Where's God?

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doubtingmerle

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Ed1wolf

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God never lies? Read 2 Thessalonians 2:11 and 1 Kings 22:23.
In Thessalonians he refers to people that constantly rejected God and His law, so after doing this constantly for an extended period of time God sometimes causes you to forfeit your free will and God allows you to become deluded. The text in I Kings is a similar situation. We know that God does not directly do something evil from multiple other texts, but He does allow evil beings, demons, take you over if you refuse to accept the truth multiple times. The writer of I Kings was referring to the ultimate cause who is God but we know from other verses such as the Book of Job that God actually just allows demons to sometimes take over evil doers. That is what occurred in this case.

dm: And even if God were to personally tell us that he never lies, how would you know he was telling the truth when he said he never lies?
First you can see that many things in His word have been confirmed truthful by science and history. Secondly then when you have a relationship with Him your experiences with Him also confirm His truthfulness.
 
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Ed1wolf

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We do not need an objective definition. The Buddha, Confucius, etc. ,all said "Whatever is hurtful to you, do not cause to others". And that ethic has built enduring civilizations based on humanistic values. So I think for pragmatic reasons, it is wise advice to heed.
Yes but that is just yours, Buddhas, and Confucius' subjective opinion. That statement appears to consider humans as special and valuable and deserving of not being hurt. But if atheistic evolution is true, then there is nothing special about humans and they are equivalent to cockroaches and not deserving of any more consideration than they are. Buddha and Confucius just assumed humans were special because they were special to them as other humans. But now we know with atheistic evolution they were wrong if there is no God. So there is no real objective reason to live according to the Golden Rule. There are subjective reasons but that is just based on an irrational sentimentality for the human species.
 
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Ed1wolf

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Of course they don't, as I've already pointed out.
It must be such a gift in a debate to be able to just ignore everything the other person says and just keep claiming you're right, even when you've been shown to be wrong.
Where was I wrong?
 
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Ed1wolf

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ed: Because that would be against His character.

Gods character is part of His nature. He cannot go against His nature just as a dog cannot talk because dogs by nature cannot talk.

ia: How can you prove that? You have said that goodness is God's character. Therefore, if God's character is to be inconsistent, changeable or just plain lying, inconsistency, changeability and lying are good.
The problem you are having is that you are trying to construct a logical argument to show that only God's existence can justify objective morality. It's not enough to say "I know that God is good," you have to provide a logical proof of it. Euthyphro's Dilemma is an excellent way to demonstrate the logical flaw in your argument, as I and @doubtingmerle have been showing you. And you have nothing to say except, "No, that's wrong. God is good." It's therefore becoming obvious that you are using circular logic, and your argument fails.
No, His goodness is confirmed by the truthfulness of His word as many things in it have been confirmed by science and history and it is also confirmed by the experiences of the people who know Him.

ed: We come to know it is correct by experience. Our experience with God confirms His claim to goodness.

ia: Careful, Ed - you are getting perilously close to arguing for the first branch of the dilemma, that God says things are good because they are. In which case, you are undermining your own argument by saying that it is possible to work out a system of morality without the need for God.
Euthyphro's Dilemma stands. Either accept that we do not need God to work out what is and is not moral, or accept that saying that goodness depends on God is moral relativity at its most naked, and that good means nothing at all.

We were designed to recognize goodness when we see it and experience it so when we have a relationship with God, His goodness is confirmed to us. Actually You can work out a system of morality for your self but it will not be objectively based because it will just be based on your feelings and subjective opinion. Only Christian morality has an objective foundation, ie the objectively existing moral character of the Creator.


ed: No, but I have seen persons create personal communication, personal relationships, and etc.

ia: Good. Thank you for conceding the point that you have never seen a person create a person. Therefore, your argument that the universe must have been created by a personal force because it contains personal beings, fails.
Fraid not. But there is other evidence the universe is created by a personal being, the existence of purposes. Purposes exist in this universe and we know that only persons can create purposes for things.

ed: We do create persons by initiating the process by which persons come into existence, thereby proving that persons are needed to create personal beings. Either as the primary cause using secondary causes or as the primary cause itself in the production of personal relationships or personal communication.

ia: But the persons who created the persons who created the persons (etc.) were not ultimately created by persons. They evolved from near-human forms of life, who themselves emerged from forms of life even more different from modern humans.
The personal was created by the impersonal, the blind natural force of evolution.
Your argument on this is dead. Give it up.
I am referring to the ultimate cause not the process. Evolution may be the process God used to create persons but personal beings still require an ultimate personal cause as I have demonstrated above. If evolution is guided purely by natural selection then it is self refuting because natural selection only selects for survivability not truth. Therefore, you can never say that evolution is true with any rational basis because our brains were not selected for recognizing truth.
 
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FireDragon76

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Yes but that is just yours, Buddhas, and Confucius' subjective opinion. That statement appears to consider humans as special and valuable and deserving of not being hurt. But if atheistic evolution is true, then there is nothing special about humans and they are equivalent to cockroaches and not deserving of any more consideration than they are. Buddha and Confucius just assumed humans were special because they were special to them as other humans. But now we know with atheistic evolution they were wrong if there is no God. So there is no real objective reason to live according to the Golden Rule. There are subjective reasons but that is just based on an irrational sentimentality for the human species.

There is no assumption other than human beings are subjects, and can therefore have subjective experiences.
 
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Where was I wrong?
In everything, really, and if you want to know the specifics, just look back at my replies to you.
This is a sign that you have a fundamental misunderstanding. I suspect that the real reason you don't want gay people to have the right to marry is that your real objection is religious, but that you don't want to say so. Which is why you're trying to make your arguments scientific and logical, but betraying the truth every time you refuse to apply them to anyone other than gay people.
 
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No, His goodness is confirmed by the truthfulness of His word as many things in it have been confirmed by science and history and it is also confirmed by the experiences of the people who know Him.
This is no use to you, I'm afraid. You're trying to build a logical argument, not argue in favour of God's character. You have to prove that your statement, that God is goodness itself, makes sense, and saying that God has told us the truth gets you absolutely nowhere.
We were designed to recognize goodness when we see it and experience it so when we have a relationship with God, His goodness is confirmed to us. Actually You can work out a system of morality for your self but it will not be objectively based because it will just be based on your feelings and subjective opinion. Only Christian morality has an objective foundation, ie the objectively existing moral character of the Creator.
More circular reasoning. How do we know that God is good? Because He designed us to know that He is good. You say that Christianity has an objective moral foundation, but you can't prove it.
Fraid not. But there is other evidence the universe is created by a personal being, the existence of purposes. Purposes exist in this universe and we know that only persons can create purposes for things.
First of all - is that true? Does the tree not have a purpose, or the mouse? Do the squirrels not have a purpose, or the daisies? I think you could convincingly argue that all living things have a purpose, which is to stay safe, continue living as long as possible, and produce offspring (although thinking creatures such as ourselves can override that last purpose if we wish).
Second, let's say that what you are saying is true - that only personal beings can create purposes. Okay. Again, fine. I know lots of personal beings (persons) and many of them have purposes. Some of them they created by themselves, some purposes were thrust on them, in some way, by society. This is an interesting question that we are not really concerned with at the moment. The point is, the existence of personal beings having purposes in their lives is in no way an argument for God's existence. Indeed, it seems mundane in the extreme.

I am referring to the ultimate cause not the process. Evolution may be the process God used to create persons but personal beings still require an ultimate personal cause as I have demonstrated above. If evolution is guided purely by natural selection then it is self refuting because natural selection only selects for survivability not truth. Therefore, you can never say that evolution is true with any rational basis because our brains were not selected for recognizing truth.
You ask me why I say you're wrong. Well, this paragraph is a prime example. Ed, what are you talking about?
Take a look at what you said. It's probably simpler if I just interject comments:
I am referring to the ultimate cause not the process. So what? Evolution may be the process God used to create persons Yes, it may, but we have no reason to think that it is but personal beings still require an ultimate personal cause Why? as I have demonstrated above No, you haven't. If evolution is guided purely by natural selection then it is self refuting Not in the slightest because natural selection only selects for survivability not truth Accurately assessing your surroundings - recognising what is real, which is the basis of truth - is something very much selected for. An organism that was not able to react to the real world would not survive for very long. Therefore, you can never say that evolution is true with any rational basis because our brains were not selected for recognizing truth. Of course you can. And nothing you have said in any way contradicts the idea that evolution produced persons. Therefore, your idea that the existence of persons in this universe requires a personal force to have begun the universe is nonsense.
May I suggest you give this argument up? It's a dead horse right now, and you're trying to jump on it and ride off into the sunset.
 
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FireDragon76

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IF "God is goodness itself" is true, then either God is just a symbol for an abstract concept, or it's only true by way of analogy (and that even presupposes that analogy has a place in epistemology, something not all philosophers have agreed upon). Or a third possibility, that's "God is goodness itself" is a rhetorical slogan that is a statement of value and not fact.
 
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doubtingmerle

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In Thessalonians he refers to people that constantly rejected God and His law, so after doing this constantly for an extended period of time God sometimes causes you to forfeit your free will and God allows you to become deluded.
If Thessalonians had said God allows them the free will to choose delusion, I would have no problem with it. But that is not what it says. Again, 2 Thessalonians 2:11 says:

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:​

Sorry, but this verse has God playing an active role in sending them the delusion.

If your Bible says God sends delusions, I do not know how you can be sure he has not sent you a delusion.

First you can see that many things in His word have been confirmed truthful by science and history.
The question is how you know God is not deceptive. Claiming that he said some things that are truthful does not answer. It would be possible to be truthful in some things, while secretly trying to deceive.


Secondly then when you have a relationship with Him your experiences with Him also confirm His truthfulness.
Ah, you get a feeling that he is truthful. How does this prove anything?

Humans have become fairly good at determining who is lying to us. That is because we have big brains. And most of the reason for having those big brains is that they allow us to understand each other. But our brains are not infallible. Sometimes we think a person can be trusted, but they are not actually trustworthy. But in general, our big brains can understand each other, can talk to different people and get different perspectives, and can work out fairly accurately who is telling us the truth. But we sometimes are fooled. (Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.)

But how would you tell if an omnipotent God was lying to you? By definition, he would be capable of doing anything. Even if his powers were limited, it doesn't seem that difficult for the God depicted by Christians to be powerful enough to create a delusion that fooled everybody. How could you possibly know that it will not end when he reveals it was all a big joke he was playing on you? How would anybody figure out that this was happening?

The point is that your reliance on God as your source of morality is based on little. You have no way of knowing what God says. (And no, saying that science came from countries with a Christian background is not proof that God wrote the Bible.) Even if you know what God says--because you read it in the Bible--you have no way of knowing for sure that a deity is telling you the truth. And even if you know for sure that you have the truth, which he told you, what does it even mean to say his morality is good? If good is defined as "whatever God is", then saying God is good mean nothing. All you are saying is that God is what he is.
 
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FireDragon76

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It's worse than that, if you take Calvinism seriously, it is within God's rights to deceive anyone he chooses. It is only by God's "good pleasure" that anyone is saved, after all. That means that will has primacy over nature, within this particular late medieval Occamism that influenced much of Protestant thought.

And that, in the end, means that we can only go by faith, and not certainty, in our statements that God is truly "good". God may merely appear to be good, willing in his secrete council evil. That's why ultimately most Protestants come down to some form of fideism (conservatives) or pragmatic epistemology (if they are liberals).

And it's at this point that the uneasy union between Christian mythological narrative and it's Neo-Platonist philosophical assumptions start to break down (and most Christian arguments for God are simply plagiarized from Neo-Platonism, wedded to bronze age mythology that equates a tribal Midianite deity, Jehovah, with the Monad, the supreme transcendent principle of reality). Because Neo-Platonism is a real thing in its own right, and simply doesn't need the dross of mythology to justify it philosophically.
 
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If good is defined as "whatever God is", then saying God is good mean nothing. All you are saying is that God is what he is.
Merle, you've hit the nutshell on the head!

@Ed1wolf , please pay attention. You are the one who said you could logically justify your understanding of morality by basing it on God. Merle and I have patiently pointed out the problem with this to you time and again. A person with intellectual integrity would now admit that they were in the wrong. Or, at the very least, how about saying that we have given you something to think about, and you'll have to consider it?
 
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doubtingmerle

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That statement appears to consider humans as special and valuable and deserving of not being hurt. But if atheistic evolution is true, then there is nothing special about humans and they are equivalent to cockroaches and not deserving of any more consideration than they are.
I choose to value the universe, all of life, all humanity, my friends, my family, and myself. Therefore, it all matters to me. Does it have to matter? No. I could simply bail out at any moment if I so chose. But I have no desire to do that. Having chosen to value what I see, I choose to do that which I think is best for myself, for my friends, for all humanity, for all life, and for the world itself. My life has meaning, because I choose to give it meaning.
 
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doubtingmerle

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No, His goodness is confirmed by the truthfulness of His word as many things in it have been confirmed by science and history and it is also confirmed by the experiences of the people who know Him.

We were designed to recognize goodness when we see it and experience it so when we have a relationship with God, His goodness is confirmed to us. Actually You can work out a system of morality for your self but it will not be objectively based because it will just be based on your feelings and subjective opinion. Only Christian morality has an objective foundation, ie the objectively existing moral character of the Creator.
[sarcasm]
No, my goodness is confirmed by the truthfulness of my word as many things in it have been confirmed by science and history and it is also confirmed by the experiences of the people who know me.

We were designed to recognize goodness when we see it and experience it so when we have a relationship with Doubtingmerle, his goodness is confirmed to us. Actually You can work out a system of morality for your self but it will not be objectively based because it will just be based on your feelings and subjective opinion. Only Doubtingmerlian morality has an objective foundation, ie the objectively existing moral character of Doubtingmerle.
[/sarcasm]

That is the same thing you said, except I changed the words in red. Anybody can simply take the teachings of one person and declare that to be absolute morality. So far you have given no evidence that your set of words represent absolute morality.
 
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Ed1wolf

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ed: No, you have not shown it is not applicable. There are many things about the Trinity that we dont know but there is nothing contradictory about it. One in essence and three in person.

ia: I agree. It's not a good analogy. And I doubt you will come up with a way to show how it is possible to have three separate Gods who are, at the same time the same God.
No, there are not three separate gods who are at the same time the same god. There is only one God, ie one essence, but three persons.

ia: Look, you can believe that logical impossibilities exist within your religion if you like. Just don't ask us to believe that they're not logically impossible. :)
Absurd if the Trinity is a logical impossibility then so is your marriage. Your marriage is one in its humanity, but two in its persons.


ed; It doesn't need to if the principles are derived from Christianity. Actually it does mention Jesus, ie Year of Our Lord. Unlike a real secular constitution from the French Revolution where they refused to even mention the year of our Lord. And the Judeo-Christian founding principles had already been mentioned in the document containing the philosophical foundation of Constitution, the Declaration of Independence.

ia: See how weak your argument is? "The Year of our Lord" indeed! Just because the Founders didn't feel the need to invent an entire new calendar, does not mean they intended their government to favour any religion.
Who said anything about favoring one religion? I just said that our nation was founded on Christian principles.

ia: The fact that all you have is scrapings from the bottom of the barrel like this shows how wrong you are. Look, if the Founders had wanted the USA to have an officially Christian government, it would have been the simplest thing in the world for them to do. Read their writings, and you'll see that they obviously did not want that, and went to great lengths to ensure that it was not. And it becomes even more obvious when - as I mentioned earlier - you consider how bitterly the Constitution was opposed, both before it was ratified and long, long after - by Christians who were furious that it did not endorse the Christian religion.
Yes, but Many Christians DID endorse the Constitution and sign it. 100 out of the 110 signers of the DOI and the Constitution were Christians. And I never said America was officially a Christian nation, I only said that it was founded on many Christian principles. You are attacking straw men now.


ed: No, as I stated earlier the DOI is listed in the United States Code Annotated under the heading "The Organic Laws of the United States of America". It is also referenced as part of the law of the land in multiple SCOTUS rulings. In addition many concepts in the Constitution come from the Bible. The concept called the "Law of Nations" in Article I, Section 8, Clause 10 references offenses against the Law of Nations. The founders borrowed this concept from Grotius, Pufendorf, and Vattel. They developed the concept of the Law of Nations as an extension of natural, God given law. The fact a law exists that supersedes the legislative enactments of various nations, implies a power and authority higher than man. In additon, the concept of the equality of man which comes from the bible is incorporated into the Constitution in Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8 and the 14th Amendment. And there are other principles

ia: Again: see how weak your "proofs" are? See how many logical leaps you have to make, tying your ideas together on the flimsiest of pretexts?
LOL, Weak? I have provided specific ideas and principles in the Constitution that came from Christianity. You cant get any stronger evidence than that.

ia: Again, if the Founders had wanted a Christian Constitution they could have made one. They obviously went to very great lengths to make sure that the USA was, as it was famously put, "not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
Again, I never said that it was officially a Christian nation. But yes the founders own words and actions disprove the Treaty of Tripoli. It was a calculated lie to protect our navy from attack.
 
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doubtingmerle

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Absurd if the Trinity is a logical impossibility then so is your marriage. Your marriage is one in its humanity, but two in its persons.
Got it. So your theology is one in it's divineness, but three in it gods.

Just like we said, you got three gods.
 
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Got it. So your theology is one in it's divineness, but three in it gods.

Just like we said, you got three gods.
Exactly.
Look, @Ed1wolf , we don't mind if you have three gods. You're welcome to. But don't try to pretend they're one God when they clearly aren't.
As to my marriage, I am not saying it is a person, so your analogy doesn't work. My marriage is, essentially, a celebration of love between two people. GOD, however, is a living entity. One person. Made of three people. So yes, it is a logical impossibility.
 
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Ed1wolf

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ed: Not according to the Constitution, there is no federally guaranteed right to marry for heterosexuals and certainly not a right to the made up institution of gay marriage. There is nothing in the Constitution about love either.

ia: It looks like you're just fighting with yourself here. If you want to argue that straight people do not have a right to marry, go for it.
They dont have a right to marry. It is a privilege that is earned. The SCOTUS needs to stop making up rights that dont exist. Such as this one and the right to kill your unborn child. At the very least Congress should be ones making such laws, SCOTUS does violates the Constitution when it starts legislating such things.

ed: No, His nature cannot change just like a leopard cannot change his spots. That is the nature of a leopard. The intrinsic nature of God is goodness so it cannot change

ia; You're really doing very badly at making a logical argument. You keep making these claims, and then when we say, "How do you know?" your argument comes down to "It just is!"
Look. You've already said that the foundation for objective morality is the nature of God Himself. Fine, you've chosen that branch of Euthyphro's Dilemma - God does not say things are good because they are good, things are good because God says they are. But in doing so, you have stepped into a logical trap you are now quite unable to get out of: if goodness is what God says it is, then God could say anything was good, and it would be.

I didnt say that goodness is what God says it is. He is goodness itself. And we have the ability to recognize it.

ia: I and others have pointed this out to you a number of times now. What if God declared that murder was good, or child abuse, or lying? Then it would be, because anything God says is good, is.
And your response to this is "God would never do that!" But this is an empty argument. Why wouldn't He? What is there to stop Him? You cannot say God would never do evil, because if He does it, it is good.
Your reply to this is to say "But God has said what is good and evil, and he would never change." But why not? If God says that change is good, that going back on your word is good, that saying something completely different to what you originally said is good, who are you to argue?
Don't you see, you're caught in a logical trap, with no means of escape.
No, God does not change and we learn He is good thru experience and the truthfulness of His word has been confirmed by science and history.

ed: And we confirm His goodness when we have a relationship with Him so that our experience confirms that He is good just as He has claimed.

ia: Careful, there, Ed. You said that God's nature is what determines good. Now it looks like you're going back on your word, and saying that you determine what is good by looking at it. So how is it that you know what is good or not? Do you judge it for yourself? I imagine you will say it is some gift from God that allows you to discern good from evil; in which case, we are back to the same puzzle as before - who helped you to discern good from evil? Presumably, God, and we've already established that saying "Goodness is God's nature" is a meaningless statement.
God has created us with a moral conscience that is how we recognize good from evil, though it is distorted, but generally accurate.

ed: How does God being the good render goodness meaningless? We have a written revelation of laws that reflect the nature of His goodness. That is the meaning of goodness which is based on His objective moral character, so there is no meaninglessness. We have the meaning right in front of us. Only if there is no moral God is morality meaningless because then it can mean anything as I demonstrated with your Webster definition of love, it fit Hitlers actions and feelings perfectly. Love becomes meaningless.

ia: Good being good does not render goodness meaningless.
But good is meaningless to atheists, because you dont have an objective standard for what is good. And you dont have objective propositional statements that explain what good is that reflect that objective standard which is God's objectively existing moral character.


ia: But God being the good means that anything God does is good. Therefore, if God were to do something bad, it would be good. Therefore, he would not have been doing something bad in the first place. He can't. You can't say "God would never do something bad," because if God were to do something bad, you would have to call it good.
No, personal beings dont go against their character, even you generally do not go against your character. Since His character is the good, He would not do or command something bad.


ia: "Ah," you say, but "His nature cannot change just like a leopard cannot change his spots. That is the nature of a leopard. The intrinsic nature of God is goodness so it cannot change."
So what you're saying is, it would be bad of God to change His intrinsic nature? But we've just agreed He cannot do bad. So if He were to change His intrinsic nature, then that would be a good act. Besides which, who says He is changing it? Perhaps He just lied to you about what goodness is. And if God lies, then that means lying is good, because anything God does is good.
No, just as you would not go against your character so also God would not.

ed: No, that only a man and woman can unite two persons into a single reproductive unit thereby reinforcing their personhood. Homosexual behavior cannot do this.
So what? You keep saying this, and I keep wondering why you think it matters. Why should it matter if a loving couple are incapable of having babies?
Their personhood is reinforced irrespective if they can have babies, that is why gays cannot do it.

ed: No, the union is not mystical it is biological.

ia: In that case: so what? Why do you think that matters?
Because biology and science matters, humanity cannot survive at its highest level of unity if it condones a gay "marriage" and behavior. It damages society, studies have confirmed this.

ed: I have never said gay sex should be banned, only discouraged just like we discourage smoking and drinking and driving and for the same reasons, none of it is good for you. And we should also discourage promiscuous sex outside marriage because that is one of the main causes of STDs.

ia: You've never said gay sex should be banned, but you do think that gay marriage should be banned. Why banned, why not just discouraged? Not that this would be much better, but your logic is inconsistent.
Because there is no such thing as gay marriage, it cannot perform the functions that I have laid out in multiple other posts. I never said they cannot have their own ceremonies in their own churches. The government should just not recognize it for the many reasons I have stated.

ed: There was no hell on earth 30 years ago when homosexual behavior was not encouraged.

ia: I think you misread what I said. I said:
"Of course, there are very good reasons why the state doesn't do this, not least that it would be a monstrous violation of the rights of the individual. A violation you are only too happy to see happen, but only in the case of people you have a religious objection to - homosexuals.
As we're seen in this whole, long thread - follow your arguments logically, and they wind up refuting themselves, often by showing that what they would lead to is a hell on earth."
And this is perfectly true. You think that the state should act to ensure an optimum society. You say that families should have babies, and so homosexuals shouldn't marry, because they can't have babies.
But why stop there? If the state is actually concerned with families having more babies (it isn't, at least not enough to interfere with families' lives) and if you were actually concerned about gay marriage because it doesn't produce babies (and I doubt you are)...
Then you would both be recommending that all families unable to have babies should be forbidden from marrying. Which, of course, neither you nor the state is doing.
No, see my post above why heterosexual marriage even without children is superior because is reinforces personal union. Gay sex depersonalizes people engaging in it.


ed: No, I never said any of that. But the government should especially encourage marriages that provide the optimum environment for the producing and raising of children, which is only heterosexual marriage. It should it encourage it for the continuing survival of the society itself. Sociological studies have shown that ones that condone homosexual behavior do not flourish and survive.

ia: Accepting that, for the moment, let me point out that this is not what you are saying. You are not saying that homosexual marriage should be discouraged, you are saying it should be banned.
Don't you think you should be honest, and just admit that your prejudice against homosexuals is entirely religious? It would save a lot of time.
No, as long as the government is not involved they can do what they want. They can have commitment ceremonies and wear wedding gowns and etc, just not involve the government.

ed: See above about the biological facts.

ia: The "above biological facts" are nothing more than homosexuals can't have babies together.
So what? Again, how is loving gay sex in any way a depersonalising experience?
Because it doesnt unite persons biologically as I demonstrated earlier.

ed:But there is no evidence that oppression of blacks and jews resulted in higher rates of mental and physical illnesses as it has with gays. Therefore, it is likely that higher rates of mental and physical illnesses are the results of engaging in homosexual behavior itself. Since the study that has shown this was conducted in a nation that is very open and accepting of gays.

ia: You're taking a very big logical leap there. The nation itself may have been very open and accepting of gays, compared to other nations, but that doesn't at all show that gays did not feel the victims of bigotry, either because of the world they lived in or the society they grew up in.
Also, there are huge amounts of evidence that gay people do experience appalling abuse, and even the ones who aren't abused suffer from the general, background level homophobia.
So did blacks and jews in the 30s thru the 60's and they did not have these rates and this magnitude of problems.

ed: But your perception of him doing hateful things to his enemies is just based on your personal feelings, ie chemical reactions in your brain. Just like Hitlers feelings and behavior was just based on the chemical reactions in his brain. So ultimately your source of morality is identical, what rational basis do you have for condemning someone just because his brain chemicals make him act differently from you? How can condemn someone just because his chemicals are slightly different from yours?

ia: Did your mother never teach you the golden rule when you were growing up? Did she never say, when you bullied other children, "How would you like it if they did that to you?"
Morality can be a complicated subject. It can have great difficulties. It can be a complex thing to work out. But at root, it's simple enough. We're all humans. We all have empathy. We can all see that if we treat another person badly, they might treat us badly in return.
You didnt answer my question about judging someone just because evolution gave them different chemicals in their brain from you. But who says there is any thing special about humans? According to atheistic evolution there is nothing objectively special or intrinsically valuable about humans. So your morality is just based on irrational sentimental feelings for humans. Not based on anything rationally objective. There is no objective reason to treat humans any different from cockroaches.


ed: No, He plainly says that one city would be judged more harshly on Judgement Day than another city because of their actions. Obviously since cities are made up of people it applies to people as well.

ia: I should hope so, too. It would be a terrible thing if all people were to be given the same terrible punishment. Why, that would be as unjust as saying that anyone who committed a crime, no matter how big or how small, should be sent to hell forever. Can you imagine?
Some sins are worse than crimes because they can have eternal consequences for multitudes of individuals. Something like speeding usually does not.
 
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FireDragon76

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They dont have a right to marry. It is a privilege that is earned. The SCOTUS needs to stop making up rights that dont exist. Such as this one and the right to kill your unborn child. At the very least Congress should be ones making such laws, SCOTUS does violates the Constitution when it starts legislating such things.

The whole point of a Bill of Rights is to defend the rights of potentially unpopular minority groups. So yes, the high courts have every right to make judgements on such issues.

I didnt say that goodness is what God says it is. He is goodness itself. And we have the ability to recognize it.

Goodness is an abstract concept, it's difficult to see how it fits in with the concept of personhood in the usual sense, which involves something concrete.

Because biology and science matters, humanity cannot survive at its highest level of unity if it condones a gay "marriage" and behavior. It damages society, studies have confirmed this.

This simply is not credible. Some of the wealthiest, most prosperous countries in the world recognize a broad range of civil liberties for gay persons.

No, see my post above why heterosexual marriage even without children is superior because is reinforces personal union. Gay sex depersonalizes people engaging in it.

That's just a way of saying gays never deserved human dignity in the first place. Which doesn't seem to fit with the general sense of Christian ethics that everyone has dignity owing to being created in the image of God.
 
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