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The good thing is though, when the new accelerator in Switzerland is up and running we can better be able to judge the "correctness" of the theory without having to read up on the details from the comfort of our respective armchairs.
Which is soon I believe.
There's a whole bunch of theories that will be made or broken if anything is discovered.
I wouldn't personally accept it, but then again, I've been raised in a culture with completely different morals.
Exactly. Does it open itself up to possible abuses? Yes. Then again, having one single entity with a self claim to perfect morals does too. What if God said it was perfectly moral to drive over little old ladies crossing the street? It would have to be moral, because God supposedly has perfect morals. Is there anything God could say that would not be moral?
Mainly, yes.
Here's a good example of cultural morality (I ride, and this has been hot news in the horse industry lately). In the US, it is perfectly morally acceptable to slaughter cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep by the millions for human consumption. Horses, OTOH, not so much. Eating horse meat in the US is considered very morally unacceptable. Same with dogs and cats, while in other countries, it's perfectly fine to eat them.
In some countries, if you are caught stealing, it's perfectly acceptable to chop off someones' hand for a first offence. Here, not so much.
There are countless examples. These things are purely influenced by society. See also my post to Yekcidmij- "What I want to know is this: if morality is absolute, why are morals different for different cultures and different time periods? Is God confused and handing out different moral advice? Because in other cultures and time periods, all of the following have been considered moral: polygamy, human sacrifice, wife beating, self mutilation, war, circumcision, castration, and incest, to name a few."
From my perspective it is wrong therefore I can call it wrong.
I can even give you reasons for my belief that it is wrong without reference to God and you agree that I can do this. That is my basis.
Your statement about not being able to make claims without absolutes is wrong. It is a philosophy that is ill informed by reality, which sort of makes it redundant. For example I can state that a metre stick in my hand is a metre long and give good reasons for my belief, is it a metre long for everyone else's potential perspective? No, (see special relativity specifically Lotrenz contraction, or string theory if you wanna go a bit nuts however string theory hasn't come close to standards of scientific truth). Does that mean I can make no judgement on the length of the stick because they are no absolute lengths?
Btw I am very sympathetic to the objective moral stance (as in I am undecided on whether there could be an objective morality) however I would think that these standards are informed from biology and not a deity.
My little brother is 20 years old he has been a believer in Christ his whole life until this year when he hit some rocky times in his life. For a little while he said he was protestant...he now claims to be agnostic. What is the difference between agnostic and athiest? Why are young adults so quick to claim they don't believe when times get tough?
To be fair, you can't know god exists any more than an atheist knows god doesn't exist. The reason most atheists will accept that there's a small probability of a god existing is because they have accepted the fact that it is not possible to know. But you have to understand that it's not like they're out denying the existence of Yahweh God, they give him as much consideration as they would, say, Thor or something like that.Most atheists will call themselves "soft atheists" or "agnostic atheists" since the hard and sure line has been put to shame so many times in academic circles it isn't even funny. All you have to do is ask them how much of all the available information in the entire universe they think they know and if they are honest they will say something like 0.0000000000000000000000000001% of all the information. Then you just say, "and with that amount of knowledge you are sure God doesn't exist without knowing 99.999999999999999999999% of all there is to know?
I don't really know what you're going on about that here, it's kinda stupid. Atheists don't think Shakespeare's work is non-fiction. Do you think the stories he wrote actually happened?A Christian says they know God confidently b/c the Holy Spirit communes with their spirit. This of course is foolishness to the world since they have worldly hearts and minds. So then the Christian will go on to talk about the evidence of Creation: it's beauty, it's order, it's detail, it's magnitude, etc. And they will talk about the moral code written on all of our hearts. We can also call on the textural evidence that supports Scripture more than any other piece in literature. Atheists will accept Homer's or Shakespeare's works as 100% authentic but when faced with the Bible, which has literally tens of thousands of more supporting documents within a close proximity to the original writings, they disregard it as fantasy. And other things like that that point to a Creator and a Loving God.
Then, either an atheist or agnostic accepts this overwhelming evidence, or they harden their heart even further and basically say if they can't taste, touch, hear, see and smell God, he doesn't exist. They don't understand the verse that tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God.
To be fair, you can't know god exists any more than an atheist knows god doesn't exist. The reason most atheists will accept that there's a small probability of a god existing is because they have accepted the fact that it is not possible to know. But you have to understand that it's not like they're out denying the existence of Yahweh God, they give him as much consideration as they would, say, Thor or something like that.
I don't really know what you're going on about that here, it's kinda stupid. Atheists don't think Shakespeare's work is non-fiction. Do you think the stories he wrote actually happened?
The problem with saying "I just feel God therefore he must exist" is that you're offering intangible evidence. Nobody can feel what you feel. Even if you do feel God, am I supposed to just take your word for it? And saying "Look at all the beauty and complexity" in the world isn't a very good argument either. Yeah I can see the beauty and complexity just like you can, but unlike you I can accept that there can be simple rules that govern complex things. And these rules have been shown to exist, so what more do you need?
I don't know, maybe you just need to become a mathematician or computer engineer to see what I'm saying.
I disagree with your first sentence. We can not "prove" God in some of the ways that atheists or other non-religious people think are the only acceptable ways but we as Christians do know that He exists b/c His Spirit reveals the Truth to us. So the difference is that us Christians KNOW 100% that God exists and we try and spread His Good News while you as an atheist HOPE that you are right but you can never really know for sure (you even admit to it). The difference is in the self-perception. We (Christians) KNOW for ourselves that God exists and is who He says He is (Love). You atheists HOPE that your theories about pre-existence and creation and meaning in life are correct. But you can't know for yourselves.
And it is not just a small probability that God exists. It is a LARGE "probability". Again, looking at Creation, seeing the moral code on our hearts and viewing the available physical textual evidence for Scripture are just 3 HUGE reasons why God "probably does exist" for those people that aren't Christian yet.
Sorry, I misunderstood what you were trying to say in that case. However hasn't everyone basically concluded that the Bible is God's word interpreted by people and written down? Obviously someone wrote it, there's no denying that, but to make a claim that God wrote it is quite a bit different than saying William Shakespeare penned Othello.It really isn't stupid. I am not saying you think that Shakespeare's writings are non-fiction. I'm saying that everyone accepts Shakespeare's work as Shakespeare's work or Homer's writings as Homer's writings. My question is that then why do you not accept God's writings as God's writings? He wrote His Word over thousands of years using dozens of people and it is all in agreement, has hundreds of prophecies that were fulfilled and has more textural evidence backing it up that it is what it says it is (God's Word) than any other piece of literature in the world.
That is what i'm trying to say and hopefully you still don't think it's "stupid".
And i realize that one of the main differences between a Christian and a non-Christian is their sense of awe. So whereas you look at Creation and see some cool flowers and some cool birds, i see a loving God that in His creativity designed hundreds of species of beautiful birds and flowers that all live in harmony. You see a body of water and a few stars and see the bottomless depths of the ocean and the billions of stars in billions of galaxies and their gravitational pulls and pushes.
If you REALLY study the vastness of the universe and the minute complexities of the earth and the human body: dna, protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, individual cells, amoeba's; You should come to believe that SOMEONE put it all in motion. Someone made sure that we can all exist together and that there is no chance this all just "exploded into being".
If you don't, your heart is hard. It doesn't mean you are stupid, or haven't thought about these things a lot or can't make an intelligent, informed opinion, but your heart is hard. And it won't be until the end of time when Jesus returns that your hearts will be opened to His Majesty and the true glory of His Creation. And at that point it will be too late.
So i'll just keep harping along until that day happens in hopes that the scales fall from just one of your guys' eyes.
Blessings.
There is no objective evidence of the existence of a higher power.
Standard of good and bad is subjective, based on culture and society.
Not sure what I didn't answer. Like I said, it's been really busy! Buying a new car, selling my old one, finishing finals, getting Xmas presents, going to Xmas parties...I'm already worn out and it's not even Xmas yet! So I'm sorry I don't have time to thoroughly analyze every single sentence the way I would like to be able to, given infinite time. I wish some other atheists would step up and help out! Anyways...
To answer: why I assume he doesn't exist: there is no objective scientific evidence. It's that simple.
Yea, I acknowledge objective morals so I'm allowed to say that. You say they are based on society and guess what their small society says? They say they ought to fly planes into buildings. In your model, they cannot possibly be wrong or immoral.No. You said it yourself. They are extremists.
Which society? Some of them certainly feel that it is needed. In your model, genocide is not immoral so long as it's done by a society.No. Society in general does not feel genocide is right.
Yea, it says an organized group of persons....how ambiguous can this definition get? I encourage everyone to go read this one for yourself.Try Dictionary.com.
See above. One does not just define society on a whim and claim all are members.
Technically, yes, they could do all those things. And society has to be accountable to the people/individual. There is no one else to be accountable to.
If you want, you can give me the best that you've got, but I'm not going to waste your time trying to have you prove something that has no proof. If there was, faith would not be necessary.
Society is accountable to the individual.
Sure, it's just not applicable in this case. See how easy it is to refute arbitrary statements?Whoa there. Things don't need to be true in 100% of cases to be applicable.
What I want to know is this: if morality is absolute, why are morals different for different cultures and different time periods?
To answer your question in bold, no, God will never command something that is immoral. You raise valid objections at the end and i don't have the time or research to respond to you but you have to take each circumstance in context.
Just the first one for example, polygamy. Please tell me where it says God says polygamy is ok. He doesn't.
And i could do this with each of your examples that you listed. God does not, and never has, approve of polygamy, incest, self-mutilation, castration, wife-beating or human sacrifice. Want me to find a verse in the Koran that commands Muslims to beat their wives? I can do that in 2 minutes. Want me to find a verse in the Bible that commands us to beat our wives? I can take the rest of my life and i will not find it in there b/c it was never commanded by God (even if there are stories in Scripture of wife-beating happening).
To make this statement you would have to survey everything. Your only logical position should be agnostic.
I will have to parrot what I said in that last post. Who is society accountable to? If society violates one of their standards, who are they accoutable to for what they "ought" to do? The answer you should give is "nobody". Societies morality is arbitrary.
Hey no problem at all. I drove for 11 hours yesterday becasue my leave period started and I had to get home for Christmas. So, take your time because I won't be able to respond as fast as I normally would either.
OK. This partially answers my question. What kind of evidence do you need? Scientific. What scientific evidence do you have that allows you to use science itself? Your answer will likely be circular if you somehow presuppose science to answer this question.
Yea, I acknowledge objective morals so I'm allowed to say that. You say they are based on society and guess what their small society says? They say they ought to fly planes into buildings. In your model, they cannot possibly be wrong or immoral.
Which society? Some of them certainly feel that it is needed. In your model, genocide is not immoral so long as it's done by a society.
Says who? The dictionary? Who made the dictionary the final authority and how is the dictionary going to enforce it's rules?
Bam! Finally. Society is accountable to society. If society violates its morals then they are in quite a bind because they are accountable to nobody. All of that to show that this big circular argument makes societies morality very circular and arbitrary.
And if society is accountable to the individual as you said, then morality is really based on individual's morals. Now what's moral for you is not moral for me and we are getting very close to the verge of complete absurdity. In your model, morality depends on the individual and morality is therefore based on each individual's very arbitrary moral decisions. And who are the individuals accountable to? Themselves of course which makes for yet another circular argument.
Didn't you complain about circular arguments some time ago?
I addressed this mostly above. Then morality is circular and an individual's choices are arbitrary.
Yes, and the bible has an answer, but you will undoubtedly not like it. It talks about sin and it's effects all throughout it.
According to what's in bold, you are the judge of right and wrong. This means nothing to anyone else. A criminal could say it's right for him to rape and kill your wife or child. What can you say to that?
how do you respond to the great abundance of evidence in support of the New Testament?
by evidence i mean references from secular sources such as tacitus and pliny the younger, the historical reliability and archealogical support for the text itself,and the fact that both christ and the apostles suffered greatly and died horribly in defense of the gospel.
I disagree with your first sentence. We can not "prove" God in some of the ways that atheists or other non-religious people think are the only acceptable ways but we as Christians do know that He exists b/c His Spirit reveals the Truth to us. So the difference is that us Christians KNOW 100% that God exists and we try and spread His Good News while you as an atheist HOPE that you are right but you can never really know for sure (you even admit to it). The difference is in the self-perception. We (Christians) KNOW for ourselves that God exists and is who He says He is (Love). You atheists HOPE that your theories about pre-existence and creation and meaning in life are correct. But you can't know for yourselves.
And it is not just a small probability that God exists. It is a LARGE "probability". Again, looking at Creation, seeing the moral code on our hearts and viewing the available physical textual evidence for Scripture are just 3 HUGE reasons why God "probably does exist" for those people that aren't Christian yet.
It really isn't stupid. I am not saying you think that Shakespeare's writings are non-fiction. I'm saying that everyone accepts Shakespeare's work as Shakespeare's work or Homer's writings as Homer's writings. My question is that then why do you not accept God's writings as God's writings? He wrote His Word over thousands of years using dozens of people and it is all in agreement, has hundreds of prophecies that were fulfilled and has more textural evidence backing it up that it is what it says it is (God's Word) than any other piece of literature in the world.
And i realize that one of the main differences between a Christian and a non-Christian is their sense of awe. So whereas you look at Creation and see some cool flowers and some cool birds, i see a loving God that in His creativity designed hundreds of species of beautiful birds and flowers that all live in harmony. You see a body of water and a few stars and see the bottomless depths of the ocean and the billions of stars in billions of galaxies and their gravitational pulls and pushes.
If you REALLY study the vastness of the universe and the minute complexities of the earth and the human body: dna, protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, individual cells, amoeba's; You should come to believe that SOMEONE put it all in motion. Someone made sure that we can all exist together and that there is no chance this all just "exploded into being".
The fulfillment of prophecy in the book of Revelation should convince anyone to believe and follow in Christ. Why not you? Why do you continue to deny Christ? Why do you continue to justify sin?
Well, I think anyone who claims to have any knowledge on these issues probably don't. Atheists and Theists. The Holy Spirit that gives you your "knowledge" doesn't actually have to be the Holy Spirit. Many people, especially when dealing with the irrational, can get themselves to a point where they feel like they can claim knowledge on a particular subject (even though they probably don't know what they think it is that they know) and this is especially easy when dealing with the unknown. And when you have an excuse to reject logic or rational thinking.
"Creation" just points to a Creator, not your God. And then again, reasons for believing in Creation are a little shaky and on don't rest on evidence. The "moral code" in our hearts is based on logic, rationality, and empathy. As well as other things. We know killing is wrong because we don't want to be killed. We don't want our loved ones to killed. And, many of us, don't like to hurt other people. Evidence for scripture is just historical evidence, which provides no evidence for the supernatural elements of scripture.
Well, actually, not everyone believes that Shakespeare's writing was his. But that's another story. We have numerous sources telling us that Homer and Shakespeare existed. We don't have that for God. As far as the prophecies being fulfilled, could you provide some examples and sources?
The universe we exist in is beautiful. Not all of the time though. But I see the same things you see, I can't really say what I see gives me any reason to believe in a Creator though. But I feel a very strong connection to the world around me. I appreciate every second of it. I don't just look at in some very logical/scientific way. Though, science does provide an explanation to many of the things I see.
I have studied it. I don't understand why someone had to put it into motion. That thinking is just a matter of applying patterns we are used to here on Earth to a subject we really know nothing about. Which is why we're here and how we got here.
Everyone feels a connection to something when they look outside. When they look at nature. And it's our natural reaction to want to put another intelligent being at the other end of that connection. That's how we live here on Earth and we want to know that same connection exists outside of Earth. Putting an intelligent being at the other end of that connection gives us comfort. But it's us putting an intelligent being at the other end of that connection whether we realize that or not. And we're not doing it consciously. We don't really know what's at the end of that connection. We can speculate. We might be wrong, we might be right. But we can't know.
Do I need to try every single squash in the world before declaring I think it's the most disgusting vegetable I've ever tasted and it makes me feel like I'm going to vomit?
According to you, the only logical position about anything would be to be agnostic or undecided... about the presence of unicorns, elves, flying spaghetti monsters, invisible pink elephants, or flying space walruses.
I already said in a previous post society has no one else to be accountable to.
Like I said, there is no evidence, so don't waste your time. That's why religion is based on faith.
No, their society does not say that. It is a small group of religous extremists.
Right. Technicially, if a society/culture determines genocide is ok, who is to say they are wrong? It's all relative.
I'm not denying that. Why is that so hard for you to grasp? Why do they need to be accountable to someone?
I have no reason to think that He's evil. As a matter of fact, my model excludes that completely.Yes. I said we have no way of knowing if God is truly "good" or not.
Right. Just because you don't like that or it scares you doesn't make it not true.
You stated previously that you believed in absolute morality because it's something inherent in all of us. My point is it's not inherent, because different cultures have different ideas about what is moral and what is not.
You don't have to do anything. But your personal preferences mean very little to this conversation.
Well, you can always declare (as you already have) that God doesn't exist. But there is no way you can prove that claim so it's best to stop making the statement. Your example here also commits the fallacy of equivication. It's not a good comparison to compare God to whatever it was you mentioned.
Yep, arbitrary.
How do you know there is no evidence? You must be pretty all knowing.
So are you defining for them what their society is? Your in a different society (or are you?) and cannot tell them how to define their own culture.
Look at what you wrote; look at what you are forced to agree to! So now you are reduced to ridiculous positions such as agreeing that genocide is ok. In your model you are forced to say that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. were highly immoral since they went against "society". Why in the world would anyone agree with you?
Well, at least you are making an attempt to be consistent, but you are failing. Who are you to say morality is relative for them? It seems you are making an appeal to some absolute authority by which to tell them this when you believe in no such authority (more below on this). Arbitrary.
Why is it so hard for you to grasp a higher authority? Why do you have to be accountable to yourself?
Becuase there is a sense of "ought" in moral values. I should do [blank] or I ought to do [blank]. That ought is not to society and especially not to myself.
I have no reason to think that He's evil. As a matter of fact, my model excludes that completely.
Just because you don't like the idea of God doesn't mean He doesn't exist and don't assume that whatever it was, scares me. When I said your choices are arbitrary what that means is your reasoning and rationality is whacked up. Your argument(s) is/are terrible because they are arbitrary.
You cannot define for me (in your model) what morality is. You say morality is cultural dependent/relative, well by doing that you are making an appeal to another absolute truth, namely that morality is relative.
Yes, and some of them are wrong.
I also noticed that you keep skipping my comments on your use of logic. I don't know why. But I am glad we seem to have gotten past the circular argument part. Everyone will eventually argue in a circle when it comes to talking about the final authority as we have finally seen. And I don't have a real problem with that because I know it happens and I think you see it now too. But if you are going to argue for individuals or cultures as the final authorities you are going to run into serious problems. You are demonstrating this fact too. You cannot condemn genocide since it can be moral in your model and you cannot commend reformers of society since they are immoral.
You also cannot appeal to a source of absolute truth which you have managed to do multiple times. The problem we keep running to is that I don't agree with your source of authority on morality and you don't agree with mine. But we know one or the other is wrong; maybe it's me and maybe it's you. You appeal to culture or individuals as final authority for morality and I appeal to God as the source of morality. My view excludes your final authority and your view excludes my final authority and we have a conflict because we both know that we are not both correct. If it is indeed true that individuals or societies are the final authority for morals then you cannot possibly tell me anything (and by 'anything' I literally mean anything), becuase every time you think and speak or type you are going to make absolute truth statements and adhere to laws that are not culturally dependent thereby appealing to some authority that is beyond individuals and cultures that you don't believe in. You cannot avoid it. I think that morals are part of these absolute laws that everyone appeals to at times, but they are the easiest to dismiss and usually the first truths to discard. When you say that morals are relative you are appealing to the absolute truth claim by saying it is true that "morals are relative". Now if it is indeed true for all people and all cultures that "morals are culturally dependent" then you have appealed to an authority beyond cultures for that truth. But that should be impossible in you model shouldn't it?
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