Pain Paien

QueenofSwords:

If you really want to know keith's position, you really ought to read the passage he provided, Romans 1:18-32. It clears everything up about what he "thinks".

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Keith
Keith: "You can't relinquish what you never really had."

Prove that I never really had it. Also try to answer the question.

Keith: "I don't know the answer--if you're asking only about a retarded person.

But you said everyone knows your god. Are mentally retarded people excluded from "everyone"?

"I know that we have knowledge of God and his moral law because that is what the bible tells us."

That's hardly evidence. A scientologist might very well claim that he knows we are descended from clams because that's what his holy book tells us.

Keith: "Yes, in terms of the scientific method, it would be unverifiable."

That's the only method that concerns me. Since your claim is unverifiable, it has no meaning or relevance to me; you can give yourself whatever superpowers you like, but don't expect to be believed.

Keith: "From all of creation."

From all of creation, I deduce that a god, if it exists, is a pretty sadistic bastard.

Keith: "The fact that so many different and conflicting religions exist doesn't mean that God has failed to make His moral law
clear to human beings."

Yes, it does. If he made it clear, there would be one religion.

Keith: "True. But I don't believe that emotions are the evidence for the existence of God."

Then why talk about some nebulous thing "written on the heart"? Discuss facts instead, or try to.

scumble

The words "horse", "dead" and "flogging" come to mind. Let them hobble away on their creaky crutches...

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Pain Paien
If you really want to know keith's position, you really ought to read the passage he provided, Romans 1:18-32. It clears everything up about what he "thinks".

I think Keith is telling the truth about one thing anyway - he was probably never an atheist. I expect better arguments from a former atheist; anyone who has to resort to evasion, vagueness and unsubstantiated assertions sounds like they've been a fundy all along.

Mageth

I've been away for the weekend.

Pain Paien: :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

scumble: I couldn't agree more. But as I said earlier, statements like the following scare the living shit out of me:

As I pointed out, this is exactly the same moral system that allows bin Laden et al to justify their actions to themselves, and that they use to justify their actions to the world. As Pain Paien said, and I believe I also said earlier, what this means, Keith, is that your moral system begins and ends with what God commands. If God commanded that killing in self defense was wrong, then it would not be "moral" to kill in self defense.

Under your "system", you have no basis to declare any act by any person as moral or immoral, because you cannot know if God commanded that person to do it or not. It doesn't matter what's "written on their hearts", it doesn't matter how anyone personally feels about killing and such; morally, God's command is all that matters. You cannot know if God commanded Hitler or bin Laden, or anyone else, to do what they did, so you cannot condemn their actions.

I, on the other hand, can condemn their actions as immoral, as I can condemn the actions of the OT Israelites as immoral, under the moral system that I adhere to, based on the practical (I don't want that to happen to me) and on empathy and compassion (I recognize the equality and sameness of all humanity, and thus can extend and grant my practical concerns to others). Thus, I can claim that deliberately causing pain, suffering and death for the selfish reasons they did is morally wrong (the only time such might be justifiable is in stopping those who would do so). You, however, cannot, as God's command overrides all human moral concerns.

Further, humanity in general can use the same moral guide that I've described to judge the actions of people like bin Laden and Hitler and to justify reactions to those actions to try and put a stop to those who are committing crimes against humanity. And this is exactly what happened in those cases.

The fact that many people believe in, worship, and most frighteningly obey such inhumane, amoral gods (which don't exist, of course) which can be used to justify any action is the reason for, and justification for, much of the suffering in the world today and throughougt history. Obviously, we need a more rational and humanitarian moral system to govern our actions. I and others have described one, based on practicality and empathy/compassion. Your moral system, justified by imaginary gods, shared with bin Laden, Joshua, and many other such infamous characters, belongs on the dustpile of history.

If your God told you to fly airplanes into civilian buildings, you would be morally obligated to do so. If your God told you to commit genocide (as he did the OT Israelites), you would be morally obligated to obey. If your God told you to kill your child, a homosexual, or someone who worked on the Sabbath, you would be morally obligated to obey.

How does it feel to be morally no different than bin Laden, Joshua, and Hitler?

Mageth

Originally posted by Keith
Moral right and wrong are not defined by human beings.

You couldn't be more wrong. I've gone over this one several times; humans do indeed define what's morally right and wrong. And I would note that you have defined "moral right and wrong" according to your moral system repeatedly on this thread.

Moral right is something that comes from God's own nature.

I've gone over this one several times as well. Not only are you fond of the Strawman argument, you also seem to be a practitioner of the Argumentum ad nauseam.

Why would God's nature, him supposedly being the Omnmax, eternal, essentially androgynous, and only Deity, have anything in it on which to base human moral interactions? Why would God's nature have any rules regarding homosexuality, murder, adultery, etc. if these things are meaningless in the context of such a deity? Did god's Nature have a moral rule that prohibited God from having sex with a God of the same sex, or with cheating on his spouse?

The bottom line is, if this God exists, the moral rules it dictates for humans are arbitrary. God could command us to do or not do anything at his whim, as you've implicitly admitted in this thread, as in:

So, if God commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites, it couldn't be morally wrong for them to do so, and it would have been morally wrong NOT to do so.

And thus, you have no basis for morally judging any action by others, as you cannot know what God commands anyone else to do.

And disturbingly, you or anyone else can use this reasoning to justify to yourself and to others any action you commit, as has been the case far too often throughout history.

God can't command people to commit acts of terrorism because God is Holy. He can't be associated with sin.

I see the actions of the Israelites as portrated in Joshua to be morally equivalent with acts of terrorism. Killing men, women, children and even the beasts of cities you conquor, or occasionally taking some of their stuff or young women for your own purposes? If God can command someone to do those things, what's an occasional bomb on a bus or in front of an abortion clinic?

Further, the Plagues that God is described as inflicting on Egypt appear to be very much acts of Terrorism.

You're saying here that a hypothetical, but entirely possible, case of an Israelite grabbing an infant from its mother's arms bashing it on the ground, killing the woman and her pregnant sister, and killing her infirm mother in her bed, but taking her young, unmarried sister to be a slave and possibly forced into marrying one of the people that slaughtered her family would not be morally wrong, and would not be a "sin". Refusing to do so would be a sin. Yet at the same time you condemn acts of terrorism as being obviously sin and thus God wouldn't command someone to do them as he can't be associated with sin.

You're saying that the actions of the Israelite in the hypothetical but entirely possible case I described above is something that is morally right according to your god's own nature. I want nothing to do with such a god.

You're saying that none of the actions that God commanded the Israelites to do in the OT are morally wrong or "sin". Thus, earlier in the thread when you said that killing your child is morally wrong, you were wrong under your moral system as God commanded the Israelites to kill children that curse their parents. The logical conclusion is that it is not a sin (not morally wrong) for a parent to kill a rebellious child under your system. The only moral right and wrong in your system is obeying and disobeying your God.

Our only hope for peaceful coexistence, compassion, and mercy is for moral right and wrong to be defined by human beings without relying on anything that any God supposedly commands.

Keith

You assume that our peacful coexistence, compassion, and mercy are "good" things. I agree, and I am able to know and understand what is "good" because God is the standard and the very definition of what is good. Now, tell me, if God doesn't exist, how do you know what is/isn't "good"? How can your desire for the above mentioned things be meaningfully understood without any objective standard for what is "good"? Are they "good" because YOU say so?

Keith

Arbitrary? Can you support that? As I've pointed out in my scenario with the two sons and the different rules given to them, the fact that God sometimes gives different instructions to different people doesn't make God inconsistent or arbitrary.

God can indeed command what he wants...but it is impossible for God to want to command evil. God can't be at war against His own nature.

Mageth

Originally posted by Keith
You assume that our peacful coexistence, compassion, and mercy are "good" things. I agree, and I am able to know and understand what is "good" because God is the standard and the very definition of what is good.

The OT accounts, and the content of your posts on this thread clearly illustrate the uselessness of God as a standard for what is "good", particularly in regards to peacful coexistence, compassion, and mercy.

Now, tell me, if God doesn't exist, how do you know what is/isn't "good"? How can your desire for the above mentioned things be meaningfully understood without any objective standard for what is "good"? Are they "good" because YOU say so?

I, and others, have already answered these questions many times on this thread.

It would be good if you would either reread and respond to the previous answers and move on or stop this apparently endless repetition of the same questions.

Keith

Your own subjective feelings about what YOU want to say you consider to be morally wrong, along with your feelings about whether or not you want to have anything to do with Him, is your right, but none of this has anything to do with what is/isn't objectively true.