Best Evidence of God -- Inerrancy of the Bible

quatona said:

I think what he said was that - once we have declared or agreed upon something to be the foundation of morality (be it a - existing or imagined - God, or human well being or whatever) - we can make objective moral assessments based on that foundation. That´s how far moral objectivity goes.
For a person who considers human well being the foundation God isn´t the foundation, for someone who considers God the foundation it isn´t human well being.
We have yet to see a compelling argument why to pick your foundation over any other.

A very interesting thing, however, is: When you start this "raping innocent babies for fun" routine, you are implicitly appealing to our foundation of morality. Yes, from this it follows clearly and objectively that "raping innocent babies for fun" wrong.
From yours (a God beyond our understanding whose decrees are - by virtue of his power - always right and good, no matter what they might say) this isn´t clear at all.

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Did you hear the part where he said "with God we have no foundation for objective morality....."?

Yes or no?

anonymous person said:

Then you did not hear everything he said.

He said with God we have no foundation for objective morality.

He then said, "because......"

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Have you ever called in to this show?

anonymous person said:

Then you did not hear everything he said.

He said with God we have no foundation for objective morality.

He then said, "because......"

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Does the WLC script not allow for someone to qualify their statements?

Davian said:

This week's Atheist Experience internet show takes a WLC script-apologist as the first caller. In this format, the caller can't just evade and ignore the hosts, so there is more exploration and discovery of the holes in the script than can be done here as Joshua/anonymous person presents it.

(Caution - coarse language)

(advance to 10m30s)

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Actually, Davian, here's the real reason Matt thinks he's right (in cryptic form, of course):

2PhiloVoid said:

Actually, Davian, here's the real reason Matt thinks he's right (in cryptic form, of course):

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Cryptic indeed. I have no idea what you meant by this.

Xalith said:

Are you talking about the diameter of the laver? That's actually not a math error. In fact, it is astoundingly correct as it calculates Pi to at least 4 decimal places.

EDIT: http://khouse.org/articles/1998/158/

That explains why 1 Kings 7:23 is correct and not wrong as many people think it is.

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No, there's a record of somebody in both, and the second says something like, "1 year passed and he was 12. 1 more year passed and he was 87." It's weird.

Is this a joke?

anonymous person said:

Did you hear the part where he said "with God we have no foundation for objective morality....."?

Yes or no?

Click to expand...

I think what he said was that - once we have declared or agreed upon something to be the foundation of morality (be it a - existing or imagined - God, or human well being or whatever) - we can make objective moral assessments based on that foundation. That´s how far moral objectivity goes.
For a person who considers human well being the foundation God isn´t the foundation, for someone who considers God the foundation it isn´t human well being.
We have yet to see a compelling argument why to pick your foundation over any other.

A very interesting thing, however, is: When you start this "raping innocent babies for fun" routine, you are implicitly appealing to our foundation of morality. Yes, from this it follows clearly and objectively that "raping innocent babies for fun" wrong.
From yours (a God beyond our understanding whose decrees are - by virtue of his power - always right and good, no matter what they might say) this isn´t clear at all.

quatona said:

I think what he said was that - once we have declared or agreed upon something to be the foundation of morality (be it a - existing or imagined - God, or human well being or whatever) - we can make objective moral assessments based on that foundation. That´s how far moral objectivity goes.

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Yes, that appears to be what Matt is saying (15:34).

quatona said:

A very interesting thing, however, is: When you start this "raping innocent babies for fun" routine, you are implicitly appealing to our foundation of morality. Yes, from this it follows clearly and objectively that "raping innocent babies for fun" wrong.
From yours (a God beyond our understanding whose decrees are - by virtue of his power - always right and good, no matter what they might say) this isn´t clear at all.

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Apologists frequently use this strategy. The first step is to have us agree that such an action is wrong. The second step is to feign surprise that we consider it wrong given that "on an atheistic worldview, there is no foundation for right or wrong." Ignoring all our objections to this assertion, the third and final step is to insist that such an action can only be considered wrong because God ostensibly forbids it.

Xalith said:

Nothing in this Book should be untrue. If it were, then that would lead to either the Creator being a liar, or the Creator attempting to deceive His creations, or the author of the Book being someone other than the Creator.

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Hence the reason I am an atheist.

If you knew that the Koran teaches that the coat on a goat is genetically influenced by what its parents were looking at while mating, would you include that in your list of scientific indictments? Bad news is the Bible teaches it. Genesis 30:37-39.

Also the Bible contradicts itself. Here's a simple one:

2 Kings 8:26 vs 2 Chronicles 22:2.

Here's a more complicated one:


1. Josiah had four sons, and they are listed in order of birth (1 Chronicles 3:15). In order, they are Johanan, Jehoiakim/Eliakim, Zedekiah, and Shallum/Jehoahaz.

1a. Jehoiakim=Eliakim (2 Kings 23:34, 2 Chronicles 36:4).

1b. Shallum=Jehoahaz (2 Kings 23:30,Jeremiah 22:11).

2. Jehoiakim had two sons (1 Chronicles 3:16), one of whom is named Zedekiah.

3. Note the important distinction which I will maintain: Zedekiah in bold is the son of Josiah, and Zedekiah with the underscore is the son of Jehoiakim.

"Zedekiah" was 21 years old when he became king and reigned 11 years (2 Kings 24:18). First assume this is referring to Zedekiah.

I. Jehoahaz is 23 years old when he begins to reign, and reigns for 3 months (2 Kings 23:31,2 Chronicles 36:2).

II. Jehoiakim succeeds Jehoahaz (2 Kings 23:33-34, 2 Chronicles 36:4).

III. Jehoiakim is 25 years old when he begins to reign, and reigns for 11 years (2 Kings 23:36, 2 Chronicles 36:5).

IV. Jehoiakim is succeeded by Jehoiachin, who reigns for 3 months (2 Kings 24:6-8, 2 Chronicles 36:8-9).

V. Jehoiachin is succeeded by Zedekiah (2 Kings 24:17, 2 Chronicles 36:10).

VI. Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and reigns for 11 years. (2 Kings 24:18, 2 Chronicles 36:11).

VII. The chronological progression from I. to VI. tells us that Jehoahaz is 23 years old (I.) + 3 months (I.) + 11 years (III.) + 3 months (IV.) = 34.5 years old (or at least would be if he were alive) at the same time that Zedekiah is 21 years old. But 1. from the very top tells us that Jehoahaz is Zedekiah's younger brother. Therefore Zedekiah is younger than his younger brother, a contradiction.

Now assume it is Zedekiah that reigns.

Then this contradicts the prophecy given that Jehoiakim will have no offspring reign after him (Jeremiah 36:30), since Zedekiah is his son. And this is not a "bounce" on the throne because he reigns for 11 years.

QED


By the way, it turns out that it is Zedekiah. Jeremiah 37:1 confirms this.

quatona said:

A very interesting thing, however, is: When you start this "raping innocent babies for fun" routine, you are implicitly appealing to our foundation of morality. Yes, from this it follows clearly and objectively that "raping innocent babies for fun" wrong.
From yours (a God beyond our understanding whose decrees are - by virtue of his power - always right and good, no matter what they might say) this isn´t clear at all.

Click to expand...

Archaeopteryx said:

Ignoring all our objections to this assertion, the third and final step is to insist that such an action can only be considered wrong because God ostensibly forbids it.

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The Bible does not actually forbid fornication, rape, or pedophilia, so raping an infant of the opposite sex is, shockingly, not a sin.

Hi Cadet,
I wanted to re-address this because your response was typical of the "shot-gun" reply that I get from atheists who too quickly dismiss Pascal's Wager. Just think of it...you defeated the great Blaise Pascal in one simple reply!! Seriously though, I think you dismiss the argument too easily.

The Cadet said:

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

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Very good. Did you not remember I explained that I formulated the syllogism based off of Pascal's argument as presented within the context of the Pensees as a whole? Pascal certainly did not mean to present an argument such as "just pick any ole god and decide to believe in his existence!" That's pretty much what Matt Dillahunty said!! How ridiculous!! It may be that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website you found presented that specific bit of writing by itself, but it is irresponsible for you to critique his argument without examining the premises it is based on...which are addressed in *other* parts of the Pensees. Don't you think atheists should critique Pascal's argument as he meant it to be presented? Or would you rather "straw-man"?

So as I said earlier, you kind of shot-gunned your refutation and really only addressed a straw-man version of it. I prefer to analyze an argument more fairly and methodically.

Here's the argument as I presented it:

1. It is just as likely that the Christian God exists as not.
2. If 1, then it is better to believe in the Christian God and be wrong than not to believe in the Christian God and be wrong.
3. Therefore, it is better to believe in the Christian God than not.

In order to keep from shot-gunning our evaluation of this argument again, first I'd like for you to tell me whether you believe the argument above is valid. In other words, does the conclusion follow from the premises (whether they or true or not)?

Ana the Ist said:

You just said "morals don't change" and now you're saying "sometimes killing is wrong, sometimes killing isn't wrong". You don't understand how those two statements are contradictory? Is killing always wrong? Or does killing change from wrong to right depending upon circumstances? You make it sound like we're talking about two different actions when we talk about killing in self defense and killing during murder...but we aren't. They're both killing.

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I'm not contradicting myself. The point I'm making is that the word "kill" is a morally neutral term, while "murder" is not. Don't you agree? If not, please explain.

quatona said:

Why not simplify it even further: There aren´t any humans at all. Would raping little children for fun still be wrong?

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No thanks. I'd rather you answer the dilemma I presented:

"what if the only people left in the world are you, the rapist, and the little girl (who let's say is deaf and dumb for argument's sake)."

So is it wrong for the rapist to rape the little girl? Or are you not clear about it?

If you're not clear about the objective morality of the above scenario, then I'm curious as to how you would answer the question below:
What if today you made the truth claim:
"Raping little girls for fun is wrong, no matter what any human thinks!"
But then the next day, you become one of those sociopaths you mentioned earlier and then made the truth claim:
"Raping little girls for fun is *not* wrong, no matter what any human thinks!"

So are you correct one day and wrong the next? Or is there *no* day in which you are correct about whether it is wrong to rape little girls?

Ana the Ist said:

I'm sure in quatona's opinion it is wrong. He just realizes that it's an opinion...not a fact. You're asking for speculation on facts that don't exist. Facts that, for all practical purposes, appear to be opinions and function exactly like them.

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Really, I'm just looking for one of the following answers:
1. "Raping little girls for fun *is* wrong no matter what any human thinks."
2. "Raping little girls for fun *is not* wrong no matter what any human thinks."
3. "Raping little girls for fun *may or may not* be wrong."

It doesn't have to get any more complicated than that.
It sounds to me like you (and quatona...because he is "unclear") would agree with #3.

quatona said:

I think what he said was that - once we have declared or agreed upon something to be the foundation of morality (be it a - existing or imagined - God, or human well being or whatever) - we can make objective moral assessments based on that foundation. That´s how far moral objectivity goes.

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We're talking past each other because you (and Matt Dillahunty) are equivocating on the use of the word "objective".
I defined the two most common Christian uses of the word "objective" earlier, but reworded them below:
1. Objective moral ought = could mean "*in this particular situation*, the act in question is something we should do".
2. Objective moral ought = could mean, in a different context such as referring to OMV&Ds, "the act in question is something we should do, *not matter what any human thinks*".

Joshua260 said:

What if today you made the truth claim:
"Raping little girls for fun is wrong, no matter what any human thinks!"
But then the next day, you become one of those sociopaths you mentioned earlier and then made the truth claim:
"Raping little girls for fun is *not* wrong, no matter what any human thinks!"

So are you correct one day and wrong the next? Or is there *no* day in which you are correct about whether it is wrong to rape little girls?

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So how does asking whether someone thinks, "Raping little girls for fun is wrong, no matter what any human thinks!" help your argument that the relevant moral is objective, if, as you've pointed out, it's clearly a subjective statement? It may even be that all humans feel that way (I suspect they don't), but summing subjective doesn't make objective.

As Matt said in the video, if we agree on some common (necessarily subjective) criterion, such as 'wellbeing', as a basis or goal of our moral framework, we can then make objective evaluations of actions, but they are only objective with respect to that common (subjective) framework.

While I agree with Matt that 'wellbeing' is a workable criterion, I disagree with his suggestion that people that don't have a comparable criterion will 'go away'; recorded history is a sequence of cultures and societies that applied no such criterion to the bulk of the population. Not having it seems to have been a successful strategy for human kind - if unpleasant for many individuals. I could point out that if you're looking for objective behavioural criteria, a study of what has made homo sapiens such a success as a species would be the obvious place to look - but I doubt you'd find those criteria to your taste

I'm also a little surprised that no one has mentioned the Euthyphro Dilemma during this discussion, despite a few hints (and Matt's explication in the video) - or did someone mention it and I missed it? It seems relevant...

Joshua260 said:

I'm not contradicting myself. The point I'm making is that the word "kill" is a morally neutral term, while "murder" is not. Don't you agree? If not, please explain.

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I don't agree...the way I see it, "murder" is a legal term. It can be viewed as both morally wrong or right...depending on circumstance. Don't believe me? Well consider this...

If you were to join the army, and they were to send you off to some foreign nation, for whatever reason, and you were to kill some people there (any people, enemy combatants or not) is it murder?

Of course, since your government sent you there to do that particular job, when you return you won't be charged with murder (assuming that you followed the rules the army laid out for you) but under the laws of the nation you went to and killed someone in...you're a murderer. I've never heard of any nation which views things otherwise. It's never going to be "legal" to go to another nation and kill their people. Now, they may make exceptions for you regarding the sentencing...or they may not. They may hold you prisoner (if you get captured) in hopes of trading you for their soldiers who were taken prisoner. They may execute you on the spot. Put yourself in their shoes...if a foreign army came to the U.S. and killed people here, would you see it as murder? I would.

More importantly, I imagine the guy getting killed sees it that way too. It's not as if he's laying in the street dying and thinking "well at least it's wartime...so this isn't really murder (or morally wrong)". No, to him you're just as bad as a criminal who broke into his house and shot him (maybe you're worse).

Yet, most people don't see this as wrong morally. They think that as long as our reasons for going to that nation and murdering its people are justified...then it's morally right. They probably don't even consider the fact that to the people getting killed...its murder.

So murder is really a legal term...not one that refers to morality. How many times on this site alone have you seen people claim that abortion is murder? Surely, they know it isn't....but they, like you, have conflated morality with legality.

Joshua260 said:

Really, I'm just looking for one of the following answers:
1. "Raping little girls for fun *is* wrong no matter what any human thinks."
2. "Raping little girls for fun *is not* wrong no matter what any human thinks."
3. "Raping little girls for fun *may or may not* be wrong."

It doesn't have to get any more complicated than that.
It sounds to me like you (and quatona...because he is "unclear") would agree with #3.

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The problem is that you're asking me to make a factual statement about my opinions. I won't do that. If it doesn't matter "wait people think" then is raping little girls still immoral if there were no people anymore? If everyone was dead and gone...is rape still immoral?

The best answer I can give you is this...

In my opinion, raping little girls is always wrong. Does that answer your question?