The bad thing about Christians

Originally posted by tdbark
It also has been the "reason" for the slaughter and disfigurement of more people than communism, fascism, and islam combined.

Is that a factual statement, or just an opinion?

If the former, please produce the facts.

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
Congratulations on marginalizing an entire religion based on the extremists.

And that is different to most of the "secular humanist" views expressed on this forum about Christianity ... how?

Originally posted by KneverKnight
True. Religion is a learned behavior.
Then again, so is "tidying up after oneself."

Hume-orous comment. 🙂

Originally posted by vistesd
2. When the crusaders captured Jerusalem, they slaughtered just about everyone: men, women, children; Muslims, Jews and Greek Orthodox Christians.

This is an extremely strong assertion. Evidence?

Originally posted by rwingett
Someone who has no idea what god is is an implicit atheist, as opposed to being an explicit atheist. They are without belief in god. That makes them an atheist. All infants are born atheists. Some remain so. But most are subsequently taught to believe as their parents do. If you had an infant that was to be truly raised by wolves it would remain without any concept of god as it grew up and would thus be an implicit atheist.

But who taught their parents?

Originally posted by bbarr
Even if God commanded Joshua to commit genocide, Joshua would still have acted wrongly. Genocide is morally wrong, regardless of who orders it to be done.

How so? What absolute standard of moral right and wrong do you use?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
How so? What absolute standard of moral right and wrong do you use?

I do not know what you mean by an "absolute moral standard". I've found that theists throw around terms like subjective, objective, absolute, universal, relativistic, and their cognates in idiosyncratic manners, often blurring important distinctions. So, explain what you mean by 'absolute moral standard', and I'll try my best to answer.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
This is an extremely strong assertion. Evidence?

here's a related event :

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/worldreach/assets/docs/crusades/byzsack.html

Originally posted by bbarr
I do not know what you mean by an "absolute moral standard". I've found that theists throw around terms like subjective, objective, absolute, universal, relativistic, and their cognates in idiosyncratic manners, often blurring important distinctions. So, explain what you mean by 'absolute moral standard', and I'll try my best to answer.

When you say that Genocide is morally wrong - regardless of who (even God) orders it, you are implicitly referring to some absolute "gold standard" of morals/ethics. That is what I am referring to.

Originally posted by frogstomp
here's a related event :

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/worldreach/assets/docs/crusades/byzsack.html

Thanks for the link - but my question was about the capture of Jerusalem (by the Crusaders).

Originally posted by lucifershammer
How so? What absolute standard of moral right and wrong do you use?

What absolute standards of moral roght and wrong do christians use?

I know (and respect) Quakers who are strongly pacifist. Aomng the christians in my family my grandfather was a conciencious objecter in WW1. Two of my uncles were conciencious objecter in WW2. My cousins husband (a US citizen and now a URC pastor) was a conciencious objecter during Vietnam. (My sister and a number of her friends are atheist pacifists who've been imprisoned for civil disobedience)

Yet if I look at the christians in the US today there are a vociferous group who support the military policy of GWB, support the death penalty, oppose gun control.

Both these groups read the bible. One group reads 'thou shall not kill', the other group read 'you will not commit murder' and each group draws its own conclusion.

So why do you question the absolute standard of moral right and wrong among atheist when christians can't agree on anything as basic as the commandments. FFS

Originally posted by bbarr
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 ...[text shortened]... at it was good to be compassionate and wrong to be cruel. Didn't you ever learn this, Coletti?

Of course we must have concepts before we can reason. This doesn't entail anything about whether logic is empty or not.

The question is - can derive any moral truths or judgments using logic alone as the first principle - can we learn anything (gain new knowledge) from logic alone. I'm not talking about "empty sets" but logic without concepts or objects of reason.

What can we learn from the Law of Non-contradiction without something to apply it too? Even simple tautologies have content. "All cats are cats" is a true tautological statement. But if you take away the "cats" and you are left with " ". So we must have content to use logic to derive new knowledge.

A basic logical statement must have at least a subject and a predicate. All A is B. Without the subject and predicate, you can not reason. Logic without content (subject and predicates) does not lead to knowledge.

So what is the content that one starts with to derive moral judgments using reason?

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.

Of course I adopt this high epistemic standard. My world view says there are true propositions, and these can be known, including the knowledge of good and evil. But I don't think any other world view can do it. At least, no one has shown it so far. The only alternative to the Christian world view is either skepticism or irrational-ism.

Maybe the challenge to show how any other world view leads to knowledge of good and evil is too difficult.

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.

Tautological. Your learned what is "wrong" when you learned what is "wrong". This is not a justification of what is wrong. Where did you lean this? How? Based on what? You just knew?!? Are we born with an innate sense of right and wrong? How come everyone does not come to the same moral judgments? If no one comes to the same conclusion - then how can it be true? Is truth relative? By that I mean is what is true for one person not true for another (rape, murder, etc)?

Originally posted by Coletti
If no one comes to the same conclusion - then how can it be true? Is truth relative? By that I mean is what is true for one person not true for another (rape, murder, etc)?


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Is it your assertion that Christians come to the same conclusions about morals, or anything else, for that matter?

TheSkipper

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
What absolute standards of moral roght and wrong do christians use?

I know (and respect) Quakers who are strongly pacifist. Aomng the christians in my family my grandfather was a conciencious objecter in WW1. Two of my uncles were conciencious objecter in WW2. My cousins husband (a US citizen and now a URC pastor) was a conciencious objecter during V ...[text shortened]... wrong among atheist when christians can't agree on anything as basic as the commandments. FFS

Whatever their difference in views on concrete issues, all Christians (indeed, all theists) agree on one thing - that moral standards of right and wrong are derived (either by command or by nature) from a source outside the human race, viz., God.

The atheistic ethicist is forced to answer to Euthyphro's dilemma (as applied to him, of course) - something I believe Coletti is trying to demonstrate in this thread.

Originally posted by TheSkipper
Is it your assertion that Christians come to the same conclusions about morals, or anything else, for that matter?

TheSkipper

Obviously not.

However, a particular Christian's (or group of Christians'😉 views on morality can be compared to (in his/their worldview) an absolute standard that does not depend on those views. For an atheist ethicist, morals boil down to, "X is right/good because I say so".