Kenny

Kenny

Samhain, bd-from-kg, Ender, Malaclypse, Bill Snedden, Darwin's Finch, and any others who may decide to extend their congrats,

Thanks!

We are both very happy and excited about starting our new life together. Ya know, its kind of weird I suppose, but I spend so much time here and I feel like I know so many of you, that I feel like you all had to know just as much as all of my friends out in “real life.” Even though we may be on opposite sides of the ideological fence on a number of issues, I feel privileged to be able to share this with you.

God Bless,
Kenny

P.S. Malaclypse, if there’s anyone one who’s being unjustly punished in this matter, I’m sure it’s Sarah (my fiance’s name)

Kenny

Congratulations to you as well on your fairly recent marriage. I hope it continues to go well for you. I suppose we can’t really know until we have experienced the hardships of married life, but we realize that things will not always be easy. This will be a big adjustment for both of us. We love each other though, and we are both committed and determined to make it work. I believe that we will be happy together.

God Bless,
Kenny

99Percent

There we go again, the difference between knowledge, belief and faith.

Sorry, I couldn't resist but this is the EoG forum no? Anyway, congrats Kenny

jpbrooks

Hello, all.

Samhain,

I have incurred a case of food poisoning and may have to go back to the hospital. In any case, I'll post a response to your last post later.

Kenny,

congratulations on your proposal.

bd-from-kg and Bill Snedden,

I wish you continued success in your relationships.

[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>

theophilus

Unbelievers always assert that they can establish such a system. I have yet to see them do so. Merely denying the adequacy of the theistic explanation does not establish the legitimacy of a non-theistic explanation.

Samhain

Chaos and nihilism. These are the reasons we are concerned about justice. If the world conceded moral nihilism then chaos would ensue, there would be no repercussions for any action, wrong or good, bringing us to a purely pointless existence in which we would, most likely, destroy ourselves in the process. Therefore the reason we concern ourselves with justice is out of the need of self-preservation, in order to establish that some things aren't going to be "passed by" so to speak without certain punishments, in an attempt to ensure that we do not destroy the human race.

Yes, we can see this by the OT. God floods the earth. Why? Because the people of the earth choose to worship something other than him. God sends the plagues upon the Egyptians, also for the same basic reason. The list goes on and on, so why is it meaningful to say this when we cannot even reasonably and logically comprehend how these actions could possibly be just?

[quote] Originally posted by: bd-from-kg:

Now as to the latter possibility, many Christians have pointed out that it faces insuperable difficulties, because what is just for an omniscient, omnipotent being who created us may not be just for us and vice-versa.

All, I'd say, unless they were completely irrational, being totally and completely blinded by what other people interpret to them about the Bible. And they would know such a thing by reading the OT.

Prove that we "deny" this, rather than just rejecting falsehoods, and we'll talk.

Ok, I'll bite.
Justice: n. 1. The quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness. 2. rightfulness, lawfulness 3. justness of ground or reason.
As you noticed, I put equitableness in bold (fair and impartial or reasonable), or that of being equal. Equal punishment for equal crime, etc. Which is exactly why we have the law (although some mitigating circumstances may deign whether the punishment is equal or not). Law is a fairly good example of a morally objective ground without God (even while some countries may have different laws, yes, all have several of the "basics" which could be what we would call the heart of this objective ground: don't murder, steal, etc.).

Through rational thought.

See above.

Except that the believer's creator seldom has any of the properties of "justice" which are deigned to be "reflected" by their creator.

Unless of course, that "something" is God, yes?

theophilus

But this is pure subjectivism, not an absolute, objective standard.
First, you say "we" as if you speak for some group. What is your authority to speak for anyone but yourself (yes, I have such an authority, God's word).
Second, self-preservation is a preference, not a demonstrable value. Unless you can demonstrate that life has some intrinsic purpose beyond mere physical existence, this is subjective.
Similarly, unless you can demonstrate that Chaos and nihilism are inherently "bad," you prove nothing there.
Finally, "equity" is, again, a relative, subjective term. My idea of equity might be that I deserve to live and everyone else deserves to die. Unless you can demonstrate objectively that my idea is invalid, you've accomplished nothing.
Once again, you've merely demonstrated that atheists assume the values of God's word (truth, justice, equity, righteousness) while rejecting the authority of the author.
The challenge remains, produce an objective justification for justice, as a concept, and an objective standard for its application.
You'll need to explain how a "concept" like justice can arise from a purely materialistic reality.

Bill Snedden

But why do we need "an absolute, objective standard?" Wouldn't an intersubjective standard do equally well?

If there were to be a value upon which all human beings could agree, wouldn't that be sufficient for the development of concepts like "justice" and "good"? If not, why not?

Note that I'm not arguing that such a value does exist, merely asking why it would be insufficient if it did.

Actually, I think I just did.

At any rate, I'd still like to know from where your god derives his authority over us. What gives god the "right" to do with us as he pleases? Why does he get to set the rules?

I'm really not trying to be facetious. I've never had a response to this that seems to cover all the angles. I'd especially like to know how Christians who ostensibly believe in the ideal of democracy can possibly reconcile this with their faith.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

P.S. No, I don't "like BD more" than you, but I certainly agree with him a lot more often.

bd-from-kg

theophilus:

1. The nature of my argument

You seem to be under the impression that the point of my argument is to show that God is unjust. This is absurd. I began by assuming an omnimax God, which means among other things that He is perfectly just. To argue that such a God is unjust would be logically incoherent.

The real point, as Kenny realized immediately, is to try to show that there is a fundamental self-contradiction in the notion of such a God punishing one of His creatures. In other words, the idea is to show that the ideas about God held by many theists are logically incoherent. So all of your comments about what nontheists supposedly can and cannot do, or “must” or “need” to do, are beside the point.

2. The ontological status of justice

When I speak of “justice” having an objective meaning, I mean having a meaning other than “what God does, or wills, or commands”. If “justice” has an objective meaning in this sense, it is meaningful to speak of God as being “just” or having the attribute of “justice”; otherwise it is essentially meaningless. That is to say, in the latter case to say that God is just is to say only that God does what He does, or wills what He wills, or commands what He commands.

You seem to want to have it both ways. Thus you say on the one hand “[God] does not have the ‘attribute’ of justice”, but on the other, “It is meaningful to say that God is just in that his judgement is appropriate to the offense.” But if God is the ultimate standard of justice, the latter statement means only that His judgment is His judgment. Any judgment that He made would by definition be equally appropriate to the “offense”. If God were to choose to torture someone in Hell for eternity for unknowingly stepping on a crack in the sidewalk, this would be perfectly just; the punishment would by definition be completely appropriate to the offense. Thus if God is the ultimate standard of justice, it is not meaningful to say that God is just in that His judgment is appropriate to the offense.

The dilemma is not avoided by saying that justice is a “reflection” of God’s nature. Either His nature is what it is necessarily or it is contingent. But if it is contingent, what could it be contingent on? So we are more or less forced to the conclusion that God’s nature is necessary – that is, that it could not be other than what it is. But why could it not be otherwise? The only possible answer, so far as I can see, is that a being with the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc., must necessarily have this nature by virtue of having them. That means that God could not be otherwise than He is and still be perfectly good, just, etc. And that in turn can only mean that there are external standards of goodness, justice, etc., that God’s nature necessarily conforms to. Which is to say that, although God is perfectly just, He is not the ultimate standard of justice. Indeed, to say that He is perfectly just is to say that there is an external standard of justice to which His nature conforms.

3. The epistemological status of justice

But we are still left with the question of how we might know anything about the principles of “justice”. The standard theistic answer is that this knowledge comes from God. But this answer involves an unresolvable dilemma. And it involves this dilemma regardless of whether you think that God is the “ultimate standard of justice” or that His nature necessarily conforms to an external standard.

There seem to be only two possibilities (or at any rate, there are only two that I’m familiar with; perhaps you can suggest another). Our knowledge of the nature of justice might come from observing God’s actions, or it might come from being “told” by God.

[Note: Since your last post seemed to reflect some confusion on this point, I’ll clarify this by saying that I would classify reading about what God has supposedly said about the nature of justice in a “holy” book as being “told” by God, whereas reading about what He has supposedly done in such a book would be counted as “observing His actions”.]

Now given the nature of God’s actions as depicted in their “holy” book, Christians really have no choice but to argue that principles of justice cannot be discerned by observing God’s actions. (Unless one is willing to argue, for example, that annihilating entire large populations, including babies still suckling at their mothers’ breasts, is “just” as a general rule.) And on reflection, it must be admitted that they have a point. God knows far more than we do, and may be aware of reasons for, and consequences of, His actions about which we have no clue. So this is a non-starter.

As to the alternative, I can hardly do better than to repeat what I said earlier:

Your reply to this was:

This answer is unresponsive. Would you care to try to deal with the actual point? Or is changing the subject the only response you can think of?

I continued:

You replied:

You have it exactly backwards. It’s your epistemological problem, not mine.

I concluded:

You replied:

Fine. But my point was not how a theist might account our having this fundamental sense of justice (which must exist prior to our being told anything by God if it is to provide grounds for believing anything God tells us), but simply that a theist must posit that we do indeed have such a sense (or intuition, or innate knowledge) of the fundamental principles of justice.

It seems clear that you didn’t understand this point because you said:

But of course it isn’t an “adequate witness” to anything at all unless we know in advance that God is truthful.

Along the same lines you said:

If by this you mean that you know that God wouldn’t lie to us because God has told us that He wouldn’t, you’re committing a fallacy most six-year-olds are intelligent enough to spot.

4. The conclusion

I continued my argument by saying:

Your response was:

But that’s absurd. One might as well say that one cannot know that heavy objects tend to fall unless one is completely familiar with the General Theory of Relativity. Obviously one need not know whether capital punishment is just to know that punishing a "hit man" in some fashion is just.

I concluded:

To this you gave no answer that requires further rebuttal.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>