The bad thing about Christians

Originally posted by Coletti
Then 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.

Yes it is knowledge of good and evil. No, it is not relative to the individual. You have no idea what the term 'relativism' means when applied to ethics, and you never have. You should look it up.

If God doesn't exist, then we could still do science. We could still come to know various facts about the world. Our knowledge of the world would not be relativistic, and the truths we came to know would be universal. It is no different with ethics.

Originally posted by bbarr
That is stupid. Logic is not empty, because it allows the derivations of truths from the empty set of propositions. These are called 'theorems'.

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 absen ...[text shortened]... didn't exist, it would be necessarily true that one ought not torture infants purely for fun.

Give me one logical statement that does not explicitly depend on prior knowledge. An empty set of propositions requirer the concept of "empty" before one can reason with them.

I did not say the mere existence of God leads to knowledge of good and evil.

"Even if God didn't exist, it would be necessarily true that one ought not torture infants purely for fun. "

You have not demonstrated this is knowledge. How or from what did you learn this it true? It can not come from logic alone. Is it relative intuition? Where you born with this knowledge?

Originally posted by bbarr
Yes it is knowledge of good and evil. No, it is not relative to the individual. You have no idea what the term 'relativism' means when applied to ethics, and you never have. You should look it up.

If God doesn't exist, then we could still do science. We could still come to know various facts about the world. Our knowledge of the world would not be ...[text shortened]... elativistic, and the truths we came to know would be universal. It is no different with ethics.

I think you have said that knowledge is justified true propositions. And that true propositions are universally true for all times, places, and people. If that is the case, and there is knowledge of good and evil - justify how it is universally true for all people, places, and times. Otherwise, good and evil is not knowable - only guessed at. It is relative to what individual conclude is good and evil.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Many if not most missionaries do go else where with skills and a desire
to improve wherever it is they are going. I'd be willing to bet that
more often than not the same people that are both going and sending
money for missionaries are also doing more than just saying,
“Get right with God or else.” They are building Hospitals, schools,
orphanages and ...[text shortened]... aking away their
money they are giving because they believe it is the right thing to do.
Kelly

There are christian charities active in africa who provide real help. I personally support them; but before I do I check whether they evangelise. There are christian charities who provide little or no useful help, who a spawning a generation of 'rice christians' in the third world; these I despise.

I suppport Christian Aid, TearFund and CAFOD. I have actively campagned against Samaritans Purse

Originally posted by flyUnity
Actually you are wrong, people are not born as an athiest, Thats somthing they choose later in life

Balderdash

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
Balderdash

😴

Originally posted by bbarr
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 ...[text shortened]... to command rape sincerely, then God would be morally in error.

Yes, I believe God is the only one that can dectate what is morally
right and wrong. If not than we are but animals, and like lions act
we will act as is our nature too. If we kill, we do so because we are
killers, just as lions kill because of their nature. Without God morality
is what we deem it to be nothing more, nothing less.
Kelly

Originally posted by Coletti
Give me one logical statement that does not explicitly depend on prior knowledge. An empty set of propositions requirer the concept of "empty" before one can reason with them.

I did not say the mere existence of God leads to knowledge of good and evil.

Coletti, you are so confused about logic that this is really pointless. Of course we must have concepts before we can reason. This doesn't entail anything about whether logic is empty or not. If rules of logical inference can take simple tautologies like (P v ~P), and derive from these tautologies interesting necessary truths, then logic is not empty. Now, as a matter of fact, you can derive interesting necessary truths from simple tautologies. Look up Goedel's incompleteness theorem for an example of an interesting theorem of logic.

The empty set of propositions is just the set of no propositions. Reasoning from the empty set of propositions just means that you start your derivation without any premises. Rather, you start with an assumption that gets discharged later in the proof either via conditionalization (in indirect proofs) or contradictions (in reductios).

Bbarr:

"Even if God didn't exist, it would be necessarily true that one ought not torture infants purely for fun. "

Coletti:

You have not demonstrated this is knowledge. How or from what did you learn this it true? It can not come from logic alone. Is it relative intuition? Where you born with this knowledge?

This is something that needs to be demonstrated? So, I guess you would need the existence of God to also be demonstrated before you believed in God. Correct?

Of course, the hypocrisy shown by the theists on this site when they adopt radically sceptical positions (even regarding torture, rape and genocide) is frankly astounding. You would never adopt these same epistemic standards when it comes to your own worldview.

But, because you asked, I learned that it was wrong to torture infants for fun when I learned that it was good to be compassionate and wrong to be cruel. Didn't you ever learn this, Coletti?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I find it quite odd that you stray from Christianity not because of the intrinsic merits/flaws of Christianity itself, but because of the way other Christians may or may not behave.

It's like losing faith in in a democratic system of Govt. because GWB was elected President.

I would agree with alph10 that some of the reasons I question Christinity is the way the (church people) behave. I have a good friend that was(is still) a youth pastor. The people in the church loved him he did a great job working with some tough inner city kids. The pastor was jealous of him had him fired from the job. He lived in a house provided by the church and had to move & his wife was eight months pregnant. It was all politics in my view. I think the pastor was afraid of some of these kids. I guess my whole point is that Christianity is suppposed to be about having compassion on your fellow man not kicking someone to the curb. I've seen this more than once & it does make you question what you believe. Manny

Originally posted by Coletti
I think you have said that knowledge is justified true propositions. And that true propositions are universally true for all times, places, and people.

To recap:

1. I think that if I know P, then it follows that I believe P, my belief in P is justified, and that P is true.

2. To say that P is true is to say that the meaning of P corresponds to facts of the world. The world is as P says it is.

3. If P is true now, then P is true for all time.

4. We have some knowledge of good and evil.

Now, I can't make heads or tails of this:

If that is the case, and there is knowledge of good and evil - justify how it is universally true for all people, places, and times. Otherwise, good and evil is not knowable - only guessed at. It is relative to what individual conclude is good and evil.

To me, the above sounds like gibberish. I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say. Part of the reason is that you use the terms 'universal' and 'relative' in your own, idiosyncratic way. I don't speak Colettiesque, so you'll have to translate.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Yes, I believe God is the only one that can dectate what is morally
right and wrong. If not than we are but animals, and like lions act
we will act as is our nature too. If we kill, we do so because we are
killers, just as lions kill because of their nature. Without God morality
is what we deem it to be nothing more, nothing less.
Kelly

Two questions:

The Samaritan was not a christian and may have been a worshiper of idols, did he perform a moral act?

How does god communicate to you on moral issues not covered or forseen by the bible, eg, electrictity (is it the devils tool), medical treatment, assault weapons. ownership of handguns, democracy, science, global warming, environmental issues, genetic modifications?

Originally posted by dj2becker
😴

Your brain is asleep.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Yes, I believe God is the only one that can dectate what is morally
right and wrong. If not than we are but animals, and like lions act
we will act as is our nature too. If we kill, we do so because we are
killers, just as lions kill because of their nature. Without God morality
is what we deem it to be nothing more, nothing less.
Kelly

This is the same old BS that the radical "Christians" peddle on this site and elsewhere: that human beings are vile, degraded garbage by their very nature. A billion acts of simple kindness refute this every day. The way we live our lives and love our families and friends refute this every day. Even higher animals act with more compassion in reality than these religious nuts give the human race credit for. It is no surprise that people who have such a self-loathing for their own kind have a faith which dooms the great majority of the human race to eternal suffering and torment. They're totally demented.

Originally posted by bbarr
To recap:

1. I think that if I know P, then it follows that I believe P, my belief in P is justified, and that P is true.

2. To say that P is true is to say that the meaning of P corresponds to facts of the world. The world is as P says it is.

3. If P is true now, then P is true for all time.

4. We have some knowledge of good and evil.

No ...[text shortened]... ' in your own, idiosyncratic way. I don't speak Colettiesque, so you'll have to translate.

He belongs to the Sargeant Shultz " I know nothing !" school of logic.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Joshua didn't have Matt 5:43-48 around to read, Jesus had not
come yet. So context, you are looking at the OT not the NT.
Kelly

Same immortal Being is speaking, isn't it? God certainly knew , even then what Jesus was going to say.
An evil is always an evil. anytime someone says God told me to do something, the test is simple, is it an evil?and if so then God didn't authorize it.
God has his own methods of dealing with things, and telling people to commit horrible atrocities isn't one on them.