Philosoft

Because the totality of evidence "in favor" of immortality is the multitude of beliefs that it is in some way true?

Keith Russell

Greetings:

God doesn't exist. God has never killed anyone.

All the good, and all the evil, that has ever been done to human beings, has been done by human beings.

I hope that clears things up.

Keith.

Jobar

Meeee, this is the Internet Infidels, part of the Secular Web. *Of course* there are mostly nontheistic arguments here. If you read the threads in this forum, there are more atheist posters than theists. That's just the way it is. If you go to a theist site, you will find mostly protheist arguments. I am just trying to point out to you that it takes a considerable knowledge of theology to post here, if you wish to defend your beliefs credibly.

And Keith, I know this is a long thread, but you should read David Payne's excellent summation on the previous page. It may save you from looking silly.

Vorkosigan

As others have already explained, Meee, this is a web community for people who think gods are a silly idea. However, we have also published good "pro" articles. If you wish to write one, by all means go ahead write and submit. We love to host quality work.

Vorkosigan

[ September 15, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

FarSeeker

DP, perhaps these references may help you.

[S]houldn't the butchering of the Amalekite children be considered war crimes?
<a href="http://www.christian-thinktank.com/rbutcher1.html" target="_blank">http://www.christian-thinktank.com/rbutcher1.html</a>

How could a God of Love order the massacre/annihilation of the Canaanites?
<a href="http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qamorite.html" target="_blank">http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qamorite.html</a>

This document refers to the firstborn, but may not satisfy you:
<a href="http://www.christian-thinktank.com/cross2.html" target="_blank">http://www.christian-thinktank.com/cross2.html</a>

This document contains some references to the Jewish cultures view of firstborn:
<a href="http://www.christian-thinktank.com/theoudelphia.html" target="_blank">http://www.christian-thinktank.com/theoudelphia.html</a>

Note what this last document says:
“The same idea is used to express the closeness of Jesus to God and appears when Jesus is described as being in the form or image of God and as his Firstborn”

Jesus as the firstborn destroys your claim that the death of the Egyptian firstborn was a strike exclusively against “little one,” ie. children.


Thomas Metcalf, posted August 18, 2002 07:03 PM Well, that is your opinion. And the Atheists (DP specifically in the opening post, but none of you have disagreed with him on it) on this thread are blaming Christians and Jews for the actions of a few Moslems on 9/11. You have likewise been criticizing Christianity for few evil people who called themselves Christian instead of Atheist. And Atheists have no justification for morals, only opinions. Christians have been a majority in the U.S. since its beginning; if we are the despotic, violent religionists all of you have been claiming or implying, then we would have already elected a dictator like they did in Germany in the 1930’s.

Well, that is your opinion. Stalin didn’t share it, Dr. Singer doesn’t seem to share it, the doctors performing partial-birth and post birth abortions don’t share it. And since Dr. Singer holds the Chair of Bioethics at Princeton, I think his opinion holds more weight than yours. But it’s strange, I thought it was wrong to kill people because -- even among Atheists -- they were intelligent human beings, not whether someone misses them. It’s a pity if I am wrong. If it is OK to kill someone if only a few people miss a person, as you said, then that would still allow a multitude of killing. Do you miss the victims of the Tiananmen massacre? Then it’s OK with you?

Scientific deceit or ignorance does not become you. There is a difference between a viable embryonic human and an unfertilized egg. Note I also recognize a difference between a viable embryo and a rare accident I have only heard reference to where an egg turns cancerous instead into an embryo.

Also, make your claims about studies with references please. I have been lied to by Atheists about their “facts.”

Well, that is your opinion. What goals requires you to eat meat but the joy of killing animals? What goal requires you to cut down a tree but joy of destroying a forest? Perhaps I was calling the fallacy by an incorrect name; what is the fallacy called when you say that the judge is not allowed to execute justice, but a layman can? Vigilantism? However, I ask you to show that “gratuitous” suffering exists. And is it a tu quoque fallacy if an Atheist says it is moral?

Well, that is your opinion. But, hey, if you want to be irrational, go ahead. Those Atheists claim they are rationally right, so that would make you irrationally wrong. On the other hand, God needs to uphold justice. All are judged. The guilty are condemned, and those judged innocent are welcomed home.

I said “to support the existence of God,” not prove. I challenge you to even prove your own existence. I think that if you gave all the proofs for the Earth being spherical I could probably discount them one by one in the same way you do with those proofs you mention, but I still accept that the world is round. You’ve simply been demanding things from Christians you don’t demand of science. The Cosmological argument proves the creation event, time, space, matter/energy all had a beginning. Thus, before the beginning there was no time or space as we know it. We can’t go there. The place cannot operate by the laws that limit our universe. It is thus outside of nature: the supernatural realm. The teleological argument shows a design, and the relatively benign nature of Earth is statistically unaccountable. Time is moving in only one direction, when it doesn’t have to, ie: when you flip a coin and it always lands heads, you know something is wrong, most likely it was designed with 2 heads, that is not illicit. Every non-creator explanation I’ve heard fails. There is a scientific law that for scientific purposes, any probability below about 1/(10^50) is considered impossible. Also, there are motors found in nature that are as near to the ones man designs and builds as individual molecules will allow. So accept a theistic explanation with a little evidence for it, or an Atheistic one with none. Your choice. The Euthyphro dilemma is only about how or why God selects moral law:

Socrates: We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

It has no connection with the existence of moral law: Either Moral laws exist outside of man’s choice, or you have to admit that the Nazis did nothing wrong according to their own, socially chosen, moral law.

Ie: “Was its designer foolish because the Titanic sank, or did the Titanic sink because it designer is foolish?”
Whichever, the Titanic still sank.

“Is the moral law beloved by the God because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the God.”
Whichever, The Law still exists.

Hume’s argument comes down to “miracles don’t exist because they can’t exist because they don’t exist.” Having experienced a minor miracle that saved me from bodily harm and possibly saved my life, I can attest they do happen.

Christianity is unique among the world religions. It has a history, yet one not its own: Judaism. It was cruelly suppressed, but survived and flourished. It did not initially spread by force (AD 30- AD 313 without the war and bloodshed that Islam used almost from day one). It developed science and freedom as no other religion did. Despite the infections of evil that plagued it (Crusades, Inquisition, corruption, etc.) it gave birth to the free nation of the United States. On the other hand, what “Atheist” nations are you talking about? Every Atheist nation that has existed has been dictatorial. That is every one! Soviet Russia, The Eastern European nations, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, African Marxist nations, etc. You would think that the Atheists in at least one of these nations would have been able to reach some rational conclusion of freedom, after all, Christians did it where they were: The United States.

And I think I can blame Marxism’s actions on Atheism using DP logic in blaming 9/11 on theists. Or isn't that allowed?

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: FarSeeker ]</p>

FarSeeker

Actually Meeee, I hate to trouble you, but Hitler wasn't an Atheist, he could best be classified as a "pagan." In the book "Hitler's Table Talk" Hitler actually says something like, "Atheism is for the animals."

However, Hitler wasn't a Christian either, he despised Christianity, and spoke of making the priest and parsons dig their own graves once the war was over.

There is a thread in the archives on this site that is worth reading, if only to catch the Atheists' failures in logic and history.

I know you feel you are doing the right thing, but they aren't ready for your testimony, remember Matthew 7:6. They hold God in contempt here and won't listen to what you are saying. All that will happen is they will taunt you and puff themselves up with pride for doing so.

The watchword here is choose your battles carefully.

Kantian

Hello farseeker. I wanted to add a few comments to what you just posted:
That is not quite true. Morals are not objective- rather they are products of a long evolution of language and custom and sentiments that has forgotten its origins. In addition, it is quite possible to have recourse to reason as a foundation for morality, without having to fall back on "divine" dogmatism. For your information, there are many forms of ethical theories that lack divine sanction/command/authority. An atheist has various options in order to justify his morality. In addition, the possibility of a theological ethics is wrought with difficulties. Just ask Thomas Metcalf!
That is a terrible argument, misleading at best and dishonest at worst. Nazi Germany was a product of anti-semitism, which is an outgrowth of Christianity.
What is your point here? That murder is always wrong unless one gains divine sanction?
That does not justify a potential generalization you are implying here.
Terminal diseases, natural disasters, children being born to parents of debilitating diseases, dictators living to a ripe old age- all the result of a defective designer whose foresight failed him in his task of creation.
The Rants, raving, preaching, etc. forum is down the hall. Such regurgitation of Christian dogma will not fly here.
I challenge you to define your terms before anyone falls for that predictable trap. Exactly what do you mean by 'prove?' By logical, mathematical, scientific, or philosophical methods? To whom?
Unsubstantial and very gratuitous assertions are ridiculously easy to make. However, it is rather difficult to back them up.
No, it assumes that infinite regress is impossible, whereas that may not be necessarily true.
This is horrendously bad grammar. There is no "before" the beginning, no "before" time. It just might be the case that time may be infinite, that there is a limited amount of matter, but unlimited time. This entails an eternal return of the same.
Argumentum ad ignorantum. Doesn't the term 'we' include you and any "divinely" inspired biblical writers as well?
If the 'place' you refer to is outside of nature, then it is not even 'supernatural' but a paralogism, and beyond the limits of our understanding, as well as beyond language, beyond all empirical worth (the presupposition of space and time).
False- the teleological argument is a terrible one from analogy, a flawed one at best because it only implies a limited creator- not the God of theism. Rather, the teleological argument is a dead horse that Christians and other theists keep 'exhuming' allover again.
The anthropic argument is a species of the lottery argument, which is a fallacy.
Incorrect. It is a question of whether God arbitrarily issues moral laws or is beholden to them.
That does not even come anywhere with a stray dog's sniffing distance of the ballpark of the dilemma.
Another feeble argument from the house of Farseeker:

• Premise 1 A or B
• Premise 2 ~B
• Conclusion Therefore, A

A = Morality must exist independently of man's choice.
B = Nazi were not wrong

That spells the Either/Or fallacy- you reduce all options/avenues/possibilities to a ridiculously low number in order to make a case. (You know the opponent is reaching when he or she is falling back on the Nazis to bolster their case). Your refusal to examine the 'moral law' is rather unsurprising.
Bunghole fallacy- maintaining one's head in one's bunghole does not make a case.

Does it, indeed? Didn't Jesus say he had come to break the 'law?'

Strawman and inconsistent usage of the term 'miracle.' Hume's argument against miracles is an empirical one- you cannot rule out your entire experience over a single report of a non-natural event because your mind will automatically search for a natural explanation, given its habitual assumption of causality. Your experience of a 'near-miss' is most definitely not a miracle- unless you'd like to exercise your right of Christian privileges of linguistic gymnastics?

Romantic illusions have been known to corrupt even the best of inquiring minds.

False. You would have to make a much stronger case for that claim (Christianity is responsible for the birth of the US) The United States is actually a consequence of John Locke's liberal views of the government, and as well as several outstanding individuals – the founding fathers. That they were Christians has nothing to do with the fact they established a great republic.

Incorrect, due to sloppy thinking. Atheism has nothing to do with the structure of the government these nations adopted.

It will be amusing to see how you will justify this claim that Marxism has to do with 9/11.

~Transcendentalist~

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Kant ]</p>

Vorkosigan

And I think I can blame Marxism’s actions on Atheism using DP logic in blaming 9/11 on theists. Or isn't that allowed?

Go ahead and try. I'm sure it will be highly amusing to turn "I don't believe in gods," into a justification for totalitarian dictatorship.

Marxists killed because of Communism, not atheism. Communism, like Christianity, Islam, Facism, and other belief systems, is a system of thinking in which the believer commits wholeheartedly to an authority outside his or her own mind. The result of such thinking is always authoritarianism and death. I don't see any difference between, say, Communist Russia, Saudi Arabia, Calvin's Geneva, Puritan England, the Catholic Church and Facist Nazi Germany in fundamental behavior and modes of thinking. Each of them, when they had temporal power, attempted to suppress dissent, control thought, imprison, harass and murder their enemies, and implant their ideology in the young for transmission to the next generation.

Meanwhile atheists have never killed for the sake of atheism. What is there in "I do not believe in gods" to kill for? May as well kill for "I do not believe in Santa Claus" or "I do not believe in ESP!"

Vorkosigan

Kantian

Vorkosigan, after reading a discussion group in Yahoo recently, i learned that despite Tacitus' reference to Jesus and the link to persecution of Christian in the times of Nero (the great fire of Rome), there aren't any Christian commentators that refer to this incident for a couple of centuries. If the early Christians were not adverse to interpolate a few passages in the historian Josephus' works, what's stopping them from adding a few in the Annals?

Vorkosigan

This reference is accepted by virtually all classical scholars. But why is this post here?

Vorkosigan