The great thing about God is He’s chalk full of admirable traits; He’s kind, loving, just, merciful, Republican, and He hates all the same things we hate. He’s also perfect — perfectly good, perfectly just, and perfectly merciful. Or is He?
Dan Barker (former preacher turned atheist) often points out that a perfectly just and perfectly merciful God cannot exist, because any extension of mercy necessitates a suspension of justice.
For example, if God allows someone into heaven who truly “deserved” to go to hell, then He is being merciful, but not just. But if He sends them to hell, then He is just, but not merciful.
And yet, the Bible seems to insist that God is both just and merciful…
And therefore will Jehovah wait… that he may have mercy upon you: for Jehovah is a God of justice.
~ Isaiah 30:18His work is perfect; For all his ways are justice.
~ Deuteronomy 32:4With everlasting lovingkindness will I have mercy on thee, saith Jehovah thy Redeemer.
~ Isaiah 54:8I will have mercy on whom I have mercy…
~ Romans 9:15
A tale of two judges
To put it another way, imagine there are two judges at either end of this extreme. The perfectly merciful judge absolves everyone of all their crimes. The perfectly just judge, on the other hand, consistently passes down appropriate sentences.
Now imagine that these two judges are one in the same person. How can a judge simultaneously dismiss and demand punishment? If God operates on absolutes, He must do either one or the other.
Can Jesus save us from this contradiction?
Maybe we can get out of this contradiction by assuming that God isn’t actually being merciful, because someone else is paying the price for our transgressions — Jesus! But how exactly this exchange takes place is a bit of a mystery.
It’s definitely not a quid pro quo or eye-for-an-eye exchange, as Jesus is not taking our place in hell. If he’s sitting at the right hand of God, then he can’t possibly be taking on the full extent of our punishment.
If God is not demanding that someone pay the price for our sins, then perhaps God is just forgiving us because we had faith in Jesus. The problem is, if no one is being punished for our sins, then God is back to showing mercy again, and is no longer administering perfect justice. And even if God did punish Jesus for our sins, then we can’t say He’s perfectly just, because He allows the guilty to be rewarded while an innocent scapegoat is punished.
Mercy for some, but justice for all?
The problem with the above objections is that they don’t take into account who defines what is justice. If it is God, then it could be argued, and I think reasonably so, that God’s definition of justice may include an escape clause for those who sincerely repent.
If such is the case, then God could be both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. His justice is perfectly applied to everyone, and His mercy is perfectly applied to those who have repented under that system of justice. Ergo, mercy is no longer a suspension of justice, because extending mercy is a part of justice.
Our earthly systems of justice operate in much the same way, as we often extend mercy to those who have shown remorse for their crimes.
And this explanation also seems to sync with the Bible, since God is said to be perfectly just in all His ways (Deut 32:4) but (as far as I know) it never promises perfect mercy to all people.
Do I have problems with this system of justice? Possibly, because unless God makes it perfectly clear that He exists and that the Bible is His truth, then we may end up in hell over a simple misunderstanding, which doesn’t seem very just. Unless… of course… God says it’s just, in which case we’re all just screwed.
But I’m a reasonable man, and I have no problem confessing my shortcomings to a creator god whose existence is clear and undeniable. But if it’s not made clear, then I must also repent to Zeus, Ra, Baal, Mithras, Vishnu, Ahura Mazda and a thousand other imagined gods… because it’s all just the same.
Conclusion
So I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to say that God could be both perfectly merciful and perfectly just, so as long as perfect justice allows for mercy. If such is the case, then God would be unjust if He didn’t allow for mercy.
[And for the record, yes, I did just defend a Christian viewpoint against an atheist objection. Hopefully this demonstrates my willingness to side with sound reasoning over any personal bias.]
UPDATE: God is Love
Just when I thought I had it all figured out, someone points out that God’s defining characteristic isn’t justice or mercy, it’s love! And God’s not just loving, He is love (1 John 4:8). That being the case, God would almost certainly have to place mercy above justice, and the contradiction remains.
My understanding from the Bible is that God is Love. It’s not an attribute or trait. He IS Love. Now, if He IS Love, then Love underpins, surrounds, covers and permeates everything He thinks, says and does. In other words, all things flow from His Love. So Justice is merely an expression of His Love. Now if that is true for Justice then it must be true for Mercy. That means His Justice does not exist without His Mercy and vice versa and neither exist without Love.
How, then, does God deal with the problem of sin and sinners?
Answer: The Gospel. This demonstrated His power unto salvation. Salvation means being saved, healed, and restored.
His power to save whom?
Sinners. Who are sinners? All are sinners. So the Gospel is God’s power to save all sinners. Yes? No? Like the Beatle’s song, “Some say, yes; some say No”. But God has the power to save all sinners, then why should we say no! I do not say no. Christ died for all sinners; no exceptions. He didn’t die for non-sinners, for nobody is without sin. So, if God has the power to save all men and “the power of God unto salvation” through the Gospel (Christ’s sacrifice on behalf of all men) then there is no reason why all men cannot be saved.
What is to stop Him?
Ultimately, nothing; otherwise that would have to be bigger than Him and if it is bigger than Him then He is not God.
But there is a condition for salvation and that is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s right, there is no other name under heaven whereby we can be saved.
Who is “we”?
All men.
But all men do not believe.
No, they don’t. But is there any reason why they can’t? There is no reason why they can’t. All men are capable of believing. And since God has the power to save all men He must be able to bring all men around to believing, right? Nothing is impossible with God, is it? And what stops a person from believing in the Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation? Answer: The love of sin.
But some don’t want to give up their love of sin.
That’s true but God can destroy the love of sin and replace it with the love of righteousness, right?
How?
In the same way He did for me. And if He could do it for me then He can do it for anyone; for all, in fact.
Ah, but what about those who resist God?
Well, I resisted God and yet He saved me. Who has more power, man or God? Clearly God has.
But Love does not compel.
No, but Love can constrain. He did not compel me; He constrained me with His love.
How?
Through the Gospel.
There is nothing to prevent God in His Love and Mercy from saving every single soul that has lived or ever will live.
But does that mean God dispenses with His Justice?
No, all sin must be punished. And it was. Christ bore all our sins in His soul in our place. Every man’s sins.
But there have been some very evil people who have lived on this earth. Are you telling me that people like Nero and Hitler can be saved?
Yes. Nothing is impossible with God and we are all sinners and all have come short of the glory of God – clearly some more than others. In any case isn’t all sin equally evil?
How can God save a man like Nero or Hitler? By the same process He used to save you and me. And what am I talking about but the process of rehabilitation that included conviction and confession of sin.
But what if the person’s conscience is dead?
Nobody’s conscience is dead, not even in someone like Hitler. That’s possibly the reason or part of the reason he committed suicide.
But he must understand the appalling consequences of the evil he has committed if he is to be rehabilitated, not least so that he will never desire to do it again.
Yes. God can do that.
How will God do that? Well, nothing is impossible with God; because He is omnipotent He has an infinite number of ways. One method He could use is a life review, where each part of a person’s life repeatedly revisited. For example some people who have made a near death experience (NDE) testify to undergoing a life review which totally transformed their character and life. They testify how they revisited parts of their life, what they were thinking and feeling at the time and even what others were thinking and feeling at the time or what others were thinking and feeling as a result of every decision and action the experiencer had taken. Even the worst of sinners can be transformed.
But what if a sinner completely doesn’t care? He would have to be void of all conscience not to care in some way or another. But God can awaken the most hardened conscience. Repeated exposure to the suffering the sinner has caused will ultimately break him and fill him with unspeakable guilt, shame and anguish. It will cause him to cry out for mercy and forgiveness if He knows God is behind the process. Once that point is reached He is ready to receive the Gospel.
Howdy Brian,
You’re correct, 1 John 4:8 and 4:16 do state that God is love. So assuming the Bible is true and this statement is to be taken literally (not figuratively), then it is true. But those are a couple of big assumptions.
In practical terms, it seems nonsensical to say that anything could BE love. God may be perfect in His expression of love (i.e. never withholding love), but saying He IS love is a bit like saying a runner is not running, he IS “run.” As my favorite Christian rappers used to say, “Love is a verb.”
But either way, if perfect love takes precedence over justice, then a loving God would presumably have to eventually extend love to everyone, as you’ve suggested.
Now, I’ll grant you that a God of rehabilitation sounds far more appealing than a God of judgement who casts unforgiven souls into fiery pits of torture for all eternity. However, this love-takes-precedence idea does put a damper on the whole Christian idea of eternal hellfire, which the Bible also appears to support (I can quote you a few verses if you like).
So we can either conclude that perfect love somehow allows for eternal hell, or say that eternal hell doesn’t exist (because God is love and would never allow people to go there). The problem is, the Bible says that God is love, is perfectly just, and hell exists… so we have another logical contradiction. But if we assume the Bible is made up, this contradiction disappears.
Thanks for posting, I may need to re-tool this question in the future.
I think God is perfect love but there is just a doorway that we must enter or get punished. Jesus. So God freely gives us His love but it is conditioned so that we must love Him back.
Hi BHS,
If God is perfect love, wouldn’t He want us to be happy, even if we choose not to love him? I’m certainly not perfect, but if my children one day choose not to love me, I still wouldn’t want any harm to befall them. If I knew horrible things were going to happen to them, I never would’ve had them.
But is unconditional love true love? A true father disciplines his children so that they reach full adulthood responsibly. This earth is a training wheels for us. All the pain and suffering here prepares us for the eternity. And decides how we spend it.
Ah, but that’s different. I can discipline/correct my children’s behavior as best I can, but that discipline has a purpose. If they fail to take that correction, I would not choose to have them tortured for all eternity. There is absolutely no corrective/redemptive value in eternal damnation. A God of perfect love would never allow that to happen, he would either 1) rehabilitate the damned (as Brian has suggested,) 2) limit their suffering, or 3) not create them at all.
Thanks, that’s my point entirely.
God IS love. He has taught us (His children) how to be loving, just like Him. Love is a fulfilling of the law. That is the central message of the Gospel.
God the Father, has taught us (His children, made in His image) how (in what way) to disciple/punish (justice) our children in love (mercy).
Does He have one set of principles for Himself and another set of principles for us?
I don’t think so!
Imagine what He would say and do to us if we started slowly roasting our children to death over searing flames day after day!
When the Molech-worshipping heathen nations did this to their children, God condemns it outright and cursed those nations. It was an abomination to Him. Likewise I condemn such a method of punishment outright as an abomination.
Despite its popularity eternal conscious torment is NOT taught in the Bible. Sure, there are texts that APPEAR to teach this but, as any Hebrew and Greek scholar worth his salt will tell you, the prophetic language is full of imagery and symbols and is not to be taken literally. Those who teach this damnable doctrine do not know God and do not know His wrod.
Result? A doctrine of devils and God hideously blashpemed.
Howdy Brian,
“Does He have one set of principles for Himself and another set of principles for us? I don’t think so!”
Well… not to nitpick, but I’ve never brought my children to the brink of death just to test their love for me, like God did to poor old Job. And God did kill Job’s wife and kids… you know… just for kicks to see how Job would respond. I’d never kill my son’s wife and kids just to see if he still loved me afterwards, because that would make me a pretty serious prick.
I’d also never ask my son to sacrifice my grandson just to see if he’d really do it (as God did to Abraham). I really don’t think God would appreciate me mimicking his behavior — so ya, I’d say He has two sets of principles, one for Him and one for us. God can just get away with a lot more because He’s God, and no one is going to stand up to Him and tell Him His behavior is juvenile and cruel.
Anyway, back to the point, if God doesn’t punish the dead in gratuitous ways, then… well… that changes everything. It doesn’t make Him real, it just means that there’s less of a contradiction. Unless the Bible says Hell exists, then the contradiction remains. I look forward to researching the question “Does the Bible really teach that Hell exists?” on another post.
Speaking of hell not existing, I saw a news story about a quasi-famous black pastor who came to that very conclusion. He started teaching that life here is hell, and there is no hell in the hereafter. Not too many of his congregation agreed, and he lost most of them as a result.
Like the post and the ensuing conversations. When the first humans broke the bond between them and the biblical God the penalty was death, not Hell. Naturally the conversation is much more intriguing when defending or denying existence of Hell but it is ultimately off the mark.
Hi I n I, thanks!
I agree that the Bible says that their penalty was death (Genesis 2:17). But how would you define this “death”?
If death means the souls of the unsaved disappear into oblivion when they die, then I don’t have as much of a problem with this. This would be a much more reasonable thing for an all-loving God to do, but the Bible seems to indicate a form of punishment for the unbeliever, and I think most Christians would agree with that interpretation of scripture.
If death results in some form of eternal punishment, then it’s relevant to ask “How could an all-loving or all-merciful being ever create someone who might end up there?” He wouldn’t, ergo such a being is implausible.
Now we must look at the parable of the lost son to see the God’s point of view. He waits patiently for all the lost sons and daughters of this world and comes gladly to meet the half way when they decide to come back. But it is possible to be left without your inheritance if one does not grab the chance offered by God.
Also on the subject of hell. I think a lot of the images that people have of it is influenced by later descriptions of it. Like Dante. As far as I have read my bible it is actually very little in the way of information on hell there. It is probably just separation from God. Nothing could be worse. We are held up by His invisible hand constantly. Like children being watched by their mother. You don’t notice it until it is gone. That’s hell then.
And as far as I understand there is no heaven as we usually understand it. God will restore His paradise back here on earth. It is not some ethereal place on sky. All the dead are waiting for that moment. Where are they until resurrection is anyone’s guess. And what does it mean to be cast in to the lake of fire is anyones guess as well. Maybe it means annihilation? Maybe eternal torture? Who knows?
These are the things as I have understood them reading bible. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
I found a very nice Bible-based summary of hell over at Bible.org: http://bible.org/article/what-bible-says-about-hell
They conclude that Hell is indeed a “conscious torment,” and that “…either eternal torment in hell or eternal joy in heaven awaits all people after death.”
Interestingly, they mention one of the same objections I arrived at earlier, that “A loving God would not send people to a horrible hell.” Their response to that objection is that “God is just” and “God doesn’t send people to hell, they choose it.” I, naturally, would object to this on the grounds that not everyone rejects God because they freely choose to (or because they wish to partake in sin). Many reject the Bible or God because they actually do find more support for a competing hypotheses, or because of their cultural influences.
The site also mentions the objection that “Hell is too severe a punishment for man’s sin;” defending it by saying God is “holy-perfect” and “our sins merit hell.” But again, I would object to the idea that finite sins could ever warrant eternal punishment. I also object to the idea that a holy-perfect and loving God could create something He loves if He knew it would have to suffer for all eternity. This is just a bold-faced contradiction. If He truly loved us, He wouldn’t create us, or He would find another way to deal with us.
As an example, I have a relative who has chosen not to have children to avoid the possibility of passing on a painful genetic disorder. And I personally have chosen not to have children after a certain age, because of the increased risks of bringing an unhealthy child into the world. If we who are imperfect can chose to protect the unborn from harm, than how much more should a perfectly loving creator? I have never heard a reasonable excuse for this.
By the way BHS — I may disagree with you, but please don’t these responses as any kind of anger directed at you, I really do appreciate you and your posts.
Take care!
No worries. I don’t hate you or anything. Even when the discussion gets a bit hot. This blog actually occupies an important place. All those hard questions need to be asked in order to make sure that our salvation is indeed sure. This is postmodern times and people need to make their own minds on issues like this.
I have no problem with bible.org comments on hell other than it’s very protestant and mainline view. Certainly people have had other ideas during the history of the church. For example there is catholic purgatory:
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/purgatory
And anhilationism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilationism
It is just a big need for us humans to choose black or white. Gray area is a hard place for some people to be. In my opinion all those above mentioned views and some others can be biblically defended. Often with same passages.
Fact is that we don’t know. That’s it. Again nothing we can do about it. That’s God business how to sort us after we are gone. Bible often uses very human terms to describe something. Why not hell?
One thing that remains certain. Jesus is the one to turn to for salvation. Nothing ambiguous there.
I agree that gray is a hard place to be, we humans have a deep-seated need to understand how our environment works, it’s how we evolved to survive.
But the more I discuss these things, the more I realize that part of the problem is that not everyone shares the same definition of things like “God” and “hell.” Not that it’s impossible to get around this, but it is a problem.
I would object to your last statement that “Jesus is the one to turn to for salvation. Nothing ambiguous there.” There are a lot of Jews that have a big stake in the Old Testament, and for them this conclusion is still highly ambiguous.
Say… where’s rautakyy? I miss him… he usually has something interesting to add.
I have been sick (some god obviously sent a flue to punish me for my blasphemous views) and too tired to participate in your interresting conversation. But it is nice to know someone appreciates my selfrighteous opinions.
Cool post, by the way.
Justice does not rule out mercy, but justice is defined by ethics. In a way, ethics is the art of compassion and there is no mercy without compassion. Justice comes from the realization of what is right and what is wrong. Not from any arbitrary rules. In essence we understand that mercy is required for us to have justice. If we have a set of rules that demands equal punishment for the crime of theft, is it justice if we judge a person who stole food to survive to be punished in the same degree as a person who stole from the hungry just to sattisfy their greed? Typically in most human cultures, mercy is applied according to the reasons for the crime. Not according to the assumed level of penitence.
For a Christian to demand me to accept Jesus Christ as my saviour from hell is just as offensive as if an adherent of the Asatru would demand a Christian to die in battle to recieve the entrance to Valhalla after death in order to avoid the frosty halls of agony in wich Hela recides (and for those of you who do not know this, Asatru is a living religion in the Nordic countries). I suppose I could try not to be offended by either suggestion, since I understand they are being offered in a sincere sense. However, sincerity does not make either true, and both are fables with an unethical core.
Punishment for not having faith in the invisible and unplausible, is sinister to say the least. The problem in this seems to be that even if a particular god is plausible to a great many of us humans it is by far not so to most people. It is a platitude to claim we humans are all sinfull. It is unreasonable to judge us by the fact that we are not willing to repent it in a particular way a certain culture demands us to. This is typical human behaviour. It is us humans who set up rules as communities and we expect everyone to abide to them. Different communities have different rules and religions. But if an omnipotent god demands us to act in a certain way, it requires that god to make itself as imminent and as obvious to all people, not just those in a particular cultural mind setting. Otherwise that god is proven to be anything but just.
The idea that any person could commit such crimes, that an eternal punishment (what ever that might be) would be justified is not justified and can not stand for any ethical examination. Further more, the idea that people should be punished according to their cultural backround, wich seems to be the main determining factor (as shown in one of the previous questions among the 500) in who finds the alledged mercy Jesus offers plausible, or not, is down right evil. I do understand that most people who suggest it, have not come to realize this (for a legion of reasons), but it is them who are in denial. Not the people who find the entire concept unplausible.
I do not reject the mercy of any gods because of my love for “sin”, but because I simply find the entire concept of supernatural unplausible.
Some toughts:
- Who’s justice? We have to remember that this judge is omnipotent which includes all knowing.
- Our own idea of justice is flawed. Human philosophy is trash when compared to God.
- Evedence is clear. Humankind is sinful. Just look at the world around you to see this.
Intresting link. I agree with the author on most points:
http://frankviola.org/2012/04/18/christianleftchristianright/
I like the trend of this blog (it will be a pity if it is bucked) as there is rspect and tolerance shown for the views of others. It is only in an arena like this that I feel free to air my views shocking as they may be for those with different ideas.
And, yes, I take the point made the blog is digressing somewhat from the initial statment. My apologies for contributing to that.
I agree with Brian, that this blog is a fine example how we can discuss these ideas as ideas, and not take it as personally offensive, that some people might see things differently. To learn about how other people percieve the world is very educational and helps us to develope our sense of compassion and thus also refine our sense of justice.
BHS, interresting thoughts.
1) You say we should “remember” the form of a god as an omnipotent and omnisceint entity. Who forgot about that? What are you referring to?
2) How can you tell human philosophy is trash in comparrison to a god? Human philosophy is the only means you, or I have to estimate any claims of a god, since god does not appear anywhere publicly. If human logic is inherently flawed every claim made about a god is equally flawed – including claims, that claim any gods exist.
3) What makes “sinfull” actions such? Immoral actions are such, because they cause harm. That is evident, even without any gods.
The link was interresting, but also so American, I did not recognize many of the issues presented by the writer.
Mr Viola’s writings are mostly about reforming church and thus a bit “inside stuff”. I took it up because it was interesting and some of the points where of relevance to the discussion we are having here and earlier.
My post was a quick thought that I had. Think about it. Suppose for a moment there is an omnipotent deity that rules the universe. He knows your every atom. In fact he knows every atom of the entire universe. After all he made it. Then do our human philosophies, ism’s and thinking apply anymore? Does He not get to set the rules as much as He wants?
Our sin is rampant everywhere. From the pollution of the environment to the enslavement of the poor. From individual to the entire planet. There is very precious little in the way of redeeming features here as far as I can see. Even the most noble(humanity) one of us is fallible in some way. Even the earth itself seems to be cursed.
Why we can not get it to work then? Fallen nature perhaps?
BHS, it is a pretty big assumption to think there could be “an omnipotent deity that rules the universe”. Especially so, since there is absolutely no evidence of such. Most evidence that should point to a god, actually point to human mind making up gods. In fact every religion that claims that this entity exists, demands we believe it by faith ie. without evidence.
However, if we assume such a thing as “an omnipotent deity that rules the universe” exists, it by no means diminishes philosophical work humans have done, if that work is the result of logical deduction. If we suddenly became aware of such an entity, it would make any human philosophy that contradicts the existance of such an entiy obsolete, but we are not aware of such a being. Are we? On the contrary, we are, for some unexplained reason, only expected to blindly have faith in such a thing and to excuse it not appearing anywhere by trying to explain natural phenomenons as the work of such a diety. If “an omnipotent deity that rules the entire universe” existed, it would defenately make all human religions and their worship totally obsolete, since this “omnipotent ruler of the universe” is not backing up any religion by appearing on behalf of it.
Humans do not have any other method to evaluate a claim, that there exist such a deity, than what human philosophy can achieve. Religion is not philosophy, it is the blind acceptance of a claim for some particular gods and the methods of worhship, these deities seem all to be very much interrested in.
The pollution of the environment and the enslavement of the poor may be defined as “sins”, but that is arguable. They however are without question unethical and the reasons that make them that are obvious without any “divine rulers of the universe”, or such. We humans can determine that by observing the causes and results of these events. Is this not so?
Humans are not perfect, as you would expect, if a perfect being had made us to be images of such perfectness. Nature is inperfect and allways evolving, but we do strive for better do we not? Just like the nature is for ever driven for a better form. For you to insert an idea that the world has fallen, you should be able to demonstrate there has been a world that was not fallen. What and when was the world before the fall? Otherwise nothing has fallen from anywhere. We have no reason to assume the world should be perfect (at any point), unless we assume a perfect being created it perfect.
I watched a rather philosophical episode of the original Star Trek (episode #3) this evening. In it, a man inherits ever-increasing God-like powers. He can basically do anything he wants, and the episode makes the point that just because you are an all powerful god, that doesn’t make everything you say “good”.
There’s a similar philosophical question that asks “Is God good because He defines what is good, or is He good because He follows some definition of good that is outside of God?”
If God is good because He defines what is good, then He could send us all to hell and say “This is good!” But is it? God seems to condone several things in the Bible that today we’d call unethical. So what do we do? Do we still call them good because God calls them good? No, for the most part, we pick and choose what is “good” because, deep down, we know how to reason what is good, even if the Bible disagrees.
On the other hand, if God follows the rules of what is good, then as rautakyy says, “Immoral actions are such, because they cause harm. That is evident, even without any gods.” I.e., the rules stem from a concern for reaching the greatest possible good. But as philosopher David Benatar has pointed out, the greatest good is not exist at all, since leaves the total amount of harm at absolute zero. In other words, if God arrives at good through reason, then He probably shouldn’t have created us.
Either way we seem to have problems.
His Majesty made the rules. He gets to change them the way her sees fit
Also think of the unethical parts of the bible. He created your every atom. Does He not have the right to dismantle them any way he sees fit? Problem is not God but you puny mortals that are trying to impose your limits on Him 
“If we suddenly became aware of such an entity, it would make any human philosophy that contradicts the existance of such an entiy obsolete”
Jesus appeared and announced this deity. And this deity holds all the lego blogs. Does He not have the right to arrange them the way he wants? You are putting your human limitations on the ruler of the universe. His majesty does not have such limits. Thus he is beyond any human logic.
Where are we getting this notion of right and wrong? If God does not exist the only conclusion is every man for himself.
Our “striving for perfection” has produced little results has it not? We have had plenty of time to to turn this world in to a paradise but we have not. Only logical conclusion = we are sinful.
BHS, funny video. Is it from the Hitchikers Guide to Galaxy?
I hate to draw the nazi card out here, but your conclusion, that without a god (a particular god, to be more precise) we would live in a “every man for himself” world, is downright fascistic and unrealistic. You do not explain how you came to that conclusion and I expect it is not because you are a particular fan of Mr. Mussolini, but that is not how nature works.
The notion of right and wrong has nothing to do with any particular religion, though these have influenced the idea and often so in a very deconstructive way. Right and wrong are concepts derived from our human understanding of cause and effect. Most mammals have the capacity for empathy and some notion of “right and wrong” because they have compassion to fellow creatures. We humans have a wider perspective of the results of our actions and inactions and therefore also a bit more responsibility for our actions.
Right and wrong are not some magical absolute truths outside human experience. We know what is right and wrong by comparing the effects any actions have on other people, beings and nature to our own field of experiences. That is called compassion. A lot of what we define right and wrong are mere cultural traits we learn as kids and come not to question them later on. That is also where our definition of those most often goes wrong. It is that sort of absolutes, that set aside the ethical processing of our minds, and then we end up imposing wrongs that we think are rights, while the cultural conditions have changed. Empathy is a very naturalistic method of survival of the fittest in the process of natural selection. More social species have strengths less social ones do not have. No gods are required anywhere along the line.
Human societes without your god have throughout history managed to act in social manner to make better and better communities. We have abandoned many moral injusticies like for example slavery, that the Bible endorses, since those times. Humans have developed medicines and vaccinations to diseases, alledgedly sent on to humanity by the gods. Is that part of the “fall” also?
Yes, there is much to do to create a better world, but the development for better has been rapid during the last couple of hundred years since the enlightenment philosophy and forming of the secular state ideal. At least faster than during the 2000 years since Jesus, the alledged son of a god preached for some compassion. Why would you expect to live in the generation, that has reached the final paradise-like harmony?
It is in fact religion that is still holding us back. For example, if a high ranking US politician says we should not look into the possible great problem of climate change, because the Bible says a god will not harm this world again, that is a serious problem religious thinking is endorsing on human society and the entire world.
That is hitchhikers guide to galaxy all right. It solved our little debate. 42!
It is true that few of us are kings. We who inhabit the western hemisphere have vaccinations while most part of the world die because they do not have that same treatment available.
Actually bible does not endorse slavery. It gives very precise instructions on how to treat yours. We might not have slaves knowingly but probably your clothes where made by one. As is probably your cellphone and computer that you and I are writing this with. So if we applied the same rules that bible gives on treating slaves on our modern slaves they would have their things much better than now. Quote from author whose name I do not actually know:
“Old testament economic laws concerning work and employment can be taken almost as they stand. To introduce statutory rest days and holidays, statutory terms and conditions of employment, statutory protection from infringement of personal rights and physical dignity, statutory provision for fair wages promptly paid (to list just some of the Old Testament regulations for worker’s rights) would revolutionize the face of economic life for multitudes of workers in some parts of the world. And all of these are drawn from the economic legislation of God’s redeemed people, Israel”
(look for example:Exod. 21:1-6, Exod. 21:20-21, 26-27, Lev. 25:39-40,43)
So there you go. God’s justice at work. I wish we could reach the level of Old Testament. Not to mention new. That of course does not stop people from using our book to their own greedy purposes and misquoting it. They will get their “reward”. God commands us to take care of our environment. Not to destroy it.
I could go on long about these things but let’s leave it for later. As long as there is a single suffering child in the world because of human greed we have not reached nothing. As long as we destroy our environment with no regard for future generations we have reached nothing.
There is your human compassion and scientific advances. They are nothing. As is our human philosophies and logic. They are nothing when we are talking about God. He is outside our rules. Plain and simple. Step outside our box. It’s limiting your vision.
BHS, actually the Bible does endorce slavery. Not just the Old Testament, but also the New Testament. Have you not ever read it? There is no state on the face of the world today where a person could own a nother person regardless of what religion is the most dominant one. Do you not consider that as progress?
The OT tells us that beating your slave (your property) is OK as long as the fellow does not die during a couple of days after the beating. That is hardly ideal, coming from a god, is it? The NT says that slaves (it has later been translated also as servants, but because it was written in the Roman empire that means slaves) should be obidient to their master and owner. Do you think that is moral? There is no passage or commandment in the Bible, that would condemn slavery. So, does god not think slavery is wrong? Throughout centuries people who have sincerily believed in your god have used those rules as an excuse for having slaves. No gods ever appeared anywhere to tell them they were wrong. They sincerily thought they were going to heaven dispite owning slaves and even physically abusing them, because the “good book” told them it was OK. Do you think they deserve “hell” for their exploits? What is the morals of a god that gave such rules to mankind at any point? Why would you think slavery is wrong? Is it only because you incorrectly thought it is not endorced by the word of your god? Or do you have a nother way (other than the rules in the Bible, that is) to understand what is wrong and what is not?
Why would you say we have not reached nothing? Human suffering in the world is great, but we have managed to reduce it very much, since the Biblical times, and since the times when Christendom ruled over the entire world. Have we not?
Immoral human behaviour says nothing about “sin”. We are not perfect, and neither is nature. That is perfectly natural. You see no god, or “sin”, or fallen nature of the world is ever required to explain that. Those are explanations from an era when nature was not very well understood. But that has changed, at least. Is that not progress? More ethical decisions are not achieved by interpreting scriptures of ancient people and how they in their limited knowledge percieved the world, but by study of the actual reality around us. More ethical decisions are reached by better information. That should be plain and simple, yes?
If human understanding is not sufficient to understand a god (and the immorality a god within a religion represents), then howcome every religion on the planet claims they know the intentions and wishes of their particular gods? How do you know what your god really wants? If you do not know it, and have no means to understand it, then what does it matter to you?
The Bible is just an old book written by ignorant men. It has been interpreted a million different ways (a lot of those with quite questionable moralism) and no god has ever appeared to deny, or endorce any of those interpretations. In fact no god has ever appeared anywhere. According to the Bible Jesus was a carpenters adopted son, who claimed his real dad was a god and said some things about compassion. The Bible also mentions some miracless that supposedly show he was a son of a god, but they are not verified by any other source, so in practise they are equivalent to any other claims for miracles performed in any other religious culture. Non plausible.
If a god created humans unable to understand the will of this god and the morality it offers, then why are we expected to follow the moral rules we do not understand. Little children might obey their parents even if they do not understand why, but one of the things that makes us adults, is that we learn to question any authorities, if they do not give plain and obvious reasons why they demand us anything. Right?
Let me get this straight. Are you asking me to abandon logic and accept blind faith? Now, what do you think would persuade a rational adult to do so?
When was the slavery abolished? Gee! I must have missed it. By law maybe. But there is a long distance from what is being said to what is being done. Slavery has been with us and unfortunately continues to be so:
Slavery today is just conveniently swept under carpet. Slavery has been with us and unfortunately looks like it will continue to be so. I bet there are slaves in the city you are living in right now. And I bet they would love to have OT rights. For example possibility to leave after six years. Or right of not be beaten to death at will.
That does not make slavery right at all. In fact many (if not all) of the abolishers of the slavery where christians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism
I sure hope we will beat this one day but I’m not holding my breath. I seen the statistics. All those excellent NGO:s and government organizations at the end of the mini documentary are a drop in the ocean. To really, really end slavery would require BIG changes to the system we have in place now. And finding political will to do so seems unlikely. Thus God deals not of a fantasy world, but one we are REALLY living in.
And I’m not asking you to leave your precious logic behind. I’m just asking you to have a little stretch of imagination. If there is a all powerful deity. Then does He not get to set the rules?
BHS, yes many abolotionists were Christian. They obviosly found some greater morals, than that offered by the Bible to consider slavery wrong. Maybe they even thought the Bible condemns it on some level, but that just goes to show what a poor base for morals the book serves for, since it can be so mindboggingly freely interpreted.
Yes, there are many ways a person can be enslaved, but do you not call it proggress that it is finally illegal everywhere? That it is recogninzed to be immoral (contrary to the Bible) has got to be worth something. As a socialist, I would be the first person to recognize how money is used to enslave other people, but it would be silly for me to claim modern society is morally on the same level as the bronze age Hebrews, Roman empire, or the Colonial powers, or the North Korea. All that has nothing to do with “sin”, because as you know, it is not “sin” to own a nother person. However, it is clearly unethical and nowadays even immoral, but it is not “sin”.
If god gets to set the rules, why did god set rules that are obviously flawed and wrong in the first place? Or are you one of those people who would think, that slavery has got to be right and nice because the “word of god” endorses it?
The fact that the OT rules would be better than working conditions in wich many people today live in, does not make those rules right, does it? What if you ended up in servitude, would you simply just abide to be beaten by your “employer”, because the Bible tells you to submit to your owner? Would you not be inclined to raise against such injustice first chance you got?
If I strech my imagination it tells me, that if an omnipotent creator and ruler of the entire universe got to set rules for human conduct, this deity should have told people to stop having slaves loud and clear in the first place to deserve to be called benevolent. It is that simple really.
Have you heard of the “if I was the devil speech” some US high ranking politician gave many years ago? This is how I would have began that same speech: If I was the Devil, what I would do is this. I would tell people to write this book, that endorses slavery, male dominance and genoside. I would tell people to write it in such a fashion, that it was unclear wether the message is love, or hate. But the core ideas would be submission to arbitrary rules, fear of eternal punishment and blind faith. Then I would let out rumours, that this book is in fact what a god wants people to think is his message to human kind. I would then tell these people to go out and tell everyone that this is the will of the creator and ruler of the universe (as if such an entity would not be able to contact human beings without the means of a book) and spread that lie with every possible means they have…
No, I do not really think the Bible was written by the spiritual guidance of the Devil. But if you “strech your imagination” a bit, it just as well could have been, right? It is full of stuff, that is obviously evil. Is it not? To me it is rather more obvious, it was written by men of ancient world for the social needs of their own ancient society, but that we have actually moved on from that long ago.
Those ancient men wrote the rules that the REAL world has not reached yet. We can have all the high morals in the world but in PRACTISE they pass for a toilet paper. Go and see how much slave trafficking happens and how many are convicted of it:
http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/labour/Forced_labour/HUMAN_TRAFFICKING_-_THE_FACTS_-_final.pdf
This is where we are with our enlightenment morals. Slavery is still continuing strong and not showing any signs of going away even with “progress” of the laws. I’m telling you. Quit living in a dream world. We are not even near OT standards and we are not even talking about NT here. And this is just one example how we are nowhere near the standards of God’s law.
Christian story with slavery is complex due the fact that God’s kingdom is not a political one (though it later became one, which is another story). God’s kingdom is freedom from within despite circumstances surrounding. The fact is, that Paul and others saw that slavery and other evil is not going away. You’d have to leave this world to escape all the evil. God sends His spirit upon the people so they have power to last despite the torment.
God’s kingdom is an eschatological promise of a good future and a commandment to make this world better. That made people read their bible and being inspired to fight the slavery. And yes they got this from the Bible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/modern.day.slavery.never.again.say.you.did.not.know/9778.htm
Commandments like love thy neighbor do not immediately say free all the slaves but that is where it leads. When God sends His love the slave will start to love his master and master his slave and suddenly the circumstances become irrelevant. Master will want to free his slave and slave does not want to go because he loves his master. Gods kingdom is an upside down kingdom. Instead of fulfilling some set of external rules we follow the rules set within. This is the true power of God’s law.
http://www.allaboutgod.com/love-thy-neighbor.htm
BHS, Christ has not provided us with the perfect world in 2000 years and the god of Abraham has not provided one in over 3000 years, but you accuse enlightment philosophy for not providing perfect world in 200 years. Is that reasonable?
If you believe your god is a moral being, then why does this deity allow all this evil, such as slave traficking happen? If any being has the power to stop such evil, then ultimately that being has also the responsibility to stop it. You do understand this, do you not?
You believe in a god, that will magically set things right, I do not and I claim it is the responsibilty of us humans as humans. Yet, you would tell me to stop living in a dream world. Is that logical, or are you just streching your imagination, again?
However,if you are willing to make the world a better place, I do not care what you believe in. I am just worried you might prefer the tribal moralism the Bible offers instead of ethics. If you can persuade yourself to believe the Bible has better ethics than what the ancient writers are obviously offering, I guess that is in some way good too. But I am affraid, that would mean you are deluding yourself. If you believe in the promise that god will make it all better, no matter how much we screw it up, then you belong to a very big and influental group of people, who are not making the world a better place.
Jesus said he had come to reinforce the OT commandments, ie. he reinforced the law about slavery in the OT, right? Did he make any direct claims against that law? Would you abide to those rules of conduct, if you were a slave (modern or ancient)? I would not. Is that a “sin” on my part? If it is a “sin” to rebel against your master, as Paul suggests, what does that tell us of the morality of the Bible claims a “ruler deity of the universe”.
1. Why did the god of Abraham not forbid slavery in the first place when, that god alledgedly dictated the rules for human conduct?
2. Do you think slavery is actually moral within the terms the OT offers?
3. If you do not think those are moral rules, why would a god give them?
4. If you think they are moral rules, that means you would be ready to abide to be a slave under those rules, would it not?
The major difference of people making the world a better place and some god making it a better place is that the latter has not happened. There is no evidence such thing will ever happen. Or is there? Though I would not mind it happening, I have no reason to belive it ever will. In the meantime, I hope you will agree, we should better the world in our own accord, instead of just waiting aroud for a god to do it for us.
A few thoughts…
Loved Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy, by atheist Douglas Adams. The video makes a good point about the faith paradox that I plan to touch on later. E.g., the Bible says God is evidenced by all creation, and only a fool says “There is no God.” But if God’s existence is indeed so obvious that only a fool would deny it, then faith is unnecessary, and it is then impossible to please God. But if faith is necessary, then the Bible is wrong to say that God’s existence is self-evident (…and God disappears in a puff of logic.)
I seem to recall that the 6-year-escape-clause only applied Hebrew slaves.
It’s sad to hear that there are currently millions of slaves in the world, but all I can think is “Imagine how different the world would be if the Bible had just said ‘Masters, free your slaves’ instead of ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear.’ How many people would’ve escaped slavery had the Bible taken a stand against it?
As rautakyy pointed out, we wouldn’t want these things done to us. BHS seems to reason that it’s okay to beat slaves, because it is far better than being beaten to death. But this is like a man beating his wife, and then justifying it to the police by saying “Yes, yes, but it’s okay, because I showed restraint — I actually wanted to kill her!” It’s still not okay, both these things are wrong.
Instead of permitting the beating of slaves into obedience, why didn’t God say “Free your slaves to work for anyone, but you may hold back pay from employees who are lazy and refuse to work.” Wouldn’t this also solve the problem? Without having to endorse beatings?
Likewise, the Bible permits selling one’s own daughter into slavery. I’m not sure how to rationalize that one… shall we say this is better than killing her? She too should be a paid employee.
Interesting question, but I don’t think so.
Craig Venter recently made headlines for creating the first cell with a fully synthetic genome. It’s not so difficult to imagine that in the future we may be able to manipulate cells however we want, and then eventually design brand new cells (perhaps even improving upon evolution’s design). And some day, maybe we’ll even design intelligent multi-cellular organisms to our own specifications. Maybe pets, or personal sex slaves. Since we made them, does that give us the authority to treat them however we want? To inflict harm upon them or force them they worship us? No, it’s ethically wrong because if we were them, we would not want it done to us, pure and simple.
I could go on, but nah. You are too blind to see this.
But to end this. What does god’s kingdom look like then? Here is a description of the effects of the Welsh revival. Notice that none of the laws of the land change. No, they still live in the same dirty ol’ mine town. But something is changed within:
“Not only were individual lives changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, but whole communities were changed indeed society itself was changed – Wales was again a God-fearing nation.
Public houses became almost empty. Men and women who used to waste their money in getting drunk were now saving it, giving it to help their churches, buying clothes and food for their families. And not only drunkenness, but stealing and other offences grew less and less so that often a magistrate came to court and found there were no cases for him.
Men whose language had been filthy before learnt to talk purely. It is related that not only did the colliers put in a better day’s work, but also that the pit ponies turned disobedient! The ponies were so used to being cursed and sworn at that they just didn’t understand when orders were given in kind, clean words! The dark tunnels underground in the mines echoed with the sounds of prayer and hymns, instead of oaths and nasty jokes and gossip.
People who had been careless about paying their bills, or paying back money they had borrowed, paid up all they owed.
People who had not been friends for a long time because of something that had happened in the past, forgot their quarrels and were happy together again. In fact, Evan Roberts used to say that there could be no blessing on anyone who had unkind thoughts about anyone else.”
Nuff said.
“You are too blind to see this.”
Come now BHS, we’ve made some very fine points and you’re going to wave them all off with an all-too-Christian ad homin attack? As if by claiming that everyone else is blind but you, you have somehow provided a reasonable counter-argument? Other religious believers would say that it is you who is blind, but this proves nothing. I hope you’ll at least read what we’ve written and respond to our objections, helping us to see the light by explaining exactly where our logic is flawed. If you are right, you have nothing to fear.
As for the 1904–1905 Welsh Revival (the birth of the Charismatic movement), I think this can be explained by the power of religion to unite and organize groups — so long as they all believe along the same lines. Believing that God is on your side and that you have eternal life is a powerful force, even if it’s untrue. Look in any church, mosque, temple or synagogue and you’ll see an organized community of believers… who all just happen to disagree with all the other well organized communities.
And such love-fests are not exclusive to Christianity; many other religions and cults have been known to foster peace, unity, love, and a sense of community and belonging… but that doesn’t make them all true.
No doubt the Greeks and Romans prospered measurably more under Zeus than the Welsh did under Yahweh, but should we take this as a sign to worship Zeus? Of course not, their gods had nothing to do with their success, other than a false sense of hope and entitlement it may have fostered in them. It’s not so much the god as the belief in gods.
Peace!
Okay. There is an interesting look at the OT slavery in here:
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/slavery_bible.html
My point is that who are we to complain about the OT anyways. We have not reached that level ourselves yet. Even though we are like kings and can sit on our fat asses and write this nonsense on a computer protected by law, does not mean we are an advanced race. The same crap goes on behind the curtains. And lives of modern slaves is much worse than those of the OT. We have the NT now and we are far from reaching the moral standard it offers us.
http://www.fatdawg.com/slavery2.html
I suppose things like Welsh revival could be explained by a happening of blind luck. But was that human induced or God using our psyche to do miracles? Us having psyche toes not rule out a change of Holy Spirit using it.
BHS, it is a culturally relativistic view that the OT laws for slavery were written as some sort of social security base. Many ancient cultures treated their slaves (and POW) more humanely, than the Christian slave masters of the colonial era, or even the Roman state, but that does not turn the moral principle any more benign. Does it? They are fine as a law of those times, but as a divine message from a god, creator and “ruler of the universe” to all mankind they do not serve as a good basis for morality. They sanction the beating of the slave for example. Is that right? There lies the difference. The fact that there are some more miserable conditions in the world today does nothing to make the OT standards ethical. Does it?
In your comment about the Welsh revival, it seemed that the most profound problem in that society had been alcohol abuse, but if that is the case, then surely you agree that Islam would have been much better, or at least just as good divine source of happiness to these people? It is only the cultural backround of the Welsh, that made Christianity more probable cause for this reform. Correct? Islam for sure had all the unifying effects, for the societies it changed so dramatically so many centuries ago, that you describe in the Welsh revival. But does that mean the Quran is the ultimate rulebook for morality, or that Allah is true? Why not?
I constantly run into this ridiculous claim that only with the help of this, or that god a man can vindicate alcoholism. It is a blatant lie, though the people who tell it propably do not know any better. One of my atheist friends lost his job because of alcolism, but he later turned into a moderate user of alcohol and he got his life back on his own and with the help of friends and family.
We have every right to make our estimation of any claims about any gods according to their alledged divine scriptures and even by how people interprete those. If these deities of supreme power do not provide people with better information about themselves, or the morals they represent. Since there are thousands of gods in the religious world and since none of them ever appear anywhere, the only way to estimate and compare all the different religions is to look at what kind of morality they represent.
So far I have not met any claims of any gods, that would serve as high morals as I would expect from a benevolent entity with super powers. Instead, there are these claims and “apologetics”, that demand I would accept a particular god to be the source of morals and that therfore the seemingly, or obviously immoral conduct these gods demand from humanity should not be evaluated by my own standards. However, the fact that I hold higher standard for ethics, than the ancient scriptures, speaks loud and clear for the fact that these feeble attempts for communication between humanity and these alledged deities, also called scriptures, are only man made stories and laws to arrange a primitive society around the authority of imagined gods. I expect you would think this is so about all the other religious scriptures and traditions, exept your own. Right?
The demand for faith is unethical. Because people do not choose what they believe. They believe what they are compelled to believe. Like you are compelled to believe in your god. But different people are compelled by different things, some old scriptures that represent questionable ethics offer poor reason to have faith. Most people are not compelled by any particular god. This proves that no god that demands faith, (and they all do, because none of them makes public appearances) are not either mercifull or just. Do you understand my point?
Mr 500 and Mr Rautakyy. As far as I know you are not a God. Even if we could clone humans and be their “gods” would we be all knowing? You do not count every oxygen atom that you breathe. Thus you do not get to set the rules. But God can.
It is a traditional christian understanding that OT is a picture of people trying to applease God with their own effort. God wanted to show that no one can keep the law by themselves. Israel failed at it.
As will every external based kingdom that this world has. Even external, politically based christian kingdom cannot last because it is based on external set of rules. To say to people that drinking alcohol is forbidden does not work because it is a set of external rules. This is also the difference between muslim kingdoms and welsh revival.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/features/news/new-australian-convert-gets-the-first-taste-of-islam/
NT is clear that God’s kingdom is in us trough the Holy Spirit (Luke 17:20). It is not a kingdom of this world (John 18:36). When I read my new testament I see a movement of the Spirit rather than organized religion. That is also one of the reasons why OT is there. To show that a man can not keep even the most basic set of external rules. Only trough God’s spirit is true peace possible.
This is also answering your question mr Rautakyy. God’s kingdom appears in this world just as I just described. So God does appear. And no one is claiming that alcoholism can not be cured any other way than God. But it is well known fact among health care profession that it more than helps.
http://www.rehabilitation-center.org/alcoholism-study.html
God’s kingdom at work. Works also on drugs, crime and mental health problems.
Talking about the rules. Mr 500 mentioned daughters sold in to slavery. What happens today when a poor family can not support their girl child anymore?
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=12597&size=A
Which system is preferable? God’s laws are not some law that is only good on paper like our laws. Slavery equals social welfare in the OT times.
Every society is as strong as how it treats it’s weakest. Our western wellbeing is based on more that half of the world being our slaves. This is what I mean. We have right to whine about God’s laws after we get ours working. So this is my question to you. Have we or have we not reached OT level in this world yet?
BSH, who said a god is writing on this conversation? I do not deem myself to be a god. I never have. In fact I do not believe in any gods, so it would be rather odd, if I would claim to be one. No? Where did you draw that one from? How can you know, if a god has set the rules? That is a preassumption based on no knowledge. Or is it based on some knowledge? I said we humans can only evaluate the entire idea of gods by how these individual gods are described by humans, since they do not appear anywhere to speak for themselves, do they? (Wich makes me rather suspicious to their alledged existance.) If we are just to take any rules some particular god has set as THE rules how we are expected to behave by that god, how are we to choose from among all the gods? Should we simply do like most people in the world do, by choosing the god and the arbitrary set of rules alledgedly set by that god as our surrounding culture determines? Or should we choose one of these by some other method? You do understand, that we as humans are much more likely to find a god near to us (one familiar to our respective culture) more likely to seem the right one?
Of course religion helps to fight alcoholism, because it is used to that end, but religion is not needed for humans to live well. There is no evidence that a god had anything to do with the beneficial or harmfull effects religious movements achieve. We have many examples how religion is a force used to benefit human kind, but we also have a numerous examples how the very same religions have hurt mankind. To me that confirms religions are entirely human enterprices. Super duper gods would not cause harm to mankind, if they actually were benevolent. Nor would a superpowerfull entity let evil be done in its name, if it had any moral backbone. Right?
No social wellfare system endorses violence towards the subjects. Hence the Bible rules for slavery are not WELLfare, they endorce slavery. You have been avoiding this question, but I try once more: Would you abide to the rules of conduct for slavery in the Bible, if you yourself and your loved ones were the slaves? A nother question you seem to avoid (or maybe I have just not understood your reply) is: Do you not see, that even if our societies were far worse examples of ethical depravity than the ancient Hebrew society, that would still not make beating a nother person right simply because you claim this other person your property?
If the message of the OT is from a god given as an example how human society does not function even if with a religious set of rules, it kind of makes the point, that this god is unethical and even immoral. It would mean, that the generations of Jews who revered their own only god and tried to live their lives according to these alledgedly divine (but obviously unethical) rules, lived and suffered (and stoned each other to death as ordered) only to serve as an example to some other people. As if they were not real people at all, but just puppets set to play a predestined part in a play. In addition, if a god gives a set of rules to people, knowing beforehand, that they are not going to meet those rules, and when they fail to meet those rules, this same god then punishes these people, it once again, shows that god to be a bit of a dick. Certainly that does not appear as perfectly just, or perfectly mercifull. Does it?
As to your question, yes I agree with you, that the western world is extorting rest of the world. And I really love the fact that you can see it, when so many people in the western world refuse to see it.
I think we can change that injustice like we changed the injustice of legal slave trade as humans. However, that wrong you mention in no way deprives our right to question religious moralism, or that of any gods. I might add that you propably judge religious morals just like I or our host does in most cases of other religions than your own. How would you otherwise decline such assertions as Sharia law, when the Muslims take it as a given law from a god? Without secular arguments about ethics all claims for divinal moral are equal. Right? Because all these divine entities have set some arbitrary set of rules, wich most ofthen narrows down to tribal moralism. But none of these gods have made appearances that would dispute the existance of the other divinities. Or have they? Within the UN and especially in the industrialized world we have far surpassed the tribal moralism the Bible offers, both on OT and on NT levels in philosophy of ethics and same goes for sharia law. Our legal systems are not perfect but they actually represent higher understanding of ethics than anything represented either in the Bible or the Quran. The fact that we have trouble in putting much of that in practice does nothing to promote the low level of morals in the Bible, or quran, or change those to be somehow ethical. Does it? What causes you to think we have no right to complain about an obvious injustice, offered to us as the word and will of some particular god, if we are not perfectly just and perfectly mercifull ourselves?
Interesting questions. To begin with I did imply that are you are not a god in a sense that you (or any other human) is fit to evaluate God’s decisions. So now:
Can God set the rules?
Of course he can. If you don’t believe in God you must play a game of imagination. If there is an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent being He gets to set the rules because He has those mentioned characteristics. He knows when that atom in a far away galaxy is to decay and sets this in motion. And knows how it’s going to end. So does this same God not have the right to dismantle the atoms in us any way He sees fit? Bringing our human notions about God in to this conversation is dodging the question. So does this God get to set the rules or not?
Is God immoral?
No. OT laws where set for that particular set of circumstances to an audience that was bronze age people. They had a different kind of society and different kinds of rules than us. God set the bar high enough that they could go over it. Putting too high standards on people that where not ready to receive them would have been immoral.
This is what bible teaches about God’s commands In Matt 19:8 Jesus clearly states that the Mosaic law was not perfect and not meant to be eternal. So using these laws now would be immoral. We have a new set of rules in the NT crafted for us. Jesus fulfilled OT law. If any it is the atheist that must explain where they get the reason for their morals? If there is no God where do we get these morals then?
Salvation was achieved in the OT by obeying God’s commands and it was not too difficult task. If you actually read the OT you notice that it was the same God of love than in the NT. Only difference being that ancient israel lived in the theocracy that has now in the NT times moved inside us. Thus salvation in the OT is the same as NT. Love your God and love your neighbor.
And yes of course life of a Israel slave is preferable to say Cananite free man.
On superiority of God’s law
Bible has a superior set of rules which we are far from reaching. Read your sermon on the mount and say that we have some superior set of tules compared to that:
http://www.biblepath.com/beatitudes.html
UN is nice and all but it is still a set of external rules. If there is no God who cares what the UN charter says? If there is no God then there are no rules that are objective. If someone believes something, then that is the way to follow. If there is no God why we can say that Nazi extermination camps where wrong? To them it seemed okay. But we all know deep down that it was not a ok.
Was morality a byproduct of evolution then?
William Lane Craig says this:
“On the atheistic view, some action, say, rape, may not be socially advantageous and so in the course of evolution has become taboo; but that does absolutely nothing to prove that rape is really wrong. On the atheistic view, apart from the social consequences, there’s nothing really wrong with your raping someone. Thus, without God there is no absolute right and wrong which imposes itself on our conscience.”
So it is not us christians that have some explaining to do. We have a clear reason for our love of the others. God loves us and created us in His image. That makes us all amazingly valuable.
BHS, since I assume you are not a god either, how can you evaluate any decisions made by any gods? You can choose to revere a particular god, but without license to evaluate any divinal rules, how can you tell you have chosen right, or are you just betting on the neighbour boy, or the home team? You do know how bad betting chances that gives you?
So, in essence you are claiming that what ever a god does is moral? That you have no right to see some of the actions and rules set by your god as immoral? What if your preacher, or what ever intermediary you have between yourself and god, or even the voice of god within you yourself told you to murder the infidels, would you do it? You know, this kind of stuff happens every once in a while, so the question is not entirely hypothetical.
How do you know which of the OT commands have been fulfilled by Jesus and wich are not? You are basicly saying that your god changed the rules of engagement, but that the earlier set of rules was as moral as the latter one, are you? So, if the previous set of rules was equally moral why did it need to be changed? If the reason was, as you seem to imply, that the human society had evolved ethically from the bronze age tribal moralism, and there was some sort of turning point, then why did this process of changing morals even need a god to implement it? Sorry, but this idea still seems to leave so many people outside the system, that it is still immoral, by my standards.
I think we have adressed the question before, where does the atheist get morals, if not from god. From within. Just like the Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist. It is basicly irrelevant wether you think it is set by a god, or by nature, but we have an innate capability for understanding what is right and what is wrong. Do we not? This ability is shared by most mammals, and to some extent by some other animals also. Humans have the highest capability to understand their actions, that we know of, and therefore humans also carry a bit more responsibility. It is based on our ability for empathy and compassion. This is a natural survival mechanic of the social animals. Humans have simply streched it a bit further than we know of any other animals. Societes make consensus rules about right and wrong, but sometimes such rules are flawed by the circumstances and power structure of the society. Arbitrary religious rules are a good example of such. They often linger in a society long after their usefullness has expired, like many of the OT rules. It is a fact that we all have this capability and that there is a natural explanation to it, that really does not require any gods on any level. The Biblical rules (all of them) are just as external as any other religious set of rules. Is it not?
William Lane Craig is full of it, when he claims, that to atheist rape is just a social phenomenon. That is an empty claim without any evidence to back it up. Did you not know that the atheists are a far more smaller minority among convicted criminals, than in society in general. That would either suggest, that atheists make for much more clever criminals than theists, or that atheists have at least as high standard for morals as any religious group. At least atheists are not the group that has been found to harbour child abusers among their community. I would expect the difference between general population and prison inmates in this aspect is due to the fact that atheists are generally better educated than the general population, and by the fact that criminals tend to ask for forgiveness from gods when they get caught.
You are now dodging the question. Again if omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent being exists is it not His right to choose the rules however arbitrary they may seem to you.
What OT laws apply?
http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-law.html
Answers also question of if someone or internal voice asked me to do horrendous actions. No I would not do it because that would be against the commandment to love your neighbor.
Problem in your answer is not evolution but naturalism. If there is no God then there are no logical arguments for objective morals. Thus your evaluation of of Dr. Craig’s example demands a better logic than giving a list of naturalist assumptions. If I say that God does not exist why would I care about rape? Naturally it would be beneficial for me to spread my genes any way possible. But deep down I know that this is wrong. Where did such a moral emerge then? To this question naturalism gives no answer at all.
Also where do you get the notion that we have humans carry more responsibility than animal kingdom? If we are just lucky animals, then our responsibilities are of no consequense.
Atheist morality is no problem at all for christian. You got it from the same place as everyone else. God.
BHS, I meant by no means to dodge your question. The problem in your question is presupposition. You assume you know there is an omnipotent, omnicient and omnipresent god, but you do not know it, you only have faith in this alledged entity. I as a moral being, however, do not have any obligation to abide to rules by such an entity, if they are immoral by my standards. No, doubt that kind of entity could make any arbitrary rules (and they do seem quite arbitrary), but those rules would then be based on the right of might, if the rules it sets would not meet ethical logic. So, my answer would be no, it does not have the ethical right to set arbitrary rules. Simple, eh?
That was an interresting take on the link you posted on what OT rules apply. It basicly said none, and especially not those, that contradict the “´love thy neighbour” and the “love thy god” rules. So, for example, all the so called fundamentalist Christians who say homosexuality is an abomination to god are in fact totally wrong. Why would this god of theirs not appear to them to tell they got it wrong? In that light it is the ethical responsibility of their god to appear to stop them from harming the homosexuals by their harassing of them, as power equals responsibility. Therefore the failing ethics of this god actually serve as evidence, that such an entity a) does not exist other than in the imagination of people, or b) it is absolutely unethical or even evil. In either case it can hardly be perfectly just, or perfectly mercifull?
Yes, I am a naturalist to some extent. The difference between naturalistic and theistic world views is, that naturalistic points are easily demonstrable and evident in the nature around us, while the theistic claims are a chain of assertions, that ultimately depend on faith. As faith is “credo in absurdum” a belief in the unknown, they tend to fail more often than the naturalistic ones, as you propably know. This source of morals is a good example of this principle. Theists claim morals is a magical code given to men by god. This is not evident in any way. We are simply to believe in it, like in the existance of a god. Nature around us gives multiple examples how empathy and social animals create morals. All humans no matter which gods they serve have a sense of justice and typically that logic is very much affected by the culture and religion they live in, but it also bears some logical resemblances. The latter make it possible for us to have such consensus as the UN declaration of human rights. That is about how close to objectiveness we have reached in morals. Many people that their different gods have asserted that much objectivity to our moral conduct, but if we may not evaluate these in comparrison, we have no means to judge wich gods have given these morals to men. Nature, however, gives simple explanation to this that requires no gods. In this sense gods are a rudiment from an era when people had much less understanding of the nature around us, and tried to explain things by inventing gods.
Now you have presupposed yet a nother thing, wich is absolute objective morals. Demonstrate that such a thing exists, please do. Nature and its evolution bear wittness to the fact that morals is a conduct of behaviour. Different animals percieve this concept depending on their ability to feel empathy and predict future ie. interprete the results of their actions. These two abilities make us subject to the logic of ethics. Therefore mitght is not right and with power comes responsibility. Or would you not agree with me on this?
There are no moral standards hanging in a magical realm beyond reality and real life. There is some objectivity to morals, as I demonstrated above. That is to say, it is not entirely subjective phenomenon either. What is it with such men as this Dr. Graig that they seem to want either black or white, while this is not a very natural state of affairs ever? Instead he goes beyond any evidence he can present to assert such hatefull claims as atheists have no moral standards, wich is demonstrably false.
This is propably why such movements as the young earth and creationism have emerged. Science has deduced the god to a level where such an entity is no longer needed to explain anything. Like for example the source of morals. And that is why most fanatic theists have begun a fight against science. We do not know wether there is a god behind such things as biological evolution and social evolution (wich is how morals has emerged, both atheist and theist alike), but as it is quite obvious, that given enough time, these things do not need a god to explain themselves. The slow realiation of this, has led to such vile and counterproductive phenomenons as the intelligent design movement, wich demonstrates how people who want to have faith (trust in supernatural forces to fend of ill luck) would set their human form to the universe and andropomorphize this idea of a god.
I find your assesment of God lacking and trying to avoid the issue. I think I must help you out here a bit. If you use your God given logic you will find that such being does have the right to set the rules. Was it that bad to even begin to imagine such things? Your aversion is truly amazing. You actually made ID movement to sound like satan’s lapdog. C’mon! There are real terrorist groups
out there to fight. Quote:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/BigMiscon.HTM
“Biblical literalists are commonly stereotyped as dour, inflexible, mean-spirited, unhappy and sexually repressed. In my dealings with them, Biblical literalists don’t seem any more or less happy, kind, or sexually healthy than the general population. People who would rise up in fury at stereotypes of blacks or gays seem perfectly willing to accept and repeat equally malicious and blatant stereotypes of Biblical literalists.”
Also your lack of knowledge about even the basics of christian faith is startling. Of course anything that is repeated in the new testament is a law. So I recommend that you read a book before again starting again to judge christian theology.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310384915
Your faith in naturalisim seems to convuse itself on many knots. There are too many logical fallacies to make it comfortable as a worldview. According to you there is some objectivity on morals. Decided by who? Invisible committee? Face your faith boldly. If you believe in naturalistic reason for morals then they are relative.
If there is no God morals don’t make sense anymore. For example why we keep our morals, even tough we know them to be only products of genetics? This author suggest ignorance as a reason:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/20/morality-evolution
Well woulden’t that make a logical conclusion of not telling anyone about it is the most moral thing to do then? Lest they find out and start to abuse the system. This author puts it well:
http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y64l052.html
“It seems pretty clear that an evolutionary explanation will not provide a foundation for morality. An attempt would be to say that we ought to observe morality because moral conduct enhances the survival chances of our genes. But why should we care about that? We do care about it, perhaps, but if we don’t (or didn’t), why should we? Or it might be said that moral behaviour on my part improves the survival chances of humanity generally (or of sentient beings generally, or of the planet . . ). The same question arises: if I don’t in fact care about such things, can evolutionary theory give any reason why I should?
On the other hand, it seems that the evolutionary explanation may undermine committment to morality. Once morality is seen as serving some purpose, it becomes possible to ask how much we care about that purpose in comparison with other things. Morality is no longer “categorical” or over-riding.”
Thus our need for God (wheter you believe or not) is not any less than it was before. Which leads to conclusion that sites like this are immoral because they undermine our belief in God as foundations of morals. Thus eroding the illusionary foundations of our society.
BHS, how am I trying to avoid the issue? How is my assesment of a particular god lacking? Within such a conversation we do have only limited amount of stuff we can include in our comments. It is my logic that tells me that authority is allways something, that has to be earned, not superimposed. This is all very hypothetical to me, since I have not heard any valid reasons to believe there is a creator entity that rules the universe. However, it is both logical and ethical to asses, that we have no obligation to follow any arbitrary rules, that any deity might be trying to superimpose on us, if those very rules are unethical. What is ethical is not derived from some supreme authority, but from the logical process we call ethics, that all of us engage in our everyday lives.
If morals is derived from authority, wich is not earned, but superimposed, then that authority may justify anything is right, like the genosides, slavery, or even rape endorsed by the god of the Bible. That alone should tell you, me and everyone who has ever read the Bible, that is not how right and wrong are determined.
The ID movement is not a terrorist group and I never claimed it is, or did I? They are however moving from the claim that there has to be a creator to the universe, because they can not percieve anything in the universe appearing by coincidence. Wich is funny, given that as far as we can observe most things in the universe happen by coincidence and without any plan we can understand. Correct? Their folly is, that they actually are projecting their image of human on their vision of a god. In other words, andropomorphizing the idea of a demiurgi. That is perfectly OK, because all religions – all that have gods do the very same thing. It is natural to human psyche to try and andropomorphize nature around us. However, when we recognize this trait in ourselves and others (what ever their gods are), we are able to see things more clearly as what they really are and percieving reality is the way to more ethical choises. Because with better information, it is easier to make better judgement of issues and events. Correct?
You claim that my understanding of the Christian faith is lacking. That may be so, but as I said above the NT actually confirms the law about slavery through Paul. Have you not read the Bible? However, my understanding of Christian faith is just one angle on it among all the people in this world. Who has the right understanding of the Christian faith? The Catholics, Lutherans, Greek Orthodoxes, Koptis, Anglicans, or the Southern Westboro Babtist Church? Maybe it is the Jews, or the Muslims who have the correct understanding of Christian faith. How do you know? That is the point. I have read the Bible, so by all means, I should have the correct understanding of the Christian faith. At least, if the Bible is actually the word of the one and only god (and assuming the Bible is the most significant effort made by this god to communicate with the humanity) and presuming that god is benevolent. Actually, if that god was benevolent, then everybody should have the correct understanding of the Christian faith, regardless on have they read the Bible, or even ever heard of it, since that claims to be the only salvation from eternal torment. Ethical logic demands that. Alledgedly this god of the Christians weilds absolute power, but since with power allways there comes responsibility, then whith absolute power the responsibility is also absolute. Correct? Otherwise that god can not be just nor mercifull, not perfectly, or even less than perfectly.
The evolutionary explanation of morals does not need to be so difficult or complex as it seems to present itself to you. In evolutionary natural terms we have “rules” of conduct that dictate how an idividual deals with all that surround it. That is basicly what morals is, is it not? There is no absolute objective morals, because these surroundings are not the same for everybody and they change all the time. As do the social rules of conduct between an individual and the surroundings. These surroundings include other individuals of the same species, of individuals of different species and all other actual things in it as well. As an example take industrial revolution. Coal and oil consumption of the early days gave rose to modern industrialism wich has given us such things as modern medicine, large scale literacy, and means to share many different art forms. These are few things we give value to, right? In the early days of industrial revolution, they could not foresee all this good that would result from their growing economy, nor could they see that their consumption of the oil resources would lead to a world economy that would produce such problems as lagre scale pollution, nor the climate change. Was their small scale initial for the consumption of fossilic fuels therefore right, or wrong? Would your god have had an opinion on the matter then and did your god express it in some meaningfull way? What about today? Should they end up in hell, or heaven for the historical results of the great social change they set in motion? We now know that burning fossilic fuels is harmfull to the nature around and to us as well. Is it moral, or immoral? What does god think? If we stop doing it right now, our economy collapses and the world most likely runs into chaos. And we have much more terrible weapons in our disposal, than those guys in the biblical times. Are we to sit around on our asses hoping for an entity, that has not bothered to appear anywhere in 2000 years (exept sometimes healing someones athletes foot, as a praeyr answer, while millions of people die of malnutrition), to set everything right? Or are we to act on ethical logic to remedy this situation we find ourselves in, by our own effort?
We might define morals under the ideal of: Do to others as you would want them to do to you. But then we have actually lost the first obvious point about ethics. Ethically the foundation to ethics would be more like: Do onto others as they would want you to do unto them. But the problem of “objective morals” is that nothing is so simple you could sum it all up in one sentence or given some arbitrary foundation. Therefore the fact that you might want all people to give you their money is a proposition, wich presents a problem to both of these ideals. You see there is no “foundation” to morals that did not present a serious problem to ethics. We need ethics to find out what is right, or wrong. They are not founded on any arbitrary rules. Ethics is the process of questions that define what is good and what is bad. To whom it is good and to whom does it mean bad. Ultimately nature comes to the conclusion that the benefit of the larger party is the universal and as “objective” as “objective morals” gets. This does by no means mean some sort of tyranny of the majority, or the stronger over the weaker. It is natural, that human societes flourish, when they are “benevolent” towards minorities, animals, environment, other societes, and scientific approach to find out more about everything. Therefore it is perfectly logical to think that is what kind of morals is derived from evolutionary process. That also explains all the moral flaws we have, because evolution is not driven by ID, it is a random process, that makes constantly mistakes. That allows for an abundance of possibilities to be open. Do you see? No supernatural explanation is ever required for morals. No gods, or devils anywhere. Just nature and us human beings as part of it and as part of humanity and our societies in it.
Survival of the fittest is a part of the theory of evolution constantly misrepresented, or misunderstood. Morals means the conduct between humans and sometimes other beings and even objects. It is a very natural survival mechanic. It is not merely the survival mechanic of the genes, it is the survival mechanic of the individual who is a part of a social species. All social species have morals of their own. All human societes have morals of their own. Ethics is a means of logic, that tells us how to asses what is right or wrong. In other words, what is as close to “objective moral” as possible. How do you define what is moral? Do you look it up from an ancient tome? Or do you use logic to tell you what harm your actions or inactions might cause? No ancient tome has any take on the nuclear weapons, do they? But that is a completely new ethical and moral propblem in comparrison to any other weaponsystems humanity has ever weilded. How would you define them morally? What do you think your god thinks about nukes? How about the morals of nuclear power plants? Your supreme ruler of the universe has to have an opinion, otherwise a) nukes are not a moral issue, or b) your god decides to be silent on a rather significant moral issue, while concentrating in much minor ones. If we can not know what your god thinks about the nukes, then it makes no difference to us as humanity, that this particular deity would like to be seen as the foundation of morals. In effect, it serves as no foundation of any particular morals in such a case.
That is why I put the hitchiker’s guide video. Man giving God reasons of His non existence and God vanishing in a puff of logic. To me it seemed an funny concept. If you are in a thinking that you can dictate conditions to God you are wrong, wrong indeed. We are talking about a totally perfect and superior being. Now ad loving to that and I guess we are talking about fly vs elephant situation here.
Only a modern biblically ineducated man will make blanket statements like bible endorses rape. Any earlier philosopher or theologist would have the courage to ask: What where the circumstances? But here are some links on the issues you raised. Good reading:
Slavery:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=1587
Rape:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=12&article=2333
Genoside:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/slaughter-of-the-canaanites
On nukes ad polluition there are bible passages that deal with this issue:
http://christianteens.about.com/od/understandingyourbible/qt/ScriptureEnvironment.htm
And on all of those churches you mentioned are kosher except the Westbro Baptist Church (and some catholic sects). They are huxters. My condolences to anybody that is their victim. Inside or outside of their church.
I guess it is ok to be ignorant of the facts of your beliefs. That is after all the thing that keeps our society going according the facts you have represented us. If morals are not objective they are relative. For example:
You probably think that cheating your wife is wrong. It creates moral problems for the both of the parties plus some unwanted diseases and babies. But how about if a man has a traveling job and has had a vasectomy. In a strange town he has safe sex with another woman.
Right or wrong? It is beneficial for the man in question and maybe to the strange woman. But it would be unethical to tell his wife because it would hurt her. This is the kind of moral dilemma I’m talking about in the naturalistic evolution morals. You might say: I know it to be wrong, but why? Nobody’s hurt. Where did you get the idea it was wrong? Evolution? But then it would not be immoral if the wife did not know. To a christian answer is simple. God forbids sex outside the marriage. Nothing fuzzy there.
Phew! was that all? Lets keep questions to a certain limit in the future posts, shall we?
BHS, sorry about it, if I got carried away with the number of questions previously. Meant it as no labour on you.:)
There surely is no room here to answer all the aspects in the long links you provided. However, I thorw some simple ones out here.
Slavery: Your link did not really answer why the alledged supreme creator and ruler of the entire universe did not make slavery (all sorts of slavery) immoral? If you think this god is giving the reason for “objective morals”, does that mean it is not in your definition of objective morals, that owning a nother person as property is simply wrong, no matter if you are good to him? According to secular ethics owning a nother person is wrong in priciple, because it is harmfull not only to the slave but to the entire community.
Rape: Did you even read the link you provided? It basicly is trying to claim that rape is not rape if it happens within a marriage. Now, I know raping your wife became illegal here in Finland just some decades ago, but it is none the less unethical. I am really sorry, that I have to even ask this: Would you define it as right or wrong? Further more, the raped wife in the apologetics you offer was not married with her own consent. Hmm… Wonder now why I would see myself more moral than your god? In secular ethics rape is wrong because it is an unjustified act of violence.
Genoside: There seems to be this idea that a deity may remain not morally responsible, because morals is somehow only an external set of rules superimposed by that deity on humanity. Exeption to this is when this deity extends this irresponsibility to a group of humans that run amock killing babies at the command of this particular god. There are very few ways a human logic may be extended so far beyond any ethics. Does it not prove that such a command could not have come from a god, if the killing needs to be done by humans? As if this super creature can not do its own killing, but has to inflict the nation that it supposedly favours over the destroyed group of people, the terrible culture of violence and a basicly fascistic dream of superiority? Is it not obvious that the tool nation will suffer terrible price of this violence and atrocities they committed on the civillians of the other nation? My ethics are better than those offered by the Bible, since do not cause such horrific suffering.
Nukes and pollution: The link you provided did not address these issues in any ways. There were some flimsy remarcs on how the Bible might endorse looking after our environment, but that does not in any way answer the overwhelming moral issues in regards to nuclear technology and weaponry, or even pollution. Instead the Bible has a lot to say about much more minor issues.
The main problem about such apologetics is not only, that they are feeble excuses for unethical use of power by humans sanctified by an imaginary authority, but that if there actually was a god, this would mean that god is not fair towards human kind. Being fair is very much a question of being good, or evil. Is it not? In the absolute and omnipotent and omnicient capability of all creator and most holy and divine ruler of the universe, that entity has in other words contacted the mankind only barely enough to tell them they should believe, but not made it very clear as to what they should believe (look at all the different denominations of Christianity alone) and more importantly, not why we should believe. Should any man, or woman regardless of their cultural backround come to the same sad conclusions the few faithfull have come to? Are those skeptics who have direct acces to internet and a Christian as yourself to guide them, more likely to get the message right? Why is it, that this alledged monogod is unable to contact human kind in such a meaningfull way, that all would be saved? Why is it necessary to demand us to have faith? If that all was a work of a god, it would prove such god unworthy of any praise, or worshipping. Quite the opposite of “perfectly just, or perfectly mercifull”.
A reality, where we have to accept the work and results of this alledged only god as good when they are obvious crap, is to me absolutely horrible. That criticism is punished by eternal torment, sounds very much like some of the very worst human socities we have ever had. Should a god not do better? Maybe not. It is possible, that we are under the rule of divine monster, and it is just as possible, that this entity is not even aware of the evil nature of its actions. But, since there is no evidence, other than hearsay, on this matter, and since it is typical to human cultures to create such entities (as you know), it is more than likely we are not under any rule from the gods, and we just have to come along with each other and not destroy the only planet we inhabit in the process.
As to your example of cheating your wife, the naturalistic view of ethics does not stop at all where you seem to think it stops. Lying is also wrong from the perspective of natural ethics. You see, the fact that your imaginary charater lied (because not telling is also lying, in the case of adultery and a very severe lie indeed) about the relationship he had with the other woman, is a seriously unethical act. I am no evolution biologist, but the fact that the lie remains in between the cheater and his wife will be harmfull to both of them in many ways. Now, you might say the other woman was not harmed, but in retrospect to the fact that we have this evolutionary capability for emotions and conscience, it will cause her more or less harm (greatly depending on her cultural backround) also.
It seems to me, that in Christian logic it is far more easier to go out and cheat your wife, because Jesus will forgive you even though you could never tell your wife. This subconscious pre-knowledge seems to be perfectly able to override the fact, that a Christian thinks god is peeping on his sexual activities and other immoralities. If this was not so, Christians would be far less convicted from any illegal, or immoral acts, than any other group of humans, and they would be far more often not found cheating their spouses, but there is no such record, or is there?
How can God expect us to be perfect, when only He is perfect, and then damn us to eternal torment because we fail to meet His standards? Man was “perfect” when first created, and yet he failed the “fruit test”. How can he expect us now in the fallen state to be perfect (not to mention that we are surrounded by all sorts of evil spirits who tempts and condemn us unceasingly and by the world that has a lot to offer to cause us to sin)? By the way, the angels in heaven were perfect, still they fell.
Interesting point. But if Adam failed the test, then he wasn’t perfect. A perfect man would’ve had the wisdom and willpower to resist temptation. Which begs the question… “Can you still be perfect if you design something that is imperfect?”
The fallen angles were also flawed… perfect angles wouldn’t have betrayed God and rose up against Him. But somehow the blame always gets passed down to His creations. It’s a bit like me writing a buggy computer program, and then blaming the program for its faulty behavior.
Well, that was quite a bit of reading to catch up on, sorry I missed out. Where to begin…
Slavery…
I “get” the slavery argument. I think the bottom line here is that God should’ve always known better. His character would’ve certainly been better served had he discouraged slavery from the beginning. And at-will employment still seems a better option than slavery.
Even if it’s true that some people were going to starve to death if they didn’t sell their family members into slavery, God could’ve ordered 1% of the temple tithe to go towards social welfare programs to prevent starvation… or perhaps send a little more manna from heaven.
It’s almost humerous to see apologists try to frame things like slave beating in a positive light. Apologeticspress.org says “In fact, the more closely the passage is scrutinized, the more it manifests the idea that God was protecting the slave.” Yes… that’s the ticket… God was PROTECTING them with the beating. Why? Because it was better than beating them to death. Sweet Jesus! If God had just established at-will employment in the first place, then the owner could’ve just fired the slave instead of beating him, or the slave could just quit and go to work for someone else. We seem to do just fine today, without our bosses having to beat the living crap out of us.
But I guess if you can put a positive twist on sexism, rape, and genocide — slavery isn’t a problem. Again — bottom line — God should’ve known better, different society or not.
Rape…
Wow. How did Mr. Craig conclude rape was wrong? He didn’t get that from the Bible.
Rape is wrong for no other reason than it’s not something you’d want done to you or your children. To say that “…there’s nothing really wrong with your raping someone” is just ridiculous. Ask the victim, and it becomes pretty clear that something is wrong. Ask her father, and again it’s clear there is something wrong. William Lane Craig is an embarrassment to his cause.
Good god man… if this is how you think, then by all means please remain a Christian!
Morality…
Where were you during the crusades?
Really? Can you name one popular moral value that can’t also be deduced logically?
If the search for truth is immoral, then I’m immoral.
As rautakyy said, “What is ethical is not derived from some supreme authority, but from the logical process we call ethics, that all of us engage in our everyday lives.”
I was going to defend rautakyy on this one, but I think he’s doing a fine job of defending himself.
But I should point out that, on the whole, the average atheist has more religious knowledge than the average Christian.
Conclusion…
Even if the Bible said “Rape and slavery are bad,” it still wouldn’t prove that God exists. It might help His credibility a bit, but it wouldn’t prove anything other than God is not totally unreasonable.
Well are you not a swarm of angry bees or what. Gee! I must have said something awful to disturb your lib comfort zones. Sorry to rain on your parade
You do realize that I can not answer all of your questions. I have a life to attend to. And mr 500 that was below the belt. We are talking hypotethical assumptions here.
Now you must ask the question “what where the circumstances” we are not talking about some liberal love fest trip here. Israel had to carve their place among some very hard competition. And if you bother to look the laws of the nations around ancient Israel you’ll find that OT laws are actually a very advanced set of rules compared. A set of rules most of this world would still be very glad to have at least. Besides would’t it be unethical for God to give people rules they had no chance of abiding to? We are talking about bronze age here.
Besides what’s this terrible need to dig OT passages? It was already done with. It was temporally and served purposes in the grand plan of God. If you want to actually start a meaningful dialogue about christian behavior start discussions about NT. Thats where we are at now.
BHS, I think you are missing the point. The “circumstances” were and are exactly as the alledged creator and omnipotent, omniscient, supreme ruler of the universe would have set them, if that claim is true. But as I said before, there is no evidence, that such a an entity even exists, so, of course it is all hypothetical.
I personally do not think you are accountable in any way for all the crimes against humanity your deity has braged to have committed. Or for those committed in defence of this god.
The questions in this blog seem to be addressing this god of yours directly, but since this alledged god does not appear to defend itself (either because it is a) uninterrested, b) has no defence, or c) does simpy not exist), some humans seem to feel the need to defend it. That is in a way a good thing in my book (as long as the defences are in a debate and not by violence), since it kind of reveals the empty defences people come up whith and undermine the blind faith people have in demagogues. That is the sole purpose of such critical thinking. You are not on trial, but your god is, though it seems to be absent from the court and the real universe.
I think all of these questions are there for people to ask themselves. Critical thinking is not allways right, but we should never abandon it, or we will surely be lost. The questions here are not for anyone to ask some apologetics (wich as I stated are empty excuses) from godly pharisees for the atrocities in the OT, but for any thinking person to ask why would these things make a plausible case to set faith on it. Actually, if you think the Bible as just a nother historical myth, the NT is far more horrible than the OT. Why? Because it introduces the idea of Hell. That there is eternal suffering in the afterlife for people who do not find a particular religious suggestion correct. That is absolutely ugly. Is it not? I would not want that to happen to the worst of my enemies, or even the enemies of humanity. I can not imagine such an evil person, that would deserve such punishment. Can you?
Yet, there is no reason for anyone to drop the questions about the OT and questionable morals this god character in the book engages constantly in, because we are expected to accept all that as a description of the character of this alledgedly “benevolent”, “perfectly just” and “perfectly mercifull” god. That is such a contradiction of terms, it makes the story ethically totally unplausible. While we are supposedly expected to have faith in it, to avoid the eternal torment as promised in the NT. That has propably brought a lot of adherents to the religion, but it never the less is so very unethical. Do you understand what makes it unethical?
If your god presented itself as an ethical character, no apologetics would be required. Actually, if this god character ever appeared anywhere and convinced us all of its existance, no faith would be required. Do not tell me that this is all the result of free will. People are perfectly capable of making good choises with their free will and to choose between two good choises. Neither faith, or the obviously unethical character of that particular god have anything to do with the concept of free will of humans. So, why do we need faith? Why does god not appear as “perfectly mercifull” and “perfectly just”? Were his hands tied in the OT times, so he had to do crappy things to humanity and command the ancient Hebrew to do them also? Who had the power to limit the way your god acted in those days? What about today?
Further more, the Hell has nothing to do with moral accountability. Since, the method by wich people are divided to Hell and Heaven has nothing to do with their actions wether moral, or immoral, ethical, or unethical. If people are all bound for Hell, exept in the case where they accept this particular religion and plead for forgivenes from a god, there is no correlation to any ethical or moral issues. So, ask yourself, what purpose does Hell even serve, and how is that either “perfectly just”, or perfectly mercifull”? To me it is just pure and utter nonsense and rather obvious demagougery.
Sorry, did some of that come off as angry? Not my intention at all. Sarcastic maybe, but that’s just to inject some fun and color into the conversation.
Here were the circumstances surrounding slavery in ancient Israel: The Hebrews had cried out to their god for many years to save them from slavery in Egypt. When their god finally answered their prayers, they crossed over into the promised land and started taking slaves of their own. But God doesn’t stop them right then and there and say “Hey… you know… I think slavery is immoral, and you of all people should be able to understand that.” Instead, He says “Go ahead and beat them like an Egyptian! But don’t kill them… because that would be wrong.”
It’s interesting to ponder how some other civilizations managed to exist without slavery, and with no knowledge of the God of Abraham. Meanwhile, the only society with a hotline to God… is fine with slavery. In fact, if they tried to live without it, you seem to think it would be such a difficult and impossible standard that it would be, to use your words, setting the bar too high and “immoral” for God to even do so. But other tribes and societies didn’t seem to think it was such a burden.
I think Jesus made it pretty clear that that the OT law should persist until the end of the world…
Jesus may have, in the Christian view, fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah, but he certainly doesn’t seem to be implying that all the rest of it goes out the window with his arrival.
But even tossing out the OT, we still have problems. As rautakyy has said, Jesus reaffirms the practice of slavery… so it’s still a problem.
Interesting subjects. I’m busy right now so let’s see if I can answer sometime next week.
See ya
BHS
Allright
First: shame on you mr 500
You should know that OT law was fulfilled. Christ’s blood fulfilled the sacrifices (heb 9:12), priesthood ceased to exist between God and the people (Heb 7:23-24), physical temple was cancelled and Christ became the center of worship (Jon 4:21-23), food laws where canceled (Mark 7:18-19) and of course civil laws where cancelled (Gal 3:19-25). Also us gentles where absolved in the council of Jerusalem:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+15&version=NIV
Savery was a very important part of the world economics that day and age. So it was needed and not frowned upon. Taking care of the slaves was the duty of the owner. This is a very good way of thanking care of the poor. Much improved from our modern slaves. This is how it worked, and one has to make a peace with the idea. Slavery was with us then and continues to be so. Weather you or I want it or not.
Certainly later generations of christians where very active with abolishing slavery. But the thing is: Kingdom of God is not a political kingdom. So it is not meant to assert political force. It works rather like the yeast from within people and changing nations that way. Another thing one has to make peace with.
God controls nations and rulers with His hand. He nudges the events in to the right direction, not us humans. Now for example what would have happened if those mentioned crusades never happened? Would we still have our enlightened Europe and thus USA? Not of course accepting all the horrors committed on both sides while fighting. Think about it.
Again very much busy right now so here is a good article that answers at least some of the about thousand questions posted here:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GodExist.htm
Sorry for not having more time
BHS, it is curious, that in these sort of conversations it is most often the Christian, who brings forth the crusades and not the skeptic. Now, I happen to have delved in that particular history for completely other purposes, than to engage religious debate whith my knowledge, but it is a typical medieval phenomenon in that there is so much misinformation and myths about it. One of the myths, that has become very popular during few last years is, that the crusades were launched in defence of Europe. This is utterly wrong, but a common misconseption, so I do not hold you accountable for it, or for any other persons actions based on such nonsense – like those of Mr. Behring in Norway.
The crusades were launched after the request for help from the Emperor of Bysanthium in his war against the Rum tribes that had invaded Anatolia from north. However, the pope who had no intention of helping rival schismatic Greek orthodox church used this plea for help as a politcal tool to have military acces through Greece and the Bysantine empire in his own war to reclaim Jerusalem from the Muslims who had conquered it (from the multinational empire of East-Rome later called the Bysanthium) several hundred years before. In fact it was the 4th crusade that conquered Constantinople and crippled the East-Roman empire, into such state it could no longer withold muslim advance into Europe. It was by mere chance that the Rum embraced Islam (though crusader armies passing through their newly accumulated territory, might have made an impact into that direction) when they slowly formed the Ottoman empire of their own.
I am not going to explain the entire history of crusades here, but though there were (much later than the first six crusades) some pan-European efforts against the Ottoman Turkish invaders there is no doubt wether such political unions would have been formed even without the fear for Christendom and Christianity. The joint crusading efforts were notoriously ineffective miltary missions and if some force stopped Islam from conquering the Europe it was certainly not crusaders, but the military might of Holy Roman Empire (wich was at constant war with the Papacy) with Kingdom of Hungary and the Spanish Reconquista. Europe was an unnatrual environment for the arab armies wich were the main thrust behind the violent spread of Islam. Just like the knightly European armies were out of their preferred territory in Africa and the Near East. Natural reasons for a stalemate.
What the crusades managed to cause was the re-awakening of religious fanaticism and jihad in its military meaning in Islamic countries like Syria, Palestine and Egypt, that took the first blows. No doubt they had a tremendous impact. What culture would not be shocked by invading barbarian armies that committed such atrocities as destroying entire populations of cities, regardless of their religious affiliations, and even cannibalism. So, if we are to second guess what would have happened without the crusades, I would guess that the nations of Christendom would not have evolved into such world dominating powers they did, but that Islam might have continued to evolve into the more scientific and better informed societies (like they were before the crusades) and perhaps the enlightenment ideology would have been born within Islam and not within Christian society. Islam is often seen by the Christians as some singular threatening block and evaluations of it are therefore made by its very worst examples, but it is like evaluating the whole of Christendom by the Ku Klux Klan, Westboro Babtist church, or Laestadian Lutheran movement. These sort of guesses about what would have happened, if everything was completely different, are too far ranging and we have no answers to them.
The existance of such people defending gods as the Klan, the Crusaders, or the Al Qaida and the Wahhabits are perfect examples of violence a benevolent, just, or mercifull god would have interfered in, but an indifferent and cruel one would let them be and act just like they do, exactly as a non-existant one. If this was just a theoretical suggestion and not reality, it would be funny even to suggest a benevolent, perfectly just, or perfectly mercifull god would let such people, who in their religious fervour believe to act for as their (alledgedly benevolent) god wills it, to do so much harm. But all the violence done in the name of gods is not imaginary, or theoretical like the gods themselves.
Should we also attest to that without crusades against the Greek orthodoxes and Russia we would have not have religious pluralism in Europe, because the Orthodoxes would have overwhelmed Europe? Of course not, that is just as incorrect assumption as the thought that crusades against Islam somehow protected Europe. Their historical impact was completely the opposite. I have been thinking of writing a post about this. Maybe I should…
If a god controls nations and their rulers, does that mean there actually is no free will? Why does this god of yours nudges some leaders to good deeds and others to evil deeds? It really makes no sense at all.
I really must say, that it shows very low morals on your part to claim, that slavery served as some sort of social benefit. It does not do that today, it has never worked as such in any known human social group. Legalizing slavery gives the motive to make war to obtain wealth by capturing slaves and there is no ethical reasons to defend it. We may say that one sort of slavery is better then a nother sort of slavery, but that is like discussing wether we prefer to be kicked in the face, or the gut. There is no way you can turn violence against defenceless people into a good thing, especially when it was supposedly ordered by your god. It is just the same as saying the Mayan gods were very humane in demanding the human sacrifices, because that prevented mass starvation in a nation that had exponential population growth.
Religious affiliations allways carry political power and those two can not be truly separated, because political power is derived from the values people have. That is exactly why humanity is allready a bit overdue in growing up and not forming its values based on ancient fairy tales but on actual information we have.
We all have limited time, but I appriciate the contribution of everyone who participates and I especially appriciate the efforts of our host to make these meaningfull 500 questions.
I would sum my feelings up on the post topic by saying neither, a perfectly mercifull, or perfectly just god, would have allowed such punishment as Hell for any crimes a man might do. And especially not for thought crimes such as doubt, or faith in some equally invisible gods.
Live and learn. Thanks for the cool lecture. Not history is not my speciality for sure. But you are right that there is just not enough data to know what would have happened. Like the article I referred earlier. And of course no data to show what would have happened to world whitout oil or nukes
One more thing one has to make peace with is that if we are dealing with christian God is that He is not the santa kind of God. He is a fearsome God judging the nations and individuals. He hates our guts for eating from that tree. (Cool thing about taking genesis 1-2 metaphorically. It is a picture of the sinfulness of ALL humanity. YOU and I). He is going to get His way done in here and it’s not going to be pretty. Personal evil is on the loose as long as He allows it to be.
Fortunately we have that escape clause. Jesus. And that calls us christians to be part of the restoration project to heal this world. Of course I’m first to admit that church has not been doing a very good job at it. I hope future generations of christians will be better at it. But I also can rest in the knowledge that they will get their justice eventually. Form the fruit shall the tree be known. And the way to the haven is a narrow one indeed.
BHS: “He is going to get His way done in here and it’s not going to be pretty… Personal evil is on the loose as long as He allows it to be.”
Seems God should’ve just not planted a forbidden tree. I know I don’t plant poisonous trees on my yard, because I don’t want my kids to eat of them… for they will surely die (or at least get sick). No tree, no evil, no suffering, no problem! Perfect creation from a perfect God.
To give us free will?
Frak free will, I’ll take eternal bliss with no evil (just like the angels in heaven).
Who is the better father, the one who plants a poisonous bush in the yard and tells his kids “Don’t eat it, or you will surely die!” or the one who doesn’t plant the poisonous bush, because he loves his kids and knows what’s good for them?
This doesn’t deny free will, if He only chooses to create people who would’ve chosen Him anyway, which should certainly be within His power.
BHS, I do not feel any sort of guilt from eating from any trees, or from obtaining more knowledge.In earnest, I do not understand why should I. In my experience all good in this world comes from better understanding of the world and universe around us. Best decisions are made with the best possible information. Worst decisions are most often direct result of limited info.
Our free will is formed by our knowledge yes, but why should we feel guilty for it? So much evil is done just because of lack of information. It is very often religions, that are the main arbitrators of restricting info from people. Especially so, when the new information challenges the religious stories and ancient uninformed guesses on the state of the real universe and the human condition.
Free will is not just about choises between good and evil. It certainly is not about choise of religion and culture you are born into. Most evil is done with the best of intentions. It is information, that makes the difference here. Even human greed is very often a result of misinformation and a misconseption, that personal happines comes from owning things and people. I think you and I know this is not so, but try explaining it to an investment banker. With a free will we can make desicisions between two goods just as well as choose the lesser evil. All this does not make Hell necessary in any way. Hell and the metaphor for the forbidden tree have very little to do with free will, if indeed anything.
You say you have Jesus as an escape clause, but do you realize, that such an unplausible means of salvation, is very poor excuse for your god and alledged ruler of the universe, to allow Hell, or personal evil to exist? Most people do not have that escape clause you think you have, and that does not present a benevolent, perfectly just, or perfectly mercifull god. On the contrary, it presents an indifferent, uninformed, cruel, or even malevolent god, or what is more propable: no god at all.
And its not that you should or should not have information but what you do with it.
Well now you got me interested on how are we more mature now? What has socialism done any better than religion? And socialism has not kept people in the dark about relevant information? Get real!
How about capitalism? How are the results any better than religion? Capitalism sure never wants to keep us in the dark? Sure!
And how does our obvious free will remove the possibility of God existing?
Any better ideas on how are we going to reach that maturity as humanity you seem to be yearning for? Now I need some real ideas, not flights of fancy or fairytales.
Just a couple quick ones that came in to my mind.
BHS, finally I got your attention. What a pity it was not very much about the topic subject.
Socialism is a fairly new comer in the ideology business in comparrison to most popular religions. Even the previously mentioned enlightment ideology predates socialism by at least a hundred years. It is not a religion, though the worst attempts to make it real have become little less than religions. But it has achieved to create the world wide workers union movement. I’d say that was a pretty big step forward, from the slavery of the labour of former centuries. It was also rather crucial in defeating the two most fascistic empires ever to have appeared in human history, the Third Reich and Imperial Japan. Socialism has also appeared as a real challenger against extortion by capitalism in the third world, though I must admit with both success and failure. We also have rather capable society here in the Nordic countries where socialism and capitalism have been united in benefit for the entire population. Compare these to any religiously led countries, if you please. This benefit is not just for the rich, or just for the poor, but for both. As to witholding scientific information, there is very little you can even claim socialism, or socialists have done to do so. Unlike many religions.
I have little good to say about capitalism and I will leave its defence to someone else.
No fairy tales? Now, look who is talking?
Maybe we are finally getting somewhere. Reality demands we take care of the planet, yes? Reality demands we take care of humanity, yes? We have made a mess of them, yes? Religions that deny information about sexual education and contraception from great masses are a major problem when solving the overpopulation issue, yes? Overpopulation, that is causing the destruction of thousands of species and natural habitat, that could provide for both natural life and humans in it, yes? Discrimination of people according to their gender and sexual orientation, by some arbitrary commands from alledged gods is wrong, yes? These are just few major problems we as humanity are not acting like responsible adults should and could. Why? I think we are on the verge of a revolution here. Many of these issues have finally been openly discussed and nations are turning into accepting the realities of life. Giving up their hatred of the infidel and the homosexual. Is that not a good sign, when people are more tolerant towards each other. Of course there is a backdraft, and I fear it might be allready too late, but as long as there is life there is hope. Is there not?
I guess it is too much to hope for, that people would abandon their bronze age moralism and started to build a better world for every one and the entire environment. No? Is that a “flight of fancy”? Why?
The bit about the free will, I thought I allready addressed. Maybe you should read my former comment again.
I never said that the existance of free will totally removes the concept of a god from existance. It depends on what kind of god we are talking about. Odin for example does not take any interrest in the free will of people. However, a benevolent, just or mercifull god would surely not claim it is only for people to demonstrate free will, that there needs to be such evil in the world as natural cataclysms like volcanoes, or earthquakes. Evil in the hearts of men is alledgedly the result of creation. Who is responsible for creation? Who created evil, or did it just create itself? If we were not the product of random evolution, but the image of a perfect being we could have meaningfull lives struggling to conquer and rule over nature without greed, or extortion. What purpose do they serve in the universe alledgedly created by a perfect being? Free will does not demand choises between good and evil, if a perfect being would have created us and given us free will, we could just as well be using it to solve meaningfull positive problems, rather than fight each other on every possible occasion. Further more, such a god would not demand faith. That is totally immoral and unethical. We are supposed to play our alledgedly immortal souls as gambit between equally unplausible gods, and choose the right one, though most of us have no means to determine wich is the right one and most of those who get it right are saved from eternal torment by mere chance of being born into the right culture and not having a sceptical mind. How would that make any sense? Why would we be given free will, if we can only use it to make a stupid guess? There is no justice, or mercy here to be found. Is there?
Rautakky: “I have little good to say about capitalism and I will leave its defence to someone else.”
I suppose I should… but I have my own problems with it. Money and personal success are perhaps the best motivators, but I see a lot of ugliness that goes on in pursuit of the dollar. Corporations see little problem with outsourcing or damaging the environment if it boosts the bottom line — regardless of what it does to the community or the nation. But anything beats a theocracy.
500 Questions, I think it is worth while to remember, the huge difference between a religious monotheistic ideology and a human political ideology, in that monotheism usually is alledged to be made under divine inspiration from some perfect supreme entity. That assumption requires the ethics of such an ideology to be inspecable. While it is completely natural to secular ideologies and religions made up by humans, that they are incomplete products of fallible human mind. They do not have equal starting point unless we agree that all religions are also just products of human societes and that the alledged divine entities behind them have not had much influence in their “creation”. However, in that case the religions are pretty pointless.
If a religion alledgedly formed by divine inspiration and guidance, is ethically lacking in comparrison to human philosophy, it kind of proves the point, that it most propably is not of divine origin, or alternatively that the divinity behind it is either weaker than it would want its adherents to believe, of lower moral standing, or most likely does not exist at all.
A man made ideology is naturally expected to be incomplete, while we have every reason to expect the divinely inspired ideology from all-creator to be spotless.
Referring to some of the comments above. To claim that the existance of free will requires the existance of evil intent, is the same as saying good and well meaning people have no free will at all. It is not like the good guys needed the free will for anything, if it is only manifested by them choosing good over evil. People who would never choose evil, even if they could, seem to have no free will in this clumsy scenario. It simply does not make any sense as a plan by a perfect entity making copies of itself. So, who created evil and for what purpose?
In my opinion free will is best manifested when intelligent, good willing and well informed people choose the best approach towards any issue from among some good options. You see, no need for evil in this scenario, at all.
However, greed, envy, hatred and all the other lower echelons of human emotions are rather obvious results of random evolution without any ID. It is interresting, how people throughoug times have projected these feelings into their gods, even in those, that are alledgedly perfect beings. (Talk about andropomorphic gods and andropocentric ideals!) We are not perfect and neither are our creations like ideologies, or religions. But since we have developed the concept of perfect, we may move towards that goal, even if we are never to achieve it. Just like we may move towards “objective morals”, even if we are never to really reach it. There is no actual reason to believe such concepts are to be found from any old scriptures. And none the scriptures do not even claim they can present any. That is why they demand faith, wich is in other words belief withouth a good reason.
Philosophically we have moved a lot towards better, if not perfect, by obtaining better and better information about our universe. I for one, hope there is still a chance for us humans to reach some form of harmony with ourselves and the environment, though such concepts as perfectly just or perfectly mercifull entities would have become obsolete to us.
I appreciate you trying to bring it back around to the original question.
I understand that all these issues seem to tie into each other.
I think part of mankind’s problem is that we only live 80 years or so. By the time we begin to grasp this stuff (religion, politics, etc.,) it’s time to die and let another generation to take over. It’s like we’re in a constant cycle of re-educating ourselves and trying to pass something slightly more useful onto the next generation.
Perhaps, in the future, we’ll be able to instantly upload information to our brains, or we’ll live hundreds of years longer and can make better use of our knowledge. Or maybe we’ll pour all human knowledge into a computer and allow it to make decisions for us. Maybe we’ll ask it “What should I do today?” or “What shall I eat?” and based on a complex analysis of what we need, what our community needs, and what our planet needs, it will make ideal recommendations. Who knows, maybe huge amounts of ever-evolving knowledge and data will someday help us to enjoy our lives and manage our governments better than ever. We’ll live in a near-perfect info-ocracy.
Now I’m way off topic.
“As to witholding scientific information, there is very little you can even claim socialism, or socialists have done to do so”
You mean like China and North Korea?
“I guess it is too much to hope for, that people would abandon their bronze age moralism and started to build a better world for every one and the entire environment.”
Maybe this “bronze age moralism” has something to it after all..
http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/faithfulcitizens
“religious people are more active citizens – they volunteer more, donate more to charity and are more likely to campaign on political issues. Second, and more counter-intuitively, religious people are more likely to be politically progressive. They put a greater value on equality than the non-religious, are more likely to be welcoming of immigrants as neighbours and when asked are more likely to put themselves on the left of the political spectrum.”
BTW mr. Rautakyy. Did you notice the interesting bit at the end? We are bothers after all
There is no real biblical theocracy on the planet right now. The last went away with ancient Israel. And not a bad one at all. Think about it. You where allotted your own pice of land, which you took care of. If you where lazy and lost your land then you would get it back after 50 years during jubilee. Land value would actually decrease as you get closer to jubilee so that places an limit to how rich can you get with others land. There where also strict rules on how to take care of the poor and not to charge interest. Would work still today I suppose.
But there are no God ordained nations anymore. A bit like socialism, christianity is not a political movement. Or at least not meant to be. If someone uses it as such, is working against bible. Not that christians can’t get in to the politics but riding on God’s name is not how it’s supposed to work. But I guess not every socialist has read their Marx and Engels too carefully..
BHS, what scientific information has China witheld from its citizens? Or North Korea, for that matter, though it is at least as far removed from socialism as Mormons are from Christianity. You know Juche ideology has replaced socialism in the official and practical doctrine of North Korea. And it is as close to religion as a namely socialist ideology has been ever taken and therefore North Korea is practically a theocracy. North Korea is ruled by the undead father, his son and now grandson. Very little from Marx in that system. But Karl Marx was no prophet whith infallible divine information and as we know he was wrong about a number of things.
It is nice to hear that religious people are willing to help those in need. Even, if it is motivated by fear of Hell? I bet our mothers would be surpriced to find out we are brothers…
No, seriously, all mankind should be as brothers and I wellcome you as a brother of mine. Especially so as I feel you have an intention and will to make the world a better place. 
Maybe together we may achieve something little at least.
Socialism, capitalism and Christianity are not mutually exclusive any more than Islam, capitalism and socialism are. It is very hard to draw the line between religious and non-religious people. Are religious people those who attend some form of worship frequently? Or are all people who are members of this or that denomination religious? Does non-religious people include all people who do not claim to be religious, or only the atheists?
It does not take a bad person to worship a moralistic god. A person might have very ethical approach to moral questions and that person could even choose to see the moral sides of an entity. Most likely such a person would make ethical choises and be recognized generally as a good person. And I do not have anything against that. However, that does not remove the fact that at the same time the entity itself, through divinely inspired scriptures (since deities are not in a habit of expressing themselves in much other ways) promotes questionable, or even condemnable moralism. It is only when a good willing person gives up ethics in favour of scriptural moralism, that really horrifies, frustrates and even angers me. No matter wether the scriptures are of divine, or of human origin about religious ideology, or about political ideology. Stupid and evil people do that all the time, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. That is the true source of evil, not some magical crime a particular ancestor did, or a supernatural entity (such as the Devil), that has divine powers, but is not to be called a god.
I have little doubt that religion inspires kindness, giving, teamwork, art, literature, architecture, and many other great accomplishments. But the bottom line here is that these things don’t make a religion true, it just makes them beneficial. It may even be that evolution has selected for the religiously minded.
As for theocracy, in modern times, we’ve seen how Islam can move into an area and imposes Sharia Law or other values upon others. And here in the U.S., there are many Christians who would like to see Biblical values forced upon others in a similar fashion. For example, just yesterday, North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman. The amendment is 100% religiously motivated, and now imposes the religious values of one group onto another.
I can certainly understand why a religious person (who believes they are right) would want everyone to believe and act as they do, but I think it’s wrong for them to force their religious views upon others, just as we wouldn’t want Sharia Law imposed upon us. As rautakyy said, this kind of scriptural moralism is horrifying and frustrating. Religion and politics must be kept apart, lest someone else impose their religious values upon you.
“what scientific information has China witheld from its citizens?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
At least political sciences. Not of course mentioning human rights.
“You know Juche ideology has replaced socialism in the official and practical doctrine of North Korea”
And you know that national socialist ideals replaced christianity in nazi Germany? Use the same standards of evaluation in your own pet ism:s please.
You might be surprised to hear that we are not helping people out of fear but of love. And yes, we get it all from the “bronze age moral” Bible. I seen lives transformed for the better so many times that I lost count. And that includes my own. That’s the power of God you’ll find hard time denying.
“it’s wrong for them to force their religious views upon others”
Well there you go again. We are in agreement mr 500! And actually Bible is in agreement too:
http://www.openbible.info/topics/politics
http://www.godweb.org/biblicalpolitics.htm
As I said earlier. Riding on God’s name in the politics is not allowed by the Bible. And you will be hard pressed to find passages that justify American political christian right (or left). You can not force someone to do your will by politics. That’s not INTERNAL change, it’s EXTERNAL. And thus will not work. Christianity is a movement of God. And if you want to take christian values in to politics, by all means do. But please leave the name of God out of it.
And because religion is beneficial it does not make it untrue. Just the opposite. If you consider all the evidence for and against God, this in my opinion serves as a minor pointer toward the existence of God.
BHS, denying human rights is a completely different ball game from denying actual scientific information. Every nation uses its own resources to further the political ideology of the government of that country. We in the west value democracy and teach our kids to value it also. It is not a Christian value, but a much older ideal and value adopted by the western nations during the age of enlightenment. I have no reason, need or willingness to defend the depravation of human rights done by socialists. Socialism has both dogmatic and non-dogmatic forms. Both of those represent socialism and though I support the less dogmatic approach I am not saying those who follow some dogmas are some sort of heretics.
I think I can be fairly fair about different ideologies, including my own favourites. Since you brought it up the nazies did not override the predominantly Christian values in Germany by a completely new set of their own. On the contrary, they used Christian prejudices to further their goals of segragation and conquest. One might say they abused Christian values, and I think that is as much leeway I am willing to give Christianity in this matter.
For example, the hatred of Jews was not something the nazies came up with from nothing. It was a cultural tradition passed down by both the Protestants and Catholics before the nazies. The only difference was, that they, as a totalitarian rule could take that hatered into full extent. Before Germany became a secular nation, the Christians had for generations persecuted and segragated the Jews motivated by their faith and demand for segragation by the religious leadership of both parties. But since the Jews were a usefull minority they were also somewhat tolerated. It took madmen like nazies to act in the extreme on the hatred they were fed with from church pulpits when they were children.
First thing Adolf Hitler declared, when he made his coup, was that the nazies were not going to threaten the rights and position of neither of the main Christian sects in Germany, but to defend those values. And what do you know, they kept their promise. The same speech said that the enemies of god and other disreputable people are the ones why citizen rights need to be restricted, so the police (gestapo) could gather them into camps. Socialists and atheists were the first victims of the nazies, long before they started to harass the Jews. They played on religious feelings of Christians, but Jesus did not appear anywhere to tell the good people, this was wrong.
What has this got to do whith a particular god being totally just, or totally mercifull? Well, for starters the mundane ideologies are as human creations not even expected to be perfect. If their originators are seen as infallible and critical thinking is forbidden, then they have allready turned into religions. That is how religions are born. However, if there was an actual god, that god would be responsible for correcting worshippers, who have a misconseption of the will of said deity, like the nazies as an extreme example. Otherwise we can hardly call such a god just or mercifull at all. Right?
Both the idealism and the reality around alledged mercy, or justice does have an impact wether we evaluate a god to be true or not.
It is nice to hear there are at least some Christians who do not wish to push their values to all other people, or at least to society in general.
Where a religion and ethics agree, it is easier to live for every one. In a democratic society the majority decides what is right, or wrong. Moral or immoral. For example many democratic nations are finally accepting homosexuals equal rights with heterosexuals. That is only natural, and even good, because homosexuality is not unethical in itself in any ways. But still there are many who would oppose the gay marriages and their adoption rights, solely based on Biblical values, that are rather horrifying in this particular case.
In my opinion there should be no law that can force a religious sect to marry homosexuals (and no such law is even asked by anyone), but it is a shame that in a secular nation homosexuals may not be legally married because some poeple who are not in any way concerned by this marriage oppose it basing their bigotry on religious moralism.
It is questionable, if religions are in fact beneficial. Because, for all the good things they mean to people and make people do, they also cause people to do a lot of crappy things and cause big problems. It does not require a god, that a social group does good because people who are part of that group want to do good. Right? Therefore it is arguable, that it is not the religion part of any social group that causes them to do good. Why would these good people not do good even whithout divine inspiration?
I’m keenly aware that both protestants and catholics where harassing jews. In fact nazi ideology used Luther’s anti semitic writings to a large extent. Those atrocities have nothing to do with the Bible. You’ll be hard pressed to find anti semitism there. Just the opposite. We are told to bless the Jews and hope that they’ll see their messiah. Many bible passages include warnings about false prophesies. (matt 7:15, matt 24:11, 2 pet 2:1) Jesus gives us also the parable of the soils (Luke 8:4-21) to say that many that receive Him will not last, but will give in to the world. I’m waiting with an keen interest. Who will be in the Heaven and who not. For your sakes I hope universalists are right
But abusing someones high ideals is just so very human. I bet China or North Korea is not something Marx and Engels had in mind when they propagated their ideals. But that’s how it turned to be. But at least we can say that it has been scientifically proven that christianity produces better citizens. Can’t argue with that.
BHS, yes I can. There is a much bigger quota of Christians in prison than atheists in comparrison to the amount of Christians and atheists in general population. So, either Christians make more crimes, or atheists are more talented criminals. Which would you guess is the reason?
The mere fact that active religious people are more prone to take social action in the society is not the result of Jesus making magic, but from the simple fact that socially more active people are more prone to take part in positive social projects, than socially passive people.
Many religions have this order to do good stuff to those in need. I bet you could find similar statistic from a muslim country wich would show that more active Muslims are also more active in helping out in charitable work (especially if the Islamic religious leadership and learned would feel the need to show what a socially beneficial thing Islam is, though at the moment Islam is not as much challenged as Christianity is).
Atheists rarely form communities, because in any population they are such a minority, they do not form communities around their atheism. There is not much to share in that. But many atheists do act in many socially beneficial projects. I my self am a volunteer worker in couple of organizations. Do not make the mistake of mixing non-religious to atheists. In fact I know an atheist who works for the church organization of developement aid to the third world, because that was the only option to do that sort of work for good in his neighbourhood. But he still resents missionary work as totally immoral.
There is propably exactly the same amount of socially active atheists and socially passive atheists as there are socially active Christians and socially passive Christians. The difference is that you get to point at other Christians when you show that the non-religious are socially passive. Most of those in any given western country are Christians. In fact they represent the great majority of Christians. Though in all honesty in other cultures those non-religious passive people are adherents of some other religions.
Marx said the world revolution would begin from Britain, or Germany, because they were the most industrialized countries in the world in his day. It did not. Marx and Engels were not infallible, or divinely inspired. I very much doubt if anyone has ever been. There is little evidence to suggest such. Marx and buddies were wrong about a great many things, but that does not diminsh the value of those things that they said that were true. Same goes for Jesus.
All those illeterate Christian people throughout centuries, who persecuted Jews, and were told to do so by their priests, did it in faith that is what their god demands them to do. All those Crusaders who killed pagans and heretics, Muslims, Cathars, Adamites, Hussites, Greek orthodoxes, Catholics, Protestants and what have you, thought honestly they were doing the work ordered by a god. How were they to know they were not acting according to the Bible? Do you think they deserve Heaven, or Hell? Can you understand why I think the claim that there even is such a thing as Hell and eternal torment in it, shows that a god that allowes such a thing to exist is neither just, nor mercifull?
Most people even in pre-nazi Germany had no good reasons to assume their priests were lying to them. I doubt the priests thought they were lying when they told people that hating Jews is a Christian thing to do. I think they earnestly thought that the Jews were some sort of bad people, for rejecting Christ and Christianity. You see in this Jews were as bad to them as atheists.In fact it was commonly claimed in those days that atheism is a Jewish conspiracy.
I hope you will have to wait until you are a very old person before you get to see who got in to Heaven, because chances are, you will never find out.
In fact your chances are quite remote and slim, even if one of all the religions on earth is correct.
No you can’t obviously. I need something else than a funny youtube video and your guestimates. For example that stat you gave first: Probably due the fact that congregations absorb many criminals not welcomed anywhere. I’m not saying atheist are not chartable but you’ll have to do better to prove your point. Actual studies would do.
And we been trough the crusades and nazies often enough times already. Mao Zedong’s regime cost 40,000,000 lives. Crusades was 3,000,000 at worst. Clean your own nest first.
BHS, oh, yes I can. I usually do not post links with much info and claims in them to comment sections of blogs, because there is a great danger that the conversation will bog down to the stuff in the links and the subject of the topic will be lost. But since you asked here are a couple of links, that came up first on google search:
http://atheistempire.com/reference/stats/main.html
http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Percentage_of_atheists
There are some other finer points made and studies referred to behind this link, that need not concern the topic here, but you may find them interresting, because they are about the same issue. Hence, I suggest you read the entire page.
The studies referred in my link actually suggest that the low quota of atheists in prison population actually is a result of the fact that sceptically thinking people have a higher education in than the general population. Logically this is the result of higher education giving a more critical view on the world. Higher education often also leads to more knowledge about the world and different religions in it. Wider perspective certainly makes it more difficult to take stuff, that require faith based beliefs at face value. Correct? But higher education also affects the propability by which an individual brakes the law, or is senteced to prison.
Religion studies suggest, that people turn to the supernatural help mostly in crisis. Conversions are made when people find themselves in dead end situations – like in prison. It is rather obvious that subconcious finds “a god” from within when a desparate person cries out for help. Sometimes this is indeed beneficial to the individual, in helping that person to overcome personal problems.
There is however, nothing there to suggest anything supernatural. Especially since the supernatural help people feel they have recieved in these incidences is culturally related. Buddhists recieve help mostly from Buddha, Islamic people from the prophet. Those of Christian backround feel they get help from Jesus, and animists think they are helped by totemic animal spirits. Sometimes a conversion happens from one religious backround to a nother. That is most often a result of first asking help from the culturally related deities or other supernatural forces, but because that did not seem to work for a reason or a nother, people continue the quest until they find help. There is no pattern there to show a particular religion would help more likely than a nother.
Sorry for not having some internet page as an “authority” to back this “guestimate” of mine up. I studied this stuff in the University, and if – after consideration – you do not find this argument plausible, I do not ask you to have faith in me. But you might want to look it up yourself.
Now, are you trying to count noses to determine who was more evil? If you are, first downgrade the world population to the times of crusades in comparrison to the days of Mao.
I would not support the lunacy of Maos dictatorship. Mao was worshipped like a god in his hayday and there were millions of fanatic believers too, who thought him above ethics and his orders as the base of morals. Maos rule is a perfect example of how a humane ideology can turn into a religion, and what are the results of that. I think Christianity is a nother example of that too. I have the benefit of hindsight on Mao just like you have on the crusades.
However, I would like to point out that a perfectly just, not to mention a perfectly mercifull god, would have not allowed either of these atrocities like the crusades and the cultural revolution to happen. Those horrible things had nothing to do with the concept of free will. Did they? Or are you suggesting, that a god would see the free will of Mao, or pope Urban II more valuable than the lives their actions cost to other people? But as you know, no god interferes, ever. Exept in myths, and hearsay, where gods are abundant. That points rather strongly (according to my “guestimate”) there is no god at all, though it is possible there is one, or several, rather unjust and non-mercifull.
I am happy, that you found the youtube video I linked funny.
rautakyy: “It is questionable, if religions are in fact beneficial. Because, for all the good things they mean to people and make people do, they also cause people to do a lot of crappy things and cause big problems.”
When I said beneficial, I was thinking more in terms of survival of the organism rather than beneficial for all mankind. Religion may, in an evolutionary sense, work to protect the organism by uniting a group under a common cause, or motivating an individual to work harder at something than they otherwise would (for themselves or their society). For example, Quakers were said to make excellent furniture — as if they were designing a chair for God Himself to sit in. And the Protestants are famous for their work ethic. And as you mentioned, believing in a God also seems to help in times of crisis.
rautakyy: “The studies referred in my link actually suggest that the low quota of atheists in prison population actually is a result of the fact that sceptically thinking people have a higher education in than the general population.”
And let’s not forget that atheists are also more knowledgeable about religion in general, have lower divorce rates, and lower rates of teenage pregnancy. All that is neither here nor there, but it’s interesting.
rautakyy: “Higher education often also leads to more knowledge about the world and different religions in it. Wider perspective certainly makes it more difficult to take stuff, that require faith based beliefs at face value.”
My wife and kids got in an interesting conversation over dinner this evening about Mitt Romney, the Mormon Republican candidate for president. I found it interesting that my wife would rather vote for a Republican Mormon than a Christian Democrat. Anyway, more to the point, we both agreed that the Book of Mormon was a work of fiction, that was turned into a full-blown religion that is now believed by millions of people. So I asked, “How can you say it’s possible for a work of fiction to become mistakenly accepted as truth, and then insist the exact same thing couldn’t be true for the story of Jesus?” Long story short, religion requires faith without evidence.
Also… loved the video. Our whole Mormon vs. Christian comparison was a lot like that.
OMG fellas! Never would have guessed you went to university mr Rautakyy. They don’t teach to be skeptical of the studies you read there? My google found several different problems with your theories. So are religious people more:
Stupid?
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/religion_vs_iq.html
No.
Prone to divorce?
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/do-christians-have-higher-divorce-rate-than-non-christians
http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/15-familykids/42-new-marriage-and-divorce-statistics-released
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/baptist_divorce.html
No. Not that we never divorce but more prevalent than general population? Hardly.
More prone to commit crime?
http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison2.html
No. Too many problems in the study to make it meaningful for anything but propaganda purposes.
More prone to teen pregnancy?
Could not find any internet links on this one. That study tells only that there is a POSSIBLE correlation between teen pregnancy and some American states. If it is true, then those states need to up their sexual education. It is in no way description of the whole of the christianity. Certainly I have not seen exceptional surge of teen pregnancies around. That study might be more indicative of the culture of those states.
So maybe someone with a need to get a good propaganda weapon for their agenda could use those studies as an evidence. To make blanket statements about christianity like that does not sound very educated from you guys. It’s like saying that atheist are fat:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_obesity
Eat that dumpy boy
(note for you internet literalists: merely sarcastic remark)
As for the death toll business. I merely demonstrated that it is stupid to make remarks that christians did this and that. apply same rules for your faith and you will see that things are not as simplistic as you want them to be. Besides there is a big difference between born again cristian and a cultural one. A really healthy reading for you.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/GodGrandchild.HTM
And as why won’t this God just show up, please read this. I promise to discuss it:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GodExist.htm
BHS, your google search found no problems at all with the theories I presented. I never suggested that religious persons are in any way more stupid. How can you measure stupidity anyway? I said that higher education is more likely to give a person better chances for critical thinking. Faith requires us to abandon a certain amount of critique in our thinking. Correct? Otherwise it would not be called faith.
Did I claim religious people are more prone to commit crime? Read my previous comment again, please. I said that there are statistically more religious people in the jail and I presented the statistics. We may draw some possible conclusions from that. One is that people are more likely to plea for supernatural help in such situations as prison, the other is that if there is a reason why an atheist is not as likely to be imprisoned, then the most likely explanation to that would be, the social status of higher education. This only because it is the dividing line between people ending up in prisons, or not is the same line as the one between educated and uneducated people. Or could there be a nother explanation to those statistics? You can hardly just brush them away by saying there are too many problems. Maybe you would want to elaborate on those problems you claim dismis the studies about this subject as mere propaganda.
This is all hypothetical, since there is no way of showing the existance of any god to be true. Instead we are required to have faith, remember? So, in a hypothetical nature of the discourse we may present hypothesis and we may dismiss one if we find sufficient data or logical argument that debunks this, or that hypothesis.
Maybe atheists are fatter, than the average religious people in the world.
That would certainly make sense, since most people who are publicly atheists live in the rich secular western countries, and not in the third world where famon is more common. But what has that to do with people being better citizens? Actually that goes far to prove my previous point about people asking for supernatural help, when they find themselves in dead end situations, like prison, death row, or famon. Would you say people are not more prone to ask for divine help in dead end situations? Do you think less educated people are not more prone to commit a crime or end up in a jail? Do you honestly think born again Christians (as you seem to want to limit the discussion such that they are the “real” Christians) are more critically thinking than your average skeptics? Do you think religious people in general have higher status of education than the average atheist?
Anyone can claim to be christian. Christians come from all walks of life. As do atheists. Thus too many variables to draw any conclusions.
My google found several different problems with your theories. A bit of background research would not hurt before you believe just any atheist site.
So are religious people more:
Stupid?
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/religion_vs_iq.html
No.
Prone to divorce?
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/do-christians-have-higher-divorce-rate-than-non-christians
http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/15-familykids/42-new-marriage-and-divorce-statistics-released
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/baptist_divorce.html
No. Not that we never divorce but more prevalent than general population? Hardly.
More prone to commit crime?
http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison2.html
No. Too many problems in the study to make it meaningful for anything but propaganda purposes.
More prone to teen pregnancy?
Could not find any internet links on this one. That study tells only that there is a POSSIBLE correlation between teen pregnancy and some American states. If it is true, then those states need to up their sexual education. It is in no way description of the whole of the christianity. Or maybe christianity at all. Certainly I have not seen exceptional surge of teen pregnancies around. That study might be more indicative of the culture of those states. We often find that things are diffrend here in Europe than US.
So maybe someone with a need to get a good propaganda weapon for their agenda could use those studies as an evidence. To make blanket statements about christianity like that does not sound very educated from you guys. It’s like saying that atheist are fat:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_obesity
But saying something like that is internet bigotry. Don’t be guilty of it. It will ad to the beliability of this site
As for the death toll business. I merely demonstrated that it is pointless to make remarks that christians did this and that. apply same rules for your favourite ideal and you will see that things are not as simplistic as you want them to be. Besides there is a big difference between born again christian and a cultural one. A really healthy reading for you.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/GodGrandchild.HTM
And as why won’t this God just show up, please read this. I promise to discuss it:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GodExist.htm
BHS, are you suggesting the apologetics pages you linked are a higher authority than some atheist sites I posted? That could be so, but we have no way of verifying that, do we? This is exactly why I do not post links, but try to argue these things without appealing to authority. Your post whith a legion of links also demonstrates perfectly what I meant by bogging the discussion down, whith off-topic data. What has any of this to do whith the question about god being both perfectly just, or perfectly mercifull?
I think that the main points about the last link you provided have actually been allready discussed in the comments above, where they connect to the topic. But maybe we should take a nother round.
I really do not see the need for Hell to exist. An omnipotent ruler of the entire universe that allows such evil as described in the Bible, is not ethically speaking neither just, or mercifull perfectly, or otherwise. Correct? Please, I am asking as a personal favour, reply in your own words, that actually concern the topic. That is not too much to ask, is it? 
I do not see the necessity of faith. Why are we asked to have faith? What purpose does that actually serve? Why should we take the leap of faith? We are given as a reason that this is the way to be saved from eternal torment, but if by having faith one can be saved from that torment then the existance of the torment has nothing to do whith moral accountability. So, what purpose does the torment serve? Besides, it is obviously too severe a punishment for any crime a man might do. Is it not? How can you possibly see that such a construct would be the work of a perfectly just entity?
Is it only for that deity to present itself as mercifull by alledgedly saving some of them from eternal pain, since one can hardly have mercy on anyone before they are at your mercy? Is it not more likely that these stories and social constructs are the work of a human society trying to cope in the world and pressure from neighbourign societies, than that they really are supernatural truths, that we can not verify, but need to have faith in them?
It sometimes seems to me, that most adherents of the monotheistic religions have not grasped the full extent of the suggestion of their god alledgedly being omnipotent.
Comparing human idealisms to religions and atrocities done by the adherents of those idealisms and religions only goes to prove, that religions are not different in any way from human idealisms. That in turn (quite strongly) suggests there are no gods behind the religions any more than there are gods behind human idealisms. That is my point.
If a born again Christian has children are those to become born again Christians, or are they cultural Christians?
Children of born again christians have the risk of becoming cultural christians.
Well the links I provided merely point to a fact that there are too many variables involved to make a decision wether some group is this or that. To say things like “all atheist are fat” is dehumanizing and thus dangerous. Don’t be guilty of it.
Same also applies to atrocities done in the name of some dogma. It is dangerous to label people (accept the perpetrators) according to past history alone.
Traditionally Christian thinkers find this no problem at all. God is absolutely sovereign and His attributes are absolutely perfect. This thus means that God is perfectly good. But because God is perfectly good in him self, He can not find complete satisfaction in anything that falls short of absolute perfection. Even in this fallen state God does not fail to shower His goodness upon man. At the same time He loves His believers with a special love. They are His children trough Christ.
This of course raises the question of who authored sin then? If God authored sin then that is against His morally perfect nature. If not it is against He’s all knowing nature. This is something that man in his limited knowledge actually can not solve. But while word “will” or “to will” may include delight it can also mean simple determination of will. Thus God need not take delight or pleasure in sin.
But now trough faith in Christ man can reach perfection in the eyes of God. Because fallen state of the man in his depravity can not reach perfection God demands He dealt this with only way available. By becoming man and sinful He fulfilled the need for redeeming sin.
It is not the will of God to see anyone perish. It is His will for all to live eternaly with Him.
That’s why faith.
BHS, Do the cultural chirstians have a greater chance of ending up in Hell than the born again Christians? If so, why? What purpose would that serve?
I agree with you about the danger of labeling.
Though, I would add that positive labeling, like saying “Christians produce better citizens”, (wich is bordering saying something like other people are not so good citizens) might also get ugly by turning into a cause for segragation or even discrimination. However, I doubt if anyone in this conversation even tried to label as much as make generalizations. It is very difficult to keep it simple in blog comments, if no generalizations are allowed. So far at least the commentors and our gracious host have shown enough maturity to understand the dangers for sinister labeling. I doubt if any immature reader will ever keep up interrest nearly this far in our discussion. 
We should be able to discuss the the harm done in the name of any, or a certain dogma, since that is the way to become aware of the risks a dogma might carry within it self. I am perfectly happy to be giving and learning critique about socialism. It is not a perfect system originating from gods, but a man made ideology, that needs fixing from time to time. I even have great hopes in the future people will come up whith some better ideology, that makes socialism obsolete. It is allready clear that socialism can be used for great evil, and that it cannot solve all our problems.
You see, if we decide a certain kind of dogma, or ideology is divinely inspired and infallible and that all the possible contradictions and/or hypocrisies in it are just “mysteries”, but the ideology can not be wrong since it is created by a perfect being and we are too small to understand the grand plan, so why bother trying, then we loose critical thinking. After that the arguments for, such a dogma, or ideology are no longer appealing to our sense of reason, but we need to take them blindly by faith.
It is a leap of faith to think there is a god. It is a completely different and far more reaching leap of faith to take that a god is perfect, or “good”. It is an immense step to the dark to claim that certain dogma or a particular religion as a total is true about a god. Allmost all religions however demand people to make that leap in the infallibility of their ideology. No god has bothered to appear to us to explain who has the right dogma, ideology, nor religion. Therefore, there is little reason to believe a god even exists, never mind any particular god of a particular religion.
Is it not strange, that when religions usually have a ready made explanations to everything, you just need to have faith in (though with increasing speed those are moved from the descriptions of reality to the metaphor section), you claim there is none for the existance of “sin”. That it is simply a mystery?
In science we often need to accept mysteries as something to be solved later on. Yet there is a perfectly natural explanation to “sin” that does not require faith, gods, the supernatural, or any of that stuff people used to explain the existance of such difficult phenomenons as “evil” or “sin”. Now, we can easily connect the dots, and see that the reasons for bad things inflicted upon us by our environment are not in the spirit world, but natural random phenomenons and that the reasons for evil men do, are not in the way we were created by some design (that seems to have gone awry), or our free will (our freedom), but the way we and our culture have evolved through time & generations and by the interaction we have had between us other individuals, other societies and nature around us. There is no evidence we have fallen from anywhere, or anything, but quite the opposite, that from ignorance we have risen to be humans. Of the future we have no knowledge.
Hypothetically speaking, Why would this alledged god want to divide our souls into “children” and “specially loved children”? Which is the better father, he who spends time with all his children, provides for their needs and gives them all equal opportunities in life as well as he can, or him who has favourites among his children according to whom of his children believe he exists even though he never visits them? The fact that there is a rumour he sent one of his older sons once to tell everybody, that dad will one day come home, does little for most of the kids to believe that dad even exists. Especially as not even all of them have heard the rumour. And remember, it is only by not believing in this dad, that he will condenm most of the kids into eternal torment in the woodshed. What sort of kiks does this father get from demanding his children to believe in him, though he never appears anywhere to them, and then judging them to suffer for the thought crime of not believing?
But I guess this has been allready gone through… Has it not? I am perfectly satisfied to say we may have to agree, that we disagree about a number of things here, because you have faith, our host has lost his faith and I have never even had it.
I think it is possible to know God trough Holy Spirit but demanding 100% certainty is asking too much. If God appeared on top of the Washington monument on national tv and gave a speech would you believe it? That would feel like someone is cheating and using trickery to fool us. Plus if He would let us examine Him under microscope that would lead to amazing scenarios. Now I as a believer could use my position in a manner that is weird. For example kick some ass and say I work for God. Or lapse in to apathy because He is in control now. Implications would be beyond control.
Of course if all of this happened a couple of centuries ago, before tv, wouldn’t it be easy to dismiss Him as a mere myth? There just is no 100% certainty available and that is something we have to cope with. Evidence is strong enough for me at least.
As for Bible. There is about million reasons for socialists and christians to work together. For example fighting against poverty. Just dump your anti-religious agenda and I’ll vote for you.
BHS, I still do not get it. Why is certainty asking too much? What would it really change, exept that I and all of humanity was as sure, that there is a god, as you claim to be? Would you claim, that an omnipotent god could not convince me, whithout my head exploding? Your head has not exploded. This is exactly what I meant when I said previously, that most adherents of the monotheistic religions have not grasped the full extent of the suggestion of their god alledgedly being omnipotent. If you do not become passive from the certain knowledge, you seem to think you have, from knowing there is a god, why would I? Of course omnipotency does not necessarily mean that a god can make a square out of circkle, but this much an omnipotent god should be able to achieve. And besides, that still does not make an eternal torment for not believing (or for any crime one could achieve within human life) in any ways necessary. However, there is a strong stench of a scam here, because the idea of hell surely has tempted many a man to submit and join the club of a particular religion, simply out of fear. Or does, for example, Blaise Pascal suggest anything else by his famous wager?
I suppose you meant the examples of a god appearing on TV to be childish, but could not an omnipotent creator and ruler of the universe, not come up with a plan to appear, that would at the same time convince us all from generation to generation and not take away from us our willingness to make good choises? You do not have to come up with the method of such an appearance, I am only asking why would that not be at the reach of this alledgedly omnipotent god? He could reach every one of us in our hearts, and he could have authored a message to humanity without typical religious mumbo jumbo, and especially the ethically questionable commands. It is like this alledgedly loving god has set a fire to the world and can not do much else than jump around the fire and flail about hands, while millions of souls are ending up in eternal torment and only few who happened to be close enough to the fire escape “clause” run for safety.
It is easy to dissmiss any gods as myths today, or at least almost all of them. To most people the one they do not dismis is the one revered in the culture where they were born in. Is that not so? We have countless of alledged appearances of so many gods from centuries past and even today, but none whith any comparable evidence. I mean the evidence is just as non-convincing to me regardless of the religion. But people do find the ones from their own culture most often also the most compelling. Ever wonder why that might be?
I agree that socialism and Christianity have many equal goals and those are the better part of either ideologies.
The unifying causes could be called humanism. That could be the unifying thing with Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and what have you. Together they form the opposite of fascism. But there are some sort of fascists among both socialists and Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and even Taoists and what have you. But you are right, it is unity as mankind, and the brotherhood of man, that we need to seek for. 
That does not however mean we should never discuss what is true and what is not. Especially when we are making either ethically informed, or disinformed descisions based on what we think is true.
Our host may put his insight better than I do, but I do believe his intent for this blog is to discuss, if there actually is enough evidence for a god, or not. And present some questions to a particular god, that this god will not answer. Either because that god is uninterrested in this quest for the truth, or because this god needs to hide from us because of some unexplained reason seemingly in contradiction whith the alledged ability of omnipotency, or because that god is just like any other god – nonexistant.
“He could reach every one of us in our hearts, and he could have authored a message to humanity without typical religious mumbo jumbo, and especially the ethically questionable commands.”
He did. Holy Spirit is available to those willing to listen. This is how Jesus is different from other religions. No religious “mumbo jumbo”. No priest needed. Just accept God an He will accept you and give His assurance in Spirit. And no need to convert to hear that voice. Just listen. You know God exists. But if you put hands in to your ears you can block that voice if you want.
You can search all the other faiths high and low and you’ll find nothing similar to the claims of Jesus.
BHS, it is like you never heard of the testimony of all those people who have lost their faith, because no god did give them any assuarances, no matter how much they asked for it. Most of those people come from religious backrounds. Do you mean to say they are insincere? How can you tell? I can not speak for my self in this matter, exept to say I have never been presented a plausible reason to want to “listen” to accept something, that seem total fancy to me. The fact that you claim a god will speak to me if I listen is just as valuable advice to me as that from a Muslim who claims that if I only open my heart to Allah, I shall connect to Allah. How am I supposed to open my heart, when neither of these make a plausible case. How can you tell, if Allah is not going to assure you, if you only accept the alledgedly only god as Allah?
The fact that Jesus had some original ideas really does nothing to prove any of them right. Buddha made some assertions, that are quite unique to him. Muhammed also asserted very original sounding promises. And so have many others. Many of these have also made some wild claims they in no way were able to prove and often these resemble each other. What also resemble each other are the ethical parts of religions and ideologies, by being generally humane and logical guides how to do the right thing. It is in the original and exclusive parts that the evil of religions most often reside. Like for example, threats of a hell are the most unethical parts of Christian faith. Though not so original among all the world religions. Asatru, for example, promises games and feast in Valhalla to those who live and die just and bravely and the icy halls of Hela to cowards and traitors.
Most people who call themselves Christians seem to think there is some sort of need for the mumbo jumbo and priesthood. You are indeed in a very small minority even among Christians, if you think you do not need professional “ritual expert” to convey between you and god. If there is a god that agrees whith you, why has that god not made it clear to all them other Christians, that all that worshipping by pro worshippers and building houses for god is not really needed?
There are many religions in the world, that have sects, that do not have a professional priests. That at least is not very original. Not all of those religions even have gods.
No, I do not know, if there is a god, or a whole bunch of them, but it seems like that is a very remote possibility indeed.
There is just something to christian faith is there not. Looking at the amount of noise generated in the internet around our faith you’d think that we are talking about something dangerous here. And I guess we are from satan’s point of view. You have that antenna to hear from the God in your head. Just tune it to right station. Fact is that we humans can not be neutral. We are this or that. So fill your head with something other than Dawkins for a change. Worries and the noise of this world easily block God from our ears.
And yes there are priests and ceremonies in christian faith but you can not find it from the bible. Our modern kind of priest and religious ceremonies is just not there. Especially the non marrying catholic kind. God is around congregation and gives gifted people like teachers and evangelists but to hear from God you don’t need a professional.
And about that hell. Hell is just absence of God. After life, no God = hell. God does not threaten us with hell but wants to give us abundant life during and after life. Not hell. It does not require to much. Just believe.
BHS, do not delude yourself. There is a lot of noise about Christianity in the world wide web because internet is much more widely used media in western societes, that are of the culturally Christian backround. Further more, since your google search gives very little hits on Chinese, or Arabic sites, and is bound to give articles in languages from historically Christian cultures, Christianity rises naturally abowe the conversation about other religions in those languages. In addition, for several reasons, it is the countries of historical Christendom where atheism is spreading and that rises a lot of conversation, especially among the Christians. One of the obvious reasons for that is the fragmentation of Christianity that kind of demanded for secular laws about freedom of religion, that in turn eventually and rationally also includes the freedom from religion.
I have no special agenda against Christianity. I do not believe in anything supernatural, nor any gods, nor do I think I have given impression different from this statement. Have I? This blog is about Christianity because it is held by a former Christian, who lives in a predominantly Christian culture, remember?
I have never read any of Mr. Dawkins books, or articles. Have you? I have not drawn him as an authority, so I do not know where you draw that one out. If he happens to have similar notions as I do, I would say that only shows that we have similar perception of logic and it goes to prove neither of us is alone whith it.
How can you tell you have the right channel tuned on your “antenna”? Maybe Buddha, Allah and Krishna have their own channels and the channel you are listening is the work of a Devil.
There is no way of telling, is there, if we as humans have no right to pass judgement over the traits and actions of these divine entities, that all demand to be the base of morals and therefore abowe all critique.
Claiming there is some sort of torment in the afterlife for not having faith in this one, certainly sounds like mischief to me. Does the Bible not speak of fiery lakes and eternal torment? If it does, how is this “absense of god” even an issue? Or does the Bible not give an accurate description about the after life? There is an obvious “absense of gods” in this world right now.
If your god wants to give abundant life before and after death, why does he not give it to all? Why are we required to have faith? If hell does not exist to frighten us to believe in a particular god, then what is it for?
I have the assurance of the Holy Spirit and of course historical reliability of the Bible. Most other faiths have problems at least in the last area mentioned. God can be known. Just trust Him and start your way towards reliable congregation and that’s it. You will find that God speaks to you. Just listen and you’ll hear.
And why just not save everybody? What would be the point of living a moral life according to God’s will then? If I’m going to get saved anyways. This is actually one of the problems of our modern society. Nobody wants someone from the outside tell them what is moral and what is not.
Well, the Bible has a lot of historical reliability problems and in comparrison, at least the Quran beats the Bible as a historical source.
The fact that you feel your god has conviened with you somehow does not necessarily make it so that your god speaks to everybody. It seems from my outsiders perspective that Allah is having conversations with Muslims and that Buddhists are constantly speaking with Buddha. Is it voices in your head you hear, or what? How do you know you are talking with a god and not with some form of Devil? They say the devils are devious and decietfull entities, quite able to decieve humans. Is that not so?
Maybe I will find a god by your method, but I have not run into any “reliable congregations” and even then there is the problem that no matter how reliable they are, they are not right about what they worship. In fact I find it very hard to stomach, that a supreme creator entity would want to be worshipped at all.
You asked what is the point to live a moral life, if not according to an arbitrary set of rules according to some random god in fear of eternal punishment. Well, I would say that living according to socially moral and especially ethical life is a reward in itself. Would you not agree? Why is that not enough?
Besides, you are going to get saved anyway, if you happen to have regrets just before the end and join the club and preferably donate your money to the congregation. Right? But no matter how well, ethically or morally you have lived, you are sent to eternal pains, if you do not find a particular god plausible? Correct? Does that really make any sense?
Now I don’t have the time right now to dig a bible vs quran shootout but I think it is vice versa. Bible being more historically accurate and of course more logical. Go google it out. And also I don’t want to risk my life. Father Zakaria has a 60 million dollar bounty on his head for wiring a site like this on Islam
God can be known. Period. How does your perception of the world fit in to more accurate picture than mine? Besides big fellas are debating this like crazy, so no need for us to do so. They are infinitely better at it anyways:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/does-god-exist-the-craig-jesseph-debate
BHS, in your previous comment you said: “This is actually one of the problems of our modern society. Nobody wants someone from the outside tell them what is moral and what is not.” I do not see that as a problem of the society. On the contrary. Modern people are showing responsibility by questioning authorities. Would you rather live in an authoritarian society, or a liberal one? Remember that the chances are the authority of the society does not agree with you on issues like values.
Well, Muhammed is a historical character, while Jesus is questionable in historical terms and in view of scientific methodology. I think he may have existed as the character described in the stories, but I doubt he had any better information about what any gods want, than Muhammed. And. I hose are the key characters of these religions. Yet, I would not go out to defend Islam any more rational than Christianity. They are both equally absurd, with Zaraosterianism and so many others.
No, we do not need to discuss these issues here, if we do not want to. We can just sit back and see if some other people come to some conclusion. However I like this discourse we have. I certainly would not have entered the conversation, if I did not enjoy it and the marvellous 500 Question posts by our host.
Well I just saw this God is … isn’t debate going on for ever
Now here is a misconception that christians usually face. I have nothing against democracy. Like I told you the last theocracy went away with ancient israel and ekklesia is the way to go now. But we will reap more and more “fringe benefits” of loosing christian values. Who is God to tell me not to have sex with just anybody? Or do drugs? So questioning authorities works in other way too.
Any historian in their right mind will not question the historicity of the jesus. We have less historical evidence of the existence of the Julius Cesar than Jesus. Miracles you are free to disagree as much as you like.
Of course not blaming the atheists for the moral decline. Just saying the fact. Sexual promiscuity and dug use are on the rise. Any ideas as to why?
BHS, it is nice to hear you support democracy. It is not a perfect system from gods abowe, but mere human construction based on values much older than Christianity.
It has finally started to blossom in human societes, at the same time as religious leadership has lost influence in the minds of people. Norwegian parliament only today decided to separate state from church and to start treating all religions and religious sects on same level. From what I gather from your previous comments you would agree this is healthy development. Correct?
Actually we do have more historical evidence for Julius Caesar than we do on Jesus Christ.
We have a book written and signed by Julius himself. No historian has ever even suggested it was authored by anyone else. A great number of historians who signed the principle of historical integrity and were respected by their peers referred to the actions of Julius Caesar in his own time (only one refers to the followers of Christ, but not to Jesus himself), and the actions of Caesar changed an empire within his own lifetime. There is no comparrison. Even if Jesus lived (as I happen to think he likely did), he propably was illiterate. So, what he knew about the Jewish law, he alledgedly said to support, is also questionable. Alledgedly Jesus condemned the Biblical researchers, interpreters and preachers who made the “apologetics” of his own time – the pharisees. Historical research does not take all sources on equal level. Fancifull stories, full of miracles and such, written decades later by a bunch of self proclaimed zealots (and obvious fanatics) are not taken as strong evidence, like the revues of professional historians chroniclering state affairs.
Here in Finland and in the US at the same time there was a prohibition law against alcohol. This was almost a hundred years ago. To push such a law through the parliaments, both Christian and labour union movements had joined forces. People were much more religious during those days than they are today, but alcohol abuse had become a problem in the society. Hence, a law was set to fight that problem. It was an authoritarian command, but the results were devastating. Illegal activity and violence around the moonshine and alcohol running rose into extremes. Was this moral decline result of people loosing faith? Of course not. The reasons had nothing to do wether people believed in god, or not.
The impact Christianity has had on sexuality is mostly negative. Now do not get me wrong. I think it is perfectly OK to tell people to be responsible of their sexuality, when or more likely, if Christians do that. However, it is quite a wide social problem, that Christians are fighting against sexual education in many countries (and exactly to that problem the link our host previously provided, that noted teenage pregnancies being more frequent in the very religious areas of the US, was referring to). A nother big problem is the demand for selibacy, that causes the most heinous sexual behaviour because repressing sexuality is not healthy. You may say that your kind of Christianity does not demand that, and I respect that, but never the less, the Roman Catholic church is the one biggest Christian movement in the world. Then there is this rather unfair, unethical and unrealistic attitude many Christians share about homosexuality, wich causes obvious harm and has caused terrible human tragedies throghout centuries. I do not know how you, or your congregation see this, but though there are major Christian movements who have embraced homosexuals as they are, it is hard to evade the nasty homophobia in the Bible. Why does it seem to be, that your god is homophobic? The creator of universe is “bitching” about the sort of sex, that is far less harmfull, than heterosexual sex??? Wich leads us to the third big problem Christianity is in part causing. The overpopulation of the planet. The campaing against sexual education and contraception in the Third World by Christians is appaling and the results are terrible just in the spread of venerable diseases.
It is the responsibility of any person to choose what kind of sexuality, or drugs she/he engages in. The abuse of anything is harmfull and therefore unethical. Simple eh?
Of course the loosing of Christian values may have negative impact on the life of a person who has never been told anything else. If we have no understanding of ethics, but we have been told all our lives that arbitrary rules are all, that make the difference between right and wrong, it might be very hard to find out how those things are really decided. Is it not the arbitrary rules that cause the problem, rather than the lack of them, when a person comes to realize they are not a good base for morals? It is better to learn to swim, then to be affraid of water all your life.
A just and mercifull god would have taught people to understand how right and wrong are determined by ethical logic, so they could make their own minds up. Rather than set an arbitrary set of rules on one nation, then changed some of those rules to include all of humanity, that come to embrace a particular religion. Right?
It is notable that in the studies they found that sexual education is noticeably ineffective. What they also found that when there is a family background that supports abstinence before marriage teens are more prone to keep their virginity as opposed to those that made the promise without such background. Change that comes from the outside does not work. You need a change of heart before you are likely to change your patterns of behavior. Catholism is desperately trying to cling on an idea that can not work. They can not just use their powers if the heart of the people has not changed.
As for birth control. That is not in the bible. Most christians I know of breed responsibly. And the largest population growth comes from non catholic countries like India and China. There as in Africa children are the only form of safety net parents have. As well as cultural factors. Thus instead of pointing the blaming finger on poor catholics we should instead focus our efforts on the wellbeing and cultural issues of those countries. That is the only way out of the problem.
As far as I know jury is still out on gay gene. None have been found. Thus it is a lifestyle choise. Despite the opposition from gay community and popular media. It leads to conclusion that gay rights is a political issue. See you at voting time
That does not mean that two consenting adults can not do anything they like. And it is of course part of the democratic process that they can also propagate their views as much as they like. As do I. And violence against any group is strictly forbidden.
Bible gives tells people many times over to use their head. Christianity is not blind reliance on God. Your way of thinking is part of the problem. If you say that it is not your problem if someone uses drugs then you are silently approving their use. If community is not against something it is for it. That is what I call decay of morals. That is why drug use and free sex is on the rise. Yet we know that they are clearly harmful. Especially for our youth. So how come we must tolerate it?
BHS, you have got to be kidding.
Sexual education is innefective in comparisson to what? Nobody knows these things instinctively, but everyone has a natural innuendo to try this stuff out. For thousands of years many societes have seeked to protect young people from sexuality by hushing it out and to this day that has not sucseeded. On the contrary it has caused a multitude of misery.
Yes poverty is the main cause for population growth. I agree also that we should fight against it.
Catholics in the rich west seem to not pay much attention to the rules of sexual conduct set by the Catholic church (exept for the child molesting priesthood). As if there was some other set of rules for them. Or is it because they actually have become secular, and realize such arbitrary rules are not realistic? It seems your information is a bit out dated. China has managed to reduce population growth very effectively. The once child policy is one of the reasons for the economical growht of China, but both of these factors cause people to have less kids. There is no doubt, that the policy of the “poor” Catholic church on sexuality is causing devastating porblems on so many levels that it can not be justified by any means. The cruel thing about it, is that they do what they do, in the firm belief that is what Jesus wants them to do. However, Jesus does not appear to tell them they are worng. Hardly mercifull or just by an omnipotent entity. Is it?
I do not think there is a gene for homosexuality, though I possibly can not know. However, that makes no difference. Even if it could be proven no such gene exists, it would not change the issue into a lifestyle choise. The homosexuals do not make a conscious choise to be what they are. We do not know what kind of combination of genes and experiences causes a person to become homosexual, but as it is not a disease and causes no harm, there is no need for a cure either. Harm caused around the homosexuality issue comes from homophobia, not the other way around. There is no way to justify the homophobia presented in the Bible. If that is the word of a god, that gives not a just, nor mercifull picture of this alledged divine author of the book. Does it?
I never said, that I do not see the use of drugs as a problem. Did you not read my comment? The moral base any religion offers, is based on arbitrary rules from deities, that never appear anywhere. People need to know why they should choose something by telling them the actual results of their actions and not be intimitated to choose something by imaginary stories about afterlife. Besides, what does the Bible say about drugs? Or about teenage sexual behaviour? Religions tend to build a lot of moral conduct rules around them, that do not appear in their divine systems, but they also have contradicting interpretations of the obvious hate parts spouted out in their holy scriptures.
Correction: Sexual abstinence education does not work if there is no right family support. So alternatives for the majority are: Let teenagers have sex and give them adequate information on how not to get STD or unwanted pregnancies. Or try to hush it up and get those. I see both of them as harmful ways to go. And it is not going to improve. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. Best option is to have caring parents that support you to save sex until marriage but that is not realism of how this world works. Unfortunately.
Bible has a lot to say about sanctity of marriage and that is the only way to go to have safe sex. This is God’s ideal but does not work if your heart is not se to it. So God has told catholic church what to do but their implementation is to choose to drive high ideal instead of the realism of this world.
God has His view on homosexuality and that’s it. Homosexuals have the same right to their opinion as I have on mine. If “gay gene” is ever found I shall reconsider.
Bible of course has it’s opinion about drugs. No. If you make your own mind then you are bound for an ethical swamp. You said this:
“It is the responsibility of any person to choose what kind of sexuality, or drugs she/he engages in. The abuse of anything is harmfull and therefore unethical. Simple eh?”
So doing only little drugs is ok? Where to draw the line? What about those that take on little and get hooked?
BHS, do you think the family of Sarah Palin did not give the “right family support” to their daughter? The abstinence stuff only ever works for a very little minority of people, unless there is a very strict social controll and authoritarian values involved and even then, and especially then, it is bound to cause terrible tragedies powered by needless shame. In my opinion, there is even a problem in the no sex before marriage ideal, because it is better for people to know their partners in as many ways as possible before they get married. That makes for happier marriages. It is understandable, that this ideal of marital sex as the only moral option, was formed in ages past, when venral disease prevention and contraception was a bit of a problem and social care for children outside two parent families were non-existant. However, all my friends brought up by only a mother have turned out quite right.
The biggest problem about contraception today is from religious attitudes towards it.
You really did not get my point about the homosexuality not being a conscious choise regardless of any homosexuality gene, did you? Or did you just simply ignore it, because god told you that gays are an abomination? But they are people just like you and I and deserve no such hatred as presented by your god in the Bible.
I never said doing a little drugs is OK. Did I? The line is drawn as in any ethics in the harm vs. benefit area. As I did say. No swamp, none what so ever, there. In the western society we all make choises about how much we use alcohol. The Christian god does not condemn alcohol. It is the abuse of alcohol, that is dangerous, very dangerous and harmfull indeed, but not alcohol in itself. Most illegal drugs are far more harmfull, than alcohol and the best wayt to fight against them is to let the people know and understand the true dangers involved in drug abuse. To raise future generations to take responsibility of their own actions, not to follow some obscure and arbitrary rules alledgedly set by a particular deity. Also, forming a society where people are not left alone and without help, when they face harships might help.
I suppose that is some sort of Christian ideal, but during the last 2000 years Christianity, even with the alledged divine and omnipotent help from abowe, has not managed to form such a society. Correct?
There are plenty of legal drugs, that are sometimes necessary, but none the less dangerous, if abused. I see no ethical swamp. I see problems and solutions. Telling people this, or that is forbidden works only so well. Best and most ethical self controll about intoxicants, or sexuality comes from understanding of the hazards involved, not by scaring people with fairytales they come to doubt, nor by setting arbitrary rules, they do not understand, or that go against their natural desires.
I see two problem here:
First you are convinietly ignoring a LOT of good that cristianity does. There are innumerable number of projects that are working from food security to preventing girl circumcision in africa. It is easy to find very conceivable problem in others but to find something good and bless other is difficult. Bible teaches us to bless. Who teaches the atheist to do the same?
Second your values in life are hurtful. There are clear studies that early start in sex or cohabiting is harmful. More broken marriages, more emotional trauma and baggage. Why should I be tolerant for these?
The problem in your outlook in morals is that they move.They move according surrounding culture where as christian morals are set in stone. Where will your morals move next? Pedofila? If there are no absolute morals the next generation might just conclude that we are genetically pre disposed to younger members of our spices and thus it must be allowed. Or your moral might go in to totally uncharted waters that we yet can not even imagine.
Now studies show that your life values are hurtful and still no moral outcry is coming from the community. So what stops people moving to the next level of evil? You will see.
This is why gay agenda is not high on our list. But that does not mean they don’t have their human rights.
And on atheist and drug use. See for your self:
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2008/07/do-atheists-use-and-abuse-drugs-more.html
BHS, I can recognize Christianity doing a lot of good. I can also recognize all the good Islam, Buddhism, Taoism and what have you, are doing. Can you recognize those? That is not the issue. Any social group can do good, when they want to. There are a lot of secular organizations, that also do good. You do not need the supernatural to give you a motive to do good, do you?
No, atheists do not teach anyone to “bless” anything. What is the point about that? Magic rarely has any other effect than emotional support, but people are perfectly capable of supporting each other withoug gods.
If my values are hurtfull, then they are not ethical, hence they are wrong. To come to that conclusion we need secular ethics, do we not? It is the evidence for the harmfullness of my values that defines, if they are wrong, not some old arbitrary rules from an ancient society. Correct?
But how early sex or “cohabiting” are we talking about here? I have never proposed, that sex between children is good. Have I? As you should know there are a legion of reasons for broken marriages, most of wich are not the result of early sex or early “cohabitation”, but you should also know that there are situations where it is better, that the marriage is dissolved. Further more there are often enough unhappy marriages, that are kept as constant torture for the married couple, only as a result of social pressure based on religious values. And we do know that if people hurry to get married without knowing each other, they run higher risk of trouble later on. Does that not make sense to you?
I do not use drugs, like none of my atheistic family members, nor any atheist I know. However, like your link suggests, the in the current situation, when openly atheistic people are the most skeptical people about authorities, it is possible, that atheistic people are marginally more prone to intoxicant abuse, than other people. If that is true, it actually tells nothing of the absense of god in their lives, but the lesser social controll.You can not draw an equasion between atheism itself and drug abuse, no matter how hard you try. It is only that in the current situation when atheists are a radical minority, that they may have something incommon with other radical minorities.
You have to remember, that a good part of atheists were originally religious people who were told all their lives, that all reason and sense and meaning for life and even self preservation came form these imaginary god characters. When they came to realize, that this has all been a lie, they of course run into a risk of loosing grip of their lives. More so, if the society around them condenms them for being atheists. Is it the fault of the lies they have been told and on wich they had built on, or the fact that they had a “revelation” about reality? By far most do not react in any negative way, however. And do not tell me they were not being told lies, because you think that allmost all religions in this world are lies. Correct?
The issue of the post was about wether a god can be both perfectly good and perfectly mercifull at the same time. I tried to comment that before, but now I think I have found a better way to say my piece on that.
I agree with our host that those are not mutually exclusive properties, but I also add, that I am yet to see a religion, that presents a god that shows both perfect goodness and perfect mercy. And if I do not qualify as the judge of that, then who does on my behalf?
So why obey any commands if you think god is imaginary eh? No amount of wiggling will get you out of the fact that the morals you are proposing are culturally relative and thus on the constant move. It used to be illegal to be gay and caused a moral outcry a few years ago. Now being gay is ok. But whats coming next?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_marriage_acceptance
Or even worse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Man/Boy_Love_Association
Horrors you might say. But so did previous generations about gays.
Cohabiting is hurtful says the studies. Drug use is on the rise and it sure ain’t the christians who are to blame. But hey! Who am I to rain on this sexual liberation parade.
For a God it is easy for Him to be merciful for those that believe in Him and do constant good (and reject false believers). And perfectly reasonable for Him to throw evildoers in to the eternal suffering. There you go. Merciful and just.
BHS, now you are being silly.
Right? Morals is culturally relative. I totally agree on that. It is the very meaning of the word. I thought as much was clear by now. Ethics are not, exept by the amount of information to what we base our ethical views sometimes depends on our culture. Some ethics should be easy to understand even with the minimum amount of information. To quote freely from an imaginary cartoon policeman: “If you do not see what is different with two consenting adults having sex in comparrison to having sex with animals, or children, never have pets, nor kids.” Ethics defines having sex with a child as bad, because the child is not an equal partner and would obviously be harmed by such. Swinging is the option of adult people. Christians are known to engage in that (though propably not your kind of Christians). 
It is silly and in my opinion might be harmfull, but that is for them selves to decide. It can not be stopped by a law against it. It may be restricted by social controll, but as said before, such controll in a society usually does not make anybody happier. Exept of course, those people who enjoy controlling other people.
There are no objective moral standards, exept what is defined by ethics. Previous generations also thought that women should not have the right to vote. They were wrong, though this issue is not in any way confronted by any religious scriptures. Correct? Previous generations to those thought that kings have the right even to abuse their subjects because, their power was thought to be derived from a god. No gods ever appeared to tell them they were wrong. Why? People had to figure it out themselves through ethical process, but it took generations and in the meantime those generations were abused by those kings in power, who themselves thought they had that right directly from a god. Morals are constantly under cultural evolution. Did you not know this? Hopefully for the more open and tolerant society. Right?
What studies say cohabitation is hurtfull? In what way? Most Finnish couples live in cohabitation and some of them for years before they get married. Not all of them shall even ever marry. I have no information how this even could be harmfull, exept legally when going through a last will.
What causes the drug abuse? Lack of morals? Or the dead end situations people find themselves in a harsh, competitive and condemning society? Actually it is curious how often people find religion in a similar situation as when they become drug abusers. Both are mind numbing, but not necessarily problem solving. I grant you, that most often religion seems less harmfull to the individual her/himself than the drug abuse.
Sometimes however, religious converts may be more harmfull for other people. That is if they have converted into religions that demand to controll other people by moral standards taken from ancient books, that have nothing to do with any ethical logic, but represent arbitrary and malicious moralism. The problem with gods, you see, is that they are far too easily seen above any ethics and then their rules, no matter how harmfull, are expected by the believers to be taken as such, without question. Gods are presented to us as the supreme authority. Such authority should be backed up by universal acceptance, but that is not very likely to happen, is it? Especially since all gods demand faith, instead of manifesting themselves anywhere.
Handing out mercy according to faith, and leaving other people outside is favorism. That is not ethical by any measure. It is not a mercifull act, but a vicious and malevolent deed of tribal moralism. Sort of cultural racism. However, since it is most likely completely imaginary event in the alledged afterlife, that only represents wishfull thinking typical of men, it is not such a serious matter. Exept, that it brings out the ethical problem in the moral standards of such a great number of people. Is there really such a great number of people who base their morals on moralism rather than on ethics? Or is it only a cultural backround story, that does not really affect the ethics of most everyday people even among the adherents of such religions, that demand this ideal to be moral?
The problem of deciding about the false believers lies in, that most gods define other religions as false, but there is no way of determining wich is a false religion and wich is not (exept perhaps asking about 500 Questions about ethics presented by a religion). As mentioned allready a dozen times before, most people choose what is the right religion, by simply embracing the one that comes culturally to them.
Now you have a bunch of people between those few who have happened to be lucky enough to choose a correct god to believe in and do good (and reject other gods), and those people who could be defined as “evildoers”. In fact most people in the world would fall under that gategory in between. Right? What about us? Do you think we deserve just punishment in eternal torment, or mercy to join the chorus to water the pot plants in eternal bliss?
Eternal suffering is not just. Not for any crime a man may achieve in human lifetime. That is an absurd, malicious and evil assumption.
Perhaps you could come up with more original and somehow logically explained reason to think these things are just, or mercifull other than just writing third person describing your favourite divinity with a capital letter.
Sorry. I know I am asking too much.
First cohabiting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/us/03marry.html?_r=1
I think your problem with God is your postmodern way of thinking. Everything in this kind of morals is just a gray mush. God gives us clear distinctions between good and evil. And has the authority to judge people according to their actions. In my opinion He sets the moral standard that is ethical and good for us and is right to do so.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/WhyRBNoInt.HTM
“Looking at the criticisms that have been raised against religion, I would estimate that the real motivation for religious disbelief breaks down about like this: sex, 75%; hatred of authority in general, 10%; economic injustice, 8%; war and oppression, 6%; serious intellectual concerns, 1%; serious intellectual concerns based on actual study of what theologians have said: too small to register.”
Interpreting bible is a lost art. We can go trough some parts of the bible in the future that might seem strange from postmodern view. I assure you they are not as strange as atheist think. They like to take just a small portion of there scripture to use it to make it’s worst. This is not how you read the Bible. So let’s continue conversation about that in the future
I see also a chillg trend in the ethics of the wold today. I’m not kidding when I showed that man/boy horror. It is a real political pressure group that is biding it’s time to strike it to mainstream. How do I know? Think about the slide of morals in big and small things. Like cohabiting. Next is euthanasia. Then it is a small leap to legalize drugs.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/01/world/la-fg-mexico-drug-policy-20110602
All of these are harmful as shown in the studies, not to mention ethically. Yet popular demand is driving them towards mainstream. I hereby predict that next is open marriage and then it is time for man/boy group. Even we clearly know these are harmful.
Atually I sowed you link earlier about secular scientist that said that we still need God for morals. So even if you can not personally like God don’t fight a cause that benefits you
BHS, the study you presented about cohabitation showed that the ethnicity of the people had more to do with their marriages to stand longer, than their history of cohabitation. In effect, what it describes is cultural causes for longer marriages. Now, assuming this is not just one study pointing into that direction, we need to ask wether it is even an exclusively good thing, that marriages last longer. In a society, that has no social security net for single mothers, a two parent family is the ideal, because if the father leaves the family, the kids and mom a have serious economical crisis of survival. But a lasting marriage is not necessarily the best option, not even if the couple have kids. One of the parents might be abusive in so many ways to one or all the members of the family. Like I said previously, all my friends who have been brought up by single moms have proven to be quite OK in life. All this study really points to, is that people who come from a culture where cohabitation is not condemned are more indipendend, self secure and readier to honestly seek new opportunities, if their first marriage did not work out. Yes, that could be potentially harmfull, but it is not that as such. Responsible people act responsibly even in a divorce situation. Yes? Irresponsible people act irresponsibly even in a life long marriage. Correct?
Yes, my thinking is that of a postmodern person. How could it not be that? Are you thinking like a bronze age person? I certainly hope not, though it might be you have some cultural heritage weight from those times you carry around with you. As we all do.
Ethics and morals both hold some grey areas. Nothing is black and white, there might be objective absolutes in those issues, but who has the monopoly on those? In real life there are differences of shade in the grey. A child lives in a black and white world, because a child knows so little and is only just learning the perimeters of right and wrong. To all adults these issues are more or less in the gray areas because we have grown to know our limitations as humans and because we no longer seek the child like safety from extremes. Exept the fanatic. To the fanatic there is only good and evil. But I do not think you are fanatic, you have proven yourself a thinking person. Do not be led by fanatics, or demagogues.
Is it not a suspiciously crappy attempt from an alledgedly omnipotent entity to contact us humans to tell some guys to write a book, that is near impossible to interprete? If it really was a clear message, the clear message that was transmitted, would not produce thousands of denominations calling each other heretics. Why would an omnipotent, not to speak perfectly just and perfectly mercifull god send people to distribute this message, and not deliver itself? Resting it on the shoulders of men diminishes it to the same level as all the other religions spread by the very same means of preaching and conquest. We are not asked to believe in a god, but to believe some people who say there is a god. That is a big difference, is it not?
However, the Bible is not at all a strange and mysterious book, if you look at it from the point of view of an atheist. And if you are aware of the historical and cultural phenomenons around the time of writing, it becomes rather easy to interprete. It is far more simplier to explain from the view of cultural history and basic psychology, than it ever was theologically.
I see your fear. But remember, that people make bad descions when inspired by fear. Spreading fear is the most simple tool in the demagogue toolbag. They tell you that if you allow some changes to the secure society around you, then all the evil will come in flying. A simple example. Many politicians have made the unintelligent claim that if homosexuals get to have equal rights with heterosexuals, we are somehow bound to give in to pedophiles. They are playing with the fears of the mob, but the thing they suggest is a blatant lie. As you propably know. Just to make sure, I am not accusing you of being a demagogue.
It seems, you have become a victim of some. The terrible future possiblities you fear, like the boy/man stuff you linked, needs to be examined and if they are (as it would obviously seem to be) harmfull, then they are unethical and should be rejected from that point of view, not because there is this or that arbitrary set of divine rules, that either condemn such, or does not. Let us not forget that the present day major problem about “boy/man groups” is within Christianity and born of that religious culture of sexual rrepression and frustration.
The peresentages that you presented are more representative of the issues by wich Christianity profiles itself in the modern society. I am no claiming it is intentional. But since the sexual liberation in western societies as a result of contraception and the more open and liberal society that does not condemn homosexuality, simply because there is no ethical reason to do so, many religions and their age old codes about sexuality have simply become obsolete. That is why sexuality is such a big issue around religions. Religions are the fortresses of conservatism often even in such issues as sexuality, emancipation, and gender.
Hatred for authorities does not come from nothing. When people get really emotional about that, it is most often a direct result of the power based on authority being first abused. Religions tend to be like any other human social constructs in that they constantly abuse power. Conservative values are often based on authority and not on reason. That is abusing authoritarian power. Result may be hate, but it may simply be also skepticism.
Economic injustice is a big problem in the world. A social group based around a religion may take up the issue of helping the people who have been trampled by the economical powers that be. However, no god ever interferes in such or any other sort of injustices. Not even for the people who are completely defenceless in face of violence. That has nothing to do with free will, since those who suffer have no free will in the matter. All that kind of might cause people to feel being let down by a supposedly omnipotent, benevolent, perfectly just and perfectly mercifull god. They might, quite justifiably, come to the conclusion that this god is a lie. I suppose the same goes for war and suppression that might have even more dramatic impact on the life of people, though they rarely appear without the economical injustice.
Do you honestly think that I represent an insignificant group of people by presenting “serious intellectual problems”. Or do you actually think my views are not serious at all? Are we again counting noses to show what is true, or not?
What the theologians say has no meaning at all. theology is the antithesis of science, it is the only thing to be called “science” where the end result is decided before the study. Nature around us needs educated people to interprete the many complicated wonders, but the word of a god, if that god had some message this entity wanted to tell to mankind, should not be depended on the apologetics of theologians. It should be clear as a day, to all humans. Why should it not be? But it is not. Why? Because we have no evidence, that such a message even exists. Actually we have several such messages, that all are mere myths, written by men. Or to be more precise, they all have the components of myths. They all demand that we reject the others, but none stands out, unless we are culturally inclined to have faith on one of them.
Once again, the links you provided, would require a much longer answer, but there is no room and besides they are totally of topic.
All societies have legal and illegal drugs. Euthanasia is constantly used method in medicine. It is important that societies discuss wether or not and in wich form these are accepted, or not. In a secular society those descisions are based on ethics. On what we actually know about these issues and on the consensus of people. That is how morals is decided in a democracy. Are you not happy with that process?
I assure I am not playing with fears here. What I’m talking about here is called realism. Have you ever considered that some of those “demagogues” might be right. Granted there are some gray areas but there must be a way in the society to say that this is evil. Problem with postmodern morals is that everybody defines their own morals. I see clearly that you are reluctant to admit that there are no actual morals. If there are no set rules what is moral then where is morals? Where is ethics?
Morals are in a constant slip and slide. Age to start sex slides all the time towards younger. It is just a small leap until pedophile groups start to take advantage (they are already) politically to say why can’t they do it? And because there is no morals other than what you feel like is right or what feels good for you it is not unfathomable to see a law change. You shall see.
Word of God is often times blatantly discriminated and falsely represented by those that want to discredit it. Some of the stuff here is a straightforward lie. So it pays to listen what those that have the expert opinion. Same goes for anything in this life.
And God appears trough His congregation to help the poor. God clearly gives message that He will hear the cry of the oppressed especially:
http://www.zompist.com/meetthepoor.html
BHS, are you making prophesies about the future, now?
Actually the age in wich western society accepts as healthy to start having sex has been in slide towards older for centuries. This is the result of our ethics evolving culturally as our knowledge and understanding about human physiology and psyche has increased. For centuries in Christendom it was in early teens especially for girls. They got married well before 20 and that was much the case in Biblical times also. Is there actually a Bible passage that defines the age at when it is appropriate for people to start having sex?
I do recognize the fact that the market economy has a tendency to sell kids adulthood as desirable, and youth as desirable to adults. This may cause social problems, but if there is harm we must confront it form the morals of the society based on ethics, not on this, or that arbitrary set of rules by this, or that divinity. It is better that people understand why something is wrong, than that they simply know it is forbidden. Do you understand my point? If you do, would you not agree?
Of course everyone defines what morals they follow by themselves. Who else would do that for them? For example, it is you who decide that you do not follow the morals of sharia law, correct?
I hate to repeat myself, but the morals of a society is defined by the society. I hope you can appriciate that we have such morals, that is defined by consensus in a democratic society, because without such, there would be no freedom of religion, and chances are your kind of religion would be condemned by some other form of morals in the society. Do you see that?
Once again the link you provided is interresting, but far too much to comment in this format and frankly I do not even see the relevance neither to the topic nor to the previous conversation. Maybe you would like to elaborate?
I’m no prophet but this is pure logic:
Age of starting to have sex is getting younger (different than the age of consent mind you).
http://abcnews.go.com/US/safe-medicine-younger-girls-starting-birth-control/story?id=14116032#.T78MzGh5ceg
+
There is increased demand for child sex.
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=118808&page=1#.T78NM2h5ceg
=
Propability of pedophile political pressure groups to get what they want increasing significantly.
This is of course made worse by the kind morals you are advocating. Let’s just look what you said earlier:
“Of course everyone defines what morals they follow by themselves”
And:
“morals of a society is defined by the society”
But then you say:
“if there is harm we must confront it form the morals of the society based on ethics”
How does this actually work then? If morals of the society are decided by popular vote and everyone follows their own nose on morals then how we decide ethics then? The only logical conclusion is there are no morals or ethics. Try to be honest and see clearly your problem.
There is no guarantee that that man/boy group won’t get enough political power in the future. Because everybody might just decide that pedophile sex is not harmful. People are like sheep led to slaughter.
That link I provided is to say that God cares for the poor. There is nearly 100 passages in the bible about how we should care about the poor. So God does care.
BHS, I am sorry, but that is not logic. It is a genuine conspiracy theory, you have there.
It is of course within a possibility, that some minority group has a go with some very wild political ideas in a democratic society. However, since child abuse is very much against ethics, and it would be very hard, or even impossible to argue it is not harmfull, it is very unlikely, that it will ever grow to be a populist movement. Unless there will be a very popular religion to back it up, since religious morals has the ability to divert people from natural ethics, by appealing to some supernatural supreme authority wich supposedly overrides ethics. Yet, I do not see this as an actual threat to our society. I can not predict the future. Not all cultural phenomenons are positive. Not all cultural evolution is good. If there is a very negative social movement, like the rise of racism (that I see as a real threat here at present in Europe at least) in our society, maybe we close ranks to fight it. You from your set of religious morals and I from my ethical argumentation. 
If the morals of the society is based on our consensus of ethics, how does that automatically lead to a situation where there are no morals nor ethics? That makes no sense. Of course there are. Do you know the meaning of the words ethics and morals. Ethics means, that we evaluate the results of our action and inaction based on what kind of benefits vs. harms they result in. Morals is the social standard of what the rules of conduct are. The latter is based on the previous.
With better information it is easier to reach higher standard of morals, but often enough ethics do not need supreme information, only the minimal info is needed to come to natural ethical conclusions. Misinformation, or disinformation may corrupt the system. Bronze age guesses on the state of nature, the human condition and the reasons for natural catastrophies are classical examples of misinformation. They were not meant as deliberate means to lead people astray, they simply were the most likely explanation, to these issues by the aquirable information in that era. Any ancient tribal moralism and supernatural claims are perfect examples of disinformation. Some of them were made in actual belief by eyewitnesses who had no other explanation and whose cultural heritage led them to believe what they witnessed was indeed not of this world, but many were made with obvious malicious intent on protecting a particular interrest group of racial, religious or social type.
If morals is not based on ethics, but on authority of a god, or a dictator, then we are in trouble, because simply by appealing to authority anything can be ordered and people become the subjects of controll. In the end any atrocities can be implemented on people by denying their right to be skeptical. This has happened so many times in human history. From the Biblical genosides to the totalitarian systems of our times.
Of course democracy is not a perfect system. It could and has been abused by the power hungry. But it is only natural, that this is so, because it does not originate from any god. It is a system by imperfect humans for imperfect humans. It is up to us humans to safeguard the use of ethics in our societies. Correct?
No. There are no guarrantees, or certaintees about anything. I certainly hope this does not come as a shock to you, though I somehow doubt it will. I would say only certainty is death, but you would disagree with me about that, and bickering about it would be totally uninteligent and possibly even more of topic, than our current line of conversation.
The link you provided actually says that the guys who wrote the Bible thought, that a god wants us to care for the poor in very specific situations. Still, I do not see the relevance of it, but I can appriciate your interpretation of it, if it causes you to be symphatetic about poverty.
Like I have previously said I appriciate anyone who finds the messages of love and compassion, from their respective religions. And there are many who do. I would even go as far as to say most people who are adherents of any religion do this. That is one of the reasons I have hope for mankind. That no matter if their respective relgions are true, or have unethical divine rules, people still find the ethical parts and honour those. That also leads me to expect that the majority of people have enough “heart” to come to ethical consensus about what is right and wrong. It is a slow and hard process for all mankind to be as brothers, but in this light not an impossible one.
Yet, you have not answered me, if there is a Bible passage about at what age should people start having sex? I mean there are several passages about how homosexuality is an abomination, so surely there should, by any logic, be a passage about such an important moral issue, wich you yourself brought up. What if there is none, or the Christian does not know that particular passage, or there is an argument about the passage between Christians, how does the Christian define this issue? May I assume it is by natural ethics? The very same way I proposed all social morals should be defined (and mostly are in any society Christian, or other). Yes?
Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. It does not say child and a man for example. Besides it is clearly against the ideals of the Bible. And yes we do form ethics from the Bible. This book has ethics that by far surpass human ones. The guidance it gives on love and compassion are yet to be equaled. It has been so since biblical times. Acts 24:24-26.
“Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.” At the same time he was hoping that Paul would offer him a bribe, so he sent for him frequently and talked with him.”
And how it is possible to have ethical absolutes if there is no absolutes? If you say: “Of course everyone defines what morals they follow by themselves” then how can you make moral statements in a absolute way? If there “are no guarrantees, or certaintees about anything” How can you be so sure where society is going then? You sound awfully sure that pedophiles won’t get more power. Maybe not as long as they can have their desires at the price of a plain ticket to Asia.
We need some absolutes (like do not kill) to maintain this world of ours. You know why racism and natzism is raising it’s ugly head? Because people need absolutes and this pocketwarm postmodernism has none to offer. There is two ways we can go: Judeo-christian values or totalitarism. Which one do you prefer?
BHS, in Biblical times the idea of adulthood differed greatly from ours. A girl was considered a woman after she had lost her virginity, so of course marriage was between a man and a woman. For the most part of the past 2000 years people in Christendom and elswhere have thought it is pretty much OK to marry a girl of thirteen. You and I know that this is wrong. How do we know it? Is it not by the evolution of science and information to base better ethics on, that we have come to understand it?
How can you tell the ethics of the Bible are far surpassing human ethics? If some form of ethics that actually is ethical from human perspective can be consieved by a human, it allready is part of human ethics. Or are you talking about the information on wich we base our ethics?
I really, really can not see the relevance of the quote you added. Are you suggesting that human ethics can not surpass those of the Felix character in your story? What a bleak image you have on humans. Is that low standard of humanity of yours based solely on the Bible, or are you evaluating the human standard for ethics by what level of ethical thinking you are capable of, without the help of the Bible?
Sorry, but there are no ethical absolutes either. How did you come by that notion? Ethics is only a logical means to rationalize our feelings of empathy and compassion. What do you need absolute moral statements for? No morals is absolutely true. Ethics is the means by wich we can achieve best possible morals, not moral absolutism. I allready said I can not make prophesies about the future. I can not tell you how the society will evolve in the future. Neither can you. We can make predictions of what is the most likely result for this or that development, yes, but there are no certaintees what so ever. Does that thought make you feel insecure, or why is it so hard for you to accept? Or is it, after all?
Pedophiles do get their way in the present society in many ways, as they have in times before and in socities past. We need to develope the human society in a direction where such perversions could be, not just punished afterwards, but prevented. My estimation is, that most important way to stop such atrocities, is by preventing people from developing such harmfull and unhealthy desires. One example of that would be an obviously necessary (for other reasons also) thing to let the homosexuals be considered an equal part of society without shame. Because sometimes pedophiles are homosexuals who seek children as sexual objects, because they are filled by shame and they seem to think they can more easily hide their sexuality by approaching little boys rather than adult men. This is the reason why there are so many pedophilic cases within religious societies. They first create the shame, then they give emotional suzerainty to authoritarian rule and as a result men abuse, that authority to hide their shame. Heterosexual pedophiles are also often the products of some form of repressed sexuality and feelings of shame culturally included in sexuality by most often religious absolutist moralism.
Why do you feel we need moral absolutes? “Thou not shall kill” is not a moral absolute. There are many situations where Christian societies are just as eager to go around this moral rule as any other societies. Most of those situations are necessary ones, though some are arguable, or even questionable ones. Your god has even demanded people to neglect, that moral rule on several occasion, and it has been neglected millions and billions of times by people who have had firm belief and faith that this or that god demands it to be neglected. No gods have ever appeared to tell people that what they are doing is against a moral absolute and what they are doing is wrong nor against the will of any gods. Have they? Do you not believe in the ethical right of self defence? What about defence of innocents, or the defence of the integrity of a nation?
What bleak future options you offer me to choose from, when I can see a range of better options. Your options do not even include freedom of religion unless we happen to have a benevolent dictator, who happens to be uninterrested in other peoples religions. Though there have been those, how likely is that? I admit it, I am an optimist in this respect. Our culture is finally getting rid of tribal moralism and arbitrary religious rules. The age of kings and dictators seems to be finally over. Democracy and secularity are gaining ground, do you really not see this as a good development? Our knowledge about the world, humanity, nature and universe around us is expanding in giant leaps. We are having better and better information about these and as I said with better information it is possible to make better estimates about the future i.e. more ethical conclusions. Is that not good in your perception? Of course there are many great obstacles in front of us to struggle with, like the international corporations and their imperialism, religious and political demagogues that set nations against each other to freighten people to give them “absolute” power suggested as means of protection of (the often enough imagined or blown out of proportions) outside threat. But as you should know, those people seek power, for the sake of power and should be revealed as such. That is their motive to appeal to imaginary absolutes, like perfectly just and perfectly mercifull gods and absolutely evil enemy. As you said, these appeal to people. But what is it, that they appeal to, in peoples minds? Insecurity about the future? Fear of the unknown?
Some atheist thinkers have expressed, that maybe it is good for the simple people to have faith in gods and moral absolutes, because they would be unable to concieve ethical reasons to keep them from doing evil, so fear of reprizal in the imagined afterlife is all that really keeps them from doing harm to others because of selfish motovation. I find these claims terribly elitistic, and I think we all (excluding total sociopaths) have the capacity to understand why something is right or wrong and act accordingly, even without any arbitrary rules by some imaginary over-authority, like for example Allah.
Are you going to prove me wrong?
Have a happy holiday!
Almost forgot!
Did you know that the age of consent is 13 in Spain? It is highly cultural. In some (most) parts of the world children do not get the luxury of prolonged childhoods as we westerners do. You could say that an european in their 30′s is still a child with their play stations and skateboards. Most of the world has to work for us kings. Also this western notion of love marriage is luxury. At least in the ancient those girls got to be married. Unlike girls today that start sex early and with multiple partners. Far from God’s ideal and very hurtful. And let’s not even start to discuss those poor Thai girls…
Thus in my opinion this line of discussion is not relevant.
Cheers mister Rautakyy
Have you taken a look at the news lately? The world is filled with all sorts of horror and greed. Our planet is heading for distraction and all western society is doing is spending time navel gazing. Hedonistic desires, materialism, fractured families you name it we have it. This has always been the case and sure it was nice in Europe in the 70′s and 80′s. But it’s been downhill when you consider the rest of the world. And lately Europe too. You must be one hell of an optimist to see good coming out of this.
Of course Bible gives us superior morals. Imagine world where people would really love their neighbor or poor and the downtrodden would be treated as the God told us to treat them. Would look like that Welsh revival I suppose. Not that christians have monopoly on good. Our message is not “I’m okay, you are not” but “I’m not okay and neither are you”. We are an fallen race in the need of a redeemer.
Besides the world does not function without moral absolutes. In fact you make them constantly. Like whey you say that it’s okay to be gay but it’s not okay to say it is a sin. Postmodern moralism is funny in a way that if you say anything that would threaten individual freedom, it’s suddenly not okay. Even if it would be hurtful to others. That causes a slip and slide of the morals. This writer draws an interesting allegory between the fall of the Rome and modern europe:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18159752
People WILL be looking at something to gather around. Something absolute. This is something that God created in to us and is meant to be filled with God. But you can fill that desire with other things. So far it’s been material goods in the west. But what about when those goodies stop?
BHS, there is one thing we can really agree on: I am a “hell of an optimist!”
)
How else could I imagine a number of utopian systems and human socities, that would function paradise like, if everyone followed the rules. The Biblical morals does not really stand out from all such human ideals. Alltough it has some good stuff in it, but like all man made fantasies, it also incorporates some serious crap in it too. If yuo think it is perfect, just read the rest of the 500 Questions our host has posted and posts.
I still do not get it. Where have we fallen from, how and why? We have evolved from the animal kingdom and through generations of ignorance we have waded our way towards knowledge and better ethics. We are not there yet and surely we have taken steps backwards and on sidetracks, like when we came to create the authoritarian religions, but there is still hope for us.
The BBC article you linked about the fall of the Roman empire was really good. It kind of answered the questions presented in it, by making the point, that the end of the world did not come when the empire fell, though Christians of that era certainly expected it to come then. The dark ages resulted when science and philosophy were lost and replaced by religion, so it defenately was a dark age that resulted. Let us work not to have that mistake be repeated again.
You are mistaken about the moral absolutes.You said: “Besides the world does not function without moral absolutes. In fact you make them constantly. Like whey you say that it’s okay to be gay but it’s not okay to say it is a sin.” That is not moral absolutism. That is a logical conclusion about ethics. It is not an arbitrary moralist claim based on some supreme and infallible authority, as a moral absolute would be. It is a demand for more egalitarian and humane society, free of religious arbitrary laws by imaginary gods. The logical ethics of it is, that being gay causes no harm, but claiming it is a “sin” causes obvious harm, not only to gays, but to the entire society around them. Do you now understand the difference?
It seems to me, that when you define something wrong, you assume god agrees with you and has given an arbitrary order about it, that you do not need to question. But you seem to think it gives you the right to think so, and that it takes the other peoples right to disagree away (since, if they do, they will suffer eternally, in the absence of a god). But your notion of the age when people should start to have sex, as an example, you thought came from god, was actually an ethical conclusion by you, based on information about the harm too early start for sex could cause and no god had any part in the morals of it.
Of course all post modern societies value individual freedom. That is healthy. Do I need to explain to you how that conclusion has been achieved? You may disagree, since that is within your individual freedom.
And certainly there is no universal and absolute consensus about these issues. Though, we have reached some very big limits in the UN resolutions. These issues are constantly resolved by a never ending discussion about where the limits of freedom should be set in the society. That is inevitable, because for centuries our freedom has been limited by arbitrary rules (like, that men and women must be dressed differently, or be stoned to death) based on commands from imaginary divine supreme authorities. We are not yet free from those strains, to think freely just about the ethics, but our minds still linger in our cultural heritage. Also the discourse will never end as long as the world keeps changing. And it does, because every new generation comes up with new ideas and perception.
Yes, there is something wrong about the consumer society the west is spreading all around the globe and abusing most of the world while doing so. I defenately agree with you about that. But what should we do about it? Try to find out what is wrong and repair the damage, before it is too late? Or should we sit around on our asses and hope for a miracle by some particular supernatural entity? I think we can both agree that regardless of the existance of this entity, we should take action. After all, was it not alledged, that your god, who so cleverly gave the world to the hands of us humans, also demanded we took care of it and that we should show compassion towards each other?
What a Lucky thing that most other gods have given similar arbitrary orders, so we still have hope for mankind to try and behave, before they learn to do the right thing from their own initiative. Or at least, I have hope with my “hell of an optimism”. 
Well as you noticed I strongly disagree with mr. 500 on several points. In my opinion people need some ultimate reference point for morals. If you let that go people loose that good ol’ “group feeling” that allows society to cope and recover. Secular ethics like humanism are seriously lacking in that respect. They are nothing but buzzwords created by man. Full of hot air. We need God to make our life meaningful ant that’s it. Individual freedom is ok but there is a flip side to that coin. Allow it too much and you get anarchy. The way we are heading now.
While there seems to be little harm in allowing gay marriage it will anyway eat a part of the fabric of our society. That “group feeling” that holds us together. You will see. Not that there is anything we can do about it anyways. We can not pass a law that would guarantee salvation of someones soul. If you want to go to hell then you should have the freedom to do so if you wish. Anyways all sort of bigotry is forbidden and rightly so, so let’s leave gays to do whatever they want. As long as we are allowed freedom to to our thing.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/03/opinion/oe-wilson3
I’m more than willing to preach a message of anti consumerialism. We need new ways to get this society to function with religious views considered. That is after all what democracy is supposed to be doing. Protecting all the groups in the country.
BHS, are you suggesting, that the veracity of a particular god recides in the utility of that god to society? That defence could be presented to any god, but it is an empty suggestion, because we are perfectly capable to form moral communities without any gods. Some of those are more healthier than others. I do not need a god to make my life meaningfull. I belong to many different social groups and most people whom I know do not drive their morals from god (regardless if they are religious or not), but from real life ethics. (I bet you do too most of the time, even if you are not aware of it, like in my example about the limits on the age of sex becoming a part of a persons life.) Their morals is based on cultural tradition and what causes harm and what does not. Things go well, when the latter overrides the former. Simple, eh?
If we are heading for anarchy, how does that demonstrate it self in comparrison to former situation? When was there less “anarchy”, in the world, than today? How can you tell there is more “anarchy” now than there was before? Actually I would say the complete opposite. The last descent to anarchy from organized civilization in the west was when the Roman empire fell and Christianity took over Europe. During the time from that point on, we have slowly grown to re-organize and we have by now far surpassed the organization level of the Roman empire by generations. History of mankind is not pointing towards anarchy and chaos, but away from it. We do not need authoritarian rule to live without anarchy. That is exactly why we prefer democracy. It allows the freedom of the individual within the limits the majority sets. Hopefully those limits are set ethically and not arbitrarily. Right?
Societies are changing all the time. That is inevitable. It is up to us individuals to make sure those changes are for more just and open society. Correct? Gay marriage tears up nothing, but it causes discussion wich reveals the questionable nature of the Biblical morals. The abolition of slavery and the US civil rights movement could have been opposed for the same reason you and the article you linked to present. For example. How terribly did it tear up the fabric of the US society that buss companies had to offer equal service to both black and white customers and let them ride on the same benches, though in doing so, they were forced by the government often to act against their deeply held beliefs and prejudices against people of a nother race?
Nobody wants to go to hell. Do they? But to many people the idea of hell is absurd. We have no evidence that such a thing even exists, but we do know that there are motives to controll people by demagogues to come up with such a deterrent. This all points to it being just an invention of men. Does it not?
You are under the spell of demagogues of humanity indeed. If this was the court of law, You’d be in jail for falsifying the evidence. The fact that we in western hemisphere live in an unprecedented golden age does in fact point to the evil of humanity. We are like kings while more than half suffers in slavery of poverty, hunger and war. And don’t give me any of that “we will solve it” crap. If the age of humanity is 200,000 years why haven’t we solved anything? Hardly passes as for evidence of humanities capability to solve anything. The same is going on as before, just covinently out of your sight.
Who do you trust? Your elected leaders? They are hungry for wealth, power and sex as the rest of us. And even the most powerful of them can not turn the tide until it’s too late for humanity. Trust your self? Well that’s every man for himself. Result will be utter anarchy. Continue this long enough and people will start to call for a change. That’s the time for totalitarism to take control.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2140686/Greek-elections-2012-Neo-Nazi-party-Golden-Dawn-want-force-immigrants-work-camps.html
You try and find your way in this mess.
Use your skills that you got in the university. Which side the evidence is stronger? That mankind is good or is fallen?
And this does not let the christen camp of the hook. We are as fallen as the rest. We have even less excuse. We have the commandments of the Bible and still can’t do any better.
And about bigotry. How it is not bigotry that a poor photographer has to pay “damages” for not wanting to photograph someone?
BHS, I do not think we live in any sort of “golden age” in the west. Does it seem like that to you? You previously said that everything was peachy during the eightees. Was that the “golden age” when you did not know of all the trouble in the world, or why did you define that particular decade as any better than the previous, or the following ones? If I remember correctly the fashion was a disaster.
Do you really think I am not aware of the problems we face today? If your god is omnipotent and benevolent, why does he not help us out? Surely such a powerfull god would have an ethical responsibility and even more so, if the claim of benevolence holds any truth to it, help out at least the ones suffering the most and without their own fault, like the famished and enslaved ones. No such help appears, so it is more likely no such god exists.
Do you really think we have not solved anything in the past 200 000 years? What a strange claim. Just to name few steps taken: Humanity has learned methods to make better foodplants and service animals. We have invented irrigation. We have developed such marvellous tools to lessen our toil. Our art has evolved into completely new levels. We have found magnificent ways to increase our understanding of the universe and to overcome problems by the scientific methods. We have learned to heal psychological problems.We have overcome many diseases, have we not? We have found means to regulate our birth rates. Our philosophical understanding of ethics has grown from fear of gods into understanding real life causalities. And finally we are emerging from the dark night of superstition.
Yes humanity has done a lot of evil and continues to do (regardless of what gods they prey to), but most of that is the result of ignorance. Ignorance of the actual results of our actions and inaction. If we really are guilty of something, it is not of “eating from the tree of knowledge”, but of the complete opposite.
The situation of the “poor” photographer depends on what grounds he/she does not want to provide the service for some customers. If that photographer of yours, does not want to take pictures of some people because he/she has prejudice of their race, sexual orientation, or creed that is not fair, is it? Such conduct is segragating, anti-egalitarian, indignifying and harmfull to a society. Correct? Why should a society not punish a person for causing harm? Besides, where in the Bible it says thou shalt not take photorgraphs of married homosexuals, because that is an abomination to god? Do you honestly not think the “poor” buss company has to offer same benches to the passangers of different race, sexual orientation, or creed?
Critical services like bus,fire,health and police etc.. are diffrent thing entirely. They are not allowed to pick their customers. Photography is a bit not in that ballpark. This thing has gone too far. If people can not exercise their faith. You are the one always yelling for individual freedom here. How it suddenly does not apply here? You are holding double standards. Just typical of this day and age. Everything is okay until someone dares to say that something is not allowed. Your morals are not as flexible as you brag.
We have innovation and wealth all right. But the heart of man is just the same. Ethics is what you do when someone is not watching. And to me it looks like we still have the same problems that we did in the Old Testamet days. Lust for wealth, power and sex. That is why I quoted that bit from the acts. Felix was jus as afraid when Paul started to talk about self control. Not a very fashionable word these days.
But do continue like you do. People are bored with the way the rings are and the material goodies are fast disappearing with the diminishing of world resources. No more golden age. Totalitarism is just around the corner waiting. I would not be amazed at all to see a new kristallnacht in europe directed against immigrants soon. With the majority as always silently approving. There are still people alive that remember the original nazi rule. That’s how much your fine humanity has learned. And the only real alternative is of course return of the judeo-christian values. Wether you like it or not.
Of course I could give many examples of rotten human nature. But I think this is enough. You can not honestly say that we are learning something. This civilization is just a bit of paint over an evil that comes out immediately if chance arrives.
BHS, who is offering double standards? You would say segragation is wrong with “critical” services, but you would not think it is wrong in some other services. Why? Who gets to define what services are critical and what are not? Is that not double standards? People may exercise their faith, but only if that faith does not brake the laws of a secular nation. If you worshipped Moloch Baal and demanded that in the name of religious freedom you had every right to sacrifice babies, should society not be allowed to intervene? Even if those babies were your own? If you came from East African decendance and you claimed your religiond demands your young girl child is to be circumsized, should the society not step in and stop that? If your Christian church wanted to seek out heretics and witches and burn them alive, should society not be allowed to stop you? Of cource a society has the right to set limits of human conduct, that is ethical. The photography example is from the mild end of the possible harm caused by religious behaviour, but since the “cristalnacht”, you referred to, was a direct result of “christian values” and segragation they had caused for centuries in the German society, it fits to describe what kind of harm social the segragation of citizens (like in the case of the photography), by religious values may cause at its worse. A society has every right ot restrict even much milder harm. And please remember, that the slavery – you mentioned – was also defended by religious values. Actually there is much more to defend slavery in the Bible, than there is about photography of homosexual marriages being somehow immoral, correct?
I am not offering double standards. Individual freedom does not include the freedom to harm others by any ethical standards. I do not see how you can even claim this is a double standard. The fascists you refer to, that might start violence against immigrants in Europe today, all the time claim their individual freedom and freedom of speach is limited, but of course it is. Why? Because society should be able to limit the individual freedom of citizens. Those limits should be set with ethical logic, not by arbitrary divine rules of this, or that religion. With freedom and power allways comes responsibility. Why is that not obvious to them, nor you? Are they also products of authoritarian culture you so eagerly promote?
No, we have not evolved since the Biblical times. That is a short leap in evolutionary terms, but a giant leap in social terms. We have taken steps from ages past when religious leadership defined what ever they pleased, or honestly thought, that their gods demanded from humans as the moral standards of socity. If we look back at those societies, they were full of sacrifices, bigotry, and oppression. No real freedom of speach, nor freedom of religion, but a lot of “martyrs” for the minor religious sects, sexual minorities and science. Who would want to return to that?
You keep chanting, that our only option is a return to Christian values, but as you know, we have had that society test ongoing allready for 2000 years and it really has not worked out.
We are not talking about a bunch of lunatics here. But most kindest and civilized part of the society, christians. I probably know hundreds of christians personally and I never found a single one that planned anything violent against any minority. This is about the right to hold ones religious views with head held up high. How does someone not photographing other’s wedding hurt them. Cry babes. The people responsible for suing are just looking for trouble and confrontation to drive their cause and you fall in to their trap, no questions asked. They want to cause battle lines to form in our society against religion. Be careful to avoild that. Many christians and gays alike already have fallen in to that trap.
BHS, even though your personal experience is that the Christians you know are the “most kindest” part of the society, that is not really such a simple truth. Is it? Christians include such extreme groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Westborough Babtist Church, not to speak about individual lunatics like Mr. Breivik, who was acting to defend Christian values, just to name few of the extremes. When Christians had supreme political power in society, they indeed used it to torture and burn alledged witches and heretics. It was only the birth of a secular nations, that stopped them from doing so. It is, of course, nice that the Christians today think they stopped doing that on their own accord, but without secularism, they propably would not have ever done so. Remember, that by far most of the nazies and fascists thought themselves as very good Christians and died expecting to get into heaven. They honestly thought they were acting on Christian values, and in their defence. I am not saying all Christians are like that, but as you should know some are. If you would claim they were heretics, they would propably have told me you are. Any religion, or ideology is a tool to lead people to such horrid deeds, even if it is not most often used for that. Those deeds usually begin from insignificant looking acts of segragation, that escalate to ever increasing persecution.
Like I have said before in this very conversation, the most horrible evil is usually done by people who think they are doing the good thing, or at least that they have a right to do what horrible things they are doing. Since such a right is very difficult to draw from any ethical thinking, it is most often drawn from any authority, be it the commands of a superior, the commands of a dictator, or the commands of a god. That is why society and individuals in it should determine what is right and wrong by ethics, not by arbitrary commands from authority.
Do you honestly think that a photographer has the right to choose his customers by their race, or creed? Simply because the photography is such an insignificant service? Do you not see, that the law has to be the same for everybody? We can not say that the buss company may not choose its customers, but a photographer may, can we? By whom and how should the rules of social conduct be determined here? If a gay couple can not have a photographer to come to their wedding because that person is a homophobic, or because his holy book tells him that photographing homosexuals is an abomination to a god, that couple would propably not have wanted that photographer to take their pictures, anyway. In a big city they just choose someone who offers that service to them withouth bigotry. But if that gay couple lives in a small town and in a very religious part of the country, is it “civilized”, if they can not have anyone to photograph their wedding, if the caterers will not come, if they can not rent a place to have their celebration, if the buss company refuses to move around their guests, if the local gass station refuses to sell gasoline for the cars of their relatives and guests and so on? Where do you draw the limit and how? Is that not persicution? If the surrounding part of society does everything in their power to prevent this couple to get married, never mind if their marriage is legal, or not. That is segragation of the worst kind, and it really does not matter wether the motive of these people is racist, or religious. The results are exactly the same. They are dehumanizing the couple and their closest ones. They are the ones drawing battle lines between religion and other people.
People acting for everyone to have equal rights, are not seeking just to have battle lines drawn against any particular religion. If your religion does not accept equal rights for other people, it is you who has to ask what is wrong with the religion, like is your god really being just, or even mercifull if that deity demands you to segragate people who have not done anything ethically wrong. That is if you would have equal rights for everyone. If you do not accept the concept of equal rights because your god seems to oppose it, then I guess, there is nothing I have to say to you anymore.
Well we have been trough “christian” lunatics before. They do not obey the commands set in the bible. Every ideology on earth includes people that are abusing the ideology. Same is true for your favorite ideology socialism. Chairman Mao and Stalin are responsible for millions of deaths and countless abuses. The worst country to abuse christians is North Korea. They are killing people converting to christianity in big numbers. Thus the same claim can be applied to your ideology. So believe me when I say that Bible gives us superior morals, if people would just obey. And like I said we are all fallen so we are imperfect. Not capable to follow superior morals even if given ones. That is why we need a redeemer.
There is a great need to find peaceful co-exitence between christians and gay community. That means there is a need to find common ground to exist. So to satisfy every side we need to make some uncomfortable political decisions for some parties. To me it looks crazy that a business is not free to choose it’s customers. So if christians are forced to accept customers against their beliefs it will only cause dissatisfaction and draw unnecessary battle lines. This earth does not need any more combat. We have other more pressing business to attend to. Besides they did not want a photographer that did not want the job. He/she would do a lousy job anyways because of being forced. So they where just looking to cause trouble or score big bucks in the courtroom. And everybody sings along to their tune. Please..
BHS, the “Christian lunatics” you are referring to, are very sure they are the ones following the “superior morals” in the Bible. Did you not know this? Possibly they think you are not obeying the commands of the Bible. Or perhaps they think you are, if you are ready to deny the right for homosexuals to marry because your “superior morals” denies it. Even though you know it is totally unethical.
Yes, any ideology may be abused, beware not to stand with the abusers. Most people in that lot think they are among the good guys. How to know, if you are abusing your ideology? By reading deeper into the holy book of your respective ideology? Maybe by finding out where exactly in the Bible is the photography of gay marriage forbidden, or if one attends as a paid professional – to avoid secular fines – is it OK, if you are redeemed by Jesus later from this most terrible of sins?
Or simply, perhaps by finding the ethical side of your ideology and supporting that? Is there an ethical side to your ideology?
I really have no need for a personal redeemer. Exept, if I could somehow force myself to believe in hell. A place, or state we have no evidence what so ever of, and if I was frightened by the thought enough to believe a particular sect of a particular religion (among the thousands of religions in the world) would save me from eternal torment, a fate bestowed upon me at birth because of being human without my own cause and because I have been created unable to follow the alledged “superior morals”, that seem to me like tribal moralism of ancient cultures. No, I am not able to take any of those wild leaps into darkness.
I ask you one last time, how do you know, or define, that the morals of the Bible is “superior”? How do you measure it to be that, if not through your understanding of ethics? If ethics defines what is moral (as I have several times before claimed), is it not then the superior method of knowing what is wrong, or right? If it is not, then what is?
It really is not sufficient to simply claim, that the Bible defines if something is right or wrong, because you have to have a method to base that claim somehow. Saying it is that, because it was inspired by the creator of the entire universe, does not qualify as a reason, because a) we have no way of verifying that claim and b) we do not know the nature and character of this alledged creator as the holy book gives a controversial image of a loving, but vengefull, jealous and sometimes monstrous entity and c) because we have no way of verifying the existance of such a thing as a creator at all. Do we? If we had, there would be no need for faith, hell, religions, or any of that. Correct?
If you think it is wrong to force a photographer to take a picture at a gay marriage feast, then do you think it is a lesser evil than not to allow the gay people to get married? Wich is the greater evil? Honestly. Wich will cause more harm and how do you define that? Perhaps by ethics? Is it ethical to deny some people the right to get married, because a photographer might have a prejudice against their marriage?
And finally, what ethical right does a all-powerfull god have to demand that gay people should be stoned to death, or not be allowed to get married? What ethical right has a god to judge to divide us poor humans alledgedly his own imperfect creations into eternal bliss and eternal suffering? Is any of that perfectly just, or perfectly mercifull?
The usual problem is that people read too little of the Bible. At surface reading some things may look wild and hair raising but if you go deeper you will understand God more. I am reading a great book about this subject:
Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God
Recommended read for anyone interested about hearing both sides of the debate. This forum is too short to deal with myriad issues of the Bible that the atheists have. It’s like trying to discuss inner workinkings of a space shuttle. Too many details for a short message like this. But we can discuss them more in the future bit by bit. Meanwhile you can get to know what actual theologians have pondered in the past. There is a lot to learn there.
As for gays. I have nothing against the gay marriage if majority wants it. But I have issues in the following:
- Forcing people to go against their faith
- Not allowing people to raise their concerns freely even if it is against the popular opinion.
These go against the idea of the democracy. If not allowed then it is just a form of dictatorship of the majority.
Bible definitely does not include a command “thou shall judge and crush other’s opinions if you are a majority”. Far from it. It says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”. Here is a one example for you about Biblical superior morals. Learn from it o ye atheists.
Twist twist, turn turn, spin spin… we can make anything look respectable if we try hard enough; we always find ways to excuse and defend the moral monster we’ve come to love. God could come down and cast us all into hell and we Christians could say “Yes, but we deserved it!” Christians have often been compared to the confused abused wife, who sees her husband’s beatings as justifiable.
Even if we work to excuse every atrocity in the Bible, we STILL live in a world filled with pain and suffering (humans and animals) that need not exist. As I said to someone earlier today…
“Do you believe Adam had free will in the Garden of Eden? If “Yes,” then this proves it is possible for a man to live in a pain-free world while still having free will. (If “No,” then Adam was forced to sin, and we have a whole other problem.) If God is love, then there is no reason for us to be living in the pain-filled world we know today. We should all be living in the Garden of Eden! And if someone should choose to disobey God and eat from the tree of knowledge, then God could simply cause them to die, or disappear, or be exiled from the garden (being unable to reproduce). It makes no sense for all the innocent people (and animals) in the garden to suffer for another man’s sin, no more than it would make sense to throw every man in jail because one man committed a crime. Ergo either the Christian God is evil, or doesn’t actually exist.”
Break the chains of superstition and bee free to … what? That video casts a dangerous lie. Bible is clear on this. We do not serve God out of fear but as a response to His love. We are His children and he loves every last one of us. We are built to walk together with God (and ourselves, our neighbor and our environment). That is the lesson of Adam and Eve. We are free to choose the love of God or our own way.
Besides. We are not in a position to judge eternal God. We just do not have the necessary information to see why evil needs to be. There are causes and effects that go far beyond our knowledge. Who says that the main aim of the life is happiness and good life? Mans end on this world is not happiness but the true knowledge of the God and eternal reward in the next.
We are the Adam. It’s not the act of one man in the past that caused this misery. It is the fallen nature OF US ALL that is the main cause of all this mess. A christian is not surprised to see evil in this world. It is to be expected because we are all fallen. This evil in this wold is actually a pointer to the truth of the Bible.
Love of the God is not battered wife syndrome. Ask your wife. She will tell you how it is
“Bible is clear on this.”
Your entire entire premise remains based on the Bible being true. Do you have some definitive proof of this? If you were to put your best foot forward, and point to ONE thing in the Bible to prove it’s true, what would that be? Or is it entirely based on faith in stories, as most made-up religions are?
“We are the Adam. It’s not the act of one man in the past that caused this misery. It is the fallen nature OF US ALL that is the main cause of all this mess.”
Even if Adam actually existed, I see no reason why God couldn’t continue to let him live in a paradise where the only evil comes from men, not God. That way, we still have free will, we can still do evil if we choose to, and the innocent need not suffer. A baby has not sinned against God yet, and should not suffer the penalty as if he has. Nor have the animals sinned against God. I say the explanation that makes the most sense is that the story is made up by man, which is why it contains such logical errors.
Peace!
First you must separate two facts. The claim I’m making (= bible claims God loves us) is a truth represented in the bible. There is nothing that you can do to doubt that because it is an unrefutable fact. Is bible true, is another question entirely.
Well what is the best clam to the truth of the bible then? There are of course many and one must consider all of them as a whole. For example I think one must first consider the evidence for the existence of the God. I find some of them very convincing. Kalam cosmological argument, contingency argument etc. But if you premise that God = true how do we get from that to christian God then?
If I have to pick one theory on the truth of the Bible I’d pick resurrection of Jesus as a best proof. Empty tomb and postmortem appearances are best explanation of the historical facts represented in the Bible and outside sources. This is also something that can be historically proven to near enough degree.
Of course it is the very nature of knowledge to be fleeting. You can dig your heels in and say historical evidence is not enough. But that means we should disregard many facts about history we already take for granted. Thus it depends on the criterion you set yourself I suppose.
BHS, The Kalam cosmological argument was allready debunked by Immanuel Kant. However, even if we had to agree, that the universe has to have a cause (wich is a matter we simply do not know), we do not have any way to determine that such a cause would be any god of any particular religion. It is such a blind leap of faith to find any connection between a natural phenomenon such as a cause for the present observable universe and an entity as imagined by men of antiquity.
Even if there was a supernatural cause for the universe, we have no way of knowing what it was, do we?
Even, if Jesus resurrected we have no way of knowing what caused it. Do we?
The resurrection of Jesus is not on any level a “historical fact”. We do not know what happened to him, or even if he was an actual historical character. We have no certainty of any of the stories told about him are in any way true. The supernatural parts are especially conpicious, because we have none what so ever verifiable evidence about anything supernatural, but we have a surmounting abundace of evidence of supernatural claims that are verifiably false, or even total hoaxes. The four Gospels are not a historical source, but more like an ethnographical source. None of the writers, whom we do not know for sure when or who they were, signed to historical integrity. There is one contemporary historical source. That is Josephus, who possibly refers to Jesus being crucified, but he writes it down only as common knowledge and not as an important historical event. In a nother story Josphus even tells us how a man might survive crucifixion.
We have no way of knowing wether Jesus died on the cross and resurrected, or not. The Gospels are obviously written long after the incident, and have a very keen interrest to compell the reader about some key elements of the story, but still they fail to be coherent even about those. They contradict each other on every turn and are obvious hearsay stories in the case of the actual execution. They do not even claim to be eyewitness stories about the crucifixion. The Gospels name a group of women as the eyewitnesses of the crucifixion and alledged death of Jesus, but some of those same women are also named to be the eyewitnesses of the events at the tomb, but they can hardly agree about anything what happened at the tomb. How many angels were there and what did they say or do? Were there guards at the tomb, or not? Did the dead rise from the graves during the execution? There are a number of ways how the described events could have played out so that the apostoles thought Jesus died on the cross, even if he did not and we can not even rule out the possibility that they lied about the entire event, after they had invested and committed their entire lives on it.
The mere fact that the Gospel writers agree, that Jesus died on the cross does not conclude that is what really happened. They could not have known for sure. None of them were doctors, or even present at the execution, nor at the burial. The fact that they also agree to have seen him after the execution is evidence of him not having died on the cross. They claim he still bore the wounds from the crucifixion, but it is no wonder, that this particular group of people thought, that it was more likely he resurrected, rather than that he merely was a lucky gyu who happened to survive the crucifixion. Too much of a coincidence? More likelier as a coincidence, than as the most significant proof of supernatural activity, anyway? Maybe it was no coincidence and there was a conspiracy to save Jesus. There were plenty of people with very good motives to make such conspiracies. We can not know, or verify, if there was one, or several, nor none. And all this only if we think, that the entire story is not a complete fabrication (wich we cannot verify).
I personally happen think a good part of it is true, since there are often true events behind intriguing stories. That may make them more compelling, but the truth of this event is lost to us. It is not even evidence, not to speak of proof, of anything supernatural. The mere fact that the Gospels contradict each other is evidence that the particular claims about a god in the Bible are false, because them contradicting each other is very suspicious in comparrison to claims that they were written under divine inspiration and influence.
We take the historical sources are evidence of what happened as far as they do not make supernatural claims. We do not really think that the pharaos were sons of gods, though all the contemporary sources written down during the thousands of years the pharaos ruled over Egypt claim so. We do not really think there lived dogheaded people beyond Sarmatia during antiquity, even though a number of historical sources from that era claim so. There is no actual historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus any more than there is for these claims. Sorry.
Well first off. Mr Kant’s debunkal has been debunked several times over. Kalam is a logical argument and still stands. As do many other theist theories about the beginning of the universe. It is almost fun to watch as atheists start to dance and wriggle because they can not answer the question on the birth of the universe in satisfactory manner. Well I can. Gen 1:1
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
I also see that you have read your atheist propaganda on resurrection carefully. Do try to remember that discussion is still going on and advances. You have fallen behind the times on some of your issues.
But let’s have some refreshing change. I will supply you with some of your own experts challenging some of your arguments. I find this infidels.org stuff a refreshing change on the otherwise boringly monotonous atheist crap. And these articles contain some updates that you seem to need in your argumentation.
How Not to Argue Against the Historicity and Resurrection of Jesus:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/mckinsey.html
The Contemporary Debate on the Resurrection:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jesus_resurrection/chap4.html
BHS, I am glad you find yourself entertained. However, atheism does not require an answer to the question of the origin of the universe. It simply does not accept your explanation, because it is absolute fancy to think it was a particular personal deity. It is a totally unverifiable claim. So, how does that make me “dance and wriggle” around anything?
Besides your answer to the same question continues to claim your god made first the earth and only after that the sun. Since, this is hardly likely, and since so many other ancient cultures have made equally silly and unplausible and mutually exclusive claims how the heavenly bodies came to be, it is very easy to conclude, that such claims for the origin of the universe are mere fantastic guesses by men who had no idea how it happened. The question is not how the universe came to be, if it was not made by a particular god as not claimed by that, or any god anywhere, but instead by some old books. The question remains, is it more plausible, that a supernatural entity wich happened to create the universe out of nothing, decided to tell about this to a few guys to write it down so future generations of all the people on earth could just absorb this information without question, or is it more likely that men have made up all the religious explanations of the origin of the universe?
Why would you think humans have an answer to the question of the origin of universe, anyway?
How was Kant debunked? I did not know, that he was refuted on the Kalam issue.
You seem to jump into conclusions. Such as the conclusion, that since the Bible tells how the universe came to be, it must be true. It is just the same as to claim, that since it says in the Tacitus Germania, that there are dog-headed people beyond Sarmatia, and since it is not possible to refute that claim by any amount of certainty, simply because none have ever been found, there must have been some. Or to such conclusions as, that if I have raised similar questions as a nother atheist, I must have learned my ideas from that very same atheist. I have never had any habit of reading into any atheist propaganda. I like to make my own conclusions. As logical as I can, with what information I have at hand. If I have, here in this conversation, claimed something and it is not a quotation recognized by me from someone else (like Kant), it is my own understanding of the sources we have awailable. I have read my Josephus, Tacitus and the Bible. Have you?
The links you provided do not argue against my claims. If you think they do, you could point out where and how. However, keep reading there is good stuff there to behold.
Well please do not be beyond refutation. You do have a sharp head but it is foolhardy to think that you can be expert in everything. The worst fanatics among christians come among those that think they can never be wrong. And especially want to be immune to criticism from among their own.
Thus the conclusions of the internet infidels are a great learning tool for you (and me). Quotes like one of your main points, gospel contradictions should make you think your position:
“even if one treats the NT accunts of the Resurrection as historical accounts, the fact that those accounts contradict one another about incidental details provides no direct evidence against the Resurrection itself”
or the conclusion of the other article:
“On the basis of the available evidence (and the arguments I’ve seen), I conclude that a rational person may accept or reject the resurrection”
And so on. This is the view of those that are negative to the message of the gospel. I’d say truth lies somewhere between your position and Mr. Laine Craig’s position and one is indeed in their rights to believe resurrection on the basis of the new testament accounts.
Now there is still those questions on Genesis and non christian miracles. You throw questions as big as an ocean and each would be a long discussion. So I’m afraid we will have to look at them later. We all have lives to live do we not
I do not think myself an expert at everything. But it does not mean I need to take some other people as authorities in a matter I am able to evaluate myself. And should be able to, if this god of yours was just or mercifull. I can be wrong and have found myself wrong about a great many things during my life. As far as I know, inerrancy is only claimed by religious leadership and holy supposedly divinely inspired scriptures. And that alone should make you suspicious about them. Especially, if they make obvious mistakes, or are in contradiction to themselves (like demonstrated in this conversation abowe).
Now, how do these quotes you took from the “infidel” sites argue against my previous points? You quoted that: “even if one treats the NT accunts of the Resurrection as historical accounts, the fact that those accounts contradict one another about incidental details provides no direct evidence against the Resurrection itself” But I do not take the NT accouts as historical. I allready told you they are obviously ethnographical material. There is no way of verifying anything about them.Them contradicting each other is proof they are not innerant, nor divinely inspired. Them verifying certain supernatural events between each other, is no historical evidence of such events. It is actually not proof of anything exept a common goal between their writers on certain religious points. The limit between the possibly historical points about them is right there, in the supernatural claims. We accept ancient sources to be historical only when they are describing natural events that can be verified (like in my example about Tacitus and the dog-headed people). The second quote you gave was that: “On the basis of the available evidence (and the arguments I’ve seen), I conclude that a rational person may accept or reject the resurrection” I agree with this one to a certain extent. A lot of generally rational people choose to believe something like this, even without actual rational evidence for it. Like I said we do not know what happened to Jesus.
There is no way we may even know. That is the main problem about such an extraordinary event as a resurrection, that it would certainly need a lot more rational proof to become a plausible suggestion. As a story, it bears all the resemblance to a religious story from any religion or ancient folklore. To most folklore there is a key element of truth in them, but that does by no means transform those stories to be exactly true in any case. It is possible that Jesus resurrected, but since the evidence for that is so remote, it hardly serves as proof of a god. It is utter circular reasoning to claim that the resurrection had to be true, because a god would be an obvious explanation to it, and that a god must exist because Jesus appeared to perform the resurrection. These mythical characters do not confirm each other, but on the contrary they set each other in a questionable light.
Furher more. Even if there was a god and a semi-historical character called Jesus was somehow connected to that particular god, we still would not know anything about this god for sure. The stories in the book, where these both entities appear, do not give an impression of perfectly just or perfectly mercifull god, unless you abandon ethics and take the alledged word of these characters in the book as an ultimate measure for what is just, or mercifull. That is a nother complete circle in thinking and hardly leads to better ethics.
If I have presented too hard or too wide ranging questions in my comments, you may ignore them, or take them as rethorical, or answer to them to yourself, if you can. There is no pressure, I have allready come to my own conclusions about their answers. Perhaps we should let our host present the questions and try to answer him, instead of getting into these terribly long conversations far beyond the topic.
Little conflicts that gospels have are caused by different viewpoints of the writers. To me that is an indication of better trustworthiness. It is an indication that Mathew, Mark, Luke and John did not sit down on the same table and coordinate their testimonials. It would have been a simple matter to do so and get the same stories. So reading gospels is like watching courtroom testimonials. Each giving their own view of the happening. Minute details might be therefore wrong but historicity of the crucifixion and resurrection remains strong. It is up to an individual to decide about wether the supernatural parts are true. So we do have an accord here. Fifty fifty. True or not, anyone can decide themselves.
“If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”
F. F. Bruce
Manchester University
BHS, the courtroom analogy fails, because there is no courtroom that would accept such vague testimonies. If the Gospels were written under divine inspiration, why do they not conclude on the details? The fact that the writers did not write it all down at once and under co-ordinated plan, does by no means make these stories any more true. The fact that individual fanfiction writers of Star Trek do not know what the others have written, but agree, that U.S.S. Enterprice is a spaceship capable of moving faster than light, does not turn any of their stories into truth. Sorry about the silly analogy.
The Gospel writers can hardly agree about anything on the matter of what actually happened, exept that Jesus resurrected, so wich testimony is true and wich is false? How many angels were there? Were there guards at the tomb? Did the dead rise from their graves? These are not minor differences of eyewitness testimonies. They are wild hearsay stories with a high element of supernatural bias, that would not be admissable in any sane court. None of the Gospel writers even claims to have been present at the execution, or at the burial. The mere fact that they do agree about one thing (wich is quite an unlikely event, as you must agree) does not mean that it is true. It only goes to represent how untrustworthy witnesses these stories serve as.
We simply do not know what happened at the crucifixion. Do we? There propably is some reason why you are ready to jump into conclusion, that the story about the resurrection has to be true, while I find it such an extraordinary claim would require better and more reliable information to be plausible. The main difference between you and I, as a result is, that since I do not find this story plausible, I am condemned to eternal torment according to your holy scriptures, while you are promised eternal bliss. Can you percieve, why I find this all so very suspicios?
Though I would like to give you fifty/fifty chances, that is not at all what it looks like from my point of view. I woud say, there is a remote possibility of your particular religion being true on some parts (as there is for most religions I have ever heard of), but the Gospels are such a weak source of information about this stuff that they are not very convincing. Still a person may of course choose to hold something sacred, though most often that only happens to people who are compelled by their particular religious, or ideological story. And people are compelled by the most extraordinary stories and have faith in a multitude of religions and different cultural explanations of gods.
You are appealing to authority I do not recognize. Who is this F. F. Bruce and what is his position on that university? Why would he tell such a blatant lie, or is it something he really believes in because it is not his field of expertise, or is his opinion just something totally taken out of context? We may call the Gospels historical sources, just as we call Tacitus and his book Germania a historical source. It is just the fancy supernatural stuff we do not take as historical. That is why those books are in those parts ethnographical sources (though interresting at that) and not historical as such. In addition to that Tacitus is known to have signed into historical integrity and the Gospels are religious stories by religious men among a legion of different and mutually exclusive religious stories by religious men. Do you understand the difference?
F.F. Bruce is a very well known New Testament researcher:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._F._Bruce
I recommend that you learn his stuff well as well as N.T. Wright’s or Mr Lane Craig’s among others if you want to be taken seriously in the resurrection debate. Expert opinion is always something you should not pass by lightly. It is a sign of wisdom to learn well what the other side has to say.
As for court of law that has taken a serious look at the resurrection. Supreme Court of New South Wales:
http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/Supreme_Court/ll_sc.nsf/pages/SCO_young110406
Seems to concur with my opinion. I’d say that the evidence for the historicity is quite strong. As for miracles.. Up to each individual to decide themselves.
I have not studied Tacitus extensively and I need to some day. But I’d say that his writing is typical of the people of that day. Maybe bit overdoing it but with a strong grain of truth. Dog faced people? Perhaps a village of deformed people. Such genetic, man made or disease deformities are not unknown:
http://www.plasticsurgeryafrica.org/conditions_noma.htm
There is a natural explanation to most miracles but not all. And even we do know the natural explanation does not rule God out. There are plenty of things that science can not yet measure and maybe will never be able to. After all does it matter if we find out the mechanics of how God did something?
BHS, what other side? You are the other side in this debate. You know, the desicion about the reliability of the Bible should not depend on the opinions of other people (experts or not), if your god was just or even mercifull, because then there would not be this ridiculous guessing game if your god even exists, nor is all the things alledged about this entity.
I do not recognize theologians and their opinions as expert views on this matter. They are kind of anti-scientists, because as I allready said science never starts from the premise that the end result of research is beforehand setteled. They work to prove the existance of a god and believe in a particular god as a preset and absolute truth, even though they can not posses any knowledge about such an entity. That is a very bad and unlikely way of reaching any objective views.
Of course a Christian court would rule that Jesus died and resurrected, because they are biased to think so beforehand. Just like a religious Christian researcher would. I doubt that they would if they did not know whose death and events they are researching into. There is no eyewitness accounts and the testimonies have been given years after the actual event. Even all the testimonies are by people who have emotionally totally committed to the religious cult wich hangs on the idea that something supernatural happened. Sorry these are not evidences a sane court would accept. Even so. Courts sometimes missrule. Especially if the “experts” in the court, or the jury were biased against the accused. Just like happened to Jesus, remember?
The defences against the other possibilites than resurrection are just silly:
1. The possibility that the body of Jesus was stolen. Only Matt ever claims that the tomb was sealed and that there were guards. The story about the guards is an obvious fabrication, since he claims to know how the priests and the Romans came to decide there should be guards and because the guards do not appear in the other versions, though they obviously should have.
Further more the women were going to the tomb with embalming herbs. If there were guards and an impossibly heavy stone at the doorway, what did the women thought they could accomplish there?
2. The Gospels are a lie. We do not even know who wrote them. If it indeed was the apostoles to whom they are attributed to their martyrdom proves nothing else but the fact that they were fanatic about their cause. And they thought their original leader had “sacrificed” himself for them. This does by no means point out that they were truthfull let alone knew wether Jesus had died and resurrected or not. Their credibility is not attacked by their enemies in their own writing.
3. Jesus could have just collapsed and caused people to think he resurrected, because we have no direct eyewitness account about the events at the crucifixion. Even if most of the stuff the women claimed to have witnessed there was true, it does by no means rule out the possibility of Jesus surviving. We do not know what happened there for sure nor even if he was put to the grave and most importantly we have no information of how long was he in there. But we do know that it was possible to survive crucifixion, and that the soldiers did not brake the legs of Jesus.
4. The imposter. Why was it so difficult for the diciples to recognize Jesus after his execution? Would you have a hard time to recognize your good friend even after he was proclaimed dead if that friend came calling and spoke to you? I doubt that very much.
So, any of these other explanations presents itself as more likely than that Jesus was a son of a particular god, and that he resurrected as claimed by the Gospels.
Yes, it is possible that there is a natural explanation to the dog-headed people in the histories by Tacitus. It is more than likely there is some natural explanation to a story that has grown out of its proportions in a time, when science was not a very often used model to explain extraordinary events and phenomenons. Exactly the same propability applies to the resurrection story of Jesus.
Natural explanations do not rule out god, but they do not serve as evidence of a god either. The more we can explain our environment by natural reason, the divine explanations become less likely. Gods are still totally unverified claims. People believe in them, like they do in other supernatural claims, simply by faith. However, would a just and mercifull god demand faith from us? Why?
This is where I stop. I have represented witness accounts from theologians, judges and even hard core atheists that say resurrection is possible. Of course there is never total accuracy in history. There is always possibility of casting doubt.
I might claim that Hitler still lives because his death is shrouded in similar sort of mystery. There are varying eyewitness accounts of his death too. Some heard gunshot in his room some claim there was none but still we take it as valid history. Even without the body. Plenty of different theories there. Are you rushing to cast doubt on his death? Why not? Almost the same problems of historicity apply there as well. Conflicting and bias eyewitness accounts and political games with conflicting interests.
But let’s leave Hitler dead or not debate to lunatics. That was just an example of how we normally take things in history for granted even with conflicting witness accounts. That’s just how history works. No 100% certainties and no DNA tests unfortunately.
God does not play games. His glory is plainly visible to anyone willing to look. But there is also room for doubt. That’s why I say fifty-fifty. One can believe or not to believe. That’s how God wants it. You have total freedom to go your own way. No problem there.
BHS, yes the conversation has not advanced much in a while and the actual topic about god being mercifull, or just has been abandoned, at least by you, a long time ago.
I do not expect to be able to make you see that the theologians are not qualified as “wittnesses” in this case, since they have made their mind up about the very extraordinary claims beforehand. Their only goal is to prove what they allready and absolutely believe to be the truth. But their faith is based on an exeptional and mere impossible to prove claim. That is not how objective reality is observed. The problem lies in that what was for centuries a traditional and naturally accepted claim about supernatural influence in the world, has moved from that position to the state of very extraordinary claim, as we have started to understand the universe around us. That is why there are such silly, illogical and defencive attitudes as the creationism.
The story of resurrection is not strong in historical sense, but a lot of historians and even judges have based their world view on believing it. This faith in the surpernatural has naturally affected their judgement. I have not claimed to know the historical events around that myth, but at least I am able to recognize it as what it is – a myth.
As to Mr. Hitler he may be alive, though that would require for someone to have saved him from the bunker in besieged Berlin. He would be something like 123 now and he clearly was a sick man when he was last seen in public. But he did not smoke, did not drink alcohol and was a vegetarian, so who knows. His words certainly moved a lot of people. The dental record of his burned body was witnessed by several doctors, and though there are people who firmly believe he did not die, it looks rather unlikely that he did not. The evidence for his death is surmounting in comparrison to the alledged evidence about Jesus having resurrected.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that in a couple of hundred years we have a cult that says HItler resurrected, and did not die, and shall return from heavens to lead the si called “aryan” race once again in the end times of the world. Maybe some scriptures about this will be atributed to Goebbels, Himler, Göring, or Speer and even if these text contradicted each other there will still be people who want to believe in them. There propably are allready diehards who are certain of something like this. And though someone would write a book that claims all this now, it still would not transform into reality. It is even possible that some 2000 years from now, there are still people expecting Hitlers speedy return and claim that the modern world where they live in, is a proof of the need for Mr. Hitler to return. I would say that it is a possibility that Hitler resurrected, but just as remote one as that Jesus did. Do you understand?
Call it what you will, but to me it strikes as a perfectly cruel game as a system of who ends up in eternal torment and who gets to heaven by being born into the right culture, or finding one particular god more plausible than all the others, perhaps it is not a game, but what it is not either is perfectly just, or perfectly mercifull.
Gee! Hitler’s alive now? I was taught otherwise in the elementary school! Your take on history is a strange one indeed. A lot of the history we take for granted did not happen. O well each to their own I suppose
As for the discussion. Was it me who started all of these side rails? Roll up the page a bit and look who started all this.
Hi, i’ve got a question, not really related to this article, but i was wondering if you could answer it.
Everyone has different opinions, different views of things, different ways of thinking. Another way to put it is by asking different people what they thought their paradise would be. I had that as a art assignment once. And all of the 26 students came up with something very different (out of these 26, about 22 are Christians, just so you know). Because none of us have the same views. Everyone acts the way they think is the best way to act. Even if it’s very different.
Then how can God judge someone? Everyone would end up in Heaven if He judged them by the person’s views.
You’ll say it’s the way the Bible says. But not everyone Christian agrees with the TOTALITY of the Bible, right? Some Christians i’ve debated with said to not take the old testament literally. Thats means they don’t agree with the totality of the Bible. But they’re still Christians.
Everyone acts the way THEY think will do the greater good.
Then how can God judge someone?
I’m sorry, i just find humanity and the idea of a Christian God contradicting.
I’m sorry if you’re going to waste your time explaining religion to a thirteen year-old. But i think I deserve some answers.
I’m Atheist by the way, just so you know.
Howdy Chloe, I think we all deserve some answers.
Indeed, some things seem naturally good, but not everyone agrees on them. Like how many disparate cultures once deemed it was “good” to worship the sun. (Surely God put this truth on their hearts, because how else would they come this same “good” conclusion?) And ancient Hebrews once deemed it was “good” to kill everyone in Israel who wasn’t Hebrew… even the babies (surely their parents didn’t deem this as very good). And modern Muslim extremists deemed it “good” to fly planes into the World Trade Center.
So if God exists, I’m not sure how He sorts out all this “goodness”. I can’t imagine He would punish people for doing what they believed in their hearts to be good. If they were mistaken, it seems it’s God’s fault for not stating His desires clearly enough (if He did, surely they would have followed them).
That’s not to say that all religion is bad, it may improve people’s lives… even if it’s wrong. But I think we have to acknowledge its potential to be misleading and, at worst, deadly.
Regardless of whether or not God exists, I think all this confusion is really quite sad. As you’ve said, we deserve some answers, and religion only seems to cloud the issue rather than coming to any firm conclusions. If we (humans) don’t know the answer, we should say “I don’t know.” So to answer your question, I honestly don’t know how God would judge these people… if He exists. But I think you’re right in saying it seems contradictory; for a God who is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), Christianity is often very confusing.
BUT, don’t believe me, or anything else you read on the Internet — always do your homework, listen to both sides, and keep thinking for yourself.
Peace!
Oh, don’t worry about my homework, quickly and well done
. And i guess what i came on here for – i’m always chatting with atheists my age or a bit older, and then i found this website, and decided just to give it a look – and asking you a few questions. 
To get both sides’ views.
Several moments ago i was messaging a group called Understanding Islam. It was interesting, and i asked them things that were bugging me about their religion – women’s rights.
And it was really interesting to get answers from inside the religion, you know? And i found out things that were really worth thinking of. Islam is actually quite the same as Christianity from a non-subjective viewpoint – Holy book, rules to follow, dictates to know – and the only way things go wrong is if the people, the followers of this religion interpret it differently than it is meant to be interpreted; or just don’t rely on it enough in their lives and just use the rules and dictates when it helps their personal interest.
Because, I personally think, that religion is actually quite good (giving faith to people, making them morally stronger, etc…) IF it isn’t influencing other people and causing any kind of (mental & physical) harm.
BUT, getting back to the subject, (the rest of this is assuming God exists) if God had a place for us to go when we die and that place can only be attained by doing good, wouldn’t he send some kind of reliable “proof/evidence” for us to believe that a such thing exists? I mean, sure, you’ve got the Bible, but more and more people are doubting it. It worked just fine in the Middle Ages, but not anymore. Wouldn’t he send someone or something to show us? Because if he doesn’t, i find that unfair for us, it’s like playing an unknown game but you don’t know what the rules are. So you just play on whims…or waste the whole game trying to figure out the rules.
Peace!
I couldn’t agree more.
This straightforward tip will save you a lot of frustration.
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