Objective morality, Evidence for God's existence

[Illuminaughty]

Abraxas isn't a parody name. Some of the gnostic Christians thought he was a real archon and demiurge figure.

Abraxas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is what he looks like:

 

[Elioenai26]

Abraxas isn't a parody name. Some of the gnostic Christians thought he was a real archon and demiurge figure.

Abraxas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is what he looks like:

Excellent, but I shall still say it is a parody, especially considering how you used it. For Basilides of Egypt, an early 2nd-century Gnostic teacher, viewed Abraxas as the supreme deity and the source of divine emanations, the ruler of all the 365 heavens, or circles of creation-one for each day of the year. The number 365 corresponds to the numerical value of the seven Greek letters that form the word abraxas.

This is no more than a belief that is intrinsically imitative in it's essential nature of the Judeo-Christian God of the Old and New Testaments. That is why I used the word parody.

 

[Illuminaughty]

This is no more than a belief that is intrinsically imitative in it's essential nature of the Judeo-Christian God of the Old and New Testaments. That is why I used the word parody.

Christians like Bassilides often make use of Jewish and Christian teachings that's there thing. You might as well accuse baptists or catholics of imitating judeo-Christian teaching. The charge wouldn't make much sense.

 

[Elioenai26]

Christians like Bassilides often make use of Jewish and Christian teachings that's there thing. You might as well accuse baptists or catholics of imitating judeo-Christian teaching. The charge wouldn't make much sense.

You are patently mistaken once again. Basilides was not a Christian by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Illuminaughty]

He was ethnically Jewish and claimed to follow Jesus. It only makes sense that there are Jewish and Christian concepts in his thought. He lived in Alexandria which had a good size Jewish community.

 

[Loudmouth]

If you need for me to show you that the Holocaust was objectively wrong quatona, then this moral argument is not going to be persuasive to you at all.

In fact, if you do not deal in right and wrongdoing, as you once told me, then I do not believe that any discussion on morality would even be accessible to you.

If the Nazis were following orders from God, would that make it moral?

2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." (1 Sam. 15:2-3).

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Even more, is morality relative to which god you decide to follow?

 

[Elioenai26]

He was ethnically Jewish and claimed to follow Jesus. It only makes sense that there are Jewish and Christian concepts in his thought.

Basilides was a Gnostic heretic who borrowed from a wide range of sources to formulate his eclectic views. Among the many sources he utilized were: antecedent Gnosticism, Greek philosophy, and the Christian scriptures.

In fact, the Basilidians considered themselves to be no longer Jews, and to have become more than Christians. *Wikipedia*.

So to say that he was in any way a Christian in the tradtional sense of the word is simply incorrect.

 

[Rilke's Granddaughter]

Basilides was a Gnostic heretic who borrowed from a wide range of sources to formulate his eclectic views. Among the many sources he utilized were: antecedent Gnosticism, Greek philosophy, and the Christian scriptures.

In fact, the Basilidians considered themselves to be no longer Jews, and to have become more than Christians. *Wikipedia*.

So to say that he was in any way a Christian in the tradtional sense of the word is simply incorrect.

Your opinion is irrelevant. He claimed to follow Christ, who are you to state otherwise? Who made you arbiter of who is Christian and who is not?

 

[Elioenai26]

If the Nazis were following orders from God, would that make it moral?

Several things to note:

1. They were not following orders from God. How do I know this? Well quite simple, God, assuming He exists as you are assuming by your hypothetical, is the Greatest Conceivable Being - Anselm, and therefore the Highest Good. The Highest Good would not order genocide, which is what the Holocaust essentially was.

2. Hypotheticals like yours above, from atheists, are never really effective because you are assuming the existence of an entity you actually lack belief in.

3. Your usage of the passage below:

2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." (1 Sam. 15:2-3).

Is problematic for your hypothetical because the above is fundamentally different from what the Nazis did to the Jews in Nazi Germany. The Judgment on the Amalekites was just that... a judgment on the wickedness of a group of peoples who lived off of terrorizing, raping, and murdering their vulnerable neighbors who did so for hundreds of years despite being warned by God to repent.

Even more, is morality relative to which god you decide to follow?

I follow one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God and Father of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Morality is not relative for me, because there is only one source of morality and it finds its locus in the nature of a Holy, Righteous and loving God.
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[Elioenai26]

Your opinion is irrelevant. He claimed to follow Christ, who are you to state otherwise? Who made you arbiter of who is Christian and who is not?

Christ.

How do I know he was not a true follower of Christ?

"According to both Hippolytus and Irenaeus, the Basilidians denied that the God of the Jews was the supreme God."

Now if Basilides was teaching his followers heresy like the above, then he was not a Christian. Plain and simple. A Christian is a person who follows Christ, not someone who calls themselves a Christian. I know many Christians who claim to follow Christ and yet deny him by the heretical doctrines they hold to be true.

So your assertion that he claimed to be a Christian really is not important. In fact, do you even have any support for your assertion that he claimed to follow Christ?

And even if he did claim to follow Christ, he surely wasnt following the Christ of Christianity.

So your rambling and irrelevant post is really unpersuasive.

 

[Illuminaughty]

Basilides was a Gnostic heretic

That's what Irenaues seemed to believe. I'm not sure if he ever actually called his form of religion "gnosticism" though. He may have claimed to have had gnosis but then again so did many of the proto-orthodox Christians like Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

who borrowed from a wide range of sources to formulate his eclectic views.

Like the earlier Jews who borrowed mythical themes and customs from Canaanite, Babylonian, Persian, and Egyptian religion?

Among the many sources he utilized were: antecedent Gnosticism, Greek philosophy, and the Christian scriptures.

I agree.

So to say that he was in any way a Christian in the tradtional sense of the word is simply incorrect.

Different sects of Christianity often say things like that about competing sects. The winners end up having the power to set their standards as the "real" orthodoxy.

 

[Rilke's Granddaughter]

Several things to note:

1. They were not following orders from God. How do I know this? Well quite simple, God, assuming He exists as you are assuming by your hypothetical, is the Greatest Conceivable Being - Anselm, and therefore the Highest Good. The Highest Good would not order genocide, which is what the Holocaust essentially was.

2. Hypotheticals like yours above, from atheists, are never really effective because you are assuming the existence of an entity you actually lack belief in.

3. Your usage of the passage below:



Is problematic for your hypothetical because the above is fundamentally different from what the Nazis did to the Jews in Nazi Germany. The Judgment on the Amalekites was just that... a judgment on the wickedness of a group of peoples who lived off of terrorizing, raping, and murdering their vulnerable neighbors who did so for hundreds of years despite being warned by God to repent.

I follow one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God and Father of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Morality is not relative for me, because there is only one source of morality and it finds its locus in the nature of a Holy, Righteous and loving God.

God ordered the genocide of the Amelekites. It's that simple. And all the other things you said are not in the bible.

God orders genocide. Read it and weep.

 

[Rilke's Granddaughter]

Christ.

Christ told you that you personally get to decide who's Christian and who's not?

 

[Illuminaughty]

When you start stealing land from other tribes and get the message "kill everything that breathes" in the cities you take I think that counts as attempted genocide:

"You are not to leave even one person alive in the cities of these nations that the LORD your God is about to give you as an inheritance. " Deut 20:16 ISV

"But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes," Deut 20:16 ESV

 

[Rilke's Granddaughter]

And hypotheticals are completely effective, the proposer doesn't have to believe them.

I repeat, you need to learn some basic logic, philosophy, and debate technique. I have several references for beginners: would you like them?

 

[Loudmouth]

Several things to note:

1. They were not following orders from God. How do I know this? Well quite simple, God, assuming He exists as you are assuming by your hypothetical, is the Greatest Conceivable Being - Anselm, and therefore the Highest Good. The Highest Good would not order genocide, which is what the Holocaust essentially was.

God did order genocide. It's recorded in the Bible:

"2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." (1 Sam. 15:2-3).

We even have God ordering the slaughter of infants. In previous posts, I was under the impression that this was morally wrong, no matter what. Now it is morally acceptable because God orders it?

2. Hypotheticals like yours above, from atheists, are never really effective because you are assuming the existence of an entity you actually lack belief in.

How else can we discuss the topic? If we are going to discuss evidence for a specific claim then we assume the claim to be true for determining what would and would not be evidence. That's how it works.

3. Your usage of the passage below . . . Is problematic for your hypothetical because the above is fundamentally different from what the Nazis did to the Jews in Nazi Germany. The Judgment on the Amalekites was just that... a judgment on the wickedness of a group of peoples who lived off of terrorizing, raping, and murdering their vulnerable neighbors who did so for hundreds of years despite being warned by God to repent.

So genocide is morally acceptable when God orders it? Those Amalekite infants were raping and murdering people?

I follow one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God and Father of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Morality is not relative for me, because there is only one source of morality and it finds its locus in the nature of a Holy, Righteous and loving God.

Sure it is relative. It is relative to what the Bible says. It is relative to which religious text you decide to follow.

 

[Elioenai26]

Like the earlier Jews who borrowed mythical themes and customs from Canaanite, Babylonian, Persian, and Egyptian religion?

These mythical themes and customs are???????

Different sects of Christianity often say things like that about competing sects. The winners end up having the power to set their standards as the "real" orthodoxy.

You are using the term sect to refer to the more commonly used term "denomination". There were some movements considered heresies by the early church which do not exist today and are not generally referred to as denominations. Examples include the Gnostics (who had believed in an esoteric dualism called gnosis), the Ebionites (who denied the divinity of Jesus), and the Arians (who subordinated the Son to the Father by denying the pre-existence of Christ, thus placing Jesus as a created being). *Wikipedia*

So once again, you are simply overgeneralizing and are incorrect.

 

[Elioenai26]

God did order genocide. It's recorded in the Bible:

"2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." (1 Sam. 15:2-3).

We even have God ordering the slaughter of infants. In previous posts, I was under the impression that this was morally wrong, no matter what. Now it is morally acceptable because God orders it?

Do you even know what genocide is?

Sure it is relative. It is relative to what the Bible says. It is relative to which religious text you decide to follow.

Relative for me? Or relative in general? I am not a moral relativist. God's words are my moral anchor so to speak.

For the person who believes morality is relative, even they are not relativists when it comes to them being mistreated, so what is your point?

 

[Rilke's Granddaughter]

These mythical themes and customs are???????

You are using the term sect to refer to the more commonly used term "denomination". There were some movements considered heresies by the early church which do not exist today and are not generally referred to as denominations. Examples include the Gnostics (who had believed in an esoteric dualism called gnosis), the Ebionites (who denied the divinity of Jesus), and the Arians (who subordinated the Son to the Father by denying the pre-existence of Christ, thus placing Jesus as a created being). *Wikipedia*

So once again, you are simply overgeneralizing and are incorrect.

What you just said agrees with him.

 

[Rilke's Granddaughter]

Do you even know what genocide is?

Relative for me? Or relative in general? I am not a moral relativist. God's words are my moral anchor so to speak.

For the person who believes morality is relative, even they are not relativists when it comes to them being mistreated, so what is your point?

Genocide: Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (Article 2 CPPCG)

God ordered genocide. He ordered the murder of innocents.