Where's God?

doubtingmerle said:

Ed1Wolf,
Who gets to decide which interpretation of the Bible is correct? Is killing in war acceptable? It depends on which Christian you ask. Is alcohol, marijuana, cussing, gambling, gay sex, or abortion acceptable? Again, depends who you ask.

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The best scholars use the grammatico-historical hermeneutic which is how you understand any document. Using that method you can show the most likely correct interpretation.

dm: If you say your interpretation is right, and all who disagree are wrong, how is that not subjective?

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Most churches that believe in the infallible authority of the bible agree on the essentials.

dm: If God condemns the Holocaust, why did Christians play the role they did in the rise of Nazi Germany? See The Great Scandal: Christianity's Role in the Rise of the Nazis (churchandstate.org.uk)

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Very few orthodox Christians were involved. Most of Germany had long ago rejected the infallible authority of Bible. Liberal theology had become the majority view in Germany long before Hitler came to power. It came to dominate churches especially the Lutheran church by the late 19th century. After rejecting Gods objective moral law-word, Germany became open to accepting someone like Hitler and the Nazi party due to their subjective and relativistic moral standards.

dm: Numbers 31

How can this be capital punishment? The alleged event occurred 400 years earlier. I Samuel 15:2 says, "Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt." I doubt if that accusation is based on an event that actually happened. The base Exodus account of millions of Jews wandering Sinai clearly did not happen. So most likely the priests made this up. But even if it really happened, and the Amalekites had a war with Israel 400 years earlier, how can their descendants 400 years later deserve "Capital Punishment" for that? And if you think killing in war is acceptable, how can the Amalekite soldiers be condemned for doing what their commanders commanded? And even if the adults 400 years later deserved punishment for those soldiers' acts of obeying their commanders, how can the babies 400 years later deserve to be killed for this? See Exodus 17:8-16 and 1 Samuel 15:1-9.

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There is evidence that they had been celebrating what they did for 400 years and they knew exactly what they did. There is what is called collective guilt for societies. God was very gracious and merciful, He gave them 400 years to repent but they did not. The entire society knew what they were doing. The children were taken to prevent being raised into evil adults, so by taking them prior to the age of accountability they went to heaven rather than hell if they had been raised to adulthood.

dm: And if that is not enough, look at Numbers 31, and the reported slaughter of the Midianites. In that slaughter they reportedly obeyed the command to kill all including the babies, but exempted the virgins, which they captured. Can you figure out why they kept only the virgins? Numbers 31:4 tells us, "and the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the LORD'S tribute was thirty and two persons." Pray tell me, what did the Lord need thirty two captive virgins for?

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They had not been involved in the sin at Baal-peor and they became wives of Hebrew warriors and thereby joined a much superior society where women were treated much better.

doubtingmerle said:

Hominids advanced to the point where, knowing 2 plus 2 equals 4 was an advantage. Once hominds had advanced to the point where counting, story telling, and logical arguments were useful to survival, any hominid that could count further, tell more meaningful stories, and make more detailed logical arguments had better survival odds than those who didn't.

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Your assuming what we are trying to prove. You are assuming that they already know how to recognize truth, the problem is since natural selection cannot select for beliefs, an ape would never reach that point.

doubtingmerle said:

ed: Uhh No, I am not claiming Christians came up with methodological naturalism, they knew that MN was self refuting.
Again, here is the way Wikipedia defines methodological naturalism

Methodological naturalism requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based on what we can observe, test, replicate and verify. It is a self-imposed convention of science.

Methodological naturalism concerns itself with methods of learning what nature is. These methods are useful in the evaluation of claims about existence and knowledge and in identifying causal mechanisms responsible for the emergence of physical phenomena. It attempts to explain and test scientific endeavors, hypotheses, and events with reference to natural causes and events. This second sense of the term "naturalism" seeks to provide a framework within which to conduct the scientific study of the laws of nature. Methodological naturalism is a way of acquiring knowledge.

I know you don't like the words "Methodological naturalism" but the paragraphs above are consistent with everything you are saying about the scientific process used by Christians. Do you or do you not agree with the process described above? If you disagree, please tell us how you disagree. If you agree, your difference is only with the word I use.

Your arguments keep coming down to your claim that dictionaries don't have the right definitions for English words like "wrong" and "Methodological naturalism".

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Well I guess it is close to how Christians conduct science, but since naturalism assumes there is no God, maybe a better term is methodological theistic naturalism or Theistic methodological naturalism.

ed: Jeremiah 33:25 and by looking at how rare in the bible supernatural events occur, they knew that making a determination that God intervened in nature had to be the last resort conclusion and backed up with strong evidence that the event could not be explained by natural processes.

dm: Excuse me, have you ever read the whole Bible? That is not a rhetorical question. I would like know your answer. I have read the bible 6 times. One thing is clear to me, that this is largely about God and others in the spiritual world interfering with nature. I am curious how one can read the Bible and not see that.

If any Christian is following this thread, I suggest you read the Bible to see if Ed or I are telling you the truth about what is there. I think if you will read the Bible, you will see it is constantly talking of supernatural interventions.

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Not as much as you think when you consider the big picture. The Bible covers a time period of approximately 13.8 billion years, if you count the number of supernatural events over that time span, the number of those events is actually quite small.

ed: Methodological naturalism was created by atheists that wanted to exclude God from science by definition, which only occurred relatively recently, not realizing that they were shooting themselves in the foot, because without God science is not possible.

dm: Uh no, Methodological naturalism was not created to exclude God. Naturalism, by contrast, does exclude God.

Methodological naturalism deals with the fact that, in their daily work, both Theistic and Atheist scientists view nature as though no supernatural acts are involved. Methodologically, they work as though naturalism is true. They don't need to believe it is true. But methodologically, if they want to accomplish something in science, they need to set the supernatural aside and study nature as though nature is all there is.

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See above a better name for it. But no, they have to remain open minded to the possibility that the Creator did on extremely rare occasions intervene when all other explanations fail and the conclusion is based on knowledge and not lack of knowledge like god of the gaps. An example would be DNA, which is a complex linguistic code. We know from 2 million years of empirical observations that complex linguistic codes can only come from a mind. Therefore, most likely DNA was created by a mind.

ed: That is another piece of evidence that even as a Christian your knowledge of the deeper things of God was somewhat limited. With God Mondays could be just as good or even sometimes better than Sundays. Maybe that is why you didnt persevere.

dm: Got it. You don't think I was a real Christian.

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No, only God knows that, but some of your views that you had during the time you claim you were a Christian are a little strange. They sound more like at the very least a very immature Christian.

dm: I assure you that I was a real Christian. I was a dedicated fundamentalist back in the 70s. In college I was active in a fundamentalist Baptist church (led by a student of Jack Hyles), while balancing the study of engineering on other days. I thoroughly enjoyed the "supernatural" experience of seeing people get "saved" on Sunday. Switching my mind from the supernatural mode on Sunday to the natural mode on Monday was never easy for me.

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I became a Christian in the 70s as well, and was formerly an agnostic. I never heard of Jack Hyles. But in the 80s when I went to college to study biology, for me on Monday studying the amazing design in living organisms sometimes felt more supernatural than seeing people get saved. I have never experienced a switching of my mind from Sundays to Mondays. Everyday that I see his amazing creation reminds me of the miraculous.

ed: No, we have the writings of some of the greatest scientists of those centuries and they say themselves that they wanted to study nature in order to "think God's thoughts after Him" and learn more about His creation as the bible teaches. Also, they knew that only if there was an intelligent and orderly Creator, would it mean that nature was intelligible and orderly so that it could be systematically studied.

dm: Yes, yes, they were in a predominantly Christian culture and said things the Christian culture wanted. Maybe they themselves believed it. I don't know.

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Many of them we have their personal writings like Galileo and Kepler and others that the authorities would have never seen and it shows they were very devout even in their private lives.

ed: But I don't think it was Christianity that caused them to accept the method that is listed in the paragraphs about Methodogical naturalism above.

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No, even secular historians believe it was because they believed in what the Bible teaches about the heavens and nature declaring the Glory of God and that if God created nature then it objectively exists and that He ordered it by creating natural laws so they could systematically study nature and discover those laws and characteristics of His creation.

ed: And again as I stated earlier those unbelieving cultures never came up with science for the reasons I stated earlier

dm: Understood. You have stated over and over that primitive cultures accepted belief in the spiritual world controlling nature. When I post a link showing this is often not the case, you simply ignore the link and state your claim over again.

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I would hardly say you proved that it was often not the case, you mentioned two or three societies. I would say 95% of primitive cultures did accept belief in the spiritual world.

dm: Well OK then. Like they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

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And that relates to our discussion how?

doubtingmerle said:

ed: I stated His existence can be shown by utilizing logic and the BB theory. I would say there is a 90% chance He exists given how much His existence explains so much so well.

dm: I didn't ask you if you stated that his existence can be shown. I asked you you where you have shown that the Christian God probably exists. There is a difference between stating something and giving evidence for that claim.

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The BB theory has pretty much proven that the universe is an effect and therefore needs a cause. And the law of causality states that a cause cannot be part of its effect, and that fits the Christian God. The Bible teaches that God is transcendent, ie ontologically separate, from the universe. In addition, purposes exist in the universe and language exists in the universe, and we know that purposes and language can only come from Persons, so the cause of the universe must be personal.

dm: NKJV Search Results for "demon" (blueletterbible.org) and NKJV Search Results for "demons" (blueletterbible.org). These verses describe a demon haunted world. It baffles me when you claim that Christianity laid the foundation for a science based on natural law with little effect from demons, angels, or three God persons.

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The main time when demonic activity occurred in the Bible is the three years that Christ walked the earth and Satan was pulling out all the stops to discredit and defeat him. I would hardly call that demon haunted. The Christian founders of modern science as well as Albert Einstein recognized that the existence of natural laws implies a Lawgiver. And the Bible describes God as a God of order, orderliness of the universe is required for science to be possible.

dm: Joel 1-2. Joel goes on an endless rant about a locust invasion. Here is his recommended solution: “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” (Joel 2:12)
That does not sound like an explanation that events have natural causes. It does not tell us we can find solutions by studying nature.

Wikipedia says nothing about fasting, weeping, and mourning being an effective solution to locust invasions. Instead it says that certain weather conditions trigger grasshoppers to lay vast amount of eggs, and then gather in swarms to form a locust invasion. Modern countermeasures include, "cultivating the soil where eggs were laid, collecting hoppers with catching machines, killing them with flamethrowers, trapping them in ditches, and crushing them with rollers and other mechanical methods." Source: Locust - Wikipedia

Instead of Joel going on an endless rant about his bogus fasting and weeping prevention tactic, why not spend a few verses introducing the ancients to natural causes, the scientific method, and the need to study the locusts?

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On rare and important occaisions God did intervene supernaturally, and that was what this case was. But the main purpose of the bible is not to explain how the universe goes, but how to go to heaven.

dm: Or if the writer was omnipotent, why not tell them that, when you see these specific conditions, then you should do the following to find locust eggs, and do the following to get rid of the eggs?

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Gods purpose of this prophecy was not to turn the hebrews into master exterminators, but to teach them about Himself and His power over living things.

John Helpher said:

Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. Let me know what you think. Can we still salvage some semblance of respectful debate here, or will I be banished for my temerity?

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You're welcome here as long as you don't break the forum rules, of course, and I would be happy to talk to you. I think maybe you overreacted a little on your first post, and I hope you don't mind me pointing it out.

John Helpher said:

Why is Ed's argument nonsense? Because you disagree with his conclusion? That's not a good reason to call an argument nonsense.

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I should explain that Ed and I have been having this conversation for a very long time. It's quite possible that my patience has been wearing a bit thin after having explained to him why he's wrong, many, many times, and being ignored.
Since Ed and I have had this conversation before, I didn't specify exactly which post of his I was referring to. He's made exactly the same argument at least half a dozen times in this thread: "Nothing personal has ever been produced except by another personal being. The universe contains personal beings, therefore the universe must have been produced by a personal being."
This is, of course, nonsense - literally, non-sense, an argument that makes no sense. The personal beings that exist today - ie, humans - are the result of evolution. I trust you agree with this, by the way?

John Helpher said:

He's expressing it in a strange way (i.e. the personal thing) but the essence of his argument is that intelligence is the cause for ordered information. That makes perfect sense. It is observable and testable.

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Would you agree with me, or disagree with me, if I say this:
"The universe contains personal beings. Therefore, we know that the universe was created by a personal being."

John Helpher said:

We can literally test that random change will not produce ordered information. Here's one method:

Take this paragraph of text and use a random number generator to select a letter e.g. if the generator outputs 11, then, starting at the first letter, count to the 11th letter. Then use a random letter generator to replace that letter e.g. if the generator outputs an "e" then replace the current letter with an "e".

Keep repeating this process and you will quickly see that such random changes only degrade the information; you will end up with genuine nonsense. Can you see how I'm not calling your argument nonsense just because I disagree with you? I'm using an empirical test to demonstrate how the nonsense forms in real time.

Now extrapolate the results of this test to something much more complex than a paragraph of text, like amino acids, proteins, and DNA. Even the simplest protein has more than 100 amino acids in it, all of which are precisely ordered in a long chain and only then, folded into what is essentially a nano machine.

The chances of even a single protein forming by chance is a number so small that it essentially becomes meaningless as useful data. One protein. The simplest cell is made up of more than a hundred different proteins all of which dynamically work together to make the cell what it is. All testable, observable evidence demonstrates that this is simply not possible through random chance. It is nonsense.

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You are mistaken. We live in an enormous universe, on a gigantic lump of rock, that has existed for billions of years. It is therefore not at all surprising that, at some point in time, at some point throughout the universe, the chemical dice rolled the right combination. Saying "the odds against something happening are millions to one," means very little when you have millions of chances for it to happen. That is the flaw in your argument.

Not to mention the fact that evolution is not just random changes - it is random changes plus natural selection, with the environment guiding and shaping the course that the changes take.

John Helpher said:

That does not come across as respectful, to me. It sounds like the old, familiar tinge of intellectual brow beating which is found in so many Atheist arguments. Like I said earlier, perhaps you guys don't even realize you're doing it or maybe you're so sure that the existence of a super intelligent being is ridiculous that you feel such sniping is justified.

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I hope you don't take it personally if I correct your mistakes. I have been debating Christians for a good many years, and I can honestly say I have never once heard an argument from them that was not based on a logical fallacy. I'm afraid, though, that forum rules forbid me to elaborate on this.

Ed1wolf said:

The BB theory has pretty much proven that the universe is an effect and therefore needs a cause.

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I think it's probably more important than that, but okay, let's go with it for the moment...

Ed1wolf said:

And the law of causality states that a cause cannot be part of its effect

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Okay. With you so far...

Ed1wolf said:

And that fits the Christian God.

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You mean the Christian God that hasn't yet been proven to be real?

Yes, the Christian God, as Christians believe He exists, does fit the criteria for a being who could create the universe. So do a billion other beings, none of which have yet been proved to exist.

Sorry, Ed. Just because scientists say "We don't know what caused the universe to come into existence," you don't get to say, "And because you don't know, you should accept that my religion is true."

Quite simply, you need to show that your God exists before you can put Him forward as a possible solution to the universe's existence.

InterestedAtheist said:

ie, humans - are the result of evolution. I trust you agree with this, by the way?

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H E double hockey sticks no! Genetic information magically popped into existence by dumb luck? That is the nonsense.

I don't know if you realize just what you're saying when you promote evolutionary theory, i.e. there is no intelligence behind the way you think. Your thought processes are not the result of intelligence, intent, or purpose; they're just a collection of irrational processes. If you happen to make sense at any given point, it's because of dumb luck. That is nonsense.

Did you try the test I illustrated? I've explained this testable experiment probably hundreds of times and not a single Atheist has ever tried it (or if they did, they dared not report their findings). I'm quite certain the reason they don't want to test their theory in this way is because, deep down, they know what the result will be; you will only end up with a mess after a few dozen iterations. And it will never, not in a billion and not in a trillion years morph itself back into a coherent paragraph communicating instructions, because such ordered information requires a mind.

InterestedAtheist said:

I should explain that Ed and I have been having this conversation for a very long time.

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And after all this time you've just kinda settled on "Nuh uh." as your response. I mean, that's what your response to me feels like. I gave you an experiment which would produce real data and you didn't even mention it. You just gave this glib reply about how billions of years fixes all the problems with evolutionary theory.

That has also been my experience with evolutionary supporters; billions of years is this kind of magical fantasy in which all the details become blurred and lost. We humans tend to find it hard to remember stuff that happened years or even months ago and our life span would rarely exceed 100 years so of course billions of years is an extremely huge number for our minds to comprehend, and that is the trick. The attempt to imagine billions of years is where the fantasy starts. Yes, of course billions of years is enough time because, well, it's billions of years! DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG BILLIONS OF YEARS IS!

I end up feeling like I just got mugged after listening to these kinds of explanations.

InterestedAtheist said:

Would you agree with me, or disagree with me, if I say this:
"The universe contains personal beings. Therefore, we know that the universe was created by a personal being."

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I would say the explanation is malformed. As I suggested earlier, it is my understanding that Ed is referring to intelligence. Information is the evidence which necessitates a mind.

InterestedAtheist said:

it is random changes plus natural selection, with the environment guiding and shaping the course that the changes take.

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You've just cheated on your own theory. It is my theory that deep down you all know that evolutionary theory, as it actually is, is a cold, dead explanation which leaves no room for meaning or purpose. So, you invent a kind of pseudo-purpose and call it natural selection.

You say it guides and shapes. No it doesn't. It doesn't do anything. It's just a concept which has the appearance of lending purpose to a theory which explicitly denies purpose. It would be more accurate to refer to it as natural-fluking-which-tends-toward-greater-complexity-if-the-dumb-luck-flukes-keep-happening. A slightly longer alternative, but much more consistent with what the theory actually espouses.

There is no selection happening in evolutionary theory because selection is a result of a mind exercising thought for a purpose. If an organism survives to produce offspring, it is the result of a chance mutation and the chances of that mutation interacting beneficially according to the organism's environment. For example, if a canine mutates a thick coat of fur in a hot climate, it will be more likely to die. It was not selected to die. It was just non-beneficial dumb luck. Also the opposite will be true; if a canine mutates a thick coat of fur in a cold climate, it is more likely to survive. It was not selected. It was just beneficial dumb luck.

This is one of the things that irks me about evolutionary theorists (which may be bleeding through here and in that case, please just be patient with me lol). This cheating. The mutations are 100% random. There is no purpose. There is no guidance. It's like you're ashamed of your own theory so you artificially inject meaning into it.

I once watched a documentary about the oceans and the narration focused on a series of predator/prey relationships where prey would have some kind of defense against predator, but a different predator would have some way of defeating that defense, and so on through a few different species. The situation was described as an evolutionary arms race, as though these organisms mutated attacks and defenses in response to a need. But, there is no arms race because an arms race requires recognition of a problem and intent to correct that problem. That is not what evolutionary theory is. it's just random chance.

Why would the producers phrase it that way? Because deep down they don't really want to believe that their lives, their thoughts, their feelings, and their hopes are all just irrational processes.

But, neither do they want to be accountable to an intelligence greater than themselves who has the right to tell them what to do. So here we are, with this theory which says there is no God, but there is meaning and purpose.

One last gripe! On top of that, there's a lot of ridicule which tends to come with challenging this hypocrisy. The ridicule comes in varying degrees; some Atheists are smoother about it than others, but it's almost always there, just under the surface and pops out in little ways here and there.

As a consequence, a great many Christians have compromised by referring to themselves as evolutionary theists. They agree with the Atheists that all life developed over billions of years, but they say the creator did it. That sounds reasonable, but, it really isn't. All they're doing is confusing the issue. Evolutionary theory allows no room for a creator. That is the point of the theory; it is an explanation for how we came to be without any intelligence.

If they believe a God did it, then they are not evolutionary theists; they are intelligent design theists. But, if they refer to themselves as such, they're more likely to be ridiculed. It's frustrating to see it happening. I understand that ridicule can feel pretty bad, but really they shouldn't be compromising even if the ridicule hurts; the creator deserves recognition for his creation.

In conclusion, I would like to note that I'm not referring to all Atheists in my above comments regarding ridicule. I'm sure there are very chill-penguin Atheists out there (I have met a few). I'm making a generalization based on my experience.

doubtingmerle said:

What does this even mean? How is claiming that God is three persons different from claiming that God is three beings?

Let's suppose somebody is questioning a native pastor who teaches that God is three xylia. This pastor is using his natural language, which does not have the words "being" or "person" but does have the word "xylia". He was told that "xylia" is the correct way to translate the concept from English. Others think he is teaching the heresy that God is three beings, rather than the truth that God is three persons.

Your job is to figure out if he is teaching heresy or truth. How are you going to tell the difference. Ready? Set? Go!

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It depends on what the word xylia means.

doubtingmerle said:

Ed1Wolf, do team meetings in your office go something like this? (The content of the "Worker X" replies are copied from your posts listed below.)

The boss: Good morning team. Let's go over some of our company rules. First, we ask everybody to treat their fellow employees with respect.

Worker X: Since both your and Hitlers morality comes from the same source, why is yours better than his and on what basis, taking into account that there is nothing intrinsically valuable about humans if there is no God?

The boss: Excuse me, but we ask our employees to show respect because we find that this is the right things to do.

Worker X:You do have a reason but it is not objectively rational, it may be subjectively rational, but it is based on an irrational sentimentality for homo sapiens.

The boss: Again, we ask everybody to treat each other respectfully. Second, we ask that you do not discriminate based on race, national origin, or religion.

Worker X: Christian morality is based in the objectively existing moral character of the Creator as revealed in the Bible. Not pure emotion as humanism is.

The boss: Listen sir, we come from many backgrounds here. All of us can see the value of treating each other in moral ways. Your religion does not have a monopoly on good morals.

Worker X: Everything I said was based on the correct interpretation of the revealed moral character of God. It was revealed objectively in His word and His word gives us objectively true wisdom. Your wisdom is just based on personal preference.

The boss: Please, please, our company rules are not just based on personal preference. We find that following these rules really help to make the company run smoothly.

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This is very strange to just repeat our discussion. But nevertheless, even this strange analogy or what ever it is may be helpful in you understanding my argument. A company running smoothly is also a personal preference.

dm: Worker X: How is your personal preference better than someone like Jeffrey Dahmer?

The boss: Uh, Dahmer killed people. If we did that, it would destroy all that we try to accomplish in this company. We ask that people work together without violence, with respect, and without discrimination.

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Maybe some people dont want the company to accomplish anything. Why should we treat just another animal with respect?

dm: Worker X:But human wisdom is just based on emotion for homo sapiens, not anything objectively rational.

The boss: No, sorry, our rules are not based on mere emotion. We find these rules to be genuinely helpful. We are opposed to violent and offensive behavior.

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Being genuinely helpful (whatever that is and means) is a behavior based on emotion because by being helpful makes other people happy and that makes you happy. But if there is no God then there is no objectlve reason for being helpful.

Worker X: But your opposition has the same foundation as those that committed the Holocaust. Irrational Human emotion.

The boss: Uh no, our rules are based on solid moral reasoning. Hitler's reign was based on confused thought. Whatever objections you have to our rules, please do not compare me with Hitler.

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How are they confused thought? What if he sincerely believed that the jews were destroying Germany? Just like pro abortionist people believe that a woman having a baby can destroy her life, because she may not be able to afford it or she wont be able to go out to party every night.

Worker X: Why are your brain chemicals that caused your emotion to oppose [the Holocaust] "better" than the chemical reactions causing the emotions by the Nazis that implemented "bad". How can chemical reactions before an act cause that act to be moral or immoral if the chemical reactions are basically the same?

The boss: Please. We have reasons for our company policies. Let's move on. Please refrain from crude comments with sexual overtones that some employees will find offensive.

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Huh? What sexual overtones? My point is that ultimately your feelings are just chemical reactions in your brain that you may or may not have control over, so why should a criminal or someone like Hitler be condemned if his decisions are just the product of random chemical reactions in his brain just like yours? What is his responsibility based on? If you dont have a spirit, then your decisions are just based on determined chemical reactions.

Worker X: How can [you] condemn someone for acting their emotions just like you do but they just have a different conclusion from you on which homo sapiens deserve to live and which deserve to die?

The boss: Please, if your emotions cause you to want to blurt out crude sexual references, or threaten other employees, we ask you not to do that. Let's move on. Please be respectful of fellow employees that may differ with you on religion.

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What sexual references? You mean the scientific name for humans, homo sapiens? Very funny but stupid. Most educated people know what homo sapiens are except for a few dumb extreme liberals and Democrats that think that words like niggardly is a racist term. Or that the closing of a prayer using the hebrew term Amen is a sexist word! LOL

Worker X: I have an objectively rational basis for condemning the Holocaust and murder in general, the moral law of God which is based on His objectively existing moral character.

The boss: Sir, I am glad you have a good moral code, but please understand that others also seek to follow good morals. They may come from a different religious background.

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You are confused, I am not saying non Christians cannot have good morals, just that they dont have an objectively rational BASIS for being moral. They cannot live consistent with their worldview especially atheists.

Worker X: Your brain and Mengele's are the result of the same random impersonal processes and you both use that brain to make moral decisions. Yet you claim that your moral decisions are right and his were wrong, how is that possible if both of your moral decisions have the same origin...?

The boss: Oh for crying out loud! Now you are going to compare me with Mengele? What can possibly be wrong with asking everybody to respect other employees and refraining from offensive conduct?

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Nothing wrong with it but as an atheist you dont have any real basis for doing so and you have no real basis for condemning those who dont other than your feelings.

Worker X: If atheistic evolution is true then there is no real difference other than being the most intelligent animal.

The boss: Sir, the atheists in our company also have good moral values. They value and respect other humans, just like the rest of us do.

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Missed my point see my post above about the BASIS for moral values and condemning others who have very different values than you, especially ones that make you upset.

Worker X: I believe I can provide sufficient evidence that my moral system is both absolute and objective. And I dont think you can provide evidence that yours is objective.

The boss: The evidence shows that companies that work with rules similar to the ones I am stating perform much better. The rules you are suggesting involve insults to employees with different sexual orientations or religion. If you are going to work here, we ask that you please show respect for other employees. We believe that works better.

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Who or what determines what better is?

Worker X: It depends on what your definition of better is. Without an absolute and objective morality there is no such thing as better.

The boss: Sir, I believe that treating each other in a loving manner is better than discord, threats of violence, and offensive behavior.

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How do you know this?

Worker X: Hitler claimed that what he did was out of love too for the German people. Whose love is right and what is the objective reason for it being right?

The boss: Would you please stop comparing me to Hitler? The Holocaust was not an act of love. The killing of six million Jews was not a loving act. It was wrong. Now would you please be quiet while I go through the rest of our rules of conduct?

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How do you know? What if he sincerely believed that the jews were destroying the Aryan people? Maybe he was just mentally ill, why should he be condemned for a mental illness? Or what if he had actual evidence that they destroying the German people and their nation? Then would it be love?

Worker X: My basis for morality is God and His objectively existing character.

The boss: Our company rules are based on what works. Treating others with respect helps companies to perform better, with better morale. It is simply how nature works.

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Nature doesnt care whether some human company works better. If someone doesnt care whether your company performs better, whatever that means, why should they be condemned? Why is having better morale good? And who determines what better means and what good means?

Worker X: Evolution and nature may tell us what is, but it doesnt tell us what ought to be. The Nazis thought evolution did tell us morally what to do, ie eliminate the unfit. Why do you disagree with what evolution taught the Nazis?

The boss: You're fired!

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I will take that as an unable to answer the question. Therefore, you are basically admitting that you cannot refute the Nazi argument with anything other than emotion and not with anything objective like science or evolution.

Maybe with your little analogy you now understand my argument.

doubtingmerle said:

Looks like you go through a lot of hoops to make the Bible say what you want it to say.

It seems obvious to me. The Bible writers thought the word "God" refers to a being named God. The word "Jesus" referred to a being called Jesus. There are a few special verses like John 1:1 where "the Logos was God" probably means something like "The Logos was divine". But other than that, the interpretation that God means God and Jesus means Jesus seems clear to me.

But then you run into the issue where Jesus is said to be equal with the being named God, which is certainly not something the Old Testament would allow. So folks came up with this odd interpretation where "God" in the Bible can refer to a set of 3 persons, or a set of two of the persons, or just one of the persons, whichever we need it to mean. And by switching definitions back and forth at will, the problem can be worked out. But I just look in amazement at the verbal gymnastics you need to do to pull this off.

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What hoops and gymnastics? When taken as a whole, it is plainly what the Bible teaches. Even the OT plainly implies it.

InterestedAtheist said:

ed: Earlier in this thread I briefly mentioned that the BB theory combined with the law of causality demonstrates that He most likely exists. We can discuss in detail if you desire. Not just my satisfaction, thousands have been convinced by that argument over the years.

ia: As I said: "to your own satisfaction." Which I think is probably a pretty low bar to clear. Ed, nobody is interested in what you or any other Christian apologist considers "demonstrates that God most likely exists." Let's see logical arguments in peer-reviewed journals. Post links to a few of those showing that there is good reason to think that God created the universe, and I might think you actually have something.

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It and other arguments for God HAVE been published in peer reviewed secular philosophical journals.

doubtingmerle said:

Sorry, Ed1wolf, your arguments about Hitler are coming far short. You have not convinced me that Hitler was good.

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Hi DB. In a previous post I castigated you for what appeared to be rather flippant remarks directed at Ed about gays and Nazis. Now, it appears that Ed is somewhat forcing me to eat humble pie on this issue. I did not read all the many pages of context, for which I reserve that right, so long as I'm prepared for the consequences. Quite frankly, I'd rather render an apology than read 40 pages of this stuff.

Anyway, Ed...

Ed1wolf said:

What if he sincerely believed that the jews were destroying Germany?

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Am I missing something here? I mean, in a previous post I criticized Atheists on this thread for not asking for clarification and not being sincere enough to see past what might be a malformed argument; I don't want to be a hypocrite so I'm open to the possibility that you're just expressing your point in an inarticulate way.

What if's can be useful as hypothetical, but we don't really need to "what if" regarding Hitler; his motives were pretty clear. I mean, I'm not really a History buff, but I'm familiar with base human motivations. Greed, fear, and pride are usually at the root of it all.

Ed1wolf said:

Just like pro abortionist people believe that a woman having a baby can destroy her life, because she may not be able to afford it or she wont be able to go out to party every night.

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This is a disturbing, and I dare say anti-Christian point of view. You've suggested a correlation between Hitler and pro-life supporters. The intimation is that it is somehow right to kill women (or doctors) who choose to engage in abortion (i.e. since they are intent on destroying life, it is right to destroy them, just as Hitler may have thought it justified to destroy people by whom he felt threatened?)

This is very far from Christianity. No, I do not support abortion. I think it is wrong. But, neither do I support harming my enemies. That is such a fundamental teaching from Jesus. I remember, back in 2018, when Brett Kavanaugh was nominated for the supreme court by Trump. He was such a shady character. There was so much controversy surrounding him and his personal performance at his hearing clearly demonstrated a man who was unfit for the job, and yet, professing Christians supported him because, in their minds, he represented a republican, pro-life vote on the supreme court.

In other words, they didn't actually care if he was a rapist; in their minds, all the un-aborted babies that he possibly represented was justification enough to support him despite him being a rapist. This realization really hit home for me when I saw a live, nationally broadcast report of a woman and her two teenage daughters boasting that "groping" wasn't a big deal. Kavanaugh wasn't accused of simply touching a woman without her permission; he was accused of attempted rape. Yet, this woman and her daughters, for the sake of political expediency, were prepared to say that groping was okay. It was, shocking.

It really made me realize, in a way I never had before, why Jesus said, "What does it profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul?" These people argued for the lives of babies, but were willing to support a rapist to do so.

Ed1wolf said:

Huh? What sexual overtones? My point is that ultimately your feelings are just chemical reactions in your brain that you may or may not have control over, so why should a criminal or someone like Hitler be condemned if his decisions are just the product of random chemical reactions in his brain just like yours? What is his responsibility based on? If you don't have a spirit, then your decisions are just based on determined chemical reactions.

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But, your argument is that Hitler did have a spirit, right? So, what is your point when referring to Hitler? I feel like I'm trying pretty hard to understand your point of view. Please, make yourself as clear as you can.

I guess your point is that, if evolutionary theory is true, then someone like Hitler cannot be blamed, because his choices are just a result of random, irrational processes. For someone like DB to say that Hitler's behavior was evil, he must acknowledge motivation, which has no place in evolutionary theory. There is no intent. There is no purpose. There is no motivation.

As DB has pointed out, appeals to Hitler's example have become trite these days. Honestly, I think there is merit in appealing to his example precisely because his motivations were so raw and clear, but the world has become so desensitized to it that they simply do not hear it anymore. That's a sad commentary, but we need to be able to adapt.

Here's a really fantastic video based on an essay from C.S. Lewis which details why morality cannot be the result of dumb luck. In this essay he talks about the law of human nature and how some behaviors, like dress, rules of the road, and various customs are tailored to individual cultures, but that there are also some behaviors which are like mathematics; we did not create the multiplication; we simply recognized that mathematics was something to be discovered and studied. In other words, a truth that we cannot alter. We cannot make 2+2 equal anything but 4. The same is true for morality.

He does not touch on the golden rule in this essay but I believe, in spirit, this is what he's referring to. The golden rule is called golden because it is perfect; it can only be properly practiced by first examining yourself.

Ed1wolf said:

Maybe he was just mentally ill, why should he be condemned for a mental illness?

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The evidence does not suggest that he was mentally ill. Once again, I refer to an article from Lewis called The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment. In this article he explores the idea that punishment of criminals in inhumane; rather, they are only sick and need to be treated. He suggests, despite the presumed gentleness, this theory actually takes away the rights of humanity because it denies one of the most basic and fundamental human rights; justice.

In other words, he should not be condemned for mental illness; he should be tried for his choices. He deserves justice, not excuses. That is true for all of us.

InterestedAtheist said:

ed: No, our bodies are designed for marriage biologically, we are not designed biologically for painting.

ia: Our bodies are designed for marriage biologically? What on earth is that supposed to mean? Our bodies are certainly designed to have sex and produce children. Is that what you believe the definition of marriage is?

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The primary function of marriage.

ed: That is the primary purpose for which marriage was created.
That sounds like just an empty claim. Please provide evidence that (a) having children is indeed the primary purpose for which marriage was created;

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First provide evidence that that is NOT why marriage was created.

ia: (b) a reasoned argument as to why this should prevent gay people for getting married; and (c) a reasoned argument as to why the existence of (a) does not also prevent all other people who are unable and/or unwilling to have children from getting married.
We've been over this point a number of times, and if you have given any answer it has eluded me. You say that gay people can't get married because they can't have children. First, so what? And second, why are you then okay with other children who can't or won't have children getting married?

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No, that is not what I claimed go back and reread my posts, I am not going to rehash it all again.

ed: That is not the crux of my argument, the crux is biologically.

ia: When you make the claim that we should keep doing something because we've always done it before, expect to have your illogical argument highlighted.

ed: Eating nutritious food is something people have always done before too, do you think we should stop doing that too?

ia: There's nothing wrong with continuing traditions that exist for good reason. If anyone says, "Why should we eat nutritious food just because we've always done so?" I can easily explain why.
On the other hand, when you say "We should keep marriage between a man and a woman because we've always done this," but can't give any good reason why we have always done it like this or why we should not change it, then expect to have your illogic called out.

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I have demonstrated using biology and logic to explain why in my earlier posts and will not rehash it.

↑

ia: The argument is about whether or not you are able to resolve Euthyphro's Dilemma. Since you can't, you are unable to justify the foundations of your morality. You try to resolve Euthyphro's Dilemma by saying that goodness is simply God's nature, but since this is a tautological statement, it fails. Therefore, you have lost the argument.

ed: Survival of the fittest is tautological too but it is nevertheless true.

ia: Of course it isn't. "Survival" and "fitness to survive" are not identical concepts.

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Fraid so, you wont survive if you dont have what it takes to survive, ie fitness.

ia: However, in your worldview, "God" and "goodness" are identical concepts. Therefore, saying that "God is goodnees" is a meaningless tautology.
And therefore, you lose the argument.

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No, I said His character is the Good. Goodness is not His totality. He is also a person. Goodness is an attribute not a person.

ia: You claimed that you could answer Euthyphro's Dilemma, but of course you can't.

ed: I think I did. See above.

ia: Not only did you not answer it, but you admitted that you couldn't. As soon as you gave your answer - that goodness is God's intrinsic nature - I pointed out that this was circular reasoning, and you've spent the rest of the discussion simply going round and round in that very circle.

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No, I said that His character is Goodness, not His totality. No circularity there.

ed: Only before you convert, once you get to know Him personally you quickly learn He is good. You learn it everyday. Just like any other person, you find out what their character is the more time you spend with them.

ia: That's nice. It's also an admission of failure. You're on a debating forum, and you've been reduced to admitting that you can't prove what you say to be true.

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You cant PROVE what you say is true either. But I did demonstrate that a Good God probably exists and I proved that atheists have no rational basis for believing that good exists.

InterestedAtheist said:

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, what did Trump do?
He refused to wear a mask, he discouraged others from wearing masks, he mocked others for wearing masks, and he held mass public events that turned out to be super-spreaders.
He told people to do ridiculous things with UV light and drink bleach.
He said the virus would just go away, suddenly, like a miracle.

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We strongly disagree regarding evolution, but we are very much united on this point. His behavior is entirely inconsistent with what it means to be Christian. It is my belief that God and science are completely compatible. After all, science is simply the study of reality; how and why it works the way it does. That reality is created by the creator; it makes sense, not only that we would want to explore it, but that he would want us to explore it, because doing so would more convincingly illustrate his magnificence to us. This is why it makes no sense for Atheists to essentially say, "The more complex we discover reality to be, the less need there is for any intelligence behind that complexity."

We have the scientific ability to understand what viruses are. We can see microscopic particles. We can understand how these particles affect us. And, by extrapolation, we can devise means of preventing harmful particles from affecting us. God gives us the spirit of a sound mind; he expects us to use it. Wearing masks is rather obvious based on the information we have. As for those people who say we should not wear masks, they are not doing so based on any kind of Christian reasoning; rather they are abusing Christianity as a cloak to legitimize their politics.

It is up to sincere people to recognize when this is happening. Christianity is not the problem here, but rather selfish motivation. That is not a religious problem; all humans struggle with such motivations in one way or the other.

InterestedAtheist said:

Just an example of Trump's malicious incompetence:
This coronavirus timeline is incredibly damning for Donald Trump - CNNPolitics
"I would love to have the country opened up and raring to go by Easter," he said on Fox News on March 24, adding that it would be great to see "churches packed full of people for Easter."
Easter Sunday fell on April 12 this year.
On April 13 -- aka the next day -- Trump had this exchange with Washington Post editor Bob Woodward about the virus:
TRUMP: And Bob, it's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't even believe it.
WOODWARD: I know, it's --
TRUMP: I mean, you could, you could be in the room -- I was in the White House a couple of days ago, meeting with 10 people in the Oval Office and a guy sneezed, innocently. Not a horrible --
WOODWARD: Yeah.
TRUMP: You know, just a sneeze, the entire room bailed out, OK? Including me, by the way.

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It's crazy, right? I mean, I feel your incredulity; I really do. How is it possible that so many people could support such an obvious liar? You've probably heard the reasoning some professing Christians use to justify their support for Trump, that the Bible says God ordains the leaders of the land and therefore we are required to support them.

I believe this is a misinterpretation of the concept at best, and a deliberate twisting at worst. One of the most notable examples is that of Pharaoh. The record explicitly states that God raised Pharaoh up. You could imagine the people of Pharaoh's day rejoicing in such a message, using it to support all his political agendas as though he was the messiah.

But, when considering the bigger picture from a distance, it becomes clear why he did this; God wanted to demonstrate that no matter how powerful a human leader is considered to be, he is nothing compared to God. Most people don't realize this, but Pharaoh begged God to cease each of the plagues inflicted on Egypt, agreeing to let the slaves go, and each time God did, indeed, relent, and each time Pharaoh reneged on his agreement, thus leading to the next plague. It had become a test of wills. Pharaoh tried to fight God and he was utterly destroyed.

I think something similar is happening with Trump, but with a different emphasis. Somehow, someway, Trump has managed to get away with more than any other politician in history has been able to. It seems like every day there is some new report about how unprecedented, non-normal, and untraditional his bad behavior is, to the point that I feel nauseated just hearing such phrases. How? How is he able to continue getting away with so much? I believe there is some supernatural component at work here, not in support of Trump, but rather in suppression of goodness.

I believe the creator has allowed all this to happen as a demonstration of just how obscene America has become. Trump is not the problem. He is simply a barometer. He is, perhaps, the last gasp of warning to any sincere American; it is time to leave before that country is destroyed. It truly has become depraved.

doubtingmerle said:

ed: That the universe had a definite beginning from nothing detectable, is expanding, and is energetically winding down.

dm: Can you not understand how many of us think this is flimsy evidence for divine inspiration of the Bible? There were many accounts of Creation written before Genesis that have many similarities to Genesis (source: astronomy - What are the similarities and differences between the Genesis creation account and other creation stories of the time - Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange )

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The similarities are superficial, once you analyze them closely the differences become very significant.

dm: It is difficult to see how saying "In the beginning God created" is anything more than an obvious thing ancients might think.

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No all other ancient religions teach that there was some other universe from the which the creator had to operate from to create this universe and also all other ancient religions teach that it was created from pre-existing matter.

dm: And you think the Bible says the universe is expanding? I take it you are referring to Isaiah 40:22 which says God stretches out the heavens like a curtain or tent. This is obvious metaphor. Were the heavens somehow curtain shaped or tent shaped, there would be no end of your marveling that the Bible knew this. But seeing no reality to the metaphor of the curtain or the tent, and seeing a reason to take the stretching as literal, you can jump to the conclusion that this part of the metaphor is literal science. Some of us just shake our heads in sorrow when we see this kind of reasoning.

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That is just one verse among many and in the original hebrew the word stretching actually means an ongoing stretching just like the universe.

dm: Several chapters later, Isaiah says carpenters stretch out their rules. Must I take that literally also? Are carpenter's rulers made of rubber, so they just stretch them out to get any measurement they want?

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No, that is a different hebrew term for stretch, not an ongoing stretching.

dm: Seeing the variations of meaning of the word translated "stretches" (H5186 - natah - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (KJV) (blueletterbible.org) one wanders how you can hang so much weight on the presence of this one word as proving that Isaiah was writing about Hubble's law.

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No, there are multiple verses in different books that talk about the universe's ongoing stretching. And since nature is God's other book now we know what these verses mean, now that science has confirmed that the universe is engaged in an ongoing expansion.

dm: Ok, I will deal with the 13, I dont have time for all the others.
1. He incorrectly quotes the Koran. Sura 21:30 says that "by means of water we give them life to everything"

2...
You went to a lot of work to prove the Koran wrong. Like I said, you and I can see through the argument that the "science" in the Koran proves it is God's word.

So maybe four of the verses are scientifically correct, so these words could be supernaturally revealed but if so it was not revealed by God because there is evidence that the Koran came from Satan, not God. There are horrifically immoral teachings in the Koran.
I disagree that the Koran writers got information from the spirit world, but suppose they did? If the writers in the Koran got supernatural knowledge from Satan, how can you know for sure that the Bible writers didn't get their knowledge from a friend of a friend who got his information from Satan?

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Because the teachings of the Bible have resulted in everything good about Western civilization and Koran has resulted in mostly evil and horrible societies. Satan does not want good results from his teachings.

dm: Your logic seems to be:

1. Anything the Bible says is, by definition, moral.

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Well technically, any moral teaching of the bible is moral. But Not when it is just recording the facts, like when it recorded the fact that King David committed adultery it was not condoning adultery.

dm: 2. The Bible agrees with the Bible. The Koran does not.

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No, the Bible agrees with all of reality the Koran does not.

dm: 3. Therefore the Bible is moral and the Koran is not.

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No, see above.

dm: 4. By definition, anything God says is moral.

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Yes, if He is speaking about morality.

5. Therefore the Bible is God's word. The Koran is not.

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If you use my actual argument then yes. But not yours.

dm: I find it amazing that you cannot see that as one big circular argument.

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No, that was not my argument, see corrections above. Its not circular.