Objective morality argument
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12/27/2014 8:41:06 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/27/2014 8:28:59 PM, DanneJeRusse wrote:At 12/27/2014 8:15:23 PM, PLEASESTOPLYING wrote:All of his threads and argument are just that, fallacies and false premises, stuff that he just says is so and it is instantly a fact, then he goes on to make conclusions based on his religious beliefs. Exactly what I believe, except I would say critical thinking is discouraged and the ability to believe anything is a must. however it could be talent, because if you can hold a straight face and tell children and grown people alike that you actually think that a man lived in a whale, snakes used to have the ability to speak, and that every animal on earth was on a damn boat for a year with no issue, then you are very talented or simply delusional Did anyone ever disprove the existence of ZEUS? |
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12/28/2014 1:00:52 AM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/27/2014 2:27:21 PM, Double_R wrote:At 12/27/2014 1:10:34 PM, PGA wrote: Already made. Your worldview can't explain why something should be moral, just that it is because you and they like it that way. On that basis what grounds do you have to condemn Hitler's Germany for murdering 6 million Jews? They just did what they liked. What is wrong with that? If you can do it why can't they? You have a changing basis for morality with no fixed address for why something is good, other that it is something you and others like. So why do you treat the person who likes something else and considers it good as an outcast? He is just doing what he likes. In order for a fact to be seen for what it is we need to see it in its true light. Why does your subjective mind know what is right and good?...Why are you right and what is the unchanging values that you place rightness upon? No, the point of your challenge is to ignore my questions to you while you expect me to answer yours. Why is what you believe right? Show me it is more that personal preference or the preference of some other subjective human being who is making his preference something you must also agree with. Show me there is something you can hang right on other than changing opinions. God is necessary to justify a belief system, otherwise all you have is your tastes opposed to mine. Without an objective unchanging, benevolent, standard tastes would be all there is, no intrinsic values, and I may just prefer to shoot you in a dark alley with no witnesses. That's how truth works. All you and I can do is use our reason to determine what that truth is, I suggest you start doing that and stop giving me these meaningless appeals to emotion. Again, all you have is a descriptive "is" rather than a prescriptive "ought." But the very fact that you use the word "meaningless" speaks volumes. It says that you do feel that there is an objective standard, a better or best, in which to judge goodness and make appeal to. In order for something to be meaningless there must be an objective meaning. In order for something to be good there must be an objective measure for goodness. The problem is without God you just don't know what it is as you fumble around in your darkened mind trying to gasp for it. God does not justify an objective moral belief system, he justifies a subjective one. Once again... demonstrate how this is not the case. And try to do it without simply calling God objective. Why would I want to try to do it without appealing to God or calling Him what He is? I don't live by your worldview presuppositions. I think they are totally foolish. God is all knowing so He would understand something in its totality, a fact for what it is, without prejudice. Who are you to tell me what to do or what is right and wrong when you have no standard other than your personal tastes? If my dictates come from me and yours come from you without any universal, absolute, all knowing, benevolent, unchanging God then your life has no ultimate meaning, neither does mine. Do what you want. Fly a plane into a building if you like! Exterminate 6 million Jews if you can! Enforce whatever you like if it is within your ability! It is this kind of mentality we see so much of in our world. Morality has no fixed address with this kind of thinking. Good can mean anything, so can evil, until evil is perpetrated against you personally, then it becomes a definite evil. (See underlined above) That the world is the place it is because people try to live by doing what they like and make others follow their desires instead of doing what is right based on a fixed and unchanging ideal that can be appealed to. You have no fixed standard, You have a standard that for the most part is based on Christian morality but when this standard is ignored societies flip flop between their idea of good and evil. Not long ago in your country same-sex marriage was considered wrong. Now the view is changing. How can it be considered both right and wrong by the majority, yet at different times? Which is it in reality - right or wrong? What happens is some social reformed with his own ideas gets into office and changes the way people think of goodness. It can't be good in and of itself because there is no objective, universal standard or measure of goodness without an objective, unchanging being. In the course of history we see men in power changing the rules of their particular society. "Everybody wants to rule the world." You don't like the answer so you reject it. Well reject it all you want, but don't sit here and tell me I don't have a standard because you can't figure out how to come up with one for yourself without a 2,000 year old book telling you what to think. Someone is telling you how to think also, some relative, subjective being(s). You have a standard that is based on feelings and personal taste. It happens to agree with what you like and what you want practiced so when someone flies a plane into your house because they don't like your standard and want to change it just realize this, it is no more wrong to them than not flying a plane into your house is right for you. That is the rules you want to live by, personal taste. ... yet when God commands you freak out. I know you do. And His commands are based on unchanging universal goodness - Himself. Because He is all knowing and tells me He is good, shows me He is good and I have no higher authority and reference I can appeal to. I certainly do not consider your pretense of authority higher. The problem with your worldview is that it does not see its inconsistencies and its lack of ability to make sense of itself. Mere words. Find out what your presuppositions rest on before you make such claims. Less speeches, more questions, and more listening and just maybe you will get it. I have asked you many questions that you have dismissed. If you want me to answer your questions then answer mine. I have taken the time to justify my worldview yet I have not seen the same from you. You try justifying it by personal taste and societal taste and opinion, not because it actually is right. How does personal taste justify other than by might? Peter |
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12/28/2014 1:32:05 AM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/27/2014 11:27:54 AM, PGA wrote: The intricate and united prophecy of Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 that radiates out into the whole Bible.This is not evidence. First of all, the first author of the Bible was that of Mark at about 70 AD. Why do we think this is true - because he also referred to the destruction of the Jewish temple in the same era which has been verified by other Jewish historical sources. He also wrote (as did most during this time) allegorically which means figuratively or through stories, not factual. The rest of the apostles merely copied Mark with a few embellishments but clearly came years after Marks writ. It is easy to feign a prophesy - just predate an event after it occurred. There have been so many writers and re-writers of the bible with Christian agendas and political influences that it is impossible to state that anything in there written was prophetical.You say your position is NOT one of blind faith ( pretending to know something you cannot possibly know).... prove it. Show me the evidence. Therefore, a book in the Old Testament states something will occur and is captured by the New testament is not only highly suspicious but more importantly NOT credible. "No decision is unbiased"??? If I decide, based on the evidence, that the mathematical equation 1+1=2......where is my bias?Show me the objective data from which ALL can make an unbiased decision about YOUR god and belief structure. We're all waiting with unbridled anticipation. And you could not be more wrong. Facts DO NOT need interpretation. That is why they are called facts. The facts follow the evidence, the evidence is observable by all, unanimously. If one does not observe the force of gravity as fact while on this planet then he or she does not understand gravity or is being disingenuous - either way, gravity exists whether one believes it or not. Are you willing to go there, to test your ideas concerning the Bible? I like to start with specific prophesies because of how they are intrinsically related to and provide a hub that their spokes connect to every other part of the Bible.I have tested the stability of my worldview with what has been written in the bible and the bible simply does NOT hold up. You CANNOT reference a verse like the one above without making a presupposition that what is written in the christian bible is true. My question to you AGAIN is, how do you know this book to be the divine inspiration of God??? One of my presupposition core beliefs is that the biblical God is the one and only true God. I feel the best way for me to show this is to show you that His word is true, thus objective. So I would have to start with that as one of my basic presuppositional core beliefs in achieving my aim of establishing this objectivity. Are you willing to go there?YES, but you are not willing to answer my questions with intellectual honesty. Peter, what you have presented is NOT a rational argument for the validity of your beliefs because the understanding of your statements are on the basis of mere familiarity and not, for obvious reasons, necessarily or actually indicative of the rationality or the intelligibly of asserted factual statements or truth claims. If they are not commonly accepted as basic or self-evident common knowledge - how or who can assert their validity? Furthermore, your usage of religious language to support your claims is just a subjective, anecdotal claim and cannot and should not be used in validating your argument that the bible is the true word of god. Throwing a few passages from the bible as proof of these claims you assert only advances your argument if I believed the bible to be a divinely inspired or an influenced book. Since I do not - you have the burden of proof to illustrate this to me with a natural body of evidence. You cannot make "presuppositions" about god, the biblical passages, Christ, ANYTHING for your argument to be seriously examined. This is just one big logical fallacy which basically states, you are unwilling to look at the evidence to the contrary. |
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12/28/2014 2:37:12 AM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/27/2014 6:23:15 PM, Benshapiro wrote: Now we are getting somewhere! Finally we can discuss the nature of reality! The Prophet Sanders preaching the Word [][] |
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12/28/2014 10:37:34 AM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 1:00:52 AM, PGA wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:27:21 PM, Double_R wrote: Your worldview suffers from the exact same problem. Appealing to God doesn't change that. I asked how you determined that God is moral, this is your answer... Because He is all knowing and tells me He is good, shows me He is good and I have no higher authority and reference I can appeal to. I certainly do not consider your pretense of authority higher. All knowing is a useless characteristic for morality. Satan could be all knowing and still be evil. Having no higher authority is only useful if your case is "might makes right", which I will assume is not your argument. Because he tells you he is good... are you kidding? Because he shows you he is good... This is the problem. "God is good" is a moral judgment. The point of my question is to ask you how you made that judgment. If all you're going to do is sit here and tell me that God is good because he told you so, or give me the usual Christian BS that you can't judge God then you are not capable of having a moral discussion because all you are doing is regurgitating what you are told. You are the dog who sits because his owner tells him to, with no idea why you are doing it. In order to make a moral judgment you need to use your own moral standard. You can appeal to Gods standard all you want, but you can't determine why you ought to use his standard without first having your own idea of what you consider morality to be. Without that you can't address what makes his standard moral. In the end you are either mindlessly following orders (which does not make you a moral agent) or you have determined for yourself that his standard is moral in which case you are deciding based on your own morality, putting you and I in the same boat. So why do you treat the person who likes something else and considers it good as an outcast? He is just doing what he likes. There is quite a bit to how we go about determining what is moral. The basis of everyone's morality is our own desires. No way around that. From there it is a rational process. Do you want to be killed? No? So don't kill others. Do you want to have your things stolen? No? So don't steal other peoples things. It gets more complicated but you can start there. The simple fact is that because we are all the same species, we all feel the same way about most things. Certainly the basics. This allows us come to agreement on about what we consider moral about 99% of the time, allowing us to live together in a productive society. Someone who does not follow the 99% that the rest of us agree on is acting in opposition to what we strive to accomplish, and we will simply decide not to allow these individuals to succeed in doing so. That's all there is to it. This isn't rocket science. No, the point of your challenge is to ignore my questions to you while you expect me to answer yours. Yes, I began by questioning you. That is because you made a comment and I responded to it. That is how a debate site works. If you don't want to be questioned then don't make comments. I have no problem with people questioning me to death and will answer them till the cows come home, but I am reluctant to do so with someone who is just trying to shark off the responsibility of explaining themselves by shifting the topic to someone else's views. Why is what you believe right? Show me it is more that personal preference or the preference of some other subjective human being who is making his preference something you must also agree with. Show me there is something you can hang right on other than changing opinions. If you're asking why what I believe is objectively right then for the hundredth time, there is no such thing. If you want to talk about what morality is or should be based on then start with my response above explaining the very basics of it. Without an objective unchanging, benevolent, standard tastes would be all there is, no intrinsic values, and I may just prefer to shoot you in a dark alley with no witnesses. You may just prefer to shoot me in a dark alley now. So what? Still wondering how this proves God. And Yes, that would suck for me. But guess what... the fact that it would suck for me is the very reason why I am able to determine that I wouldn't do it to someone else. I don't need a dictator telling me not to do it in order for me to figure it out. That's how truth works. All you and I can do is use our reason to determine what that truth is, I suggest you start doing that and stop giving me these meaningless appeals to emotion. Just. Plain. Wrong. "Good" is a determination we make. It is nothing more than us judging the intent or actions of a person. Making this judgment requires us to have a standard to judge it by. That standard will always be subject to the mind making the judgment (including God's), making the standard necessarily subjective. Once a standard is chosen, then the intentions and actions can be evaluated in an objective fashion because the judgment is based on the object (the standard) not the subject (the mind evaluating it). You for whatever reason seem incapable of separating the word objective from morality, and intrinsic from value. The absence of an objective morality is not the absence of morality. The absence of intrinsic values is not the absence of values. Perhaps a dictionary would be a good starting point. What happens is some social reformed with his own ideas gets into office and changes the way people think of goodness... In the course of history we see men in power changing the rules of their particular society. "Everybody wants to rule the world." Are you really that incapable of thinking for yourself that you can't even contemplate the idea of others thinking for themselves? Rules change because we learn and develop in our societies. Once upon a time everyone was scared that homosexuals were sick people who like to rape little boys. We then learned that they are normal people just like everyone else. We used to think that they were incapable of raising families. We learned that they can. We used to be scared that society would die off if we allowed homosexually to be condoned. We learned that this was hilariously wrong. We learned. This is what it means to be a human being. Sorry that this is inconvenient for Christianity, deal with it. |
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12/28/2014 11:05:53 AM Posted: 7 years ago The ironic thing is that the Judeo-Christian historical record is littered with examples of subjective, ever evolving moral codes...
Circa 1500, people were burned at the stake for disbelieving in transubstantiation, for example... |
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12/28/2014 12:14:48 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 1:32:05 AM, MEK wrote:At 12/27/2014 11:27:54 AM, PGA wrote:The intricate and united prophecy of Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 that radiates out into the whole Bible.This is not evidence. First of all, the first author of the Bible was that of Mark at about 70 AD. Why do we think this is true - because he also referred to the destruction of the Jewish temple in the same era which has been verified by other Jewish historical sources. He also wrote (as did most during this time) allegorically which means figuratively or through stories, not factual. The rest of the apostles merely copied Mark with a few embellishments but clearly came years after Marks writ. That is a theory developed in large by the Germany higher critics centuries removed. Matthew's Hebrew Gospel Early church evidence The early churchman, Papias, wrote that "Matthew wrote down the sayings in Hebrew and each translated it as he was able", (Eusebius, H.E. [the History of the Church], 3.39; cf. 3.24). "Matthew published a written gospel for the Hebrews in their own tongue, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their passing, Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, transmitted to us in writing the things preached by Peter. Luke ... . Lastly, John ..." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.1.2; cf. Eusebius, H.E., 5.8) Pantaenus, c.180s, an early church missionary and Bible scholar, travelled to India to preach the gospel but found that the apostle Bartholomew had gone there before and left behind Matthew's gospel, "in the actual Hebrew characters" (Eusebius, H.E., 5.10; cf. Jerome, De.Vir.Ill. 36). Origen, around the end of the 2nd century, wrote in his commentary on Matthew that he only accepted, "the traditional view of the four gospels which alone are undeniably authentic in the church of God on earth. First to be written was that of the one-time exciseman who became an apostle of Jesus Christ - Matthew; it was published for believers of Jewish origin, and was composed in Hebrew letters/language. Next came that of Mark, who followed Peter's instructions in writing it ... Next came that of Luke, who wrote for Gentile converts ... Last of all came John's." (Origen cited in Eusebius, H.E., 6.25). Athanasius and Epiphanius (Synops. sacr. Script. p. 134. Vol. 2.; Contra Haeres. 1. Haer. 29. & 30) confirm the above traditions as does Jerome (4th century, Catalog. Script. Eccles fol. 90. Tom. 1. ad Hedib. fol. 46. Tom. 3). The early Arabic, Persian and Syriac manuscript versions also assert the original primacy and Hebrew language of Matthew. Matthew's is the only gospel apart from John's which was written by an original apostle of the 12. Are we really to think that the one who heard Jesus' words in person had to copy Mark's second-hand reporting of Peter or Luke's 3rd hand narrative via Paul? Carsten Thiede recently reviewed some manuscript fragments of Matthew's gospel and redated them to sometime in the 40s or 50s because of a number of reasons. Firstly, the writing style was that of a scribal copyists hand which was not used later. More interestingly, the name of Jesus was written \1;]1; rather than \1;[7;]1;\7;]3;]1;, i.e., 'J-S' rather than 'Jesus', in English transliteration. This is similar to the Jewish practice of rendering Yahweh as YHVH, YH or YY. This implies that the author of Matthew was Jewish, of an early date, and probably writing before the major influx of gentiles into the church after Acts 11/15. The actual date of Matthew The time when this Gospel was written is said by some (Vid. Fabricii Biblioth. Graec. 4.5. sect. 2. p. 197 & Vales. not. in Euseb. Eccl. Hist. p. 52; cf. 3.24,39) to be in the eighth or ninth, by others, in the fifteenth year after the ascension of Christ. This is in part based upon Irenaeus' comment above about Peter's preaching in Rome, held by traditionalists to be A.D. 42 (the second year of Claudius by one tradition (Eusebius Chronicle 153), of Peter's going to "another place" (Acts 12:17) and building a foundation for the church of Rome (Romans 15:20-24) and the year of the apostles' dispersion from Jerusalem), some 9 or 12 years after the ascension depending on the date of that in 30/33. The dates have varies considerably from A.D. 33 (A 6th century writer) to 150! Eusebius, writing in the 3rd century, favoured A.D. 41. Modern scholars normally relegate Matthew and indeed the other gospels to after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. This is due to their denial of prophecy when Jesus' predicts the fall of Jerusalem. Even for those that accept a pre-70 date, Mark is 99% of the time considered to be first, with Matthew and Luke copying later. Luke refers (1:1-3) to previous accounts (plural) of the gospel and of his as a more ordered one, so his can neither be first or second. Some scholars are now coming full circle and accepting an early Matthew. For example: J.B.Orchard, Matthew, Luke and Mark, 1976 John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke, H&S, 1991 John A.T.Robinson, Redating the New Testament, SCM, 1976 Carsten Peter Thiede, The Jesus Papyrus, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996 Further proofs of the priority of Matthew Deuteronomy 6:5 appears to divide man up into "heart, soul and might", however only Matthew preserves the 3-fold imagery, Luke and Mark, writing later, realise that in Greek a 4-fold example is necessary to fully translate the sense. "heart, soul and mind" (Matthew 22:37) "heart, soul, mind and strength" (Mark 12:30) "heart, soul, strength and mind" (Luke 10:27) In Jesus' words about the 'end' or the destruction of Jerusalem, he says "pray that your flight will not be in winter" (Mark 13:18) but Matthew gives a fuller version, adding, "or on a Sabbath" (Matthew 24:20). This fact would not likely be added by Matthew if he was copying Mark, rather the reverse is true. Matthew's additional statement would only be relevant to his Jewish readers. The Didache ('teaching of the 12 apostles', an early Christian writing) refers to a single gospel as either 'his' or 'the' gospel in existence and which is closest in form to Matthew (Didache 8:2; 11:3; 15:3; 15:4; cf. John A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, SCM, 1976). Both the Didache and Matthew are sometimes considered to have derived from Syrian Antioch, a thriving early church base from which Paul's missionary journeys began. Matthew also contains the most typically Jewish passages (e.g., 5:18f.; 10:5; 15:26; 18:17; 23:2f.). Taken from: http://www.biblicalhebrew.com... Additionally, there is no historic evidence for a Q document. The gospel of "Q" gets its title from the German word quelle which means "source." The whole idea of a Q gospel is based on the concept that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are so similar that they must have copied from each other and/or another source....When considering the possibility of a Q gospel, it is important to remember that no evidence whatsoever has ever been found for the existence of a Q gospel. Not even a single manuscript fragment of Q has ever been found. None of the early church fathers mentioned anything that could have been the Q gospel. Second, there is strong evidence that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written between A.D. 50 and 65, not after A.D. 70. Many of the early church fathers attributed the Gospels to the Apostle Matthew, John Mark, and Luke the doctor. Third, since the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they were written by actual eyewitnesses of Jesus and/or close companions of eyewitnesses of Jesus. Therefore, it is natural that we should expect many similarities... http://www.gotquestions.org... Peter |
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12/28/2014 12:39:25 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 1:32:05 AM, MEK wrote:At 12/27/2014 11:27:54 AM, PGA wrote:It is easy to feign a prophesy - just predate an event after it occurred. There have been so many writers and re-writers of the bible with Christian agendas and political influences that it is impossible to state that anything in there written was prophetical.You say your position is NOT one of blind faith ( pretending to know something you cannot possibly know).... prove it. Show me the evidence. We are not in the right thread for me to present my evidence but I will proceed anyway after I establish the dates you give for each book of the NT, as per well known scholars who have studied the matter for years. I have already started two threads on the evidence yet no one was able or willing to dispute what I wrote from the internal consistency of Scripture or from the earliest records. They rely on a biased approach 17-20 centuries removed from the documents themselves. And we are discussing the documents themselves least I remind you. Hence, I asked for the earliest written accounts by scholars in dating the gospels and epistles. No one was willing to provide one scrap, not even an iota. I wanted anyone who wanted to argue their point against the early writing to provide a scholarly reason for why they accept a late date by providing what they believe is the earliest possible writing of the gospels and epistles. Again all I got was opinion without a scrap of evidence. Do you think this makes for a good case? Provide the dates and scholars who advocate these dates and show this corresponds to the internal and external witness or show by your silence you don't know. It is easy to feign a prophesy - just predate an event after it occurred. There have been so many writers and re-writers of the bible with Christian agendas and political influences that it is impossible to state that anything in there written was prophetical. And it is easy to state they were written after the fact. All you have done so far is make an assertion. Therefore, a book in the Old Testament states something will occur and is captured by the New testament is not only highly suspicious but more importantly NOT credible. Then we need to look at the evidence from these OT books and we need for you to provide the earliest time in which you believe they were written. Are you able to do that??? Peter |
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12/28/2014 1:07:55 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 1:32:05 AM, MEK wrote:At 12/27/2014 11:27:54 AM, PGA wrote:Show me the objective data from which ALL can make an unbiased decision about YOUR god and belief structure. We're all waiting with unbridled anticipation. You based this on reason upon previous knowledge. It did not happen in vacuum. First you have to believe the laws of mathematics are true. Then you had to understand laguage and be able to communicate it through the laws of identity and logic. There are so many things that your web of beliefs rest upon. You don't just come up with 1+1=2 without an intricate web of beliefs first. And you could not be more wrong. Facts DO NOT need interpretation. That is why they are called facts. The facts follow the evidence, the evidence is observable by all, unanimously. So when you see a stone with a fossil in it you can say that fossil is 1.3 billion years old because the fossil comes stamped "1.3 billion years old. you have to build upon many unproven principles to get to this determination, like the present is the key to the past, that you know all the information necessary to arrive at this conclusion and so on. Yet science proves over and over that a paradigm that was previously thought true in not. If one does not observe the force of gravity as fact while on this planet then he or she does not understand gravity or is being disingenuous - either way, gravity exists whether one believes it or not. While this is true it is how you get to the point of knowledge that is in question. You have to know and suppose so much in getting there and build on a foundation and beliefs that these beliefs rest upon. That is where your worldview crumbles to the ground. It is there, when pressure is applied that it falls apart. My point is that you build on my worldview to get there, not your own. You are therefore inconsistent to your core beliefs and what they arise from - mindless, irrational energy and matter without purpose, intent, agency or meaning, randomly acting to produce chemical and electrical impulses in your physical brain. Are you willing to go there, to test your ideas concerning the Bible? I like to start with specific prophesies because of how they are intrinsically related to and provide a hub that their spokes connect to every other part of the Bible.I have tested the stability of my worldview with what has been written in the bible and the bible simply does NOT hold up. You CANNOT reference a verse like the one above without making a presupposition that what is written in the christian bible is true. My question to you AGAIN is, how do you know this book to be the divine inspiration of God??? You tested it with the filter of your worldview and you arrived at your skepticism. What do you know of the Preterist argument? I bet very little and I bet you can't disprove it from the internal evidence of the Bible and its earliest historical verification. The Bible holds up so well that I am willing to stake my reputation on it and on the evidence of it. Are you willing to do this for your foundational beliefs? If so continue. Peter |
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12/28/2014 1:29:22 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 1:32:05 AM, MEK wrote:At 12/27/2014 11:27:54 AM, PGA wrote:One of my presupposition core beliefs is that the biblical God is the one and only true God. I feel the best way for me to show this is to show you that His word is true, thus objective. So I would have to start with that as one of my basic presuppositional core beliefs in achieving my aim of establishing this objectivity. Are you willing to go there?YES, but you are not willing to answer my questions with intellectual honesty. Such as? Can you agree with this or not? If not your worldview will not allow me to go there because your worldview has already been made up, predetermined, not willing to examine its foundation. In other words, you will not be open to finding flaws in your way of thinking that hinge on your starting points, your foundational blocks that everything else rests on and is filtered through.Peter, what you have presented is NOT a rational argument for the validity of your beliefs because the understanding of your statements are on the basis of mere familiarity and not, for obvious reasons, necessarily or actually indicative of the rationality or the intelligibly of asserted factual statements or truth claims. If they are not commonly accepted as basic or self-evident common knowledge - how or who can assert their validity? I have stated I am willing to back up my assertions with evidence I think you will find hard to refute without resorting to irrational conclusions that self-destruct. Furthermore, your usage of religious language to support your claims is just a subjective, anecdotal claim and cannot and should not be used in validating your argument that the bible is the true word of god. That is your worldview bias and prejudice creeping in. You appeal to your highest authority yet you will not let me appeal to mine. Immediately you refuse to even listen to it and your wall goes up. You are not open to examining my proof, without even hearing it. You presuppose that whatever I say you have heard before and you, in your subjective "wisdom" have an answer for it that is reasonable, logical. I challenge you then to provide it. Start with a scholarly (list scholars and date) dating of each of the 27 books contained in the NT. Throwing a few passages from the bible as proof of these claims you assert only advances your argument if I believed the bible to be a divinely inspired or an influenced book. Since I do not - you have the burden of proof to illustrate this to me with a natural body of evidence. I use what the Bible says and I back it up with early historical writing and with logical consistency. God is my highest authority, not subjective men 2,000 years removed from the times with presuppositional baggage trying to prove their intellectual smarts with their biases attached and all the while sifting the evidence through those biases. You cannot make "presuppositions" about god, the biblical passages, Christ, ANYTHING for your argument to be seriously examined. This is just one big logical fallacy which basically states, you are unwilling to look at the evidence to the contrary. No it is not a logical fallacy. We all start with these presuppositional foundational beliefs that we take by faith. You were not there at the universes beginning so you take how it began as a basic foundational belief by faith on how you look at the evidence. And I have looked as evidence to the contrary and find it inconsistent and wanting. Peter |
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12/28/2014 1:57:58 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/27/2014 8:40:19 PM, Double_R wrote:At 12/27/2014 3:03:01 PM, Benshapiro wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:35:18 PM, Double_R wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:15:33 PM, Benshapiro wrote: I have no reason to accept that (A) or (B) are the only options. God and God's nature are not one in the same but they are not separable. There's nothing incoherent about an eternal mind that has always embodied absolute characteristics. The source of these characteristics is God's mind. God's mind is eternal. |
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12/28/2014 2:38:13 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/27/2014 5:10:46 PM, Bennett91 wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:52:29 PM, Benshapiro wrote:At 12/26/2014 5:20:20 PM, Bennett91 wrote: It isn't a contradiction because it's still true that raping the baby is something that ought not to be done. So let me get this straight. Raping the baby isn't justified, no. It's no more justified than the woman being justifiably raped because she didn't want to be killed.
Not agreed upon by the baby. The 'better life' thing was just now thrown in there. No, it's an act. Baby rape by itself has no context. That's why when i put the act on the context of aliens it becomes morally gray. If you had said homicide, the act of killing a human being, it would also not help because it is devoid of context (say like self defense). The argument is not that all scenarios are necessarily moral or immoral. We need context to understand. And context is not necessarily absolute/universal/objective. That's why I put the acts into context. Depending on how much I love my racist grandma I could be perpetuating racism. That would be bad based on my values. No objective morality can vary depending on contest but moral absolutism doesn't. It's always wrong to kill (absolutism) Context: always wrong It's always wrong to kill without necessary justification (objective) Context: killing in self-defense (acceptable) vs murder (wrong) Killing is not truly wrong in any circumstance (relativism) "Killing w/o necessary justification" is putting the act of homicide into more context. The act of killing is neither moral or immoral until you put it into context. Frankly I wonder what the criteria for "justified" is. That caveat sounds like you can brand a lot of innocent people ripe for killing. For example in war a lot of innocents die, but is war justifiable? Or perhaps there are no innocents in war? It's your opinion that killing without justification isn't justifiable. But truly, you would agree that killing for any reason wouldn't be wrong. I agree that just because someone has justification doesn't make it right. But justification being necessary is objective. we're not talking about 'more value' but whether babies have any intrinsic worth at all. In order for objective morality to be true we can't be intrinsically worthless. It can't be true that we definitely ought to value a valueless thing.Yes but this doesn't really make sense to me because I'm arguing against objective morality. Also what is intrinsic meaning? Where did you disagree with the logic above? There are many good reasons to believe that babies and human life has intrinsic worth. Even if babies were a detriment this wouldn't mean that they didn't have intrinsic value. Exogenous factors wouldn't change that. Do you need any extrinsic value criteria in order to rescue a baby on the side of the road? Doesn't the controversy over abortion rest on the fact of whether or not a fetus is considered a human being? What criteria do we need to value a baby? None. Yet babies are still valued. Therefore the value is intrinsic. I was saying that being considered "a human being" is obviously a point of contention on both sides of the abortion debate. Neither want to kill a human being. Why would this be the case of human beings don't have any inherent value? |
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12/28/2014 3:07:57 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 1:57:58 PM, Benshapiro wrote:At 12/27/2014 8:40:19 PM, Double_R wrote:At 12/27/2014 3:03:01 PM, Benshapiro wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:35:18 PM, Double_R wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:15:33 PM, Benshapiro wrote: If you are going to continue to make the two claims above then you need a 3rd option in order to reconcile them, otherwise you have no justification for your claims. Your attempts to present one are completely incoherent, which you just demonstrated again. Yes, there is nothing incoherent about an eternal mind that has always embodied absolute characteristics. Embodying these characteristics is not the same thing as being the source for them. If you don't agree then please make use of a dictionary. If a mind is the source for morality then morality is by definition subject to that mind (aka subjective). You however claim that Gods mind does not determine morality but rather his nature does, therefore his mind cannot possibly be the source. There is no way around this. Gods nature is something that would again be out of his control by definition. Therefore not only is morality out of his control, but because his nature is beyond his control you no longer need him to explain it. And if you don't need God to explain his own nature then you don't need God to explain existence since that is just another part of his nature that he is subject to. In the end all you have is nature itself, so God is just extra baggage that completely violates Occam's razor. |
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12/28/2014 4:25:59 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 12:14:48 PM, PGA wrote: That is a theory developed in large by the Germany higher critics centuries removed. This is simply not true. Show me the evidence to support this. Matthew's Hebrew Gospel: "Matthew published a written gospel for the Hebrews in their own tongue, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their passing, Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, transmitted to us in writing the things preached by Peter. Luke ... . Lastly, John ..." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.1.2; cf. Eusebius, H.E., 5.8) Peter, while I appreciate the time you put into attempting to prove Matthew's historicity within the bible - your information is not accurate. I have to ask you - have you cross checked your references with non-religious historical research (i.e. outside the Jewish/Hebrew bible)? Please feel free to challenge me on this but this is what mainstream, NON- RELIGIOUS historians say about the bible in a nut shell. 1. Paul, who existed approx. 35ad - 60ad wrote the first known accounts of what we now call Christianity. He would have been the closest living person to Christ and yet he only refers to Christ in the celestial sense and not here on earth. Never mentions Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem, miracles, the human Jesus or Pontius Pilot . He only mentions Christ' death, resurrection and ascension but places these events in some mythical realm and NOT on earth ( Heb 8:4). The book of Mark is, by almost ALL historians to be the first book of the NT and dated around 70ad. Matthew, Luke and John are copies. The early church fathers also recognized that there was a problem with selling Jesus as the one true son of god because before Jesus there were several other dying and rising gods (Mythra, Osiris, Dionysos, Hercules...) and they new the pagans would just say, "Why choose this one over the ones we have already discounted?) So in order fix this they came up with the notion that Satin invented these other gods to try and fool us. This crazy attempted ploys tells us something important - the early church fathers KNEW of these past similar gods. If you want references to my claims I can give them to you but to just name a few: Hector Avalos, author and Professor of religious studies University of Iowa and attended the Harvard Divinity school. John Loftus MA of Theology and author. Richard Carrier , PhD in ancient history from Columbia. Unfortunately, everything you have stated about Matthew and the bible is not on par with those individuals who have spent their academic life studying this stuff. |
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12/28/2014 4:47:56 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 3:07:57 PM, Double_R wrote:At 12/28/2014 1:57:58 PM, Benshapiro wrote:At 12/27/2014 8:40:19 PM, Double_R wrote:At 12/27/2014 3:03:01 PM, Benshapiro wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:35:18 PM, Double_R wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:15:33 PM, Benshapiro wrote: It wouldn't be subjective. Think of any objective thing or feature. Whatever this thing is, is definitely true. So objective basically just means to be definitely true. God's mind is only the definitive truth. God's mind is objective. God's mind entails all of his characteristics so God's mind and his nature are inseparable. I wouldn't say that God 'determines' morality. God's mind is only definitive truth - he can't act in any non-true way. To change an objective value would be impossible for God to do.
God's mind and his nature aren't separable. I can say that God's mind grounds objective morality too. |
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12/28/2014 6:56:54 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 2:38:13 PM, Benshapiro wrote:At 12/27/2014 5:10:46 PM, Bennett91 wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:52:29 PM, Benshapiro wrote:Again you dodge directly answering my question. And again you point out the contradiction: We ought to do what we ought not to do. Again you dodge my question. Seriously if you don't answer it I'm done talking to you. And OUGHT NOT BE DONE IN WHAT CONTEXT??? Raping a baby is never justified, desired, or to be approved of. The thing that is justified, desired, or to be approved of is saving humanity. This still doesn't make raping the baby anything that is justified, desired, or to be approved of anymore than a woman who is 'justifiably' raped by her attacker because she didn't want to die. So then there's no reason given the scenario to rape the baby. Humanity dies. End of story. As for your woman rape scenario it differs on a couple key areas, the baby rape scenario is an agreed upon contract (not too big a diff) and the baby will be given a better life by the aliens (the main diff). So in the end it work out for everybody. No it actually wasn't. The better life caveat was there at the very first mention of the scenario. Go look for yourself. No, it's an act. Baby rape by itself has no context. That's why when i put the act on the context of aliens it becomes morally gray. If you had said homicide, the act of killing a human being, it would also not help because it is devoid of context (say like self defense). The argument is not that all scenarios are necessarily moral or immoral. We need context to understand. And context is not necessarily absolute/universal/objective. That's why I put the acts into context. Depending on how much I love my racist grandma I could be perpetuating racism. That would be bad based on my values. You didn't even read your own definition: "a fact of the matter that does not depend solely on social custom or individual acceptance." i.e does not depend on CONTEXT. It's always wrong to kill (absolutism) "Always wrong" by it self is not a context. It's always wrong to kill without necessary justification (objective) "It's always wrong" this is an absolute statement proving my point objective and absolute are are the same thing. Necessary justification is part of the context of the act. Context: killing in self-defense (acceptable) vs murder (wrong) This is contextual morality, you're showing the morality of homicide depends on context. Thanks for helping my case for contextual morality and going against objective/absolute morality. Killing is not truly wrong in any circumstance (relativism) No this is Nihilism. It's your opinion that killing without justification isn't justifiable. This is a truism so I'm not going to answer this. But truly, you would agree that killing for any reason wouldn't be wrong. For just any reason? No. Context matters, remember that. I agree that just because someone has justification doesn't make it right. But justification being necessary is objective. Despite you earlier definition of right being "morally good, justified, or acceptable." I'll accept your backtracking. Justification being necessary for what exactly? Do all of our acts need to be justified? Define justified. we're not talking about 'more value' but whether babies have any intrinsic worth at all. In order for objective morality to be true we can't be intrinsically worthless. It can't be true that we definitely ought to value a valueless thing.Yes but this doesn't really make sense to me because I'm arguing against objective morality. Also what is intrinsic meaning? Because it's based on a presupposition w/o evidence. P. In order for objective morality to be true we can't be intrinsically worthless. C. It can't be true that we definitely ought to value a valueless thing. Who chooses what is and isn't valued other than the human being who value things? Sure, we ought not value valueless things, but humans place value on things so nothing that is valued is valueless. There are many good reasons to believe that babies and human life has intrinsic worth. Again, that is your value. But it is not universal or absolute. It may be absolute to you and how you live your life, but in regards to a greater "morality" there is no evidence for it. lol again, you're projecting your values as universal. You may be confusing potential for value (which everything has) for something being actually valued (which requires a 2nd party to place value upon). This is all contextual, sometimes baby are not given value because they can be seen as detrimental to the survival of the whole. You got cut off here. The Prophet Sanders preaching the Word [][] |
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12/28/2014 8:11:23 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 12:39:25 PM, PGA wrote:At 12/28/2014 1:32:05 AM, MEK wrote:At 12/27/2014 11:27:54 AM, PGA wrote:You say your position is NOT one of blind faith ( pretending to know something you cannot possibly know).... prove it. Show me the evidence. Yes, of course I am and will do here.It is easy to feign a prophesy - just predate an event after it occurred. There have been so many writers and re-writers of the bible with Christian agendas and political influences that it is impossible to state that anything in there written was prophetical. First, the bible is filled with so much contradiction that some have speculated that it is the most contradicted text ever produced. This is just a point made in response to your statement about the book coming together with consistency. Regardless, you have not proved that the old testament is prophetic. For example, Abraham lived apprx 1800 BCE and yet the earliest verification of him is 400 BCE. That is a 1400 year gap! How can you claim anyone writing these early Hebrew texts have any idea what happened a thousand years before with any accuracy?? Would be very easy to insert a prophecy here and there. Second, take Luke 21;5-30 where it says Jesus predicts the fall of the Jewish temple. Well, that's easy to feign especially if Luke was written after 70ad which is exactly when most scholars place Luke. One of the earliest documents associated with the NT is known as P 52 (some papyrus from John, I believe). It's origin, by carbon dating, is about 125 CE (which makes sense as it is believed John was the last gospel written). That is about a century after Christ would have lived. It is widely known that Mark's gospel is the first with Matthew, Luke and John to follow. Dating for these has to do with the language structure used. It is also well known that none of the authors of the gospels were eye-witnesses. Now I would be surprised no one has offered you this very well known collection of data found just about everywhere (books, internet, etc) and I have to wonder from what source are you deriving your information because it seems to be not in the mainstream school of thought. |
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12/29/2014 2:01:52 AM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 10:37:34 AM, Double_R wrote:At 12/28/2014 1:00:52 AM, PGA wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:27:21 PM, Double_R wrote:Already made. Your worldview can't explain why something should be moral, just that it is because you and they like it that way. Sure I can. It is moral because it comes from a moral being who has revealed Himself to us and is greater. He explains it. The Sermon on the Mount is moral. Turning the other cheek is moral, looking out for others and putting them first is moral, considering others better than yourself is moral, love is moral, going the extra mile for someone else is moral. Now from the bedrock origin of your worldview looking out for self is first, getting what you want, increasing your offspring, do unto others before they do unto you, if it is beneficial to you then do it. This is what we witness in the evolutionary scheme of things. Because He is all knowing and tells me He is good,...and I have no higher authority and reference I can appeal to. I certainly do not consider your pretense of authority higher. Satan was not all knowing. How can a created being be all knowing when God alone has this attribute? Where are you getting your information from - just making it up? Having no higher authority is only useful if your case is "might makes right", which I will assume is not your argument. There is a difference between acting justly and acting tyrannically. You first have to know what is good before you can act in goodness. Because he tells you he is good... are you kidding? Yes, because He tells me and I trust His word. You do not believe because you do not trust His authority, His word. You think your finite understanding and wisdom is wiser than God's. Yet in your finite wisdom your understanding of goodness is seen for what it is, ever changing tastes. Because he shows you he is good... This is the problem. "God is good" is a moral judgment. The point of my question is to ask you how you made that judgment. I made it by believing in Him, just like you do in believing in your finite mind(s) that tell you otherwise. Through His word He gave me greater understanding and confirmation. If all you're going to do is sit here and tell me that God is good because he told you so, or give me the usual Christian BS that you can't judge God then you are not capable of having a moral discussion because all you are doing is regurgitating what you are told. I have already given you sound reasons. Why would I trust your relative, subjective, changing mind(s)? Who are you to know? You are the dog who sits because his owner tells him to, with no idea why you are doing it. In order to make a moral judgment you need to use your own moral standard. I've never been called a dog before. That has been my point all along - based on what/who? Why is your moral standard good and where does it come from? Who gets to decide? You can appeal to Gods standard all you want, but you can't determine why you ought to use his standard without first having your own idea of what you consider morality to be. Without that you can't address what makes his standard moral. In the end you are either mindlessly following orders (which does not make you a moral agent) He is the greatest Being ever. Why would I want to appeal to another standard that has to borrow from Him to know goodness? His revelation shows His goodness. His standard is His nature. And I am not mindless. My mind is not what it used to be but it is still able to see the futility of your worldview when you can't, thanks to God! or you have determined for yourself that his standard is moral in which case you are deciding based on your own morality, putting you and I in the same boat. It is not based on my morality, it is based on His. We are not in the same boat. Your morality, as you have confirmed is based on "our own desires." On that basis how can you condemn Hitler or Muslim extremists? Their dictates are based on their own desires. What is wrong with that? [sarcasm] So why do you treat the person who likes something else and considers it good as an outcast? He is just doing what he likes. Rational? What is rational about different people having opposite values and both defining them as "good?" It is not logical. For John, x = right. For Joe, x = wrong. The law of identity states, x = x. Do you see your problem? The law of contradiction states that x cannot both equal x and non-x at the same time and in the same manner. x cannot = non-x. John says it is imperative you do x. Joe says it is imperative you do y. Who is right? Do you see the problem? Do you want to be killed? No? So don't kill others. Do they want to kill you? Depends where you are. Maybe they just want to fly planes into your house or chop off your head, or rape your loved ones. For them murder is "Yum!" For you murder is "Yuk!" Do you want to have your things stolen? No? So don't steal other peoples things. It gets more complicated but you can start there. Do I want to eat? Yes. If I can take what is yours and get away with it then what is wrong with that. I don't like your establishments rules, your social conventions, your changing moral standards. I see taking what you want in the animal world. Am I any better? What is better in the law of survival? It is who can outlast the other. Besides, I come from the same stock per your view of origins, a common ancestor. The simple fact is that because we are all the same species, we all feel the same way about most things. What is right about that? What is wrong with someone feeling a different way and then convincing others that these likes are more pleasurable or that they will serve the greater likes in the long run? Certainly the basics. This allows us come to agreement on about what we consider moral about 99% of the time, allowing us to live together in a productive society. If most people agree and approve of rape or torturing babies then to that social convention it is right! Do you see the problem with this kind of thinking??? A tribe in the South Pacific agree and approve of eating those of different tribes. Therefore to this tribe it is right! No, some things are just plain wrong no matter whether 99% agree with it or not. Someone who does not follow the 99% that the rest of us agree on is acting in opposition to what we strive to accomplish, and we will simply decide not to allow these individuals to succeed in doing so. That's all there is to it.... So you say, "This is good because I say it is good and if you don't like it I will bash you over the head." Very moral of you, and the 99% in your social group who say the same thing! So if I live and was born on a boundary line between two countries and each has granted me citizenship from birth and in one country 99% oppose abortion and consider it murder and in the other 99% consent to a woman's right to choose and I run an abortion clinic on this boarder and I'm found out for doing this who has the moral claim over my actions? Who is actually right in their assessment of abortion? And again, how are you to determine a society for in each one there are sub-cultures and people who think about morality differently from the majority. What happens when I am a member of the society at large and a sub-culture at the same time? Peter |
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12/29/2014 2:06:47 AM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/29/2014 2:01:52 AM, PGA wrote:.At 12/28/2014 10:37:34 AM, Double_R wrote:At 12/28/2014 1:00:52 AM, PGA wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:27:21 PM, Double_R wrote:Already made. Your worldview can't explain why something should be moral, just that it is because you and they like it that way.
Christians believe that morals are more important than the message Jesus came to share with God's chosen believers. It is the concentration on morality that has deceived every Christian from knowing our Creator and HIs eternal plan for us. |
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12/29/2014 2:10:58 AM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 4:25:59 PM, MEK wrote:At 12/28/2014 12:14:48 PM, PGA wrote:J.B.Orchard, Matthew, Luke and Mark, 1976 Thanks for your two replies. I hope to respond when I get the time in the next day or so. Peter |
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12/29/2014 12:53:29 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 10:37:34 AM, Double_R wrote:At 12/28/2014 1:00:52 AM, PGA wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:27:21 PM, Double_R wrote:No, the point of your challenge is to ignore my questions to you while you expect me to answer yours. I answered every question you asked me. You may not have liked my response or thought it did not conform to your criteria yet I answered you. You ignored some of my questions in return. If you don't want to be questioned then don't make comments. I have no problem with people questioning me to death and will answer them till the cows come home, but I am reluctant to do so with someone who is just trying to shark off the responsibility of explaining themselves by shifting the topic to someone else's views. I have answered each section of every post you have replied to from me. Why is what you believe right? Show me it is more that personal preference or the preference of some other subjective human being who is making his preference something you must also agree with. Show me there is something you can hang right on other than changing opinions. Failure. You have said it should be based on the desires of the individual and culture, a cultural smorgasbord of ideas with the most popular winning out. I have already addressed the problems of such a view in my last post. You may just prefer to shoot me in a dark alley now. So what? If that is all your morality boils down to, my desires verses your desires and the desires of your community and culture, and if I can fulfill those desires then so be it. On the grounds of what your morality is based on I'll take your money too! Still wondering how this proves God. It does not. I'm using the logical implications of a worldview devoid of God. Like it? It proves the necessity of God in discovering what right actually is because even though man was created in His image and likeness man is marred because of his willful rebellion. Man has decided to make his own rules yet he has no suitable foundation in which to determine best outside of God. How do you determine good without a best? And Yes, that would suck for me. But guess what... the fact that it would suck for me is the very reason why I am able to determine that I wouldn't do it to someone else. I don't need a dictator telling me not to do it in order for me to figure it out. That is you and you are not me or someone else. It might just be the way my or someone's desires express themselves! So what? What is good or bad about that? That's how truth works. All you and I can do is use our reason to determine what that truth is, I suggest you start doing that and stop giving me these meaningless appeals to emotion. Your opinion is based on emotions as you have admitted - desires, likes, preference, feelings. In order for something to be good there must be an objective measure for goodness. I'm not following what those three words signify with periods after each??? "Good" is a determination we make. It is nothing more than us judging the intent or actions of a person. Based on what - preference. Good, then the Uni-bomber likes to bomb people. Some people judge this favorably and others not. What is your preference? On grounds like you have just stated anyone can make anything "good" as long as they and enough people "like" it. If that is the kind of world you want to live in then don't complain when another Hitler rises to power and "determines" you are of an inferior stock and need to be eradicated along with your family and all that is dear to you. Anything can be justified if enough people determine a course of action, and to you this is what makes something right/good. What a stupid way to determine morality. Making this judgment requires us to have a standard to judge it by. That standard will always be subject to the mind making the judgment (including God's), making the standard necessarily subjective. Rubbish. For someone who claims not to know God how can you speak for Him? God is three Persons who are united in their attributes, essence and nature - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - the one true God. If you know all things and are by nature holy, pure, just, good then the judgment you make is going to be objective, fair, conforming to what is the right standard, not some arbitrary one, in that it always takes the best course of action. Once a standard is chosen, then the intentions and actions can be evaluated in an objective fashion because the judgment is based on the object (the standard) not the subject (the mind evaluating it). The standard (outside of God's nature) starts from limited, relative, constantly changing minds that try to enforce their preference, their likes, their desires, on others. What is good about that? I say that murdering the unborn is wrong, you say it is the woman's right to choose whether she wants to murder it or not. You even go further in determining that it is not a human being until the second trimester. Why is your preference "better" or "righter" than mine? Just because you can sway public opinion and get the majority to vote your way now you want to tell me this is good? On such grounds then if I can get the majority to lynch you because I convince them that you biting your fingernails is not something I desire you do, hence I have my desire justified. You for whatever reason seem incapable of separating the word objective from morality, and intrinsic from value. The absence of an objective morality is not the absence of morality. The absence of intrinsic values is not the absence of values. Perhaps a dictionary would be a good starting point. Yes it is. If all you have is a standard that changes by will and desire what is good about that? It defies logic. Good can mean two total different things to two different people. Who is actually right? You tell me?????? It is you, isn't it, always you! What happens is some social reformed with his own ideas gets into office and changes the way people think of goodness... In the course of history we see men in power changing the rules of their particular society. "Everybody wants to rule the world." Who is not thinking here? You follow the whims and desires of others based on likes and preference, not goodness. You don't have an adequate standard for goodness, only for likes and preferences. Rules change because we learn and develop in our societies. Once upon a time everyone was scared that homosexuals were sick people who like to rape little boys. NAMBLA. We then learned that they are normal people just like everyone else. We used to think that they were incapable of raising families. It depends how you define normal. Is it natural? Is it healthy? Does it promote the evolutionary principle of progeny? Does the homosexual act produce offspring and hence a family or do homosexuals have to take what is necessary from others who are capable of making a family? Is it good for a family to have two male parents? Who determines these things and why? We learned that they can. We used to be scared that society would die off if we allowed homosexually to be condoned. We learned that this was hilariously wrong. We learned. You learned how to foster your desires upon others. Peter |
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12/29/2014 1:45:10 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/27/2014 2:32:48 PM, PLEASESTOPLYING wrote: Good, then you agree with my statement. Christian revelation tells us that Christ, the Jewish Messiah, found in every book of the OT, the Law of Moses, the Psalms, the Prophets, predates the OT. Do you agree that the NT Scriptures reveal this or not? If they and the Scriptures are true (I put the "if" in there for your benefit, not mine because I am 100% convinced the Scriptures are true) then do you agree that if true His teaching predates that of Buddhism? So you do not agree that the NT teaches this and you do not agree that if they were true then His teachings would predate Buddha? Luke 24:25-27, 44 (NASB) 25 And He said to them, "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?" 27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures...44 Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." John 8:58 (NASB) 58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." Colossians 1:17 (NASB) 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. So what I have stated so far is correct. The Scriptures do reveal or confirm these things. Whether they are true or not is not the question I asked you. That will be determined in later posts. What I asked was whether the Scriptures teach these things and if they were found to be true then, by default, that would confirm that Jesus was before Buddha. So don't twist my words to suit your paradigm. They do teach this. The next thing to do is to establish their validity, that they are true. No I don't agree that the NT scriptures reveal anything. I will grant that they SAY that. Now you are being illogical. If they reveal something then this is what they teach, what they say. Now saying that simply because a book, and no matter what you believe the bible is just a book, tells stories about the first people on earth, who would of course have to predate any religion means that the religion making the claim is the oldest is about as silly as it gets. No it is not. If an all knowing, all sufficient Being chooses to make Himself known to mankind by this revelation who are you to say otherwise? The accounts in the Bible go back to the beginning, the creation of all things material, anything that had a beginning. I notice that you don't address the fact that for thousands of years people had language, and the bible says since human existence they had language, but the gods they wrote about, were Zeus and Athena and thor. The Bible is primarily concerned with God making Himself known to the world through a people, Israel, not about justifying make believe gods and other cultures. The Judea-Christian belief predate all three of these beliefs, neither is God concerned about every false religion that raises its head, just that they teach falsehood. let's take the oldest "written down for your benefit" religion Hinduism which was written down or established over 2000 years before Christianity was written down or established. Please please please explain how or why the direct descendants of adam and eve, who would have had the benefit of oral tradition being handed down to them directly from adam and eve, who remember supposedly lived for over 900 years and would have been able to correctly give direct testimony to generation after generation about the god of Christianity, original sin, the snake, the naming of animals on and on and on. Again straight from the horses mouth (adam and eve) then cain, even abel for a short while and lamech and enoch and mahalaleel and their children, again first hand accounts passed down. and remember the bible says that these people lived 6 and 700 years with their children and grandchildren etc for almost 9 generations each. Explain how with all of this first hand descendent tradition any grandchild of adam and eve ever wrote down or established any religion other than Christianity. Hinduism was written down and established almost 500 years before the character moses was supposedly even born The fact that the Bible record records the history of mankind from the beginning makes a statement in itself. Over and over it claims that it is a revelation of God and He is speaking to make, or making Himself known to man, by this written revelation of Himself. You either take Him at His word and trust what He says as true or you get some other belief to act as your ultimate authority. But the question is can any other belief justify itself without running into irrationality. You are trying to work everything out from a naturalistic process that has many of its own pit falls. God is supernatural, transcending the natural. Buddhism began between 560 and 480 BCE Judaism began between 1300 and 1500 BCE -- BCE meaning before common era which replaced the now politically incorrect BC or before Christ. Regardless of how you word it history (His story) is divided around the birth of Christ in the Western worlds calendar of events. As I have explained many times by now, Christianity is the fulfillment of the Jewish Scriptures. Christ, the Messiah, is said to exist before all things. If true then this makes Him the creator.
It is either true or it is not. I want to show you why I am 100% sure it is true. Of course I take God's word as my ultimate authority, just like you take that of finite men as yours. Can you justify their authority as true in respects to their beliefs about Christianity? No you can't and when you try I can show you how foolish your beliefs are on such matters. God's word has power to tear down false beliefs. That makes some all the more determined to resist it. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NASB) 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but [a]divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, billions of people believe what the Qur'an says, does that make it true? No. Mormons believe that a convicted con artist named joseph smith...Mormons believe this nonsense - does that make it true? No. scientologists believe that an entity called xenu brought human beings to earth from outer space millions of years ago, does them believing it make it true? No. hell no believing what is in the particular religious book of the faith you belong to in no way whatsoever makes it true, and that is the same whether you are talking about scientology - Christianity - or islam. No it is not the same. All religions teach different, contradictory things about God so logic dictates they can't all be right, or good. Peter |
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12/29/2014 2:03:27 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/27/2014 2:32:48 PM, PLEASESTOPLYING wrote:We know from Scripture that Moses gathered the records of the genealogies from earlier accounts when he wrote the Torah. We also know from other ancient records that there were creation and flood accounts that have similarities with the OT accounts. It is not unreasonable to believe that many of these accounts were transmitted by word of mouth until they were put into written form. God gave Moses the task of writing a true account. Sure, Christians know it. They trust the God revealed in Scripture for who He is and what He says. You don't know it because you place some other limited authority above that of God's. again that is what YOU believe, but believing that means that you believe that for centuries and centuries god allowed people to establish several fake religions, and that these people were direct descendants of adam and eve, who for some unknown and very strange reason established every religion of the time, wrote them down, and then practiced them until moses came along, and then after "god gave moses the task of writing a true account" his cousins continued to follow their own separate religions, and this happened even after god killed everyone on earth in the flood these religions began in the lifetime of shem and would have had to be started by his children or grandchildren! how What are you rambling on about. Adam and Eve did not establish every fake religion of the time. They were the ones who rejected God's commands and started the chain that has continued to this day. God allowed this to happen so that His purposes would be fulfilled and that man would find out what it is like when man places himself above God in his determination of all things. They constructed gods that were made in the image of man rather than believing God for who He was. So do you. Facts need interpretation. They don't tell you that the Son existed or did not exist before Buddhism. If you believe He existed and is who He claimed to be then you interpret the "facts" in light of this supposition. If you do not then you interpret them in light of some other supposition. The point is that neither you nor I was around to verify these "facts" or this data. We make up our minds on the evidence and the inferences we draw from that evidence. Stop your BSing. So I see a stone with blood on it. I can say anything about how that blood came to be there that I want to and that is the fact. I don't need to interpret how the blood got on the stone or why it is there. It does not need interpretation. It tells you the why and how. Don't be so ridiculous. how many people do you see arguing on websites or in live debates about who the first president of the united states was? no one. What does need interpretation are ancient books translated from one language to another. so if you believe the bible then you believe that Pontius pilate and the romans saw jesus and his supposed miracles yet were unconvinced that he was the messiah, you who admittedly weren't there, but are convinced -strange People believe things despite the evidence and people read into books meanings that they do not convey. If you want to understand what I am saying to you then you need to find what I mean or no real communication has taken place. It depends on which scholars you are speaking of. You can heap as many scholars to your side as you wish to and I can do the same thing. What will that prove? It will confirm what your core beliefs rest upon, just as it will with me. You are not neutral, neither am I. So we need to examine these core beliefs.religious scholars was putting it nicely - look at any poll you want to. less than 30 percent of all Christians take the bible literally, meaning that they take the account of genesis metaphorically. Context and language determine whether something should or should not be taken literally. Does the language convey historical narrative or figurative speech? Who is it addressing and what, if any, are the time frames involved? What is the cultural significance of what was said to the people of address? These are things you have to take into consideration if you want to find the Author's meaning. These are the things so many people ignore as they try to project the prophesies into the distant future from when they were made. Peter |
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12/29/2014 2:34:14 PM Posted: 7 years ago SNP1 1As I have demonstrated in the thread 'The subjectivity of objective morality' (http://www.debate.org...) objective morality can exist without God and morality is always subjective, with or without God. Benshapiro 4Someone could just define what we ought to do in an objective manner. No god required. Of course you could call that objective morality subjective because it was made by someone, but that is inevitable. God's morality was also made by someone. DarthVitiosus 7[1] Why is that ? [2] What relevance does that have ? Who says objective morality must be authoritative ? SNP1 8I don't believe in that force either. It is an appeal to mystery. You are merely replacing 'God did it' with 'The moral force did it'. DarthVitiosis 18 to SNP1Why wouldn't it be objective ? That hypothetical force would decide what is right and wrong and since that force is impersonal, it cannot have an opinion and so its decisions would be objective. That force wouldn't assume a pre-existing morality for it would create it. - SNP1 21No evidence is required to challenge a bald assertion. SNP1 even provides a possible alternative. PGA 35Is my morality subjective ? Maybe, but then so is yours. So if objective morality doesn't exist without God, then it doesn't exist with God either. Conclusion : the moral argument is unsound. PGA 35Why would an all-knowing mind be good by its very nature ? What is an absolute mind ? - illegalcombattant 2[3] Why shouldn't the standard change ? A changing standard can still be objective. [4] It can also mean whatever you want it to mean without me and an objective standard. [5] Can you prove that ? PGA 35I didn't borrow my morality from the Christian god. PGA 64It would only be wrong to punch those who dislike being punched, obviously. - Faustianjustice 40The problems you are referring to also exist(ed) in Christian societies. Benshapiro 69As you state later, with intrinsic meaning you mean intrinsic value. Morality can be objective without intrinsic value. Benshapiro 75You dodged the question. Since we ought according to you save humanity in that scenario, how do you propose we do that ? The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. |
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12/29/2014 4:53:47 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/29/2014 1:45:10 PM, PGA wrote:of course I do because it is true - all but the part "we" follow him - i do notAt 12/27/2014 2:32:48 PM, PLEASESTOPLYING wrote: and you were also correct in saying Person - cause that is all jesus was if he existed a mere man.: :
repeatedly quoting your religious book is not evidence of anything, except that whatever your book says it what your book says. What religion do you know of that DOESN'T have a book that makes claims in support of their religion? none of these claims validate anything.
first thing you have said that makes any sense, I could never tell an all whatever being a doggone thing, but I don't have to because, he has never claimed anything, ordinary human beings just like me who simply make claims are the ones I'm telling otherwise. now who are you to say that the hare krishna god krishna is not the real all knowing all sufficient being who chose to reveal himself? What part of the accounts in the bible going back to the creation of this universe don't you get? the hindu religion teaches that the universe has been created 4 times and destroyed 3 and that this is the last one - so their teachings go back eons before yours do. which by your logic makes it the real one. since neither one of them is real then it really doesnt matter. do some research The Bible is primarily concerned with God making Himself known to the world through a people, Israel, not about justifying make believe gods and other cultures now that is funny. I had a muslim friend tell me the exact same thing -- funny how you guys think making a claim is equal to that claim being reality - it is because I said so - who are you supposed to be. The Judea-Christian belief predate all three of these beliefs, neither is God concerned about every false religion that raises its head, just that they teach falsehood. nonsense - you really should drop that line of reasoning. saying that a book with religious traditions written 2000 years after another religion was established and had books and traditions and stories about creation, that simply talks about things in the past has proven it is the oldest is about a stupid as you can get. all gods do not just yours - 1000 other ones do the same thing
oh so don't believe (His story) just believe (Your story) ok got it - no need to elaborate on the stupidity of that statement
finite men not only wrote the bible you worship but they chose the books that went into it and then took some out (martin luther) - how do you take the word of god out of HIS book if you are human so why does the same criteria make your religion true again so why does what martin luther believed to be divine make your religion trueMormons believe that a convicted con artist named joseph smith...Mormons believe this nonsense - does that make it true? how do you know it isn't true?scientologists believe that an entity called xenu brought human beings to earth from outer space millions of years ago, does them believing it make it true? Did anyone ever disprove the existence of ZEUS? |
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12/29/2014 4:55:55 PM Posted: 7 years ago so with regard to the bible how do you determine what is and what isn't to be taken literally? Peter Did anyone ever disprove the existence of ZEUS? |
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12/29/2014 5:55:24 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/28/2014 6:56:54 PM, Bennett91 wrote:At 12/28/2014 2:38:13 PM, Benshapiro wrote:At 12/27/2014 5:10:46 PM, Bennett91 wrote:At 12/27/2014 2:52:29 PM, Benshapiro wrote:Again you dodge directly answering my question. And again you point out the contradiction: We ought to do what we ought not to do. In any context. I've already said, raping an infant is always something that ought not to be done. If raping an infant is a necessary evil for the greater good, doing the necessary evil is still evil - evil is a departure from the way things ought to be. Raping a baby is never justified, desired, or to be approved of. The thing that is justified, desired, or to be approved of is saving humanity. This still doesn't make raping the baby anything that is justified, desired, or to be approved of anymore than a woman who is 'justifiably' raped by her attacker because she didn't want to die. You're conflating the rape with the saving of humanity. There's no justification for raping the infant, specifically.
All I'm saying is that raping an infant is always evil even if it was for some greater good. As for your woman rape scenario it differs on a couple key areas, the baby rape scenario is an agreed upon contract (not too big a diff) and the baby will be given a better life by the aliens (the main diff). So in the end it work out for everybody. It wouldn't matter even if that was the case.
I've been saying that objective morality varies with context whereas absolutism doesn't. It's always wrong to kill (absolutism) It means that in any context it is always wrong. It's always wrong to kill without necessary justification (objective) It's not a context - it's a stipulation. You can't separate the sentence without losing the original meaning. Context: killing in self-defense (acceptable) vs murder (wrong) Objective morality *varies* with context. Absolutism *doesn't* vary with context. Killing is not truly wrong in any circumstance (relativism) Relativism is a nihilist philosophy. It's your opinion that killing without justification isn't justifiable. Then you've just blown your whole argument with that concession. But truly, you would agree that killing for any reason wouldn't be wrong. |
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12/29/2014 6:10:48 PM Posted: 7 years ago I see where I've confused you. I'm arguing that raping an infant regardless of context is always immoral so I'm supporting moral absolutism rather than objective morality with my infant rape argument.
However both moral absolutism and objective morality would require God's existence. |
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12/29/2014 6:23:10 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/29/2014 6:10:48 PM, Benshapiro wrote: I see you've changed your argument benny. |
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12/29/2014 6:30:59 PM Posted: 7 years ago At 12/29/2014 6:23:10 PM, bulproof wrote:At 12/29/2014 6:10:48 PM, Benshapiro wrote: Stay tuned Bulproof. Eventually I'll teach you that raping an infant is always wrong. |
