Shadownought

Not by conscious choice they don't. Morality is not a light switch that can be flicked on and off as you please.

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I am afraid you need to go deeper Gary. Why is desiring human civilization rational?

Humans rely heavily on cooperation and social groups to survive. This is especially true when you take into consideration that human infants are basically helpless for a very long period of time. Typically, in early human social groups, some of the group (mostly men) would go out to find food, then they would bring it back to the home base of their social group. In the mean time, the rest of the group would stay home to take care of the infants, and protect each other and the pregnant (i.e. disabled) women. Humans evolved high intelligence and advanced communication skills, but without cooperation, they wouldn't have much of a chance competing with faster, stronger animals. Besides that, human society today STILL relies VERY heavily on a complex system of cooperation and specialized tasks. It is hardly irrational behavior.

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What is special about humans? If evolution is true then there is nothing special about humans. It is just sentimentality for your own species, not rationality.

Preservation of your own species is completely rational behavior. You're saying that all the animals in the world are capable of preserving themselves, but the human race somehow needs God to tell them not to destroy themselves? To avoid killing your own species is irrational?

Ed

No, God does not arbitrarily just declare what is good, he acts according to his moral character which is good.

Shadownought

How do you know his moral character is good?

winstonjen

I'm with Shadownought, Ed. And "God created the world, therefore he's good" or "God said so, that makes it good" are NOT answers, they're cop-outs.

To me, good = reducing harm or increasing pleasure.
evil = increasing harm or reducing pleasure

Long and short-term harm and pleasure are important to my definition.

Therefore, from the bible, god = 99% evil. He plays favourites the other 1% of the time, and there is ALWAYS a net loss of happiness.

Jack the Bodiless

It isn't just that you don't know WHY he is good. You don't know that he actually IS good either.

This is why my worldview is superior to yours. I see both good and evil in the world, and I can explain why both exist. You IMAGINE that God is good, but cannot explain WHY. Therefore there is no rational basis for the assumption that God actually IS good: because there's no reason why he should be good.
Evolution provides a rational explanation of WHY "sentimentality for your own species" should exist.
We already have, and it says nothing of the sort. So why urge us to read it again? Your wishful thiking won't change what the Bible actually says.
Gang members aren't average citizens, Ed.

For average citizens, atheists are apparently LESS likely to end up in prison than Christians. Atheists are under-represented in prison populations.
But we have already established that you have absolutely no basis whatsoever for making such a claim.

NOGO

Ed,
I hope that you realize the inadequacy of your answer.

The problem with you answer is that you limit the scope to Yahweh actions which you claim derive from his moral character.

This is just too narrow a view in light of the Bible.

The Bible says that Yahweh gave laws to Moses. Moral laws I would add. According to you man can be moral if he follows Yahweh's laws and is immoral when he does not.

One of the laws is "thy shalt not kill"
The question is this.
(1) Is killing humans immoral becasue Yahweh said so
OR
(2) is killing humans immoral

If Yahweh had said "thy shalt kill" would killing be moral and would you go out there kill as many as possible to please Yahweh?

In case (2) Yahweh must comply to the law otherwise he is acting in an immoral way. In that case morality is outside of God.

In case (1) Yahweh can break his own laws still be called moral. I believe that this is your position.

In the case of the Amalekites Yahweh told Samuel to massacre people because of something that occurred 400 before in direct contradiction with another law which states that children should not be put to death because of their parents. Every man shall be put to death for HIS OWN SINS.

So Yahweh breaks his own laws.

This is what prompted these statements.

Ed

But sperm and ova come from a bodies that belong to persons therefore it is still ultimately persons producing a person.

Ed

Hardly. Besides Louis Pasteur's formal experiments over 100 yrs ago disproving spontaneous generation, my position has possibly 2 million years of empirical observation.

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And here is your reasoning: { }

Just saying so doesnt make it so.

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jtb: Ed, the ONLY reason you won't accept evolution is because it contradicts the primitive beliefs of Hebrew goat-herders. Stop pretending that you're giving an answer that has anything to do with any form of SCIENCE.

No, given that I believe one can be a devout Christian and still believe in evolution, my objection to evolution is primarily based on science.

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Ed: As I stated above and according to Deut. 24:16 NO government has a right to punish the children of the fathers. This is God's prerogative only. And as I stated earlier all humans deserve to die and God has sometimes used the timing of their death as a punishment of their fathers NOT as a punishment of the children. jtb: Even when the fathers are long dead? The Jews didn't believe in an afterlife. The ancestors of the slain Amalekites were unable to know or care what happened to their descendants: even God could not punish them. If you prefer to believe that the Jews were wrong and there IS an afterlife: then you're faced with a scenario in which God needs to kill innocents in THIS world to punish people who are already in Hell. But you're still missing the point that the punishment of children for the crimes of their parents is immoral and unjust even if God does it. Therefore God is immoral and unjust.

No, there is such a thing as collective and national guilt if the sins committed are condoned or celebrated by those that come after. And given what we know about human nature and God, this was probably why he punished the Amelekites' descendants, in addition to the reasons I stated earlier and other reasons that we dont know about.

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jtb: Does this only apply to the Fall, or is it generally applicable? If a man commits a crime, and then has kids, is it OK to punish them because of their bad "spiritual DNA"? Ed: No, see above about governments. jtb: This has nothing to do with "governments". The issue here is simple, Ed. YOU have claimed that there is an absolute, objective standard of morality. Therefore, according to YOU, an action is either morally RIGHT or morally WRONG. No ifs, no buts, no excuses. It is either morally RIGHT to kill children for the crimes of their parents, or morally WRONG to do so. This standard applies to individuals, governments, and God. It is an absolute moral standard.

No, there are different roles in society and the universe. Just as you dont have the authority to put to death your son's murderer but a judge does. Human governments not being omniscient cannot punish descendents for collective guilt because we cannot see all the spiritual ramifications that God can. See also my comments above.

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jtb: Isn't it time you admitted that you do NOT believe such a standard exists?

No, I do but see above about different jurisdictions.

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jtb: What if the kids had already been born when he committed the crime? Can it be transferred into existing kids, unlike normal DNA? Ed: All human beings because of Adam's sin are born with a sinful nature, i.e. an inclination toward rebellion against God. jtb: Translation: "I refuse to answer this question". Reciting random sentences of Christian dogma is no substitute for thinking, Ed.

No, this is not random, it answers your question if you think a little deeper. In other words, it is already in the kids.

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jtb: If it causes injustice, why doesn't God get rid of it, or eliminate the bad spiritual gene? Ed: Actually he CAN gradually eliminate your sinful nature with your help of course, all you have to do is repent of your sins, accept the gift of the holy spirit thru Christ, and ask Him to take it away. He is doing it with me. jtb: But, according to Christians, the sin is itself PREVENTING many people from asking God to take it away!

No, our natural desire is not to ask Him so they are just preventing themselves.

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jtb: If it's causing suffering and injustice, God should just get rid of it. ALL of it. NOW. ...Why doesn't he do this? Because he CAN'T.

No, because he doesn't want us to be just automatons. We are the ones causing suffering and injustice.

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Ed: You are partially correct, they did not want a religious government in that there was a church state, but they did want a government that recognized the judeo-christian creator and his core unchanging laws, especially his laws relating to human rights, ie the ten commandments. jtb: They specifically legislated against the FIRST commandment, Ed. And you are contradicting yourself AGAIN. According to you, we don't have any human rights. We are all sinners deserving of death, remember?

If they legislated against it then why did they have the government print bibles not long after the US formed? We deserve death but God is gracious and lets us live for while with rights to help protect us from other sinful humans.

Ed

Yes, it was worse because they were given time to realize the seriousness of the sin that their ancestors committed.

No, see above about rational assumptions and my previous posts.

Where?

No, God wants us to use logical reasoning and historical and experiential evidence to help us understand his written word.

Evidence?

No, see above.

No, apparently God felt that a physical accounting was needed besides a spiritual accounting in hell.

This is the end of part I of my response.

Jack the Bodiless

Apply this to dogs. As Bill Snedden pointed out, "only dogs can produce the dogsonal".

Therefore, by your argument, dogs could never have been bred from wolves, and God is a dog.
Ed, if you think that Pasteur's experiment (disproving the spontaneous ganeration of bacteria in a flask over a period of a few weeks under present-day conditions) says anything at all about the formation of self-replicating molecules under early-Earth conditions in entire oceans over millions of years: you are profoundly ignorant of biology.

And how can you claim 2 million years of empirical observation of an event that happened 4 billion years ago, under conditions which no longer exist on Earth?
There is no SCIENTIFIC argument against evolution. Therefore your objection is ENTIRELY religious. Therefore you are lying.
Translation: "the Bible says otherwise, but it's probably lying, because it disagrees with ME".
You have it backwards. "Collective guilt" is for those who lack the power to separate the truly guilty from the truly innocent. An omniscient being would have no use for "collective guilt". God, being nonexistent, isn't omniscient.
If a man with exsiting kids decides to commit a specific crime, then the guilt for that specific crime is already in the kids.

All murderers have kids who are already guilty of murder.

All rapists have kids who are already guilty of rape.

And so on.

You are a very, very sick individual, Ed. You are, in fact, hopelessly insane.
So the natural desire NOT to turn to God...

...isn't a sin!

Unbelief isn't a sin! Even wilful rejection of a God you actually believe in isn't a sin!
No, Ed. According to you, WE are NOT the ones causing suffering and injustice.

According to you, GOD is the one causing suffering and injustice, because God created "spiritual DNA" for this purpose.
That doesn't change the FACT that they legislated AGAINST the First Commandment, Ed.

We are commanded not to worship other gods.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to worship other gods.
THEY WERE NOT PUNISHED, ED. FOR FOUR HUNDRED YEARS, NONE OF THEM WERE PUNISHED. GENERATION AFTER GENERATION WERE NOT PUNISHED.
Re-read this entire thread. NOW.
Let me know when you're ready to begin this process, Ed.
The Bible.

Re-read this entire thread. NOW.
There is nothing "above" that refutes this. You have plainly stated that God can break the rules of moral behavior. God is evil and unjust.
...A "physical accounting" for what?

Not for the initial killing.

And not for many subsequent generations "celebrating" it.