better lives than someone unstructured and chaotic.
For one thing, it sounds a lot like you think that nonbelievers lead unstructured and chaotic lives when the opposite is true. For example, atheists and agnostics are less likely to be incarcerated than believers. As many atheists will tell you, non-belief opens up new directions for you to pick for yourself.
Secondly, it sounds a lot like you think that theists will, in the absence of religion, lead chaotic unstructured lives. I'll admit that some would. I think many more would not.
As a final note, it is quite possible to convince other people of the truth of your beliefs. That's how C.S. Lewis converted, ne?
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quote: Well, there's all the time spent worshiping a non-entity. It's time that could, arguably have been better spent.
First one must ask what time well spent would consist of. If a person feels enriched by worship, can it truly be wasted? Especially when there's no guarantee that they wouldn't spend Sunday morning sleeping in or playing video games instead.
It's a pretty big jump to assume that all theists would follow a well reasoned moral code and act in their own best interest without the beliefs they were raised with. Heck, a lot of them don't act that way as is.
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quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: It's a pretty big jump to assume that all theists would follow a well reasoned moral code and act in their own best interest without the beliefs they were raised with.
You have to split these two things up. I believe that, without their beliefs, almost everyone would act in their own best interest. Or what they thought their best interest was, at any rate.
As far as a "well reasoned moral code", what is that? Many people, atheist and theist, haven't reasoned their moral codes at all. They just follow the moral codes passed down by their family or religion.
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If belief and non-belief make no difference, then why are we having this discussion? People should do exactly what they're doing anyway, just without the word God thrown in?
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quote:I’ve friends who are atheistic or agnostic in belief. And although I can understand their disbelief in God, I don’t understand why, when posed with the ability to search further, they simply close up and claim that a belief in a God is ‘illogical’, ‘foolish’, ‘stupid’, etc. There are many, many examples and parallels that can be drawn to any subject you talk about. By all means, go ahead and list, it still doesn’t change the validity of my statement.
What do you mean "posed with the ability to search further"? Because I, for one, have never stopped searching for religious answers. I just don't receive answers that confirm any particular religious belief.
I don't close up, but I certainly have called certain peoples' beliefs irrational. If I call someone's belief illogical, it is only because they don't seem to make logical sense within their own framework. If I call someone's belief 'foolish' or 'stupid', I only do so if the believer is acting in those ways because of their belief. (Which, I'm happy to say, very few if any people here at Hatrack seem to do so.)
My original point, which I think still stands, was addressing the fact that you seemed to think the number of believers meant something.
There are so many believers in god, so they must be correct!
Well, no, actually.
Everyone in the world could believe in a god, even the same god, and that fact wouldn't mean the god actually existed.
I just wanted to make sure that was clear.
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KOM: I'll try to wind back to some of your earlier points before you and Rakeesh started going back and forth. Unfortunately I have a math project that is due today and my two lab partners decided that instead of emailing me their material Saturday so that I could compile it into a report they basically did everything, including the report and emailed it to me Sunday evening, thus leaving me high and dry as a contributory factor. I'm not sure how I am supposed to salvage a grade out of this when I will have done at best 10% of the total work.
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quote:Originally posted by Constipatron: ... Answer me this, why do atheists and religion have to be so hostile?
I'm not even necessarily convinced that atheists and religion *are* all that hostile.
Books and online arguments on a web forum are on a decidedly low rung of violence, all things considered.
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posted
Heh, that's a nice bit of reasoning there, Tom, re: atheists and hostility to religion.
In my experience, most people are hostile to manipulative lies and self-delusion. About as many people who are hostile to insults, really.
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I started reading the New Testament expecting to find a reasonably admirable Jesus. Although I am an atheist I had for a long time thought Jesus to be a pretty shining example of humanity. How shocked I was to find that Jesus is, in many places, a big jerk- and beyond that, not exactly always forthcoming. And that's how his followers depict him.
I guess as a true, reasoning atheist I shouldn't be surprised that find that a man has faults and flaws.
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quote:Why is good preferable to non-good? Some people do pretty well for themselves and achieve great success towards their own goals through being non-good. Non-good is "preferable" to good for these people.
Good is preferable to non-good because that is essentially what Good is - Good is that which is objectively preferable. If there is nothing that is objectively preferable, nothing that we rationally should prefer, then there is no good against which to weigh God anyway, so the question would be moot. (It would make little sense to weigh God against a relativistic morality because the answer would change depending on who is asking the question.)
People who pursue non-good goals only do so because they are confused enough that they think those goals are what they should prefer. Non-good isn't actually what those people should prefer. I think they do prefer it, but only because their knowledge of what is good is incomplete.
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quote:In my experience, most people are hostile to manipulative lies and self-delusion. About as many people who are hostile to insults, really.
Well, see, that's part of the problem. The expression of atheism is, to a religious mind, pretty much inherently offensive. There is an order of difference between mutually agreeing to believe in two different supernatural phenomena and disagreeing on the existence of supernatural phenomena entirely.
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It's not inherently offensive to a religious mind. It is frequently inherently offensive to a mind trained to find atheism offensive, of course, but that isn't the same thing.
And anyway, you're sidestepping the point.
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posted
It was about time this got into the question of what "good" is, although it hasn't been explored enough yet. That, I think, is the biggest problem with the debate as it is right now. There is an assumption that "good" means this or that quality.
Those who are arguing who is the better God because of body count (in life or death) obviously have no idea what religious people mean by "good." On the other hand, there are many religions that define "good" in ways that are at odds with each other. In fact, there are atheists that don't believe in "good" as anything more than either self-gratification, doing no harm to others, or a combination of both. Good is what we make of it and not an existing truth.
In other words, I refuse to define my God's goodness by other people's idea of what constitutes good. Just so others know where I am coming from, and to underline why I think this argument is worthless, I will explain why I believe God is good. He is good because I believe the holy teachings that say he is good. No matter how bad it might seem in some respects, I know He is good because I believe in God's words. As someone who believes God supercedes logic that is enough for me.
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Not really, no. The point I'm making is that any frank, atheistic statement is going to be inevitably offensive, because it represents a bald negation of a belief that is presumably deeply held and important to the hearer. The listener may of course choose not to be offended by this negation -- and a variety of options exist for this -- but any such statement at all immediately puts it in the listener's court. An atheist who acts surprised when someone finds his assertion of atheism offensive is someone who hasn't been an atheist long.
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: I started reading the New Testament expecting to find a reasonably admirable Jesus. Although I am an atheist I had for a long time thought Jesus to be a pretty shining example of humanity. How shocked I was to find that Jesus is, in many places, a big jerk- and beyond that, not exactly always forthcoming. And that's how his followers depict him.
I'm not a theist either, and certainly not a Christian, so I'm not offended by this, but I'm curious what things you're seeing him do that make him come off as a jerk. There's the business with the fig tree, of course, and the incident with the money changers might be read that way, but what else? It's been a long time since I've read the gospels, but I don't remember there being a lot of places where I thought "man, what a jerk".
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:being all-knowing and all-powerful necessarily implies that one is good.
No, it doesn't.
Especially since at that point I can see how easily one can become bored.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: It was about time this got into the question of what "good" is, although it hasn't been explored enough yet. That, I think, is the biggest problem with the debate as it is right now. There is an assumption that "good" means this or that quality.
Those who are arguing who is the better God because of body count (in life or death) obviously have no idea what religious people mean by "good." On the other hand, there are many religions that define "good" in ways that are at odds with each other. In fact, there are atheists that don't believe in "good" as anything more than either self-gratification, doing no harm to others, or a combination of both. Good is what we make of it and not an existing truth.
In other words, I refuse to define my God's goodness by other people's idea of what constitutes good. Just so others know where I am coming from, and to underline why I think this argument is worthless, I will explain why I believe God is good. He is good because I believe the holy teachings that say he is good. No matter how bad it might seem in some respects, I know He is good because I believe in God's words. As someone who believes God supercedes logic that is enough for me.
To use the obvious example: People thought Hitler was good, Hitlers propoganda even said so.
Why do people almost except for crazies unanimaniously agree he is bad? Because through his actions over 6 million people died.
God killed 2 million people the situations are very similar, why should we logically conclude he is good when his teachings are all logically 'evil'?
I think it would be approbiate to the discussion to bring in Penn & Teller .
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Not really, no. The point I'm making is that any frank, atheistic statement is going to be inevitably offensive, because it represents a bald negation of a belief that is presumably deeply held and important to the hearer. The listener may of course choose not to be offended by this negation -- and a variety of options exist for this -- but any such statement at all immediately puts it in the listener's court. An atheist who acts surprised when someone finds his assertion of atheism offensive is someone who hasn't been an atheist long.
You're right. All of a sudden you as a theist are called upon to defend theism itself, not just your particular set of beliefs. Many of the basic beliefs you hold in common with others who believe in a deity go out the window when you're talking to an atheist. You have to think at a very fundamental level. It's vexing.
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quote:God killed 2 million people the situations are very similar, why should we logically conclude he is good when his teachings are all logically 'evil'?
Even assuming that you mean the traditional Christian God, here, it's a stretch to say that all that God's teachings are "logically evil." Many of His actions appear evil by human standards, but the teachings by and large aren't all that horrible (with some exceptions).
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posted
"Because through his actions over 6 million people died."
"God killed 2 million people the situations are very similar, why should we logically conclude he is good when his teachings are all logically 'evil'?"
Why should we logically conclude death or even killing is evil? Does that also mean that Americans are evil who killed Nazi troopers? Are they good because the other side had weapons? Was it evil to drop bombs on "innocent" civilians in order to stop Hitler from killing more humans?
I guess I am still wondering what "good" and "logic" has to do with each other.
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Blayne Bradley
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I think the very fact that the core of the belief system of the Judeo-Christian god is "believe with heart and soul and follow a set of 10 arbirtrary rules or burn in hell for all eterny" is encredibly fundamentally flawed that I think casts a suspisious shadow on everything else.
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quote:I think the very fact that the core of the belief system of the Judeo-Christian god is "believe with heart and soul and follow a set of 10 arbirtrary rules or burn in hell for all eterny"
Or, you know, just two.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote: WHAT’S EVIL? Some would point out that a fireball spell is likely to cause undue suffering, and it could be used to kill a group of orphans. Does that make fireball an evil spell? Fireball, by itself, simply creates a blast of fire. Fire can be used for evil purposes, but it is not inherently evil. Contrasted with a spell such as shriveling, whose only purpose and only possible use is to wither the flesh of another living creature in a painful and debilitating fashion, it becomes easier to see why shriveling is an evil spell. The judgment cannot be based solely on effect. Your campaign could, for example, have a spell called vitality leech that calls upon a demon that drains Strength points from a target for a short time. The spell’s effect is only slightly different from ray of enfeeblement, but the approach and execution are very different. Vitality leech is an evil spell, while ray of enfeeblement is not. Although the ultimate game effect is the same, the character in the game world faced with the two spells undoubtedly regards them differently. Tapping into evil power is an evil act in and of itself, no matter what the effects or the reason for using the power might be.
posted
I must say that I have thought how atheists (and minority faiths) argue about religion is evidence that the United States is a Christian Nation by de fault. Same can be said for Western Civilization. I mean, how do atheist arguments go in a Muslim or Hindu dominated nation?
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Shawshank:
quote:I think the very fact that the core of the belief system of the Judeo-Christian god is "believe with heart and soul and follow a set of 10 arbirtrary rules or burn in hell for all eterny"
quote:Originally posted by Occasional: I must say that I have thought how atheists (and minority faiths) argue about religion is evidence that the United States is a Christian Nation by de fault. Same can be said for Western Civilization. I mean, how do atheist arguments go in a Muslim or Hindu dominated nation?
I think Western Civilization is a very Roman based civilization, I think christinanity has been casted off as a guider of Western actions around the time Napoleon dispensed with the Holy Roman Empire.
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Now I think you need to explain. I have no idea what you just meant.
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Blayne Bradley
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It is arguable that in the middle ages Christinanity was the moral guidance of many kingdoms rather then economic or Machiavellian views, this gradually weakened as the powers of monarchs centralized and grew apart from the Pope and into their own courts, I would plac two events as the final nails in the coffin of Christian guidance in the political arena of nations, the Treaty of Westphalia and the dismantling of the Holy Roman Empire.
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Suppose God is actually in a battle with Satan over a piece of heavenly territory. They both have reasonable claims on that territory though the rules of heaven require that they use human human souls to fight a proxy battle to determine which of them shall win. God's only interest in mankind is in creating fodder for his army. God embarks on a propaganda campaign in which he claims that he is good and that Satan is evil and that Satan is a liar who cannot be trusted. Through this campaign God convinces large portions of the population that he has their best interest in mind and he directs them to behave in ways which are likely to increase their numbers so as to create a powerful army to act on his behalf in the heavenly war. Sometimes these behaviors include brutal wars of conquest, while other times they involve charitable outreach.
Is this version of God good? Is it inconsistent with the Biblical account? If it is inconsistent, would much modification be required to make it consistent?
It does not seem difficult to construct a God that is consistent with the words and behaviors attributed to him which is not good for any definition of good other than "might makes right".
In some ways I am glad that I have thus far had no confirmation of the existence of a God because I fear there would be no way to determine whether that God was of a character to which I should dedicate my worship.
posted
Hard to say it doesnt match the biblical account but then again we probably cant trust it in the first place so we could probably come up with different scenarios to explain it *shrug*.
But as they say all lies are based partially in truth.
We could say that "okay, what if the biblical account is partially true?"
What if both Lucifer and Yahweh are equally morally ambigious god like beings living whatever heaven is, they get into a disagreement over the proper way to guide the human race, Yahweh believes that humans need to be brought along with discipline as humans are flawed beings, they need to be guided, taught how to run their lives, valuing the human instinct to Orderly societies.
Lucifer however believes that Humans should be more chaotic, that the strongest of human traits rather then being suppressed should be nurtured. That a more chaotic fluid humanity bringing out their strongest traits rather then their weakest.
Order vs Chaos Yahweh being more powerful then Lucifer and having more supporters succeeds in his/her own domain to casting down Lucifer to the garbage dump of the planes, the angels are given a choice "him or me" some choose to follow Lucifer and some choose to stay with Yahweh.
And thus we have the current situation both Lucifer and Yahweh go to Earth through avatars and proxies to try to gain human beings on their respective sides, even going as far as to go to Yahwehs demigod son Joshua.
The bible was written through Yahwehs influence was written as to by this line of reasoning demonize Lucifer into a fire breathing dragon that eats babies and compulsively lies, while Yahweh becomes more of an Omnipotent being of infinit goodness, the sheer polarization is rather jarring.
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I feel like I am in a Mormon Sunday School class about the War in Heaven, only looking at it in a reverse mirror. Feels kind of strange.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Suppose God is actually in a battle with Satan over a piece of heavenly territory. They both have reasonable claims on that territory though the rules of heaven require that they use human human souls to fight a proxy battle to determine which of them shall win. God's only interest in mankind is in creating fodder for his army. God embarks on a propaganda campaign in which he claims that he is good and that Satan is evil and that Satan is a liar who cannot be trusted. Through this campaign God convinces large portions of the population that he has their best interest in mind and he directs them to behave in ways which are likely to increase their numbers so as to create a powerful army to act on his behalf in the heavenly war. Sometimes these behaviors include brutal wars of conquest, while other times they involve charitable outreach.
Well I would say that God doesn't need humanity for anything. He created us simply so He can have a relationship with us.
The rules of heaven would have been created by God- it's not like it's set up to be some force of arbitration.
And Blayne, as to your question: Jesus later describes the essence of the two laws that form the basis of the entire law "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" and the second is like it "Love your neighbor as yourself" that is the essence of the law.
But to say that God puts these rules in place and then says- if you don't obey those you will burn forever is a serious exaggeration that grossly simplifies things to an inaccurate level. God doesn't actually think that we can live up to those laws by ourselves. But since the consequence of sin has always been death- something has to die. Therefore God being all-loving gave us methodologies for sacrifices (culminating in Christ's passion) so that we can still be in relationship with God forever.
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quote:Originally posted by Shawshank: Well I would say that God doesn't need humanity for anything. He created us simply so He can have a relationship with us.
God: Cosmic paedophile? Next on Fox News Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Well I would say that God doesn't need humanity for anything. He created us simply so He can have a relationship with us
And how do we know this? Because he told us? Because someone said he told them?
quote:The rules of heaven would have been created by God- it's not like it's set up to be some force of arbitration.
Again, how do we know this? Mormons, for instance, believe that God is subject to higher laws than those that he has created.
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quote:Not really, no. The point I'm making is that any frank, atheistic statement is going to be inevitably offensive, because it represents a bald negation of a belief that is presumably deeply held and important to the hearer. The listener may of course choose not to be offended by this negation -- and a variety of options exist for this -- but any such statement at all immediately puts it in the listener's court. An atheist who acts surprised when someone finds his assertion of atheism offensive is someone who hasn't been an atheist long.
*shrug* Not in my experience, and I'm speaking of my experience both before and after conversion. Someone saying, "I believe your faith is a bunch of bunk," does not offend me if just anyone says it, simply because I don't actually care what just anyone thinks. Close friends have said it to me before, and I was not offended.
My religion has not once been negated by anyone else's disbelief. If my faith had been negated, then my faith would have been pretty insubstantial in the first place, right?
The problem is, in my experience, that relatively few atheists or else simply non-believers in any given faith actually stop at saying, "I disagree with you on a fundamental level." No, the usual experience goes quite a lot further than that. "You're stupid," or, "You're going to hell," being common outright statements or implications.
That's a different ball of wax altogether. I agree with AfR, but 'vexing' =/ offensive.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: I feel like I am in a Mormon Sunday School class about the War in Heaven, only looking at it in a reverse mirror. Feels kind of strange.
reversed? explain as i know of neither.
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It is a curious atheist that says "you're going to hell."
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Shawshank: Well I would say that God doesn't need humanity for anything. He created us simply so He can have a relationship with us.
The rules of heaven would have been created by God- it's not like it's set up to be some force of arbitration.
And Blayne, as to your question: Jesus later describes the essence of the two laws that form the basis of the entire law "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" and the second is like it "Love your neighbor as yourself" that is the essence of the law.
But to say that God puts these rules in place and then says- if you don't obey those you will burn forever is a serious exaggeration that grossly simplifies things to an inaccurate level. God doesn't actually think that we can live up to those laws by ourselves. But since the consequence of sin has always been death- something has to die. Therefore God being all-loving gave us methodologies for sacrifices (culminating in Christ's passion) so that we can still be in relationship with God forever.
If that is true why have the bible in first place? If all that matters are those 2? Then there is still the matter of 'sin' is there sin? Is sin real? Is it justified by a not flawed ethical logic? Also these methodologies implies we did something wrong, what if we did something wrong only through biblical eyes, if that is the case then why should sacrifice something to make amends if what we did was right or at least our right?
I don't think I have oversimplyfied, I think that according to biblical literature and its current interpretations answer me this: If an individual completely rejects jesus's sacrifice, rejects god, rejects the bible and all morals that supposedly stemming from it completely in heart and soul what happens to this person when he dies?
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There. Fixed that for you. (hey, it's the first time, and probably last, that I've used that meme....)
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quote:It is a curious atheist that says "you're going to hell."
It would be, wouldn't it? Fortunately I wasn't speaking strictly about atheists when I made that comment, a point which is pretty clear given the context.
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quote:Someone saying, "I believe your faith is a bunch of bunk," does not offend me if just anyone says it, simply because I don't actually care what just anyone thinks.
Which is, of course, why I said that at that point the choice of whether or not to be offended falls to the listener. I mean, I could say "you're a stupid doody-head," and you could decide whether or not to consider that offensive. By that logic -- by saying that when a listener can decide whether to be offended or not, something is not offensive -- we are forced to conclude that nothing, anywhere, is actually offensive.
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posted
I'm not sure that the question of God being good is necessarily all that important.
Sure, I can understand why it would be important for many definitions of God. If God demanded to be worshipped and expected everyone to obey his every command without any reason or explanation, then yeah, I can see why it would be important for a person to have some pretty convincing evidence of his goodness. Or if the condition of one's eternal existence depended on God's definition of goodness, then yeah, it would be important that our definition of goodness would match his.
But for a God that set the universe in motion and occassionally gives people some guidance as to how they can attain spiritual enlightenment or awareness, then I don't really see how his goodness is all that relevant. Especially since it's not something that can be proven anyway.
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