You claim there is no evidence for or reason to believe there is a God, which would mean that no God exists.
No, that's not what it means.
Let's try with a simple analogy.
You flip a coin and don't show me the result.
You then claim that it's heads and ask if I accept that as true.
I respond by saying that I have no reason to accept that as true.
Does that mean that I'll believe it's tails instead?
Off course not. It just means that I don't believe (= accept as true) that it is heads.
When it comes to the existance of God, 2 claims are possible:
- god exists
- god does not exist.
My atheism is a position concerning the first claim.
Sure, for all practical intents and purposes, I'll live my life not believing a god exists, which is (in practical terms) probably indistinguishable from a life where I actively believe that no gods exist. But that's not the same as claiming that and / or believing that.
This goes for all claims of existance.
I don't believe the claim that bigfoot exists.
That doesn't mean that I claim that bigfoot doesn't exist. Because I can't know that.
It would essentially require me to prove a negative - which is logically impossible.
You don't believe that a God exists, you have no reason or evidence that God exists so that means you don't think God exists.
yes.
Do you understand the difference between:
"I don't believe god exists"
and
"I believe no god exists"?
Because they aren't the same thing.
But enough of this. It's way off topic.
If you had absolute confirmation of God existing it would change your attitude towards that God, is is that simple.
Indeed, just ask any islamic suicide bomber before he goes on his holy suicide mission.
Now if you want to talk about how the Jews were given absolute confirmation of God's existence and how that compares to other religions we could go there but I doubt very much that you would really do that.
Yes, I'm not interested in that exercise in futility, because we both know that there is no such thing as such "absolute confirmation". There might be such a thing as "absolute dogmatic
belief of having such confirmation". Again, just ask any islamic suicide bomber. Or Tom Cruise, he's quite certain as well about his inner Thetan.
Every fundamentalist beliefs fundamentally in his religion.
If you are going to take the Bible as the core foundation upon which to judge the actions of the Jewish people you have to then take the actual acts of God in entirety, which you don't do.
You seem to forget what the topic here is.
It's about moral evaluation of actions. I don't actually necessarily believe any of these bible stories actually occured. I'm just discussing the morality of such, even if only as hypothetical events.
It doesn't actually matter to the point if these stories are real or not.
In that sense, I might just as well be discussing the morality of The Empire in Star Wars or the Confederation of Planets in Star Trek.
You seem to have a problem with understanding the tenets of Christianity. We have no authority to kill unless we are defending ourselves or the lives of our loved ones. To have an abortion is murder, you are talking a life period.
But the kid goes straight to heaven, right?
Would you have wanted to be aborted rather than live as you have lived and then go to hell? Is that what you would rather have happened?
I don't believe in hell.
And if my mom would have aborted me, I would have never known, because I would have never existed.
This goes back to my analogy. Would you kill to protect your own children?
Not indiscriminatly, no.
And I most certainly would not kill toddlers.
If my child's life is directly threatened, I'ld do what I must do to remove that threat - and killing would be last resort.
No toddler would pose such a threat, unless he has a remote controlled bomb vest or something. But even then, I'ld pick up my kid and run - not kill the toddler with said vest.
No it is not. Answer my question, would you attack another country knowing all life would die if they were going to kill everyone in this country including animals if you didn't?
Again, it's a false analogy.
In the case of a nuclear exchange, the killing of the toddlers would be collateral damage.
This isn't the case when you invade a country with spears and swords.
A better analogy would be what I told you: the US moving into Syria to end ISIS, and in the process kill all the children, toddlers and cattle of ISIS. Explicitly and not as collateral damage. But literally the president / general
instructing the soldiers to ALSO kill the children and toddlers.
No, you are changing the elements.
No, I'm not. Read your bible.
If we had absolute knowledge that Russia was going to nuke our country, would you think it was moral to attack them first knowing it would kill infants, toddlers, children and animals?
This has nothing to do with the point and I will not allow you to spiral down into a false analogy like that.
First explain where you are trying to go with this question. I can smell the fallacious trap a mile away.
I already explained my reasoning.
Is it genocide if they are going to kill all your children, infants, toddlers the elderly?
Who's "they"?
The babies and toddlers?
Are you being serious?
Today as in currently or in this generation or the last or in this century...today when?
You don't know what "today" means?
Anyone can make that claim, it doesn't mean it is true.
EXACTLY
Right, like human trafficking or the raping of young girls in Bosnia, or pedophilia and abortion are so much better than what society did back then.
The point. You continue to miss it.
If you really are going to deny that there has been moral development throughout history and that today's society is more moral in general then before, then I don't know what to tell you.
Although it does fit into my current hypothesis that my current conversation partners in this thread don't really understand what morality is all about...................
Well I am glad that you can admit to that.
I don't "admit" that.
I consider it a given. Obvious.
No, it isn't. The Islamic terrorist is killing those that have no desire or attempt to kill them.
Babies, toddlers and cattle have a desire or attempt to kill?
Listen to yourself..........................................
They kill in the name of Allah but not because those they kill are trying to kill them but because that is what they believe Allah wants. In the case of the Canaanites, they had generation after generation killed the infants, toddlers and elderly of the Jews. Not only the Jews but others as well. They killed their own children by burning them up.
How you think that makes it morally okay to therefor invade the country and then go on a killing spree of everything that breaths, is baffling.
Again, I'll refer you back to the US and ISIS example.
Any ISIS member, if given the opportunity, will HAPPILY destroy the US and everything it contains.
So, do you think it is therefor okay for the US to move in and kill everything ISIS that breaths? Including women, children, toddlers, elders, cattle?
Or would that rather be genocidal, infanticidal warcrimes and crimes against humanity of the worst kind?
So, if you adhere to the Bible's outline of what actually was the reason behind God instructing the death of all of the Canaanites it was a necessary action to save the lives of the Jews who are God's people.
Right, right.....
The slaughter of babies and toddlers and cattle was "necessary" to save lives of Jews.
UHU!!!!
Morally bankrupt.
Well you are free to have your opinion.
Not really an opinion though.
What is what you would expect?
That the book reads like it was invented by a barbaric ancient people who only were aware of the world in a 500 mile radius.
