Best Evidence of God -- Inerrancy of the Bible

[quatona]

I'm *trying* to address the atheist' view,

There isn´t such a thing as "the atheist´ view" on anything but the question whether a God exists.
So that would be your first error.

but all I hear is "I don't know" or "there is insufficient information", so they apparently have no view.

That is a view.

Have you never seen a debate? The Christian takes a view and the atheist takes the opposing view...then they hash it out between them.

Yes, I have seen such. It´s the kind of thing good old Willy does all the time, no? What to it? Do you feel it´s worthwhile?

But on the question of whether or not "is raping little girls for fun really wrong no matter what any human thinks" all I get from the atheists here is static.

You are trying to conflate two categories here: the question whether a God exists, and the meta-moral question.
The discussion you want to have is not one between theists and atheist, it is one between people with different meta moral views.
That would be your second error.

Just one other thing:
If an honest searcher would investigate the question " Do OMV&Ds exist?", he certainly wouldn´t start by taking those values and duties he prefers for a premise.
Neither would he look at what values and duties many or most people hold - the popularity would be completely irrelevant since the very thing you are trying to find out is whether values exist *no matter what humans think*.
The actually interesting part about the postulation of the existence of such OMV&Ds is: Since they exist no matter what any humans think, they could turn out to be completely contrary to our own values. E.g. it might turn out that "raping little children for fun" - despite an almost universal agreement among humans that it´s wrong - is "objectively" right and good.
That´s why - apart from having no reason to assume that they exist - I totally don´t understand this obsession with them:
Even if "objective morality" said that "raping little children for fun is right and good", I´d still find it wrong. How about you?

 

[Joshua260]

Joshua260 said:
So you're not willing to make the truth claim that "raping little girls for fun is really wrong"? You're not sure about that one, eh?

Yes. I can merely tell you that I consider it wrong.

Ok. So you merely disagree with the guy raping the little girl who considers it right, and you don't think there's anything objectively wrong with it then. Thanks for your response. I appreciate it.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Thanks for the question.

I always like to begin by making it clear that I am a Molinist, because as you know, Christians vary by degrees regarding Free Will versus the Sovereignty of God. I like to make this clear mostly for the benefit of unbelievers who may not be as familiar with the differences.

That's fine.

So let me work through this...

First, going off of what I wrote earlier, I hope I made it clear that whenever you say "Do you think it would be moral to...", I'm going to substitute that phrase with "Would God have me do..."...because I believe in OMV&Ds.

I would rather have had you stick to the questions as they were articulated, but you have your own POV, I see.

Second, you said "in order to stop the destruction of..." and "in order to stop the Roman destruction of..." and I hope I already made it clear that I believe God's goal is more than just keeping people alive in a "fallen" state. Have you ever read C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters? If you haven't, I highly recommend it!! It's about a senior devil teaching a junior devil how to manipulate a man to hell, and it was set during WW2. What really surprised me in that book was that the senior devil was very adamant towards the junior devil *not* to kill their subject (in a bombing raid I think)!! Why? Because they didn't "have him" yet!! My guess is that God's highest goal is something like "that we should not perish, but have everlasting life". After all, that goal required his greatest sacrifice. I think this answers your question. You seemed to be presenting the choice of would God rather some die or others...but I think God has goals that are usually related to eternal life decisions.

It's great to hear that someone else has enjoyed The Screwtape Letters like I have ...

BTW, in response to your dilemma #1, Jeremiah made it clear that God *did not want* the Jews to kill Nebuchadnezzar, and that his purpose during that episode was actually to discipline the Jews for their constant disobedience. So that's an easy one:

"Would God have me...'kill Nebuchadnezzar in order to stop the destruction of the Jewish people and the Holy Land, as well as the Exile (i.e. enslaved subjection) of the few remaining Jewish people to Babylon?'"
Answer: Nope.

ok, good answer.

So I think I understood the point of your posed dilemmas, but some things you said indicate that you may have been questioning the workings of Molinism, so let me address that too.

Well...not quite. But I'm not going to press it.

Some of the things you referenced relate to various prophecies. For example, the coming of the Messiah was prophesized to occur 490 years after the command to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. See below:

Daniel 9:25 (KJV)
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

So some non-molinist might ask, wouldn't that prophecy mean that because God knew this would happen, that Nebuchadnezzar did not have a choice? Nope. If the truths of the "counterfactuals of creaturely freedom" were different, then God's plan (the world he would have chosen to actualize) would have been different also.

Again, thanks for the question.

Thanks for giving it your best shot!

2PhiloVoid

 

[quatona]

Ok. So you merely disagree with the guy raping the little girl who considers it right,

Not quite. My position isn´t due to the disagreement with anybody. It´s my position regardless what anybody else thinks. Thus "So you merely disagree with..." is slightly misleading.
(Of course, I have never heard of anyone (including child rapists) holding the position that it is right - but I guess that´s the very reason why WLC and his copyers to always pick this example.)

and you don't think there's anything objectively wrong with it then.

Well, in the absence of a good case for objective morality I don´t even know what you mean by that.

Thanks for your response. I appreciate it.

You´re welcome.
I find it a little curious, though, that you picture this as something new. It´s what I have been telling you all the time.

The fact that you ignored the entire rest of my post is noted. I guess we both know the reasons.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Well, because it's your turn. I've made the truth claim that "raping little girls for fun is wrong no matter what any human thinks" and I've provided support for that position. I'm only interested in whether or not you agree with that claim. Care to answer?

Is it still wrong if your God commands you to do it?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I'm *trying* to address the atheist' view, but all I hear is "I don't know" or "there is insufficient information", so they apparently have no view. Have you never seen a debate? The Christian takes a view and the atheist takes the opposing view...then they hash it out between them. But on the question of whether or not "is raping little girls for fun really wrong no matter what any human thinks" all I get from the atheists here is static.

Actually, you don't seem to be listening. The static you are hearing comes from having stuck your fingers in your ears.

Of course I *did* provide support for my view. I explained that just as I believe that the outside word is real, so it is that I believe that OMV&Ds exist. It's called a properly basic belief. Your mistake is that you seem to think that truth can only be known through observation. You must be an empiricist.

You didn't provide support for it. You simply insisted that it is intuitively obvious to you that objective moral values and duties exist. You declined to define it in any detail, however, and shifted the burden elsewhere. To others, the opposite conclusion is intuitively obvious.

"Empiricism is also self-refuting, and therefore should not be believed. Its essence could be stated as "experimental science is the only way to know something for sure." We might then ask, "What was the scientific experiment that demonstrated that experimental science is the only way to know something for sure?""
http://www.icr.org/article/empiricism-glaring-flaw-new-atheism/

Could you please avoid introducing red herrings to the discussion? If you want to pretend that you read widely, start a blog.

So now that I've provided support for my truth claim, I'm waiting to hear from an atheist who disagrees and then provide some support for their opposing claim.

What if they were to provide the same kind of support you provided? What then?

However, if you go back to when I jumped in on this thread, it was in response to where a poster said "Morality = Subjective", which is a slick way of implying that OMV&Ds do not exist without outright making the truth claim. I've seen that tactic many times. Atheists keep disagreeing with my claim that OMV&Ds exist but not one will back up their counter-view with any justification.

Define what you mean by "objective." Then we'll talk.

Look, if you disagree with my truth claim that OMV&Ds exist, then provide some justification for why I should disbelieve what appears to many to be obvious.

Appears to many, but not to all. To many, the opposite (subjectivist metaethics) appears to be obvious.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/moral-argument#ixzz3yIg7ujKa

LOL. Are you going to succeed where Jeremy has failed?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Yeah, it´s inconvenient that people do not simply adopt counter-views they don´t hold just to humour you.
Therefore, as I have told you before, you have to approach this differently. Look more closely how your idol WLC does it. He doesn´t whine that people don´t hold views which would give him the opportunity to shift the burden. No, he tricks them into saying something that - with a little stretch, wordsmithing and logic wizardry can be interpreted as a counter-claim. You sure need more practice in that business.
As long as I know his script and his tactics better than you, and as long as I am sure I could make a way better WLC-imposter than you do, this is an incredible up hill battle for you.

Don't be so hard on him. He's doing his best to learn the script.

 

[Davian]

I've made the truth claim that "raping little girls for fun is wrong no matter what any human thinks" and I've provided support for that position.

What about standing idly by while observing the rape of little girls for fun? Have you made a truth claim about that yet?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Joshua260 said:
So you're not willing to make the truth claim that "raping little girls for fun is really wrong"? You're not sure about that one, eh?



Ok. So you merely disagree with the guy raping the little girl who considers it right, and you don't think there's anything objectively wrong with it then. Thanks for your response. I appreciate it.

What do you mean by "objectively wrong"? Just a couple pages ago, you said that there's a difference between objective and absolute morals. You said objective morals can change based upon circumstances...while absolute morals cannot.

So when you say that it's "objectively wrong" to rape little girls...do you mean it's possible there's circumstances where it's morally right to rape little girls?

 

[Davian]

Don't be so hard on him. He's doing his best to learn the script.

"In programming and hacking culture, a script kiddie or skiddie (also known as skid and script bunny, the term script kitty is not valid in this context) is an unskilled individual who uses scripts or programs developed by others to attack computer systems and networks and deface websites." link

Perhaps a term could be coined to describe the actions of one that attempts this for religious apologetics.

I'll start: "Scripted apologetics".

 

[Joshua260]

Is it still wrong if your God commands you to do it?

Static again...did you agree with this truth claim or not?

"raping little girls for fun is wrong no matter what any human thinks"

 

[Davian]

What do you mean by "objectively wrong"? Just a couple pages ago, you said that there's a difference between objective and absolute morals. You said objective morals can change based upon circumstances...while absolute morals cannot.

So when you say that it's "objectively wrong" to rape little girls...do you mean it's possible there's circumstances where it's morally right to rape little girls?

From what I gather, it's okay if you believe that your "God" says it's okay.

Somewhat subjective, for an allegedly objective system of morals.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Static again...did you agree with this truth claim or not?

"raping little girls for fun is wrong no matter what any human thinks"

Read my post.

 

[Joshua260]

I looked it up in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy before making my response, just to make sure I had the gist of it right. Not sure where your version is from, as it is not what I've seen, well, anywhere. It's certainly not the version



Both premises are flawed. Premise 1 is by no means justified; it simply leaves us heading back to the same old tired "what evidence is there for god" path that leads nowhere. Premise 2 is flawed because I do not choose what I believe. The argument is still ludicrously bad, you've just removed the most blatantly obvious flaw.



Well, the little girls getting raped clearly think it's wrong. But if we're going to employ ridiculous strawmen to ridicule the opponent's position, then here, let me try:

"It's amazing to me that I can't get any Christian to concur that 'sacrificing your daughter' is wrong no matter what their God says. Instead, I get comments like 'God is perfect' or 'God must have a reason'. I have to say, I would never hire a babysitter who couldn't figure this out!! "

Again, if we're not talking about a set of rules designed to make for a good life and a good society, then I'm not sure how you can say we're talking about morality. This is not a matter of personal opinion. This is not a matter of what anyone thinks. A society that allows murder is objectively worse than one that does not - it is less stable, the people therein are less happy because they constantly have to fear for their lives and walk on eggshells, and the powerful could essentially take whatever they wanted by the barrel of a gun. And that is our goal in morality. What else is there? What should morality be beyond that?

Static...do you agree with this truth claim or not?
"raping little girls for fun is wrong no matter what any human thinks."

 

[The Cadet]

Static...do you agree with this truth claim or not?
"raping little girls for fun is wrong no matter what any human thinks."

See my above justification for murder. Yes, it is objectively morally wrong, because a society that allows the raping of little girls for fun is objectively worse than one that does not, regardless of what anyone else might think.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Still waiting for your answer to this question, @Joshua260.

Hmmm... I'll ask you the same question I asked Jeremy: So if God commanded you to kill men, women, and children, you would do so without hesitation, and you would consider it "morally commendable" to obey such a directive?

 

[Joshua260]

Read my post.

I did and saw only static. Nowhere did I see where you agreed or disagreed with the following.

"raping little girls for fun is wrong no matter what any human thinks"

Stop dodging and answer yes or no. Step up.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I did and saw only static. Nowhere did I see where you agreed or disagreed with the following.

"raping little girls for fun is wrong no matter what any human thinks"

Stop dodging and answer yes or no. Step up.

Yes, it is wrong to do so.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

@Joshua260, also, still waiting for you to address my question about plagiarism.

 

[Ratjaws]

I looked it up in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy before making my response, just to make sure I had the gist of it right. Not sure where your version is from, as it is not what I've seen, well, anywhere. It's certainly not the version



Both premises are flawed. Premise 1 is by no means justified; it simply leaves us heading back to the same old tired "what evidence is there for god" path that leads nowhere. Premise 2 is flawed because I do not choose what I believe. The argument is still ludicrously bad, you've just removed the most blatantly obvious flaw.



Well, the little girls getting raped clearly think it's wrong. But if we're going to employ ridiculous strawmen to ridicule the opponent's position, then here, let me try:

"It's amazing to me that I can't get any Christian to concur that 'sacrificing your daughter' is wrong no matter what their God says. Instead, I get comments like 'God is perfect' or 'God must have a reason'. I have to say, I would never hire a babysitter who couldn't figure this out!! "

Again, if we're not talking about a set of rules designed to make for a good life and a good society, then I'm not sure how you can say we're talking about morality. This is not a matter of personal opinion. This is not a matter of what anyone thinks. A society that allows murder is objectively worse than one that does not - it is less stable, the people therein are less happy because they constantly have to fear for their lives and walk on eggshells, and the powerful could essentially take whatever they wanted by the barrel of a gun. And that is our goal in morality. What else is there? What should morality be beyond that?

Cadet,
I'm a Christian so allow me to answer your question. It is wrong to kill (unjustly) or rape little girls In fact it is wrong to unjustly kill any person, or to mistreat them as is done in rape. Murder and rape are wrong not just because they are against God's will but because they are against the will of the person being murdered or raped,which is why it is against God's will. In fact I will go a step further and say even if a girl finds it good to be unjustly killed or raped it is still wrong to do this because of the inherent dignity of the human person. We don't give ourselves this dignity, no we are created with it. If involving God in this last equation is something you don't like then I can put it even more simply without invoking a Creator. These acts are wrong because it goes against the nature of what it is to be human... period. We cannot treat human beings who have the potential of intelligence (implying free will) in a way that violates this nature. I say it this way because there have been some who argue that a human being that does not show signs of intelligence is fair game to do as we will. In fact this is the most fundamental idea behind abortion, euthanasia, stemcell experiments, etc... that suggest because these living human beings who are not sentient or manifest intelligence don't qualify. This mindset if accepted clouds thinking where other conditions are present like the mentally ill or severly handicapped. Just because a person cannot manifest those marks or characteristics that show them to be persons does not mean they are not. We only need to establish this being is a person in order to realize they must possess all the potentials of a person despite the fact they may not show it. This is the Christian postion even if you can find a misinformed or miseducated Christian who would not agree. This personal dignity has been taught by the Church for over 2000 years now, if not simply informally, meaning implied in the Church's moral teaching. That it has become more and more unpacked so we better understand how personal dignity applies to newer technological intrusions into a person's life in no way dismisses that it has been taught by the early Church in seed form.

Now as for what God says about this... our moral theological understanding comes from God. One may now bring up an instance in the old testament where God told Abraham to sarifice Isaac on an altar but we need to note here an important distinction. This is that God is the Author of life and can therefore decide when it can be ended. If Abraham had of followed through, which he did not because God stopped him meaning to use it as a learning situation, Abraham would not have been morally responsible because he was followning God's will. When God sends the Isrealites into another land like that of the Canaanites to slaughter all the inhabitants there, He is justifed in doing so precisely because God is the Author of human life. The Isrealites were excused of responsibility because they followed God's will. There is more to this than I've put forth here but needless to say this should address your concern for God taking human life. He did so justly and has every right to do so since He IS the cause and maintaining agent of all human life.

You should also recognize that even though God many take a human life, directly or through the instrumentality of another person, angelic or human, that person still goes on into eternity never ceasing to exist. This in another key tenet of the Church to consider when one shows an indigity toward God taking the life of a human being. It's been said what God has created He will never essentially destroy because what He creates is essentially good and He loves. So consider this before you accuse God of being inhumane, not that you will, but I have seen many others use the issue of God allowing evil that He could prevent to beat Christians over the head and disqualify God as a menlevolent being.

In fact, I must thank you because in your last paragraph you go on to make the Christian case for morality when you say:

"Again, if we're not talking about a set of rules designed to make for a good life and a good society, then I'm not sure how you can say we're talking about morality."

You need to understand that from the Christian perspective a society is not the most basic unit of morality, rather the individual person is. SInce a society is made up of individuals what applies to a person also applies to the whole society. So when we make laws they are only good for society if they don't violate an individual person's inherent dignity. This is precisely and fundamentally why abortion is a moral evil in any society. Abortion is an attack on an innocent person's life that in the long run leaves no one's life in a society that supports it... safe. This goes for America, and as long as we keep electing arrogant politicians who maintain anti-life laws against persons still living in their mother's womb, we will have them continue to soak up more and more power, and in effect, take away more and more of our individual freedom. Ultimately, as happened in Nazi Germany, we may become the target of govenmental laws that not only attack our basic freedom, but out life! So you are indeed correct that morality is not a matter of personal opinion, nor is it a matter of democratic majority... NO! ...it is a matter of the objective nature of human persons who are endowed with that nature, and it's corresponding dignity, by their Creator, as our Declaration/Constitution explicitly says.