How to prove God exists.

[PsychoSarah]

In state of the art labs designed by experts. Likely is code for guess.

No. Testing old rock samples gives a pretty good indication of the environment in the past. That's what the experts use to determine the chemical content of the experiment, but to be very blunt, abiogenesis set-ups aren't actually that difficult. When my biology professor was a high school teacher, one of his students made such a set up himself. The materials within the experimental conditions aren't rare; the hardest part would be producing the spark or consistent heat source, and certain old car parts work for producing a spark. You just use heat to keep the environment free of living organisms.

So what do they (intelligent agents) introduce? RNA? Cells? That means they already start with really complicated things, not raw chemicals alone.

Nope, introducing macromolecules such as RNA would ruin the experiment, and introducing living cells defeats the purpose entirely. Even amino acids, basic carbohydrate monomers, nucleic acids, some lipids... all which form naturally in the environment all the time, aren't introduced to the experiment and are allowed to form within the experimental environment instead. As basic as it gets. If you want to run an abiogenesis experiment yourself, I'll gladly give you direction on how to do it. Heck, if you know anything about making glass, that could save you some money you'd have to spend on the set up. What you'll need for the atmosphere is water vapor (easy to get, since water is going to evaporate in the experimental conditions anyways), hydrogen gas (I'd just buy a small amount with a high purity), ammonia (you probably own some of that for cleaning purposes, but you might want to buy a small amount with a higher purity than that), and methane (which is also easy to get). If you feel like doing it, I'll give more instruction. You'll start to get amino acids, lipids, and basic sugars within a month. If you keep it up, you'll start to see lipid bubbles (basic cell walls) fairly quickly too. Unfortunately, basic life takes years to form in these experiments, and since I don't know your age, I am not sure how feasible it would be for you to keep the experiment ongoing for a decade or more.

Right cars require intelligent agents and a state of the art factory. If cars are unnatural then so is bio life here because both require the intervention of a living intelligent source.

-_- just because some things on this planet, such as cars, aren't naturally occurring, that does not mean that all things on this planet must be created. The reason why cars aren't natural isn't because of their complexity (arrowheads aren't natural either, mind you, and they aren't any more complex than a rock). It's because natural processes don't produce cars. Thus far, evidence strongly suggests that life can be produced through natural processes. Does this inherently mean life on Earth was necessarily produced this way? No, it just makes it a possibility. If not here, then perhaps elsewhere in the universe. However, with no strong evidence for a creator, stating that life on this planet must have been created is jumping the gun.

That is following the evidence based on everything we know about life. Not Ad Hoc rescues or making things up.

-_- why do you continue to insult me by suggesting I am making stuff up? I offered to give you sources before, but you never requested them. I gave you a name to Google search for yourself if you wanted. I'm going to put some sources in my post wherever they fit best.

More guesswork and starting with their conclusion. Life somehow arose thru natural nonintelligent processes. That is their start.

No, the premise is "Once on this planet, there was no life. Thus, life had to get here somehow. Let's utilize our understanding of the ancient Earth conditions, and see if life will naturally begin to form." In all honesty, I don't think they were expecting results so quickly.

They can then retrofit their starting assumptions around their scenarios, read, guesses. They do not follow the evidence, they fit the evidence into their senarios. If they are looking for the first cause of bio life they are looking for a living cause.

-_- how? Abiogenesis experiments are models of the ancient Earth environment left to sit for years, with samples of the contents examined periodically. A biosphere that starts out without any life in it. The simple cells form. Since the very basic life that forms within these experiments DOES NOT EXIST IN THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT CURRENTLY, it is impossible for contamination from living organisms to be the source of these very basic, RNA based cells. Chemical tests for amino acids are really easy to do, as are the ones for simple sugars and nucleic acids. I've done them myself, they don't even take an hour out of my day.

We die and they may die but they can duplcate. Cars or Xerox machines do not naturally duplicate and neither do cells. it is too complicated a process to happen naturally. If you think cells can naturally duplicate then you really do not know what you are looking at in the first place.

-_- I've watched cells duplicate. I've seen every stage of cell division. Cells mess up with it quite a bit. There are so many chemical controls in place to halt cell division and kill cells that divide incorrectly because this natural process is so flawed. This is why cancer happens.

Maybe later when i have more time.

Feel free to talk whenever you like, in an appropriately themed thread.

No known ancestors to bacteria and when they try to break bacteria down the organism dies.

-_- of course when you break a cell apart, the organism dies. We aren't trying to create life by hand in abiogenesis experiments. The point is to let it form. Cells are the smallest unit of life. The earliest life, thus, is going to be a cell. Of course, modern cell organelles are quite developed; they've had billions of years for that.

Now, let's discuss what makes a bacteria a bacteria. They have a cell membrane, and no membrane encased organelles. Cell membranes are just lipid bilayers (they'll form spontaneously in disturbed water) with proteins sticking out of it (get trapped in the membrane as it forms). These actually form fairly early in abiogenesis experiments, and as they get bigger, they begin to separate and divide into two smaller lipid bubbles. Bacteria have ribosomes, which consist of RNA. RNA does quite a bit of work in cells, as they serve to translate DNA and build proteins. Bacteria also have their genetic material, which isn't membrane bound and forms rings (unlike our linear DNA). Then, there is the cytoplasm, which is the internal environment of the cell as a whole, and is affected by the outside environment. The cells produced in the abiogenesis experiments also have all of these things, aside from their genetic material being RNA instead of DNA (Has uracil instead of thymine, and ribose in the sugar phosphate backbone instead of deoxyribose, the difference being that deoxyribose has 1 fewer oxygen atoms than ribose). "But Sarah, why don't we have RNA as our genetic material instead of DNA if the first life used RNA?" An ancient cell messed up and produced proteins that produce DNA instead of RNA using the nucleotides in the environment. As it were, DNA is far more stable than RNA, so the offspring of that cell actually reproduced better than the RNA competitors.

You do not get simpler life, you get death.

-_- duh, because the precursors to bacteria weren't like modern bacterial cells minus parts, but rather they had the same essential parts in simpler form. You aren't going to get that from bursting bacterial cells.

From chemicals to bacteria is far more complicated than bacteria to humans.

Not really, the chemical processes that formed life are actually pretty basic. Most of them happen in various places on Earth still, and the biggest reason we don't see life form all the time is because early life is made out of the same stuff modern life likes to eat, and cells in the process of forming have no hope of competing with organisms that have billions of years of development on them.

Ancestors to bacteria are all imaginary as is the magical primordial soup etc. It is all conjecture.

It is well beyond conjecture when it has been repeated in lab, and science has nothing to do with magic (except for debunking claimed instances of it, I guess). Life is chemicals fueled by chemical reactions. There's no mystical life force to be found, no process within cells that defies nature.

It is an overstatement. They are no where near and they say so. They may over exaggerate their results for funding purposes. No different in principal than a Benny Hinn healing service. Both con jobs designed to excite the gullible and true believers. Whip them up into a frenzy. I like that analogy. Benny Hinn and origin of life researchers have a few things in common.

New Szostak protocell is closest approximation to origin of life and Darwinian evolution so far
https://molbio.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/publications/Szostak_pdfs/Adamala_Szostak_2013_Science.pdf

The former is about this scientific publication and an easier read.

Liars in the scientific community are weeded out very quickly, as one of the demands of the scientific process is that the experiment and its results must be able to be replicated. No singular group is relied upon to be honest.

Garbage. It has always been valid. If you find the Starship Enterprise on the moon then the cause is not the moon but a source extrinsic. Same with bacteria. Natural processes chemical reactions did not produce bacteria which duplicates. The process is way to complicated.

-_- it's really not that complicated, nor does it need to be. Modern cells just have a directed replication that the protocells do not (they just end up dividing into two cells whenever they reach a certain size). It looks really complicated in diagrams to people that don't know what they are looking at. Heck, the only item that is distributed entirely evenly to daughter cells upon division is DNA (when the cell divides correctly).
Step 1: the cell grows
Step 2: the cell replicates it's DNA
Step 3: the cell grows some more
Step 4: The cell divides, with each copy of DNA (in the form of chromosomes) being pulled to the far ends as it does so by protein fibers that attach to them and gradually shorten. I could go more into depth if you like, but every part of the chemical process is well known and not supernatural or magical or miraculous.

Life here is the evidence for God. It would take an intelligent source extrinsic of the universe and timeless and that is God. Absent God, we would not be here.

Even if life on this planet had a creator or had some quality of it that demanded a creator, that wouldn't indicate the nature of the creator (or multiple creators). It wouldn't even mean that said creator/s still existed, much less that they were a deity (and a specific one at that).

As it stands, there's nothing about life on this planet that actually demands that it was created, as far as our understanding of the functions and formation of life goes.

Perhaps it is like advanced math. You either get it or you don't.

If that were the case, then far fewer kids growing up in religious households would later be religious adults. Also, I understand why the argument from complexity exists. It's just inherently flawed because complexity isn't an indicator of something being created. Many simple items, such as a slingshot, are created by us. Plenty of complex items, like a large underground cave system, form naturally over time. Since complexity is not an inherent quality of created items, it's a pointless argument to make. That, and the fact that something being complex doesn't exclude it from having a natural cause.

By the way, whether or not you consider something "complex" is subjective ;P

That shows sarcasm and ridicule and not a degree of openess you claim above.

You were suggesting I should be a nihilist, as if I had no choice. I found that really, really funny. I'm open to being converted, but I am not open to your implication that being an atheist demands that I think all my actions are pointless and be depressed about it.

So who you trying to convince?

Convince of what? I try to convince myself that there'll be something after death quite a bit. Unfortunately, I consistently fail. Otherwise, I suppose that I've been trying to convince you that I'm not pulling scientific progress out of my proverbial anus -_-. Not sure why you hate on abiogenesis so much, since it's entirely irrelevant to whether or not deities exist. Even though life can form naturally, I don't see why you couldn't believe that a deity guided the formation of life on this planet anyways.

When it comes to God your mind is slamed shut and no amount will ever convince.

Actually, I've given examples of what would convince me of the existence of deities before, even without direct exposure (I definitely hope you don't think I am so obtuse that I wouldn't believe in deities as I was looking at one). For example, an individual book that can be read by anyone, even the illiterate, and everyone gets the exact same meaning out of it. I don't even care if this individual book was philosophically interesting or not, it could be a cook book, but I would consider an individual book that breaks all language and ability barriers to be a miracle. And I am not talking about a book on tape or one translated into many languages, I am talking about a singular, physical copy that accomplishes this.

Also you will cling to your alternative creation myth, no matter how preposterious, inferior and counter to all we know about life and living things.

Abiogenesis is fascinating, but a deity creating life is far more so. The former just has more evidence supporting it at this point in time.

If all life has an exclusive nonliving first cause (blind faith) then the spherical Earth came from a flat Earth and the present has zero to do with the past.

*sigh of relief* so glad I am not debating another flat Earther or a person that believes the physics of the past were significantly different from those of the present. Those really test my patience and sanity.

Also, abiogenesis doesn't suggest that life exclusively has natural origins, just that it is a possibility for life on Earth. I mean, we engineer goats to produce insulin in their milk for diabetics; those goats are hardly "natural".

So much for Darwin who assumed change in his present retrodicted to change in the deep past. Can't have it both ways.

-_- Darwin hasn't be the authority on evolution for more than 100 years. When theories are first made, they generally get a lot wrong. After all, the original atomic theory just had atoms be solid balls of mass. What a guy got wrong in the 1800s is irrelevant to the successes or the failures of modern day.

 

[dmmesdale]

-_- just because some things on this planet, such as cars, aren't naturally occurring, that does not mean that all things on this planet must be created. The reason why cars aren't natural isn't because of their complexity (arrowheads aren't natural either, mind you, and they aren't any more complex than a rock). It's because natural processes don't produce cars.

If natural processes produce bacteria then by the same standard, natural processes can produce cars. If you say natural processes can produce bacteria but cannot produce cars then there is a contradiction since both are highly complex. Contradictions do not exist in reality. If nature cannot produce cars then nature cannot produce bacteria. That means the first cause of bacteria is a living source extrinsic of nature.

Thus far, evidence strongly suggests that life can be produced through natural processes.

Garbage.

Does this inherently mean life on Earth was necessarily produced this way? No, it just makes it a possibility.

It is not reasonably possible, never observed, violates all we know about life which requires prior existing life.

If not here, then perhaps elsewhere in the universe.

That just moves it back since early universe was incompatible with life everywhere. If the source of life here is life elsewhere within the universe then it would have to start and evolve enuf to plant life here. Either way ET is more plasuable than life from nonlife only because ET satisfies biogenesis defined as life from prior life. If ET planted life here then its source would still be living and extrinsic of the universe.

However, with no strong evidence for a creator, stating that life on this planet must have been created is jumping the gun.

Bio life is the evidence just like a car is evidence of a factory and intelligent designers. A suit is evidence of a tailor. If living beings is the effect then a living source is the cause. That is followiing the evidence as opposed to manufacturing scenarios with no evidential basis or precedent. That is inferred to the best explanation. No different then inferring a volcano eruption in the past as the cause of an ash layer in the present. If it is living, (Bacteria) its cause is living. If bio life had a start then it had a living cause. That means we have a purpose. There was a reason, we are not accidents nor can we be reduced to chemical reactions alone.

-_- why do you continue to insult me by suggesting I am making stuff up?

The whole idea of all life here from exclusive nonlife sources has no basis in reality or anything we know about living things and their origins. It has never been observed and there is no known precedent. It is an inferior explanation to get around the obvious. I have no control over you taking it personally. I read your link and am somewhat familiar with Szostak and Panda Bear which is stacked with pro evos. Lets take a look at the first paragraph.

Origin of life researcher and Nobel Prize winner Jack Szostak has made an important step towards creating a prebiotically plausible protocell (prebiotic implies that it did not originate from pre-existing forms of life, but its components could have self-assembled from raw materials available under physical and chemical conditions of the early earth). The protocell is a fatty acid vesicle, which is a simpler form of a cell membrane, in which RNA replication occurs autonomously without the help of enzymes. The results have been published in Science Nov 29 2013.


They are guessing and super complicate things do not self assembly under any conditions. It takes intelligence. All we are witnessing here is blind faith.

Most consider life to be much more than chemistry and simplistic materialistic explanations ''chemistry becomes biology'' are about as satisifying as laws of internal combustion explains a car. We all know there is far more to cars and there is far more to life. There is consciousness relationships and purpose for a few and materialism fails to adequately explain.
---------------------

‘The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10^12 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica.”
Carl Sagan, “Life” in Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974 ed.), pp. 893-894

“a one-celled bacterium, e. coli, is estimated to contain the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Expressed in information in science jargon, this would be the same as 10^12 bits of information. In comparison, the total writings from classical Greek Civilization is only 10^9 bits, and the largest libraries in the world – The British Museum, Oxford Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Harvard Widenier Library, and the Moscow Lenin Library – have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.”
– R. C. Wysong

No, the premise is "Once on this planet, there was no life. Thus, life had to get here somehow. Let's utilize our understanding of the ancient Earth conditions, and see if life will naturally begin to form." In all honesty, I don't think they were expecting results so quickly.

They got no results.

-_- of course when you break a cell apart, the organism dies. We aren't trying to create life by hand in abiogenesis experiments. The point is to let it form. Cells are the smallest unit of life. The earliest life, thus, is going to be a cell. Of course, modern cell organelles are quite developed; they've had billions of years for that.

If it can 'self assemble' then it can be taken apart. The scenario is bottom up. Goo to bacteria which is the simplest living which replicates. Chemical or goo alone cannot self assemble to living organisms. No matter the time or circumstances. Libraries do not self assemble. They are built and furnished by intelligent agents for a purpose. Not for no purpose or accidental.

Even if life on this planet had a creator or had some quality of it that demanded a creator, that wouldn't indicate the nature of the creator (or multiple creators). It wouldn't even mean that said creator/s still existed, much less that they were a deity (and a specific one at that).

If there are two hypos then we go to the most reasonable based on what we know in the present. If the options are nonliving natural or nonliving natural plus the intervention of a living source for the first cause of bio life here then the most reasonalbe is the latter based on what we know about life. If i am looking for a cause of you then i am looking for a living source. Not chemicals absent a living source. We do not go to identity until cause is estalished.

As it stands, there's nothing about life on this planet that actually demands that it was created, as far as our understanding of the functions and formation of life goes.

Bio life requires a living cause. Always and everywhere.

If that were the case, then far fewer kids growing up in religious households would later be religious adults. Also, I understand why the argument from complexity exists. It's just inherently flawed because complexity isn't an indicator of something being created.

Does SETI know this? If they recieve morse code like signals from outer space and they are decoded depicting assembly instructions for a starship the cause is natural?

Many simple items, such as a slingshot, are created by us. Plenty of complex items, like a large underground cave system, form naturally over time.

If the
Mackinac Bridge self assembles over time then you may have something. Point being, it did not.

Since complexity is not an inherent quality of created items, it's a pointless argument to make. That, and the fact that something being complex doesn't exclude it from having a natural cause.

Ok so your post has a natural nonliving cause.

By the way, whether or not you consider something "complex" is subjective ;P

No it is not. Complexity is objective. A beaver dam or a spider web is living caused. A cave could be either. Your post is not subjectively complex. It is objectively complex. No matter what anybody subjectively thinks it still remains objectively complex and remains so even if we translate it into French or Morse, or binary code. English French Morse or binary, they are all objectively different (even if the message is the same, cannot be understood, or nobody knows about it) if it exists then it is objectively complex. All is needed is decoding by an intelligent agent.
Quote.

''If you want to assert that the bacterium, along with all its astounding nanotechnology, its genetic information processing system, and the enormous amount of pre-loaded digitally encoded information are the result of an unguided process then the heavy burden is on you.''

If it is as complicated as an F-15 fighter jet then its origin involves the intervention of a living intelligent source. Enormous amounts of pre-loaded digitally encoded information is the fingerprint of super intelligence, not natural processes absent intelligence.

You were suggesting I should be a nihilist, as if I had no choice.

The natural outcome of atheism is nihilism since life has no objective purpose, meaning or value and any value subjectively assigned is fiction. You can go thru life contented as a cow and i said as much but you really have no right to preach we have responsibilty to extend life or take care of things since those things have no objective basis in an atheistic universe. If our creator is nature then nature does not obligate us to do anything.

I found that really, really funny. I'm open to being converted, but I am not open to your implication that being an atheist demands that I think all my actions are pointless and be depressed about it.

Then don't be depressed. Don't assume equality and do not assume you have rights to anything. In atheism, you don't and equality is myth. There is no equality in nature alone. If humans grant each other rights then human can take away those rights and they will.

Convince of what? I try to convince myself that there'll be something after death quite a bit.

In that case Hitler really only suffered the same fate as his victims. The end result of all his murders of women and children only means they ended up in the same nothingness from whence they came. There is no real justice in nature. No righting of the wrongs, there is just death, but don't be depressed about it. Be happy since you have it better than both parties. Hitler and all his millions of victims who will never have justice. Expectations of justice for victims is also fictions relative to external reality. Nature is indifferent.

_-. Not sure why you hate on abiogenesis so much, since it's entirely irrelevant to whether or not deities exist.

The common understanding of abio is life absent a living first cause. It is fiction.

Even though life can form naturally,

It cannot.

I don't see why you couldn't believe that a deity guided the formation of life on this planet anyways.

The first cause of bio life here is God. Absent God we would not exist. We are the fingerprint of God and the closer we get to God the closer we get to ultimate reality. The further we move away from God the further we move away from ultimate reality. Why would anyone want to be alienated from ultimate reality?

-_- Darwin hasn't be the authority on evolution for more than 100 years. When theories are first made, they generally get a lot wrong. After all, the original atomic theory just had atoms be solid balls of mass. What a guy got wrong in the 1800s is irrelevant to the successes or the failures of modern day.

Darwin used the present to infer to the past. He did that correctly employing science methods. He made a case which appealed to many for different reasons.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

If life continues as it's known on earth now, death and suffering would continue as well. You disagree?

No, I don't disagree; why?

To answer your question: it would be objectively good because it would always be known as good for as long as conscious beings live to experience life without death and suffering, which would be forever.

Asserting that it will be 'known' as good doesn't make it objectively good. How will they know it is objectively good?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... when it comes to Moses your standard is myth until proven otherwise, guilty until proven innocent, or beyond all possible doubt.

No, just beyond reasonable doubt.

Why not if the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt?

Because the writings have been authenticated beyond reasonable doubt. That doesn't mean the content describes real events.

Right can't draw the distinction between a historical and a myth figure.

Not just by being written about many times; obviously.

That is called diluting or minimizing. The assertion by experts is Jesus existed and was crucified by Pilate.

I said it's not improbable that someone called Jesus was crucified. The uncertainty is whether a Jesus that was crucified corresponded to the biblical description and if so, to what extent.

Bart Ehrman compares Jesus mythers to Holocaust deniers.

People say stupid things.

E.T.A. Wait, I see that Bart Ehrman didn't really compare Jesus mythers to Holocaust deniers, so I guess my comment above applies to what you said.

Right ancient historians are guilty or incompetent until proven otherwise.

I don't think so; I would expect the vast majority are honest and competent.

Lets trash all the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus because none of it is shown to be true beyond a reasonable doubt and Tacitus probably wrote about myth figures. (Zeus?) (Common practice for ancient historians) and if absent critics can claim anachronism. So he did not know what he was doing.

Now you're just being silly.

In history they accept a lot of things based on blind faith absent one shred of evidence.

I don't agree.

 

[Chriliman]

No, I don't disagree; why?

Good. Did you know that we who believe in God, believe he is immortal and that the essence of his immortality will eventually fill everything in existence? Which means the above proposition that life and death will continue indefinitely is false according to Christianity. This is why, when I said 'enter God' I thought it was implicit that death would end, but I now know you didn't understand it that way.

Asserting that it will be 'known' as good doesn't make it objectively good. How will they know it is objectively good?

Depends how you define objective. I define it as something that is always known to be the case. You may define it as something that is the case apart from all knowledge, but whatever that 'truth' is would be irrelevant to those capable of knowing.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Good. Did you know that we who believe in God, believe he is immortal and that the essence of his immortality will eventually fill everything in existence? Which means the above proposition that life and death will continue indefinitely is false according to Christianity.

That might be relevant to your particular and personal faith based beliefs. Why should anyone else care about this?

Your personal faith-based beliefs can't be used to make educated predictions about the future, since they have no grounding in actual reality by definition.

Depends how you define objective. I define it as something that is always known to be the case

I disagree with that definition.
How about this, instead:

not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts (as opposed to mere beliefs); unbiased

 

[Chriliman]

That might be relevant to your particular and personal faith based beliefs. Why should anyone else care about this?

Most if not everyone cares about life and death and the suffering and pain that death can bring. In this way, my faith in God to eventually overcome death is always relevant.

Your personal faith-based beliefs can't be used to make educated predictions about the future, since they have no grounding in actual reality by definition.

You do realize that anyone's beliefs are a part of reality, right? They may not accurately reflect reality, but this doesn't mean their beliefs aren't real(either actually true or actually false).

I disagree with that definition.
How about this, instead:

not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts (as opposed to mere beliefs); unbiased

I agree with that definition and agree we should make discernments based on facts. This doesn't affect how I view the meaning of objective, since facts should always be true.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Good. Did you know that we who believe in God, believe he is immortal and that the essence of his immortality will eventually fill everything in existence?

That's true of Christians, not everyone who believes in God, but yes, I knew that.

Which means the above proposition that life and death will continue indefinitely is false according to Christianity. This is why, when I said 'enter God' I thought it was implicit that death would end, but I now know you didn't understand it that way.

Frankly, I wasn't considering why you said 'enter God', I was questioning why you'd changed the proposition we were discussing.

Depends how you define objective. I define it as something that is always known to be the case.

Ah; using that definition the only objective thing is the existence of self in a Cartesian sense (and even that is arguable, given evolution). Everything else is learnt or discovered, so not always known to be the case.

If we remove the 'always' from your definition, it becomes more reasonable (if we assume that 'known to be the case' indicates facts about the world). However, what is 'good' is a judgement about facts about the world, it is contingent and contextual. As such, it is inevitably subjective, unless the goal or intent is specified so that a reasoned argument can apply. The popular example is of the absolute prohibition on lying that Kant derived from his 'Categorical Imperative' (his attempt to reason his way to objective morality in the 'Critique of Pure Reason') - but it still can be seen as good or bad depending on the context; i.e. there are times when most people would consider it good to lie and bad not to (e.g. to save a life).

You may define it as something that is the case apart from all knowledge, but whatever that 'truth' is would be irrelevant to those capable of knowing.

That depends whether you consider 'knowledge' to necessarily be true; i.e. not just what is thought or assumed to be true. My definition of 'objective' is the common one (i.e. expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations; in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind).

 

[dmmesdale]

I said it's not improbable that someone called Jesus was crucified. The uncertainty is whether a Jesus that was crucified corresponded to the biblical description and if so, to what extent.

Jesus was crucified via Pilate just like it is repeatedly reported in the Gospels.

People say stupid things.

People are also in denial.

E.T.A. Wait, I see that Bart Ehrman didn't really compare Jesus mythers to Holocaust deniers,

Yeah he did and was called out on it. Ehrman was in the doghouse with many of his nonbeliever Theophobe pals.

''mythicism is another symptom of a problematic society that produces Holocaust deniers, birthers and six-day creationists.'' Bart Ehrman.
Quote
Ehrman’s descriptors of those who argue Jesus was not a historical figure

• mythicism is another symptom of a problematic society that produces Holocaust deniers, birthers and six-day creationists
• a small but growing cadre
• internet junkies
• call themselves mythicists
• unusually vociferous
• nay-sayers
• few are actually scholars trained
• there are a couple of exceptions of the hundreds — thousands?
• so extreme
• advocates so confident and vocal — even articulate
• denouncers of religion
• deniers
• a breed of human now very much in vogue
• maligners of religious views
• modern and post-modern cultural despisers of established religion

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Jesus was crucified via Pilate just like it is repeatedly reported in the Gospels.

Heroic or martyred figures have often been mythologised through history. The Gospels were written some time after the events; it's no big stretch to suggest they documented this process.

Yeah he did and was called out on it.

''mythicism is another symptom of a problematic society that produces Holocaust deniers, birthers and six-day creationists.'' Bart Ehrman.

Reading comprehension fail. He isn't comparing mythicism, Holocaust deniers, birthers and six-day creationists, he's criticising the 'problematic' society that produces them (a society that also produced him).

 

[Chriliman]

Frankly, I wasn't considering why you said 'enter God', I was questioning why you'd changed the proposition we were discussing.

That's my point. The proposition in my mind was that life would continue apart from death, in some immortal form, but I didn't make that clear enough in the outset, which is why you thought it changed, when it really didn't.

Ah; using that definition the only objective thing is the existence of self in a Cartesian sense (and even that is arguable, given evolution). Everything else is learnt or discovered, so not always known to be the case.

If we remove the 'always' from your definition, it becomes more reasonable (if we assume that 'known to be the case' indicates facts about the world). However, what is 'good' is a judgement about facts about the world, it is contingent and contextual. As such, it is inevitably subjective, unless the goal or intent is specified so that a reasoned argument can apply. The popular example is of the absolute prohibition on lying that Kant derived from his 'Categorical Imperative' (his attempt to reason his way to objective morality in the 'Critique of Pure Reason') - but it still can be seen as good or bad depending on the context; i.e. there are times when most people would consider it good to lie and bad not to (e.g. to save a life).

That depends whether you consider 'knowledge' to necessarily be true; i.e. not just what is thought or assumed to be true. My definition of 'objective' is the common one (i.e. expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations; in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind).

I don't care to exist in an absolutely objective state where I can't be influenced or experience anything. I'd call that death.

I'd prefer to exist in a subjective state where I can experience the goodness of life in some immortal body. I'd call that heaven on earth.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That's my point. The proposition in my mind was that life would continue apart from death, in some immortal form, but I didn't make that clear enough in the outset, which is why you thought it changed, when it really didn't.

That wasn't the original proposition, it was the change you introduced.

I don't care to exist in an absolutely objective state where I can't be influenced or experience anything. I'd call that death.

Not only is that incoherent, but it has nothing to do with how objective good can be known without a context.

 

[Radrook]

No, why would you think never ending suffering is a good thing?

That never-ending suffering is a good thing idea isn't a biblical one.

 

[Chriliman]

That wasn't the original proposition, it was the change you introduced.

What was the original proposition then?

This shouldn't be this difficult to understand and come to an agreement on.

Not only is that incoherent, but it has nothing to do with how objective good can be known without a context.

How can objective good be known without context? Keep in mind the fact that you exist and are conscious, provides the minimum amount of context for understanding anything. Without existence and consciousness(context), you couldn't know anything.

 

[Chriliman]

That never-ending suffering is a good thing idea isn't a biblical one.

Agreed. However, suffering in order to achieve a goal is Biblical.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

What was the original proposition then?

That it would be objectively good for the welfare of humanity if life were to continue on Earth.

This shouldn't be this difficult to understand and come to an agreement on.

Indeed not; if can you keep focus on it, I'm sure you can do it.

How can objective good be known without context?

That's what I'm asking.

Keep in mind the fact that you exist and are conscious, provides the minimum amount of context for understanding anything. Without existence and consciousness(context), you couldn't know anything.

Obviously; but because conscious experience is a subjective context, and claims of objectivity must be demonstrably free of personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations; the support of reasoned and logical argument is a requirement.

Your previous attempt to explain why you think, "... it's objectively better if life continues without death and suffering...", i.e. "it would be objectively good because it would always be known as good", is inadequate because without an explanation of the reasoning underlying the claim of knowledge, it's not demonstrably free of personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

I'm going to leave it there.

 

[Chriliman]

That it would be objectively good for the welfare of humanity if life were to continue on Earth.

If life doesn't continue on earth(either along with death or not) then the welfare of humanity is a moot point.

Obviously; but because conscious experience is a subjective context, and claims of objectivity must be demonstrably free of personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations; the support of reasoned and logical argument is a requirement.

The logic and reason behind what I'm saying is obvious.

I can't think of any demonstration that could be absolutely objective. Can you?

 

[dmmesdale]

No, just beyond reasonable doubt.

Because the writings have been authenticated beyond reasonable doubt. That doesn't mean the content describes real events.

The courts use the standard beyond a reasonable doubt to establish guilt since there is a presumption of innocence. You are doing the inverse selectively. They, the ancients, are effectively guilty until proven innocent. Even if they are multiple compiled.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The courts use the standard beyond a reasonable doubt to establish guilt since there is a presumption of innocence. You are doing the inverse selectively. They, the ancients, are effectively guilty until proven innocent.

The use of that criterion by the courts, doesn't mean anyone using it in other contexts must be judging judicial guilt or innocence

Reasonable doubt in the mind of reasonable people is not restricted to judicial judgement.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Most if not everyone cares about life and death and the suffering and pain that death can bring. In this way, my faith in God to eventually overcome death is always relevant.

Not an answer to my question.

You do realize that anyone's beliefs are a part of reality, right?

I didn't say "part of reality".
I said "grounded in reality".