20 Mar 14
Originally posted by SwissGambitYou made claims which were countered: I opposed you on several of them and you opted to forego offering support for the claims--- and in one case, you decided specificity wasn't even necessary.
*claims not countered
But yes, do go on to your next attempt. It's for the best.
This doesn't exactly entail a dismissal with prejudice, but your refusal to support your own claims certainly doesn't promote your cause.
20 Mar 14
Originally posted by sonshipOne does not need to read the full gospels to understand that punishment via eternal torment is inherently unjust, and cruel. Nor does reading the rest of the gospels compensate for this black mark on the mercy and morality of Jesus. (I have read them all.)
You do have to admit that your view has no REAL enforcer and no that many will get away with quite a lot. Much evil will go undetected and unremedied.
If the Governor of the universe is totally sloppy or non-existent, then it doesn't matter. But does creation itself suggest an encouraging confirmation of this ?
If the Governor of the creation give ...[text shortened]... of abstract principles existing before humans existed to follow them. [/quote]
Cont. below.
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"Something was there awaiting humanity's heightened awareness."
I fail to see why you find this curious. That's just how concepts are. Yes, 2+2 equalled four, AMAZINGLY!, before human minds conceived it. So what?
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You haven't established that life without God is a 'meaningless existence of accidents with no purpose.' Nor have you established that nihilism is reality sans God. Nor have you established that humanists think we are no better than cockroaches. I'm getting a major *FALSE CLAIM OVERLOAD* here.
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You also don't understand how evolution works if you think the result is an 'accident'.
I think Sagan is probably correct in thinking the cosmos is all that has been or ever will be.
The Dawkins quote requires context. I have not read that book, but I can tell from the quote that it is part of a larger thought.
Notice that I do leave room for some possibility of a divinely guided process.A start! After all the extreme skepticism you showed above - "life is without purpose! we are all accidents!" - you are now realizing that acceptance of Evolution does not mandate these conclusions. Keep exploring that line of thought - it will help this discussion.
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No, I don't have to admit that my view has no REAL enforcer. In fact, my view is full of them. They are every person and animal that will hit back at you for wronging them.
Of course I will admit that people get away with evil. The system is far from perfect, but that's all there is. Do we merely moan about it, or try to improve it?
20 Mar 14
Originally posted by FreakyKBHOoh! Dismissal with prejudice! How will I ever dare to show my face again. 😀
You made claims which were countered: I opposed you on several of them and you opted to forego offering support for the claims--- and in one case, you decided specificity wasn't even necessary.
This doesn't exactly entail a dismissal with prejudice, but your refusal to support your own claims certainly doesn't promote your cause.
20 Mar 14
3 edits
Originally posted by sonshipAs I explained, probably the best physical analogy is with a secondary property, like color. I'll remind you that you yourself independently raised the subject of color in the other thread, with your examples regarding "redness", in support of the idea that theists like you are committed to moral properties that are analogous to such properties as r ...[text shortened]... ive title.
Are moral values and/ or moral duties [b]prescriptive in your view ?[/b]
I am not familiar with the term "secondary properties."
I don't think I used that term.
What do you mean by "secondary properties" ?
I never said you used the term. Look, I brought up the subject of secondary properties because I am trying to clarify further for you what it means when I claim that the existence of moral properties depends on the existence of minds. Literally, all it means is that moral properties cannot exist in the absence of minds. You obviously had some major complications understanding and internalizing the content of this claim, based on the plethora of ensuing crap that you attributed to me that, in fact, in no way follows from this claim. So, I am trying to help clear up your misunderstandings, by giving some rough physical analogy.
I believe the more standard terminology is that of primary or secondary qualities, and tracks back to writings of Locke. But the distinction here would be that a primary property would be one that an object has independently of any observers, such as things like mass or charge or shape or extension, etc. Whereas a secondary property would be one that an object has only in virtue of some relationship with other entities, such as observers. These properties could include things like color or taste, etc. The primary properties would be objective in the sense that their existence does not depend on the existence of minds. Whereas secondary are not objective in this sense. So, my only point with all this is that my claim that the existence of moral properties depends on the existence of minds is roughly analogous to the claim that the existence of color related properties depends on the existence of minds. That is all. My claim does not entail all the other loads of garbage and gobbledygook that you tried to saddle me with. And, nothing said here entails anything about whether or not moral properties are objective in a further meta-ethical sense of the term.
It was in that context that I commented (and you disagreed) that most Christian theists have been some form of ethical nonnaturalist - per J.P. Moreland
Yeah, and I still disagree with you and Moreland on that.
Are moral values and/ or moral duties prescriptive in your view
Sure, they are prescriptive. I think they are "prescriptive" in the following sense. They are prescriptive in the sense that they relate generally to action-guiding, or in the sense that they provide reasons for action, or in the sense that they tell us how we ought to act or what ought to be the case. For these reasons, they fall under normativity. They are not merely descriptive.
20 Mar 14
Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]In your hypothetical, it is not the case that the sun is the only light (your first offering was contradictory on this point, too).
Are you referring to my first post on the topic, wherein I said the sun was the only light in the hypothetical universe?
For instance, remember the candle?
Kinda.
Oh, wait: now I do.
Of course I do!
I sa ...[text shortened]... .
I do not think it means what you think it means.
It literally has zero to do with the topic.[/b]
Are you referring to my first post on the topic, wherein I said the sun was the only light in the hypothetical universe?
I am referring to your first self-contradictory offering, wherein you blatantly contradicted yourself on that point, first stipulating that the sun was the only light in the hypothetical universe, then implying how lots of other things in the hypothetical universe, like the candle, also constitute light.
And it hasn't gotten any better since that first incoherent offering. You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.
20 Mar 14
Originally posted by SwissGambitNot sure that it bothers you at all, given that you and your ilk continue to assay deficiency where there is none while swallowing whole poisonous lies... without so much as a second thought.
Ooh! Dismissal with prejudice! How will I ever dare to show my face again. 😀
20 Mar 14
Originally posted by LemonJelloHard to keep all the subterfuge straight, innit?Are you referring to my first post on the topic, wherein I said the sun was the only light in the hypothetical universe?
I am referring to your first self-contradictory offering, wherein you blatantly contradicted yourself on that point, first stipulating that the sun was the only light in the hypothetical universe, then implying how lot ...[text shortened]... r since that first incoherent offering. You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.
The candle, fire, artificial light--- all used as examples of man-made light, created with the exemplar of light (the big yellow one is the sun) in mind.
Since you're having a hard time distinguishing your flak from my fiction, I will remind you that it was YOU who insisted there were ALL KINDS of naturally-occurring light examples right here on the earth... despite my original hypothetical.
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20 Mar 14
3 edits
SwissGambit,
One does not need to read the full gospels to understand that punishment via eternal torment is inherently unjust, and cruel. Nor does reading the rest of the gospels compensate for this black mark on the mercy and morality of Jesus. (I have read them all.)
Please explain to me, on your naturalistic atheist worldview, if there is unjust molecule, an unjust atom, or an unjust gene.
I need you to convince me that the chemical fizzing around in my material brain can produce or know or define what "unjust" is if God does not exist.
This is another case where some theistic philosophers would say that you have to sit on God's lap in order to reach His face to slap it. You have to borrow from a theistic worldview in order to speak of "unjust".
In your naturalist and atheist philosophy there is only the fizzing of chemicals, the combining of atoms and molecules. Is there an "unjust" combination of molecules ? How much does "cruel" and "unjust" weigh in milligrams?
This is what we have been arguing about - the foundations of Objective Morality. Do you see the price you pay for longing for a God free universe ? The foundation of absolute moral value is gone. Is it just your preference that eternal damnation is cruel torment like you prefer perhaps dark roasted coffee to decaf?
sonship:
"Something was there awaiting humanity's heightened awareness."
I fail to see why you find this curious. That's just how concepts are. Yes, 2+2 equalled four, AMAZINGLY!, before human minds conceived it. So what?
Well, I see what you are saying. But I am still intrigued.
For nothing but a universe of atoms, dust, and lifeless material things, sure, 2 + 2 = 4 is a humanless law which is there at the foundation of the universe - helping to differentiate chemicals and such.
But when you come to love, forgiveness, justice, mercy, goodness, righteousness as as abstractions it does seem like the universe knew we were coming. That is the moral dimension anticipated living moral agents were to arrive for these moral values.
You see, up to mankind, these values were useless. WHY do they kick in when human beings arrive in the evolutionary ascent ? Does that not make you there is something of a special nature and destiny of man.
At the point of man these abstracts attach themselves to persons and acts. A stone doesn't care about goodness and faithfulness. A pack of baboons may display some altruistic behavior. But to naturalistic evolution this is only a matter of it facilitating survival.
Truth takes the hindmost. What facilitates survival is all evolution produces. If evolution could have re-run for thee billion years and meandered around to produce humans for whom eating their babies for recreation furthered their survival, on what objective and absolute basis do you judge their actions "cruel" and "unjust"?
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You haven't established that life without God is a 'meaningless existence of accidents with no purpose.'
Then let's cut to the chase. WHY SwissGambit, are you alive here in this universe ? And please don't just tell me that you mother and your father came together and you got produced, and that's WHY.
And I hope neither you will retort "Why does there have to be meaning anyway?"
The stars have burned out. The galaxies have expanded into dark and cold dust. All the universe is blackness and cold. Earth - long gone -swallowed up in the huge red dwarf enlargement of the sun. The sun - gone LONG become a black whole or just a dead ember. NO life, no light, no heat anywhere. The cosmos expanded into the black nothingness of infinite space.
What difference does it make that SwissGambit ever lived ?
What difference does it make that you were bold, imaginative, kind, loving or the scoundrel ? There is no God. There is no coming back TO life. There is no resurrection, no judgment or reward or forgiveness or moral balancing of the scales in any way.
Einstein's dust is long gone and theories more than forgotten.
Darwin's dust is as dispersed as his theories are forgotten.
Even the words of the Bible, every one, exists no more.
Nothing is left but cold dust in the blackness of eternal midnight.
What did the world mean ?
What did life mean ?
What did you and I mean ?
It all meant nothing I say.
You protest? For the brief moment of your life you managed to actually live for something ? You injected some real purpose into your breathing and your heart beating ?
Okay. You briefly convinced yourself that your life meant something for a moment. But in the last analysis - it was all vanity and all came to cold dust in the blackness of space forever.
Here's your chance to correct me then.
Life on earth without God meant .... ?
Nor have you established that nihilism is reality sans God. Nor have you established that humanists think we are no better than cockroaches. I'm getting a major *FALSE CLAIM OVERLOAD* here.
You can be an objective humanist. But I see this as just keeping a still upper lip and knowingly pretending. It is agreeing to live the lie. It may be pragmatic.
Some Evolutionists say we are just carriers of DNA meant to preserve DNA. For what I do not know. So we are holders of the DNA for the next level of evolution's process - the stage above human.
That too ends up as dust in the night of a dead universe.
You don't see the absurdity of this ?
You don't see atheism is a living on the edge of an abyss.
I live and am here for what is described symbolically in Revelation chapters 21 and 22. That is what I came into existence for and to enjoy for eternity.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city." (Rev. 22:13,14)
" And I heard a loud voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.
And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death will be no more, nor will there be sorrow or crying or pain anymore; for the former things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said, Write, for these words are faithful and true.
And He said to me, They have come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give to him who thirsts from the springs of the water of life freely." (Rev. 21:3-6)
---You also don't understand how evolution works if you think the result is an 'accident'.
And no one has ever been able to explain that that is not the case.
This is the price you pay for a mindless process. I am not referring to the fact that animals change, as dogs' sizes and shapes or that beak sizes of finches change. I am referring to the process of your macro evolution undirected, unplanned, no goal, and mindless. Call a spade a spade then. This is a gigantic accident - billions of them.
I think Sagan is probably correct in thinking the cosmos is all that has been or ever will be.
No he is not. The Second Law of Thermodynamics predicts that everything should have run down and out of energy long ago if the universe was eternal. We know that since it has not run down it must have had a beginning.
So all there is includes whatever was beyond nature an able to bring nature into existence.
I stop here.
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20 Mar 14
Okay then - on Childishness.
Of course my New Testament itself refers to carnal or immature Christians. This is how not to remain - it says.
Now my challenge - I am impressed with the manhood of a 30 to 33 and a half year old man Jesus of Nazareth. I think His maturity and adulthood is a pristine example of the very best in the human race.
Who would LemonJello put forward as a more mature spiritual / moral / ethical human being for me to want to be like than Jesus ?
What Atheist or otherwise would LemonJello submit as a more stricking example of maturity in ethical morality ?
Bertrand Russell?
Voltaire?
Madylane O'Hair ?
Christopher Hitchens ?
Ayn Rand ?
Whose is your champion at a far less "childish" display of high moral living than Jesus Christ ?
I turned my life over to Him because I wanted to be like Him.
Who do you have as a better ADULT to want to be like ?
Originally posted by sonshipOf course there are not unjust molecules, etc. Justice is a concept, not a physical thing.
SwissGambit,
One does not need to read the full gospels to understand that punishment via eternal torment is inherently unjust, and cruel. Nor does reading the rest of the gospels compensate for this black mark on the mercy and morality of Jesus. (I have read them all.)
Please explain to me, on your naturalistic atheist worldview, i ...[text shortened]... includes whatever was beyond nature an able to bring nature into existence.
I stop here.
I probably can't convince you that you can know the meaning of "unjust" in a world with no god, because you are convinced that you could not possibly exist in a world with no god.
Why do you think I 'long' for a god-free universe? What does that have to do with the search for truth? Nothing.
I'm with LJ with regard to the topic of this thread. Adding God to the equation (as the source of morality) does not make morality OBJECTIVE; it makes it SUBJECTIVE. Determined by the mind of God. Subject to his whims and caprices. To us, it makes morality a mysterious, unsolvable puzzle, for what seems grossly immoral to us can be morally good, if commanded by God.
And what do we get if we ask for an explanation? The book of Job's answer. "Don't even ask!"
You see, up to mankind, [moral] values were useless.
Absolutely wrong! Have you not read a word I wrote about other animals that have a rudimentary moral sense?
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So why am I here? Well, some of the reasons are placed on me by society. I am expected to be a good citizen of my country. I am expected to behave in an acceptable way.
But mainly, I make my own meaning in life. I decide my purpose. I have several purposes. I'm here to do some things I'm good at. Contest some tough chess games. Help people fix their computers. Help my friends when they need it. Be a valued member of my family. Etc.
You think none of that makes a difference because we'll all be dead someday. I think you're wrong. What I do makes a difference to those around me; right here, right now.
Yes, given enough time, no one will remember that I lived. Yes, I won't make a difference to anyone at that point. We are all temporary. Such is the nature of life. Why would I ruin what little time I have to live by lamenting that I won't be here in a hundred years? I borrow a page from the Buddhists here. I can't have it, so I let it go.
So, no, I don't think I'm 'living a lie'; I don't think I'm merely 'being pragmatic'; I don't think that a hot death makes our lives into absurdities. That's what goes in YOUR head, not mine. You simply lack the imagination to see things from my point of view.
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There are lots of people capable of explaining why evolution is not 'accidental'. You just haven't read them, or haven't understood them. Anyone who even uses the term macro-evolution has failed to understand the basic point that it is only micro-evolution happening over a very long stretch of time. If you admit that micro-evolution happens, you are committed to believing macro-evolution, given a sufficient age of the planet!
No he is not. The Second Law of Thermodynamics predicts that everything should have run down and out of energy long ago if the universe was eternal.
Nope. Sagan believed that the Universe came from the Big Bang, as I'm sure you know. There was nothing before that because there is no time before the beginning. That's as far back as you can go. So, we still have some usable energy to burn.
20 Mar 14
Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Hard to keep all the subterfuge straight, innit?
The candle, fire, artificial light--- all used as examples of man-made light, created with the exemplar of light (the big yellow one is the sun) in mind.
Since you're having a hard time distinguishing your flak from my fiction, I will remind you that it was YOU who insisted there were ALL KINDS of naturally-occurring light examples right here on the earth... despite my original hypothetical.
despite my original hypothetical
You mean the self-contradictory one? If there is any lesson in all this, it is that you ought to take more time to figure out what you intend to argue before putting finger to keyboard. Think of how much time and nonsense you could have spared the forum-goers.
I have already explained numerous times that (1) your original hypothetical was simply self-contradictory (2) even if we revise the hypothetical so that it is no longer self-contradictory; and even if we hypothetically accepted your empirically false claims about sunlight being the only natural light available; nothing of interest actually follows.
Again, if you have ANY OTHER arguments...something, anything…I will give them a fair reading, just like I fairly addressed your sun argument.
20 Mar 14
1 edit
Originally posted by sonship
Okay then - on Childishness.
Of course my New Testament itself refers to carnal or immature Christians. This is how not to remain - it says.
Now my challenge - I am impressed with the manhood of a 30 to 33 and a half year old man [b]Jesus of Nazareth. I think His maturity and adulthood is a pristine example of the very best in the human race. ...[text shortened]... o Him because I wanted to be like Him.
Who do you have as a better ADULT to want to be like ?[/b]
Whose is your champion at a far less "childish" display of high moral living than Jesus Christ ?
I did not say that Jesus displayed childishness (although Jesus is nothing special: I would guess he would be somewhat above average in displayed virtue and somewhat below average in moral knowledge by today's standards). This thread is about your and closely related ethical views. Those are the object of my claims regarding childishness in this thread. Again, let me state this explicitly before you go off on another irrelevant post about Jesus: my charges of childishness in this thread have nothing to do with Jesus. They have to do with some abiding aspects of a locus of related ethical views that happens to include yours. Feel free to address the actual content of my claims….
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21 Mar 14
2 edits
Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]Whose is your champion at a far less "childish" display of high moral living than Jesus Christ ?
I did not say that Jesus displayed childishness (although Jesus is nothing special:
I think the view that Jesus Christ is "nothing special" is worse than juvenile. I think it is retarded.
A Perfect Man would be a more realistic description of Jesus.
I would guess he would be somewhat above average in displayed virtue and somewhat below average in moral knowledge by today's standards).
A Perfect human being would be my evaluation - as perfect as the world has ever known.
And this is important because the true Christian morality is receiving Christ in the form He is in which He can be compounded with our beings. I have no other aspiration except to allow the living Christ to live again through me.
"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17) means that Christ is alive, available and supernaturally able to mingle with me in a joined union.
I have no thought of wanting to be "good" apart from Christ.
I have no aspiration wanting to do anything apart from a union with Christ.
This is a life long learning process. But we have some pioneers who paved that way and help us to follow. Ie. Paul - " I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20)
This is not sentimental talk. This is actual. Jesus Christ the Perfect God/man is in a state in which He can join us in our innermost being. And we can live in a mingled way in His presence in everything.
The IS the New Testament moral living. It is living Christ. It is allowing Christ to come into me and live again compounded with me.
This may not be the average understanding of what it is to be a Christian. But this is the normal biblical definition to which millions of us seek to experience, and do.
This thread is about your and closely related ethical views. Those are the object of my claims regarding childishness in this thread. Again, let me state this explicitly before you go off on another irrelevant post about Jesus: my charges of childishness in this thread have nothing to do with Jesus. They have to do with some abiding aspects of a locus of related ethical views that happens to include yours. Feel free to address the actual content of my claims….
Proper Christian ethics is living in Christ. Anything I said concerning the Christian life which departed from this you may discard.
But don't discard that we are, (believers, unbelievers, any and all men) made in the image of God and therefore have a moral sense in us.
Anything you might intend to say to me which involves independence from God as more adult or more mature, I count as useless. I want to be dependent upon God.
I do not at all want to be independent from God no matter how "mature" or "grown up" or "unchildish" you wish to advertize such rebellion.
21 Mar 14
Originally posted by sonshipSo, what I am hearing is, you could not care less whether your moral views are childish. Got it.
I did not say that Jesus displayed childishness (although Jesus is nothing special:
I think the view that Jesus Christ is "nothing special" is worse than juvenile. I think it is retarded.
A Perfect Man would be a more realistic description of Jesus.
[quote]
I would guess he would be somewhat above average in displayed virtue ...[text shortened]... m God no matter how "mature" or "grown up" or "unchildish" you wish to advertize such rebellion.
21 Mar 14
Originally posted by LemonJelloYou mean the self-contradictory one?despite my original hypothetical
You mean the self-contradictory one? If there is any lesson in all this, it is that you ought to take more time to figure out what you intend to argue before putting finger to keyboard. Think of how much time and nonsense you could have spared the forum-goers.
I have already explained numerous times ...[text shortened]... thing, anything…I will give them a fair reading, just like I fairly addressed your sun argument.
No, I mean this one:
For the sake of argument, let us say that the earth and her immediate solar system constitute the entire universe.
In this micro universe, the sun is the only light.
When the sun is not in the sky or is obscured, we have varying degrees of the absence of light.
On any given sunny day, my house can only contain as much light as openings are available for the sunlight to enter, be it by window or door.
Once the sun is down or my windows and doors are closed off, the house is now experiencing an absence of light.
To allow for light in my house when the sun is not available, I strike a match and light a candle.
The candles holds the flame, which produces a measure of light.
That light is not from the sun in any way, shape or form... yet it is light.
It is light because it imitates the real and ultimate light (the sun) albeit on a small scale.
As can be readily seen, there is no contradiction within this 'sake of argument' scenario.
How is that so?
Because I took the time to think of a scenario to offer a clear-cut example of a known energy which could serve as the exemplar for the purpose of allegory... in this case, light = good.
The man who controls fire in the first place, transferring the same to a candle he made doesn't know about electromagnetic radiation or wavelengths.
He is simply successfully attempting to replicate the light he gets from the sun, and put the same in places where/when the sun does not emit its light.
Think of how much time and nonsense you could have spared the forum-goers.
I'm sure there is a mirror in your house somewhere.
If not, simply look back over the pages wherein you repeatedly distracted from the point to frivolous distractions, despite the original scenario's straight-forward telling.
The deficiency was not in the scenario; the breakdown was your intransigence.
...and even if we hypothetically accepted your empirically false claims about sunlight being the only natural light available; nothing of interest actually follows.
How do you plan on hypothetically accepting anything, exactly?
Did your big words get in the way of your typing again?
And why do you insist on inserting the crap about "empirically false claims" AGAIN?
As anyone can read (well, anyone but you, it seems), this had nothing to do with empirical claims of any kind, whatsoever.
Or course, there is nothing interesting about it at all.
Except for the fact that it offers a compelling case for the point in the first place; namely, that good is called good because it agrees with the standard of good.
Light is not light unless is agrees with what constitutes light.
For the more informed mind, this deals with electromagnetic radiation and wavelengths of varying ranges.
But the informed mind also knows there are wavelengths undetectable by the human eye... yet the energy is still light.
The sun was used to show man's artificial light as replicating the sun (even though we know he is replicating light, in his mind, he is merely imitating the sun).
For him, the sun is light.
In a similar way, man points to God as good.
Are there suns other than the one in our solar system?
Of course.
Is there good unrelated to God?
...