Originally posted by vistesdPupil? I say you were more like a Satan groupie. 😉 Just kidding.
...I was called a pupil of Satan on here for doing no more than raising questions about how to interpret scripture. ...
I don't think I'd ever call someone Satan's pupil just for misinterpreting scripture. There may be lots of reason for not understanding scripture - even Christians can do that. And some (a few) non-Christians understand the Bible. Now if someone was purposely twisting and misusing scripture, then they might be true "Spawn of Satan!" - but I don't recall you doing that.
Originally posted by KellyJayIt doesn't follow from God's being the creator of the world that he can dictate what is morally right or morally wrong. Moral rightness and wrongness is not established by fiat, any more than rules of logic are established by fiat. If God commands genocide sincerely, then God is morally in error. If God were to command rape sincerely, then God would be morally in error.
Do you accept capital punishment at all?
If God is the only one that starts life, and sets all boundaries for it,
is God able to judge mankind in righteousness?
Now if you reject that God is real, it doesn't matter, but if you accept
scripture as written about God being the creator, do you think God is
in the unique position to order, or command t ...[text shortened]... eing real, all who would kill like that
would be completely evil people in my opinion.
Kelly
Originally posted by ColettiHow do you know anything at all, Coletti? Read some accounts of genocide, watch a documentary about the Holocaust, or Rwanda, or East Timor, or the Cambodian killing fields, or... If you can't see that such actions are wrong, then you are morally blind.
How do you know?
Originally posted by bbarrOr it follows that no one can know what is good or evil unless God declares it.
It doesn't follow from God's being the creator of the world that he can dictate what is morally right or morally wrong. Moral rightness and wrongness is not established by fiat, any more than rules of logic are established by fiat. If God commands genocide sincerely, then God is morally in error. If God were to command rape sincerely, then God would be morally in error.
If good and evil are prior to God, then no one can know good and evil.
If I am wrong, how do you know?
Interesting little debate has sprung up here.... 🙂
1. Yes, killings and tortures in the name of Christ has a horrible, almost incomprehensible, body count. (By the way, I said deaths and disfigurements... BOTH add up to more than the other three combined.) I'll enumerate a few: Constatine slaughtering defeated armies when they refused to convert, the maiming, beating and killing of Jews and pagans throughout the Dark Ages, the burning of so-called witches throughout England and Europe, the millions slaughtered and maimed during the centuries of Crusades (many of whom were even fellow Christians... and some of the millions killed lived in Europe and happened to get in the way during the long trek to the middle east), the long and brutal Spanish Inquisition, the protestants and catholics who slaughtered each other during the centuries following the Great Schizm (including the Thirty Year's War and Cromwell's brief but bloody reign in England), the slaughter of Saracens in Spain....... I could go on and on. The point is that, when you state that the institution of Christianity is not responsible for the acts of evil men, you ignore that it was the Church that condoned the slaughter. St. Bernard of Clairvaux said that killing in the name of Christ is “malecide” rather than homicide and “to kill a pagan is to win glory, for it gives glory to Christ.” These are realities and must be acknowledged.
2. Modern Christianity has little to no tolerence for other religions and other belief systems. Instead, here in America, we are bombarded by the idea that the US ia a "Christian" country, even when that was NOT the country envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the greatest of Americans, wrote several times that the US could not allow religion to flow over into government, and vice versa. But here we are, government telling gays they cannot marry, senators, congressmen, and the President saying that stem cell research is tatamount to murder... etc.
I could go on, but my point is made.
Originally posted by bbarrSome inner voice? Innate knowledge? Moral sense? Common sense? If knowledge is true, and one can know what is good and what is evil (that there is a knowledge of good and evil), then where did it come from? And how do you know it. What is the universal test?
How do you know anything at all, Coletti? Read some accounts of genocide, watch a documentary about the Holocaust, or Rwanda, or East Timor, or the Cambodian killing fields, or... If you can't see that such actions are wrong, then you are morally blind.
Originally posted by ColettiNo, that doesn't follow either. Logic is prior to God, and we can know logical truths. If God doesn't exist, and hence everything is independent of God, then we would still know all sorts of things, including that genocide is wrong.
Or it follows that no one can know what is good or evil unless God declares it.
If good and evil are prior to God, then no one can know good and evil.
If I am wrong, how do you know?
Originally posted by bbarrLogic does not contain any knowledge. It is empty. What do you fill it with, and how reliable is it?
No, that doesn't follow either. Logic is prior to God, and we can know logical truths. If God doesn't exist, and hence everything is independent of God, then we would still know all sorts of things, including that genocide is wrong.
If God does not exist, then no propositions of good and evil have necessary true values. Good and evil can not be known apart from God. However, you could say we are all born with an innate knowledge of good and evil, but that's no better then saying we know by magic.
Originally posted by ColettiOur knowledge or good and evil comes from a hybrid of intuition and experience and reasoning, just like our knowledge in all other domains of inquiry. There is nothing special about morality, in this regard. You don't need God to do math or physics or history or epistemology, and you don't need God to do ethics.
Some inner voice? Innate knowledge? Moral sense? Common sense? If knowledge is true, and one can know what is good and what is evil (that there is a knowledge of good and evil), then where did it come from? And how do you know it. What is the universal test?
Originally posted by ColettiThat is stupid. Logic is not empty, because it allows the derivations of truths from the empty set of propositions. These are called 'theorems'.
Logic does not contain any knowledge. It is empty. What do you fill it with, and how reliable is it?
If God does not exist, then no propositions of good and evil have necessary true values. Good and evil can not be known apart from God. However, you could say we are all born with an innate knowledge of good and evil, but that's no better then saying we know by magic.
No, the existence of God is neither necessary nor sufficient for propositions about good and evil to have necessary truth values. Some propositions concerning morality may be necessarily true even in the absence of God, and some may be contingently true even if God exists. Even if God didn't exist, it would be necessarily true that one ought not torture infants purely for fun.
Originally posted by bbarrThen it is not knowledge of good and evil. It is relative to the individual - not universal truth. Or knowledge itself is relative to the individual.
Our knowledge or good and evil comes from a hybrid of intuition and experience and reasoning, just like our knowledge in all other domains of inquiry. There is nothing special about morality, in this regard. You don't need God to do math or physics or history or epistemology, and you don't need God to do ethics.