KnightWhoSaysNi

Hi HG,

No, I think it's more logical to assume that people do indeed have *lives* away from our keyboards and modem. That's why I had to drop out the Tweb discussion too. And this one too, if it continued further.

By the way, Socrates/Sarfati is not a CR. I remember him saying something to the effect that Jesus fulfilled OT law including the various Mosaic moral laws.

As far as "legislating my opinion on others" I would have misgivings about that too, but I guess it depends on the situation. And when you wrote, "It is the difference of men having opinions concerning other men's opinions and men having opinions concerning God's authority" this overlooks the possibility that 'God's authority' is actually man's opinion after all, if we live in an atheistic universe. Also, I certainly don't think of myself as a "perfect moral agent." That would be a very dangerous position to hold regardless of one's worldview. I'm only human and I screw up sometimes and will continue to. Humility is also a virtue whether you believe in a god or not.

By the way, here's something I found on a Christian Reconstructionist website that addresses the verse in question, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

from: http://www.chalcedon.edu/report/97nov/gentry.shtml

Anyways, see ya around HG.

Roland98

I thought it was pretty clear from the "huge grin" smiley that it was, indeed, a cheap shot--however, I'm honored that you chose to reply to my passing remark when you left many meaty posts untouched--not to mention being able to delve deep into my psychological profile when my post was a mere 21 words. Very impressive...

Hired Gun

Originally posted by Hired Gun
Nice cheap shot, but a little tired. I can only say that from this side of the screen, if you fail to recognize what I know to be the truth about myself, it's no surprise that you are unable to recognize the truth of other matters as well.

A.S.A. Jones [/QUOTE]

I thought it was pretty clear from the "huge grin" smiley that it was, indeed, a cheap shot--however, I'm honored that you chose to reply to my passing remark when you left many meaty posts untouched--not to mention being able to delve deep into my psychological profile when my post was a mere 21 words. Very impressive... [/QUOTE]

As far as I know, I have addressed every single post in detail with the exception of Goober's. If you can please tell me where I have missed a post, I will gladly respond to it.

A.S.A. Jones

ex-xian

You missed my last one...first one on this page of the thread.

Hired Gun

I'm still planning on getting to yours. I have QoS, and Dr. Rick on the board next.

A.S.A. Jones

ex-xian

But I was first...no fair!

Jinto

I'm very glad you realize this. I expect that we will then see no more of this idiocy:

Logically prove to me that God is not justified in treating us differently than he would himself. If you can't logically prove this, then you are giving me an opinion and I doubt that you will be able to convince me that your opinion is better than my opinion, because I am very fond of my opinion.

...because the fact that your opinion has not been refuted does not make it true, or our contrary opinions false.

Excuse me, but I sense a shifting of the burden of proof here.

Where did I mention the fact that it is a game of submission as a reason for why he doesn't have the right to tell us what game we should play. Your argument was God invented the game of life (where life is defined as submission to God), therefore he has the right to tell us how to play it. Fine. Now what right does he have to tell us TO play it? What right?

Wrong. I refuse to play THIS game. By what right do you tell me I cannot do this?

Okay, you actually got something right for a change. Good job.

And again, this is an unanswered question. You said that he can tell us how to play a game. Fine, but why do I have to play his game at all? This is what you are not getting.

Bingo. Are you finally beginning to understand this?

Fine, call it the game of life if you will, but frankly regardless of what name you put on that game you are still left with the following:

1) God created the universe (granted for sake of argument)
2) God created sentient beings in the universe (granted for sake of argument)
3) God created a set of rules for these life forms amounting to what you call the game of life (and I, not wanting to use a misnomer, call the game of submission to God)
4) Therefore, IF we are playing the game of STG, then God has the right to tell us what the rules are.
5) However, if I and other humans do not wish to play that game, then we have the right to invent another one (call it humanism) and play that one instead.
6) God does not have the right to make humanism illegal (by analogy 5)
7) nor does God have the right to punish us in accordance with the rules of a game we are NOT playing.

Now, tell me: what right does God have to force us to play his game and no others? You still haven't answered that question.

Since your answer has missed the point entirely, I see no reason to respond to this.

Wow. I see you have become very proficient at burning strawmen.

Actually, this is completely irrelevant to the argument, but let's go with this for a sec. I think submission to X is just plain stupid, regardless of what X is. I also think it's a very good sign that either God is incredibly stupid (in which case, I don't want fellowship with him), or he doesn't want fellowship with us, despite his claims to the contrary. Tell me, are you more or less likely to be my friend if I demand that you worship me? Presumably, an omnipotent being is capable of the same intuition.

I state a null hypothesis that you have failed to refute. The burden of proof is on you. You must provide a reason to believe that God IS the objective basis of morality. To see why this is so (presumably, you remember this from your logical days, but a refresher never hurts), consider the following: I declare myself to be the arbiter of morality. I invented the game of Jintoism, and have absolute right to tell you how to play it. Thus, to not obey me is immoral. If I declared that one ought to play Jintoism instead of some other game, and did NOT provide support for that assertion (as you have not provided support for your assertion that one must play your god's game), then you would be justified in rejecting my argument on that ground alone. Period.

Did you read what I said? I did not say that he makes us do bad things, I said he makes us so that we do bad things. Your inability to read what I actually wrote does not impress me.

Anyway, you left some stuff out of your analogy.

In other words, he creates a problem, uses an incompetent to "fix" the problem, does not supervise his workers, is shocked when everything goes to hell, pretends to be a hero by offering us a way out that requires no effort on his part and no risk to himself, when we, using our own methods, could bypass the whole charade, and then punishes us for thinking for ourselves rather than blindly obeying him. Wow. Either he is incredibly stupid or incredibly evil, or both. But I can see that by leaving facts out of your analogy, you could pretend that he's the type of God you would actually want to worship.

WinAce

Unless you have no absolute or objective basis, but pick entity X's subjective decrees as that basis anyway

See, at a core level, you won't be able to justify your preference of God's alleged laws over, say, that of humanism, communism or democracy. You can present reasons to follow those rules in lieu of the ones we come up with ("God will kick your rear if you don't", "God will be hurt if you don't obey", etc.) but at its core you always return to one of empathy or selfishness, which aren't god-dependent foundations for moral theories.

Or would you perhaps like to halt the charade and explain why God's commands to love thy neighbour are preferable to Hitler's commands to kill the Jews? Appeal to any non-god standard (like "one would cause untold suffering, so it's bad") and you automatically lose the debate.

... What's that? Ah, you just think it makes good sense to arbitarily pick one set of laws over another with the logic of a coin toss.

Hired Gun

<snip of all the idiocy>

Whoops! There went your whole post.

Anyway, I think I did an excellent job of presenting why God has the right to establish the rules of the game. You do have every right not to play the game, but by not playing the game you are still playing it, like it or not.

Consider another well known game, known as the Rat Race. Like it or not, you are part of this game. You can either learn the rules and play the game well and end up with all sorts of material goodies, or you can take the attitude of , "No one can force me to play this dreadful game! I refuse to play! I'll show them! I'll fake a disability and go on SSI, collect $500.00 a month, move into subsidized housing and never work another day in my life."

15 years later, when you've lost all your teeth and only bathe every third day, you can lean back in your ratty old recliner and victoriously say, "Well, I sure showed them."

A.S.A. Jones

Dr Rick

Great; this time, if it's okay with you, let's address our arguements and not strawmen.

Let's also not employ analogies, or do so only very carefully, Analogies are rarely persuasive or sound because the ones chosen are all too frequently not analogous. For analogies to work, they must be based upon agreed premises.

We haven't agreed yet that veterans, men, or leaders of affluent countries are analoguous to omnigods, and there are a huge number of reasons to suggest that they are not.

Furthermore, it's pointless to claim my arguments are "unsubstantiated" when they are based upon your choosen premises and scenarios; all that's unsubstantiated under those conditions are the premises and scenarios you have chosen. If I respond to a scenario you propose, it's nonsensical to claim my response is unsubstantiated because my reply is predicated upon the conditions and circumstances you asserted. To argue otherwise is to argue that I must substantiate your assertions, which is just a fallacious shifting of the burden of proof. What you can do is claim that my response does not respond to your scenario in an appropiate way and then enumerate the reasons why you believe that is the case.

Finally, I made a mistake; please replace the word "former" in my last post with the word "latter."

Thanks,
Rick