The proof is in the pudding?

Originally posted by bbarr
But then KM's God is clearly not the best choice, because his God will punish you for failing. Poor KM. He should has chosen a better God. Just like I tell my buddies down at the pits, cocks that can rake are good, but cocks that can rend with their beaks are better. KM's God is analogous to a defective cock.

Remember that we're dealing with expectations here, weighing risk and reward.

It's possible that KM's God subjects non-believers to a degree of torment sufficient to overcome any quantity of virgins and beer in an evaluation of expected values.

Therefore, KM merely needs to posit a meaner and meaner God until that threshold is passed in order for it to be correct for you to believe in his God, at which point it's back to the drawing board for you, where you have to conceive of yet a better reward and a corresponding God who will give it. If you can't conceive of a better reward than some quantity of virgins and beer, you can never win the game, and you'll always have to believe in his God.

Originally posted by frogstomp
Whether someone needs god or not, doesn't mean they need to become a christian. When, if ever, you can see that there are many paths available for people, only then will you be on the path to enlightenment. Be careful, you might be seeking the wrong reward.

In a world of six billion people, it's easy to believe that the only way to initiate profound transformation is to take extreme action. Each of us can change the world in small ways for better or worse. Everything we do affects people in our lives, and their reaction in turn affects others. As the effect of a sometimes insignificant word passes from person to person, its impact grows, it can be a source of happiness or inspiration....anxiety or pain.
If the opportunity arises, the recipient of a good deed will likely do a good deed for someone
else. one act of charity, one thoughtful deed, can pass from individual to individual, like a
ripple effect, could be a ray of hope that save someones life..the power to touch someones
life we all have, that we come in contact with....the momentum of the influence will grow, ripple
on and outward, One of those ripples could become a tidal wave of love and kindness.

From all walks of life this can occur....with or without a belief in God ......

gil


"Be the change you want to see in the world."

Ghandi

Jesus came in Peace and Love....to show us Love and Compassion, with his words and works.....

Originally posted by bbarr
And this is one facet of your worldview that I find denigrating to humanity. You think all that is noble and kind in humans is really attributable to God or God-in-us, but when we are malicious or callous this is attributable to our nature or the absence of God-in-us. The implication, of course, is that everyone I love is, by their very nature, essentially e ...[text shortened]... d a potential "psychopath". I find that terribly offensive, not to mention completely stupid.

Me thinks you take an apple and turn it into an orange sir. What is kind and noble in humans is to their credit because it has taken effort and thought and co-operation with God to achieve. The ultimate source of this goodness is not us though , we either use or abuse God's gifts but it would be stupid to claim them as entirely due to us because we are not the ultimate source .We did not create ourselves.

There is in one sense no such thing as 'our nature' or a nature attributable to us because we are created ,not creators. Therefore , we are also not entirely responsible for maliciousness either. We make choices to allow one part of us or the other win out in our lives and whether we realise it or not we are working with God to do this (or not with God as well). You can attribute cruelty , sin etc to the spiritual forces of darkness that are within Christian theology.

So , I agree wholeheartedly with you. If Christianity did say that humans are ultimately egotistical and psychopathic I would reject it too. What it does say is that humans are essentially and ultimately incredibly beautiful , precious and noble , but in order to find this part of ourselves we have to wrestle with our own pride and separation from God and put to death our sinful nature (sin actually translates as separation). In short , we cannot find our true beauty until we recognise our initial separation first (which means recognising that without that which God gives us we could all sink). This means recognising the real source of all beauty and why we are precious in the first place , but we have to wrestle with what's gone wrong.

( Incidentely ,this is useful in other ways because it prevents us from making judgements about other people "there but for the grace of God go I" because we know we are reliant on God)

Much Christianity has in my opinion made a big mess of this whole area and is probably a cause of your missaprehension.

The God I believe in is not the God you don't believe in

Originally posted by knightmeister
Me thinks you take an apple and turn it into an orange sir. What is kind and noble in humans is to their credit because it has taken effort and thought and co-operation with God to achieve. The ultimate source of this goodness is not us though , we either use or abuse God's gifts but it would be stupid to claim them as entirely due to us because we are ...[text shortened]... ause of your missaprehension.

The God I believe in is not the God you don't believe in

Me thinks you take an apple and turn it into an orange sir. What is kind and noble in humans is to their credit because it has taken effort and thought and co-operation with God to achieve.

Well, I agree that cultivating the virtues requires effort and thought and cooperation with others (not just those who are moral exemplars, but also those who are the beneficiaries of our nascent attempts at being virtuous), but I see no reason to think that cultivating the virtues requires cooperation with God. Look, either you think that it is a necessary condition for being virtuous that one has God’s help, or you don’t think God’s help is a necessary condition. If the former, then you are committed to the claim that without God, nobody can cultivate the full complement of virtues; that is, nobody can be fully noble, compassionate, generous and so on. Given what you said earlier about the potential for psychopathology in the absence of God, one gets the impression that you think that nobody can cultivate even a moderate degree of virtue in the absence of God. If that is your view, then I take your view to be denigrating to humanity. If the latter, then I find your view uninteresting. Perhaps there are persons out there for whom it is necessary to be virtuous that they receive help from God. I’m not one of those persons, and neither are the people that I love. We simply have no need of your God to lead a flourishing and meaningful life.

The ultimate source of this goodness is not us though , we either use or abuse God's gifts but it would be stupid to claim them as entirely due to us because we are not the ultimate source .We did not create ourselves.

I’m not sure what this means. I think that humans, by and large, are structured in such a way that they have the capacity to cultivate the virtues. That they have this capacity is a function of their psychology, their deeply social nature, the limitations on their individual power, and their evolutionary prehistory. We come into the world as creatures responsive or sensitive to the reasons of others, and this sensitivity is cultivated and refined through moral education and habituation. If all goes well, our children end up with those character traits that are virtuous; those character traits that reliably conduce to leading a flourishing human life. No God is required, on this account.

There is in one sense no such thing as 'our nature' or a nature attributable to us because we are created ,not creators. Therefore , we are also not entirely responsible for maliciousness either.

Even if we were created (which we’re not, if you think this requires some agency doing the creating) it still wouldn’t follow that we had no nature attributable to us. Of course we’re not morally responsible for our natural capacities and dispositions; we played no causal role in bringing out those aspects of our psychology. But we are certainly morally responsible for what we do or fail to do with those natural capacities and dispositions. Again, why advert to God at all?

We make choices to allow one part of us or the other win out in our lives and whether we realise it or not we are working with God to do this (or not with God as well). You can attribute cruelty , sin etc to the spiritual forces of darkness that are within Christian theology.

No, that’s false. We are not working with God when we cultivate virtue, we’re working with ourselves and others; we’re seeing how virtuous character traits conduce to (and are partially constitutive of) human flourishing; we’re seeing why it is rational, given our nature, to be noble, compassionate, generous, etc. But no God is required to either explain this process or to justify its results. And why would I want to attribute viciousness to “dark spiritual forces”? That is just ad hoc speculation on your part, if it is not taken completely metaphorically. I might as well attribute viciousness to little elves in my head.

Originally posted by bbarr
[b]Me thinks you take an apple and turn it into an orange sir. What is kind and noble in humans is to their credit because it has taken effort and thought and co-operation with God to achieve.

Well, I agree that cultivating the virtues requires effort and thought and cooperation with others (not just those who are moral exemplars, but also those who ar ...[text shortened]... completely metaphorically. I might as well attribute viciousness to little elves in my head.[/b]

I think people that think morality can't be a human invention, either weren't raised inside a family unit or are incapable of extrapolation.

Originally posted by bbarr
But then KM's God is clearly not the best choice, because his God will punish you for failing. Poor KM. He should has chosen a better God. Just like I tell my buddies down at the pits, cocks that can rake are good, but cocks that can rend with their beaks are better. KM's God is analogous to a defective cock.

I thought we weren't supposed to get personal on these forums.Leave my defective cock out of it! It's mean to pick on someone's disability!

Originally posted by bbarr
Perhaps there are persons out there for whom it is necessary to be virtuous that they receive help from God. I’m not one of those persons, and neither are the people that I love. We simply have no need of your God to lead a flourishing and meaningful life.


virtuous; those character traits that reliably conduce to leading a flourishing human life. No God is required, on this account.

When I say that you need God it's not in the sense of a belief system.

A tree needs water to flourish and it can if it so chooses attribute it's flourishing to the 'water in it's sap' . The tree might say to itself , I don't need this 'water' or 'rainfall' to flourish , I've got plenty of sap myself. Why believe in this 'water' . ??? Whether the tree believes in rainfall or not or is just not aware of rainfall makes not one jot of difference...the tree is just as dependent as the next tree that does believe in rainfall. However , the sap belongs to the tree just as equally and is valuable and part of the tree's life. The tree drinks the water falls and the tree's sap still belongs to the tree but it's ultimate source is not the tree itself.

This is my conception of people needing God. We are not the source of our own goodness but our goodness still belongs to us because we cultivate it with God's help.

I fail to see how this takes away from our nobility or efforts at all. All it means is that we are likely to be more humble when we remember it's not all down to us.

Originally posted by bbarr
But we are certainly morally responsible for what we do or fail to do with those natural capacities and dispositions. Again, why advert to God at all?

This sounds very much like free will to me . How do you incorporate free will into your world view. How can we be truely morally accountable if all our actions are determined by nature? You are obviously not a hard determinist if you think like this , so what separates us from the animals then?

Originally posted by knightmeister
This sounds very much like free will to me . How do you incorporate free will into your world view. How can we be truely morally accountable if all our actions are determined by nature? You are obviously not a hard determinist if you think like this , so what separates us from the animals then?

I believe in free will and moral responsibility, but in a compatibilist sense. We can be held morally accountable for our actions because they result from our character and our deliberations about what we ought to do. We are different from non-human animals in that the reflective structure of our consciousness imposes on us a certain distance from our inclinations. Given some inclination of ours, we are structured so as to have the ability either to endorse or reject that inclination as providing some reason to act. We are different in that our endorsement or rejection of our inclinations proceeds from our practical identities; conceptions under which we value ourselves and take our lives to be worth living. We are different from animals in that we have the capacity to be guided by principles, and to conceive of hypothetical states of affairs that we may want to actualize.

Originally posted by bbarr
We can be held morally accountable for our actions because they result from our character and our deliberations about what we ought to do.

In a determinist universe, our character and deliberations are themselves inevitable outcomes of prior events - so I still don't see how moral accountability ensues.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
In a determinist universe, our character and deliberations are themselves inevitable outcomes of prior events - so I still don't see how moral accountability ensues.

Right, but that's because you presume that libertarianism is a precondition for moral accountability. Do you have any non-question begging arguments for this claim?

Originally posted by bbarr
Right, but that's because you presume that libertarianism is a precondition for moral accountability. Do you have any non-question begging arguments for this claim?

Just this - why have the concept of 'moral accountability' at all? If X could not have but committed act A, what difference does it make whether it was in accord with his desires or not (I'm paraphrasing the compatibilist view here - but you get the point)?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Just this - why have the concept of 'moral accountability' at all? If X could not have but committed act A, what difference does it make whether it was in accord with his desires or not (I'm paraphrasing the compatibilist view here - but you get the point)?

The concept of moral accountability is useful in moral education; we use it to habituate children to tracking the virtues and vices, to see morally relevant features of situations, to having appropriate dispositions to respond to those features, etc. In short, we use it to teach children to be good and to deliberate well about moral issues. This account extends to our use of the concept amongst ourselves. We use it to point out to people that they should pay attention to reasons they have previously ignored. We use it to indicate to others our displeasure in their behavior. We use it regulate our own behavior. Further, the constraints on the compatibilist account of moral responsibility track many of our intutions. So, according to the compatibilist account, one is not morally accountable for A if one was coerced or deceived into A-ing (ceteris parisbus)...

Originally posted by bbarr
The concept of moral accountability is useful in moral education; we use it to habituate children to tracking the virtues and vices, to see morally relevant features of situations, to having appropriate dispositions to respond to those features, etc. In short, we use it to teach children to be good and to deliberate well about moral issues. This account exte ...[text shortened]... is not morally accountable for A if one was coerced or deceived into A-ing (ceteris parisbus)...

Isn't that saying only the religious people need P-ing?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Potential Risks or becoming a Christian:
1. The muslims are right and I get doubly punished.
2. I look rather stupid to myself.
3. I miss out on lifes good points while trying to pursue a non-existant truth.
4. I convince myself that God will forgive me all my sins and thus no longer need to take responsibility for my actions.
5. I convince myself th ...[text shortened]... 7. I start associating with Christians - some of the most dishonest people I know.

Want more?

Well, seeing as how at least 3, 4 and 5 display fundamental misconceptions about the Christian faith, not really!