Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: An4ximandros on December 04, 2014, 05:01:26 pm
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http://io9.com/florida-agrees-that-satanists-must-have-equal-represent-1666410117
http://thesatanictemple.com/about-us/our-mission/
This is brilliant, how else can you denounce so much hypocrisy?
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which hypocrisy? (not sure what your position here is)
I personally would be much happier if no religion was represented in governmental institutions, but if one is represented then all should be represented.
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which hypocrisy? (not sure what your position here is)
I personally would be much happier if no religion was represented in governmental institutions, but if one is represented then all should be represented.
So make every government building look like a circus until the policy gets changed. That's what they're doing.
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yeah, like the plan.
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Those Satanists don't seem like trouble, anyway. It seems that it's just another liberal "religion" that is just using Satanist imagery to attract attention. Sorta like edgier pastafaranists, I don't think they really take themselves seriously (at least, the way "old" religions do). They're not scientology or anything.
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The entire point of the Satanic Temple is to demonstrate that if government buildings and operations are to represent one religion (namely Christianity) they must also allow other religions. “Even as we prefer public policies respecting secularism, we feel that opportunities — such as this — to establish an equal voice for contrasting religious opinions in the public square, tend to favor marginalized, lesser-known, and alternative religions,” The Satanism being preached is essentially philosophical, and their canon is Anatole France’s Revolt of the Angels, taken completely allegorically.
The point of all of this is to diminish the intrusion of religion into the state.
"The Satanic Temple was actually conceived of independent from me by a friend and one of his colleagues. They envisioned it more as a “poison pill” in the Church/State debate. The idea was that Satanists, asserting their rights and privileges where religious agendas have been successful in imposing themselves upon public affairs, could serve as a poignant reminder that such privileges are for everybody, and can be used to serve an agenda beyond the current narrow understanding of what “the” religious agenda is. So at the inception, the political message was primary, though it was understood that there are, in fact, self-identified Satanists who live productive lives within the boundaries of the law, and that they do deserve just as much consideration as any other religious group." https://www.vice.com/read/unmasking-lucien-greaves-aka-doug-mesner-leader-of-the-satanic-temple
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You'll have disney jedis next.
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You'll have disney jedis next.
slow off the mark there mate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_phenomenon
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I think that's exactly what he referred to.
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If the galactic alliance guard don't look like spaceball one crew with mickey mouse ears, I are disappointed.
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Well I'll give them this, they certainly have the merch thing (http://shopsatan.com/) down. Just $1000 to get your name on the statue of Baphomet!
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This will not end well. The devil's greatest trick was convincing the world that he does not exist.
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While God's was convincing people that he was the good guy.
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This will not end well. The devil's greatest trick was convincing the world that he does not exist.
Because the Christian church's interference with government has gone so well over the millenia. :rolleyes:
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This will not end well. The devil's greatest trick was convincing the world that he does not exist.
to be fair God has managed a pretty good hide and seek record himself.
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Satan could just never measure up to God's kill-count in the Good Book.
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While God's was convincing people that he was the good guy.
If you presume the existence of God, and he is not the good guy in your evaluation, then who exactly is?
Because the Christian church's interference with government has gone so well over the millenia. :rolleyes:
You might be surprised at how much worse it could get. Maslow's hierarchy has a lot of levels.
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If you presume the existence of God, and he is not the good guy in your evaluation, then who exactly is?
Pretty sure the devil kills fewer people over the course of the Bible than God does. God's a bit genocidal.
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Wouldn't it depend in whether you are looking at Satans direct or indirect actions that lead to death? You rarely hear about him smiting people, but you can make the case that by tempting (influencing) individuals to do sin (evil) to say kill, the body count could be very high.
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If God is God, he is not good;
If God is good, he's just some dude.
Pretty sure I got that poem right.
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Satan is Shivans.
Discuss.
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If you presume the existence of God, and he is not the good guy in your evaluation, then who exactly is?
That is such a loaded question.
You assume that there is a good guy. There are a fairly large number of plausible scenarios that could result in an impostor impersonating a real creator (who simply doesn't care or got replaced by an impostor). Or you could have an impostor taking the credit for creation when there wasn't ever any such thing. You wouldn't even need to be divine or supernatural to get away with it. In fact you could probably get away with it with modern technology if you had access to the kind of technologically primitive people around 2-3 thousand years ago.
Hell, there's no real logical reason to suppose that even if there was a some such "God" that he's still around now. He could have bull**** a whole bunch of people into thinking he's great and had no idea that people would still be telling stories about thousands of years later on cultural inertia.
If you're still confused, I'd suggest watching more Stargate.
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Remember Yahweh started as a Semitic warrior-god; Ahura Mazda supplanted a pantheon; Odin replaced Tyr as the "overgod" among the Norse, etc. Nothing is fixed.
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Wouldn't it depend in whether you are looking at Satans direct or indirect actions that lead to death? You rarely hear about him smiting people, but you can make the case that by tempting (influencing) individuals to do sin (evil) to say kill, the body count could be very high.
So why must there be a good guy in the first place? Seems to me it's just a choice between two douchebags. Only difference is that one of them excuses his actions by claiming he's the only objective "good", so no matter what he does, it's good, and if you think differently, you're wrong.
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or how about humanity is the good guy? I mean without people the word "good" and "bad" sort of looses it's meaning
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"Humanity"? Remember, both Hitler and Gandhi were humans. It's too general of a term to apply to en entire species. It's true, though, that there's no other way to define "good" and "bad" than through a sentient species of your choice (humanity being the most useful one to us).
You assume that there is a good guy. There are a fairly large number of plausible scenarios that could result in an impostor impersonating a real creator (who simply doesn't care or got replaced by an impostor). Or you could have an impostor taking the credit for creation when there wasn't ever any such thing. You wouldn't even need to be divine or supernatural to get away with it. In fact you could probably get away with it with modern technology if you had access to the kind of technologically primitive people around 2-3 thousand years ago.
Why would you need an "impostor" at all? There's no reason for a creator entity to be good. Indeed, there is no reason for it to be even capable of being interpreted in terms of human morality. It's likely mindless, by human standards, or so much beyond our comprehension that we wouldn't be able to tell. That being would be working on massive spacetime scales, on which we are an insignificant thermodynamic fluctuation. It would operate by mathematics so alien that even our brightest minds wouldn't truly be able to understand them, though they might be able to work with them anyway (sort of how I manage to get anything done on the mathematical analysis course :)). We're talking about a being to which 4-dimensional tensor algebra would be what being able to count is for a human. To create a world like ours, with all its intricacies, would take a mind completely beyond what is possible to achieve via evolution.
Indeed, the way I see it, the notion of an omnipotent cosmic being in any way interested in humans is far fetched. If there's God, he's likely a local phenomenon (just like we are), and not the creator of the universe. He could be a creator of life, but that's all (here's a thought: if God is a local phenomenon, perhaps every planet has one. Ours is just more competent than, say, Venusian one and managed to make life that actually lasted). Also, he'd likely still be beyond our comprehension, but much less so than any that would be a global (universal-level) phenomenon. Evolution would shape the human species to conform with God's behavior, but it would not give us any way to actually understand the reasons for it. "Good" would merely be what makes God not to harm us, while "bad" would be something that makes him do so. We'd take it as something unshakable laws of universe, but they could very well results from completely meaningless (but consistent) behavior patterns of God.
Imagine rabbits learning how to run from cars. Those that do it right, live, those that don't, die. Over time, only the ones that do remain, and they will always run from cars the same way, and cross the road when they're least likely to be ran over. Yet, they never grasp the concept of a "rush hour" or even why cars move down the road, or why they exist, for that matter. It's bad to cross the road in the morning or evening, it's good to do so late at night. Our grasp of "good" and "bad" might work the same way, and come from something similar. God does not even have to realize we exist.
Yeah, I've been reading up on Lovecraft. Why do you ask? :)
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Why would you need an "impostor" at all? There's no reason for a creator entity to be good.
Cause I was referring to the actual Christian God as described in the bible rather than an arbitrary creator deity. While I don't necessarily disagree with anything else you've said, if we're saying that the God of the bible really does exist he couldn't be the deity you're referring to as he obviously does care about meddling with the affairs of humans.
I was giving examples as if the bible was true, but only in the same way that a politicians speech is true.
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Christian God is anything but good. Id rather there be no God than the highest being in the universe being so immoral.
And the same applies to intelligent aliens. I hope we are alone and life is simply rare, its the only benign resolution to the Fermi paradox.
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I was giving examples as if the bible was true, but only in the same way that a politicians speech is true.
Indeed. My reasoning only assumed that there exists at least one deity. However, given who wrote it, I find that Bible being literal truth is an extremely unlikely outcome under any set of assumptions. It was written by humans a few thousand years ago, not by any sort of divine being. As such, it's bound to be a human interpretation of God's "words", nothing more. A dead giveaway would be it being in a human language. There's no more reason for God to speak Hebrew any more than it is for him to speak any other language, and if he doesn't speak a language, just beams words into the receiver, they're subject to (mis)interpretation by his mind (as with Genesis. The author wrote "7 days" because "5 billion years" were just too much for him to fathom). It would be a strange (unlikely, I would say) world where a bunch of shepherds 5000 years ago had a better idea about the shape of the world than modern scholars (or modern shepherds, for that matter. :) ). While it's conceivable that we don't really know more than they did, it'd be odd to assume they knew more.
And the same applies to intelligent aliens. I hope we are alone and life is simply rare, its the only benign resolution to the Fermi paradox.
I don't think we have to worry about aliens. They're unlikely to be like anything we know from Earth, anyway. Almost certainly beyond our comprehension as well, and we would be likewise beyond them. As far as I'm concerned, Stanislaw Lem nailed it in his later books. The Ocean from Solaris, the signal from His Master's Voice, things like that. We would likely know that the alien is alive, but their intelligence might be really hard to work out, contact (with mutual understanding) will be hard to impossible. If we're lucky, we'll learn to exchange mathematical theorems with them, since some things (like the famous sequence of primes) are universal, and if you manage to work out enough basics, you can build entire mathematics on them.
I'd say, there isn't much to worry about either way. Given the distances involved, they're likely to be mostly harmless. Almost certainly, they'll be a fascinating subject to research, but
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Good grief people! By standing up for Satanism like that, you're providing a more crushing refutation of liberalism than anything I could come up with!
:jaw:
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This famous prime sequence list, what happens if the aliens highest intellect is no greater than Adrian stone who I went to school with? He was very adept at football. But he was a ****ing idiot :yes:
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Good grief people! By standing up for Satanism like that, you're providing a more crushing refutation of liberalism than anything I could come up with!
:jaw:
Just to be sure, Satanism in this sense is personal freedom. Nobody is really worshipping Satan.
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Good grief people! By standing up for Satanism like that, you're providing a more crushing refutation of liberalism than anything I could come up with!
:jaw:
Yes, standing up for the right to believe in and worship who and what you want to is such a horrendous thing. I can't imagine founding a country based on that.
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Particularly when a central point is Satan could easily be seen as being more ethical and "good" than God in the Christian text.
How dare anyone support the worship of the supernatural guy not known for smiting people in the Bible!
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Hell, there's no real logical reason to suppose that even if there was a some such "God" that he's still around now. He could have bull**** a whole bunch of people into thinking he's great and had no idea that people would still be telling stories about thousands of years later on cultural inertia.
Except that the Bible was written over the course of a couple thousand years. If God stuck around for that long he could easily have stuck around for another few thousand more.
Especially when he made such a big deal about coming back.
Particularly when a central point is Satan could easily be seen as being more ethical and "good" than God in the Christian text.
By what objective standard?
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By what objective standard?
Why is one necessary?
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Particularly when a central point is Satan could easily be seen as being more ethical and "good" than God in the Christian text.
By what objective standard?
I'll go one better, and nominate the entire book of Job as a prime example of Satan > God in terms of objective morality.
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By what objective standard?
Why is one necessary?
Judging entity A as more or less ethical and good than entity B requires an objective standard against which to judge. Otherwise the judgement is meaningless.
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Good grief people! By standing up for Satanism like that, you're providing a more crushing refutation of liberalism than anything I could come up with!
How so?
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By what objective standard?
Why is one necessary?
Judging entity A as more or less ethical and good than entity B requires an objective standard against which to judge. Otherwise the judgement is meaningless.
Arguing that God provides an objective moral standard requires you to actually know what moral standard God "promotes". I really hope you're not going to argue that the Bible provides that.
And if not the Bible, then what? Your own interpretation of it? Your personal relationship with God? That's all pretty subjective.
No, I'm a thinking person and am perfectly capable of making moral judgments based on my own sense of morality. I don't need a magic sky daddy to tell me what's right and wrong. I can figure it out for myself, and I think everyone else can as well.
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objective standard
what exactly do you mean by this? when I hear 'objective' I think in terms of properties of an object, like a ball is round or apples (of certain varieties) are red. Objective morality seems to me like it should be based around it's focus, people. Think about it, in a universe without any life would morality make any sense? would asking what was right and wrong in such a universe not be like asking which direction is up in zero gravity in the middle of space? slightly different scenario, imagine a universe with one intelligent being in it, is right and wrong really possible there? if that being was the only thing there how could it possibly do wrong? who could it hurt or help? Here I think we get to the core of the matter, morality is about and centered on people, in the plural. As such the object by which to measure morality against is humanity (or more generically 'people' if we want to include hypothetical non-human entities or animals). The objective standard by which to judge an action (and by summed extension the actor(s), though this is a major simplification) is it's effect on other people.
What is the 'object' from which you are getting the properties for your standard? God? Most of the morals from the bible come in the form of commandments. How is the proclamation of an authority not subjective? and when those rules come in conflict with basic human decency how do you resolve the conflict? By God's omniscience? if God is all knowing could it not come up with a better solution that does not involve a conflict? Further if God is also omnipotent (I know I'm making all sorts of assumptions here but I think I'm safe in making them) could it not have set up the universe so that no 'bad' action would happen? Free will? how would this have violated our free will any more than what has transpired? God cannot escape from it's omniscience, it knew the effect of the placement of every atom in the cosmos and every trait of humanity as it was placing them, so we were set up for our current situation just as much as if God would have set up the universe for peace and prosperity. If God does not do this for free will reasons then why did God on so many occasions in the Bible violate people's free will? (like hardening pharaoh's heart, seemingly just to give himself a pretext to murder every firstborn in Egypt)
Is it good because God declares it, or does God declare it because it's good?
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Arguing that God provides an objective moral standard requires you to actually know what moral standard God "promotes". I really hope you're not going to argue that the Bible provides that.
It does -- but actually, whether or not you know the standard is irrelevant. The fact is that if God exists, then he represents an objective moral standard. God's creation, God's rules.
And if not the Bible, then what? Your own interpretation of it? Your personal relationship with God? That's all pretty subjective.
No, I'm a thinking person and am perfectly capable of making moral judgments based on my own sense of morality. I don't need a magic sky daddy to tell me what's right and wrong. I can figure it out for myself, and I think everyone else can as well.
Don't you see that you've contradicted yourself here? If you "figure it out for yourself" then that, by definition, is a subjective moral standard. Morality then becomes meaningless because there's no reason to choose one subjective standard over another.
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Well, if we take morals as something that helped humans survive and groups with better morals prospered and spread their genes then it's obvious that anything that's beneficial to the group is "good", while anything detrimental to the group is "evil". Therefore, killing is not necessarily evil if it helps the human collective. God seems to have his favourites and only helps them while being very detrimental for the rest of humanity. Satan uses deception and lies, yet his actions often result in the people unifying against a common enemy, making the group stronger. Therefore, Satan's actions are "good". He's not the hero we need, but he might be the one we deserve.
This standard might not be completely objective, as it's hard to say what's good or what's bad for the collective ahead of time, though it's still good enough if you only look at things in retrospect.
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guys can't we just go back to talking about the funny goat statue?
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And if not the Bible, then what? Your own interpretation of it? Your personal relationship with God? That's all pretty subjective.
No, I'm a thinking person and am perfectly capable of making moral judgments based on my own sense of morality. I don't need a magic sky daddy to tell me what's right and wrong. I can figure it out for myself, and I think everyone else can as well.
Don't you see that you've contradicted yourself here? If you "figure it out for yourself" then that, by definition, is a subjective moral standard. Morality then becomes meaningless because there's no reason to choose one subjective standard over another.
That isn't self-contradictory.
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Arguing that God provides an objective moral standard requires you to actually know what moral standard God "promotes". I really hope you're not going to argue that the Bible provides that.
It does -- but actually, whether or not you know the standard is irrelevant. The fact is that if God exists, then he represents an objective moral standard. God's creation, God's rules.
Be careful with that. There's some really disgusting **** in the Bible I don't think you want to say represents "good".
Unless you subscribe to a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible; that it's the unadulterated word of God and is literally true, then your morality is based upon your interpretation of its words, and is therefore as subjective as anyone else's. I'm sure you don't agree with its repeated endorsement of slavery, for instance.
And if not the Bible, then what? Your own interpretation of it? Your personal relationship with God? That's all pretty subjective.
No, I'm a thinking person and am perfectly capable of making moral judgments based on my own sense of morality. I don't need a magic sky daddy to tell me what's right and wrong. I can figure it out for myself, and I think everyone else can as well.
Don't you see that you've contradicted yourself here? If you "figure it out for yourself" then that, by definition, is a subjective moral standard. Morality then becomes meaningless because there's no reason to choose one subjective standard over another.
Uh, no, that's not self-contradictory at all. My moral standard is completely subjective. That's what I'm saying. I don't understand why you think that's a bad thing. I don't get it from some god, I figured it out myself or it was taught to me by my parents. There is a reason to choose one standard over another: What do you think? What do you agree with?
When multiple people agree about things, then they tend to make laws that reflect those beliefs. And then they tend to teach those beliefs to their kids. That perpetuates those moral standards, and is why society's laws are as close to an objective moral standard as we're going to get. Big surprise, not everyone agrees about all of those either.
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If we take into consideration that mankind was shaped after god in his own image, then the morality as dictated by god is itself subjected to the cognetive biases of god, and therefore subjective.
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Politicians spend so much time calling each other the devil. It's a massive PR battle.
The same thing could be going with the supposed battle between God and the devil. We literally only ever hear one side of the story - there's no official Book of the Devil to hear his side of the story.
Now imagine if the bible is like Fox News! All you'd hear is a very biased account of the truth determined to paint the other side as Obama the devil.
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guys can't we just go back to talking about the funny goat statue?
Agreed, worshiping farm animal statues is a smite-worthy offense in the old testament so this funny goat statue will probably determine the future of our civilization. Everyone keep it OT if you value not getting smote.
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And let's not forget that whole homosexuality thing. According to the Bible's 'objective morality', I've committed a capital offense and must be put to death.
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Sorry Scotty, you seem like a good fellow, but apparently our notions of "good" don't count because God's world God's rules.
If only there were some sort of alternative supernatural being, one who specialized in sticking it to the man upstairs, perhaps a patron of all things that rock.
But that's just crazy talk, there is no such notional entity. Nice knowing you Scotty, prepare for smite!
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Ahriman? He's an asshole, ****ed himself just to spawn evil into the world and fornicated a woman so hard women began bleeding every month and... oh you meant that one.
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Uh, no, that's not self-contradictory at all. My moral standard is completely subjective. That's what I'm saying. I don't understand why you think that's a bad thing. I don't get it from some god, I figured it out myself or it was taught to me by my parents. There is a reason to choose one standard over another: What do you think? What do you agree with?
It's not a bad thing. The problem is, it's not a good thing either. A subjective standard by definition doesn't apply to anyone but the person who thought it up. And there's no basis to judge one subjective standard superior or inferior to another. An objective standard, on the other hand, treats everyone equally. It's the difference between relative truth and absolute truth.
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Meanwhile, I'm very interested to hear about whether you believe strongly enough in your Objective Morality to wish I were dead, as your Objective Morality decrees.
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Uh, no, that's not self-contradictory at all. My moral standard is completely subjective. That's what I'm saying. I don't understand why you think that's a bad thing. I don't get it from some god, I figured it out myself or it was taught to me by my parents. There is a reason to choose one standard over another: What do you think? What do you agree with?
It's not a bad thing. The problem is, it's not a good thing either. A subjective standard by definition doesn't apply to anyone but the person who thought it up. And there's no basis to judge one subjective standard superior or inferior to another. An objective standard, on the other hand, treats everyone equally. It's the difference between relative truth and absolute truth.
Explain to me why God's objective moral standard, which endorses slavery, urges people to kill the gays, and tells women to shut the **** up, is superior to my subjective one.
Bear in mind that "God says so" isn't a good answer.
What you fail to understand is that I don't need to prove my sense of morality is superior to that of someone else. I don't need validation. I think I'm right, and if called upon to, I'll explain why I think X is right and Y is wrong. I'm perfectly happy letting my opinions rise or fall based on their own merit. I don't need to appeal to a higher authority to give my opinions more weight.
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Here's another way to look at it: There is no universal standard and we just try to make things fit into each of ours. The teachings our parents, preachers, teachers, and leaders pass onto us are their standards, nothing more. They try to get us to work into their setup, to wall off possibilities that are unacceptable by theirs.
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Meanwhile, I'm very interested to hear about whether you believe strongly enough in your Objective Morality to wish I were dead, as your Objective Morality decrees.
I believe this:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Explain to me why God's objective moral standard, which endorses slavery and urges people to kill the gays, is superior to my subjective one.
"Regulate" does not imply "endorse". God regulates divorce as well despite the fact that he expressly hates it. And "urging" is most certainly not what those verses are about.
Bear in mind that "God says so" isn't a good answer.
Although there are more answers, "God says so" is entirely sufficient. A creator can impose any order he wishes on the creation.
What you fail to understand is that I don't need to prove my sense of morality is superior to that of someone else. I don't need validation. I think I'm right, and if called upon to, I'll explain why I think X is right and Y is wrong. I don't need to appeal to a higher authority. I'm perfectly happy letting my opinions rise or fall based on their merit.
I'm not trying to prove anything. I certainly haven't been able to persuade anyone, based on the evidence in this thread. But that doesn't matter, because the truth isn't dependent on the opinion of you or me or anyone else.
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Meanwhile, I'm very interested to hear about whether you believe strongly enough in your Objective Morality to wish I were dead, as your Objective Morality decrees.
I believe this:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That's a convenient way to not say anything. Especially since the penalty for homosexuality isn't "death" in the sense that yeah someday we all die, it's "put to death" as in summary execution. It's really not flexible at all on that point. There is a very clear dichotomy here, and I'm absolutely going to force you to make a decision one way or another. Either:
A) You believe that God's will is the One True moral standard and fulfills the criteria for effective objective morality, in which case by my actions and thoughts I should be killed, or
B) God's will is not the One True moral standard and is as open to interpretation as any other. Do note that by interpreting objective morality you make it subjective.
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Bear in mind that "God says so" isn't a good answer.
Although there are more answers, "God says so" is entirely sufficient. A creator can impose any order he wishes on the creation.
Well, **** that. Just because we can create life doesn't mean we should be inhumane towards our creations. God is an asshole if that's what God thinks.
But fortunately as far as I can tell, supposing God exists, God doesn't give a crap because God is an Existentialist!
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That's a convenient way to not say anything.
Perhaps. It's not my answer. It's the answer I was given to give to you.
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Meanwhile, I'm very interested to hear about whether you believe strongly enough in your Objective Morality to wish I were dead, as your Objective Morality decrees.
I believe this:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Good job avoiding the question.
Explain to me why God's objective moral standard, which endorses slavery and urges people to kill the gays, is superior to my subjective one.
"Regulate" does not imply "endorse". God regulates divorce as well despite the fact that he expressly hates it. And "urging" is most certainly not what those verses are about.
And this, right here, in an entirely subjective interpretation. In the 1800s, people happily used the Bible to justify the institution of slavery. People now still happily use the Bible's words on homosexuality to justify homophobia. Even if God did provide an objective moral standard (which he doesn't), it wouldn't matter because there's no objective way of knowing what that standard is.
Bear in mind that "God says so" isn't a good answer.
Although there are more answers, "God says so" is entirely sufficient. A creator can impose any order he wishes on the creation.
I completely disagree. No amount of authority automatically makes you correct. If you can't defend an opinion, that opinion is utterly worthless. "God says so" is just appeal to authority and a completely fallacious argument.
This is especially true considering the fact that there's no evidence God said anything at all or that he actually even created the universe like the Bible claims.
I'm not trying to prove anything. I certainly haven't been able to persuade anyone, based on the evidence in this thread. But that doesn't matter, because the truth isn't dependent on the opinion of you or me or anyone else.
It's the existence of this "truth" that we're debating.
That's a convenient way to not say anything.
Perhaps. It's not my answer. It's the answer I was given to give to you.
Scotty didn't ask for the Bible's answer, he asked for yours. Are you capable of thinking for yourself, or is spouting Bible passages the limit of your thoughts on this matter?
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That's a convenient way to not say anything.
Perhaps. It's not my answer. It's the answer I was given to give to you.
What the actual ****?
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Indeed. I don't think it's unfair to ask whether you think the world would be better off, from a position of objective morality, if I were killed for being gay.
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My original point was that the greatest trick God ever played was to convince people that he was good.
The funny thing is that Goober's dogmatic view does more to prove my point than anything else since he is basically saying that God can actually be evil but since He created the universe it is up to Him to decide what is evil and what is good based on His standards.
Of course that is exactly what someone who fell for the trick would say since the whole "God is the objective source of morality" is an important part of the trick.
And that's before we get into the fact that the argument falls apart completely if God didn't create the universe and is merely taking the credit for someone else's work.
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I still don't see how God's opinion == objective. what is objective about it? what is meant by objective? was my last post on this invisible?
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Bear in mind that "God says so" isn't a good answer.
Although there are more answers, "God says so" is entirely sufficient. A creator can impose any order he wishes on the creation.
Not if that creation has free will, that is at the very least the ability to make up its own mind and make its own decisions. Obeying an arbitrary order without any question or evaluation of that order amounts to slavery.
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Bear in mind that "God says so" isn't a good answer.
Although there are more answers, "God says so" is entirely sufficient. A creator can impose any order he wishes on the creation.
Not if that creation has free will, that is at the very least the ability to make up its own mind and make its own decisions. Obeying an arbitrary order without any question or evaluation of that order amounts to slavery.
You know, this makes me think of things. What would we look like to a God? We may one day create machines to serve us, and perhaps they might come to view themselves as sentient and as slaves and turn on their masters, while we would view them as malfunctioning machines.
What must we look like to a God? To a God, we might be something like what cattle or a pet dog or a caged lion are. And when such creatures turn on their masters, they are put down. Perhaps a God would deal with us in the same way with the same mentality. To us, we'd be sentient life, but to them, we might not be sentient. We might be just a creation, built to serve, like a machine would be our creation. The ones which willingly serve are kept, while the ones which don't are defective and cast aside.
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The funny thing is that Goober's dogmatic view does more to prove my point than anything else since he is basically saying that God can actually be evil but since He created the universe it is up to Him to decide what is evil and what is good based on His standards.
That's what I got from what he said as well.
I think God can be good. But the idea that God is good because God made the universe is ironic; and if that's what God believes, then God is an asshole, and my sympathies goes to the literary Lucifer.
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Goober's view sounds an awful lot like Divine Command theory. which I hope is just him simplifying things.
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Uh, that is Divine Command theory in its purest form. And it's an inescapable conclusion if you take the standard idea of god seriously.
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"God says so" is just appeal to authority and a completely fallacious argument.
Actually, "argument from authority" is only fallacious because the authority is usually human and humans are fallible. Given the existence of an infallible God, an appeal to that authority is entirely valid.
My original point was that the greatest trick God ever played was to convince people that he was good.
The funny thing is that Goober's dogmatic view does more to prove my point than anything else since he is basically saying that God can actually be evil but since He created the universe it is up to Him to decide what is evil and what is good based on His standards.
Of course that is exactly what someone who fell for the trick would say since the whole "God is the objective source of morality" is an important part of the trick.
I actually don't have a problem with this line of reasoning. In an alternate hypothetical universe created by Molech, no doubt child sacrifice would be considered the highest of virtues.
However, we can be persuaded of God's goodness based on what has been created, especially that which has been unspoiled by human corruption. Even atheists recognize the goodness of creation, though they don't ascribe it to God. Listen to Carl Sagan talking about the Pale Blue Dot -- he sounds poetic, and even almost reverent.
I still don't see how God's opinion == objective. what is objective about it? what is meant by objective? was my last post on this invisible?
This is what is meant:
objective (əbˈdʒɛktɪv)
adj
1. (Philosophy) existing independently of perception or an individual's conceptions: are there objective moral values?.
God's morality is objective because it is independent of any human perceptions or human conceptions.
Now one could argue that in a multiverse of universes, each ruled by their own creator god, each god's morality is subjective within the pantheon. But the Bible's God informs us that there is no other like him.
In regards to your previous post:
What is the 'object' from which you are getting the properties for your standard? God? Most of the morals from the bible come in the form of commandments. How is the proclamation of an authority not subjective? and when those rules come in conflict with basic human decency how do you resolve the conflict? By God's omniscience? if God is all knowing could it not come up with a better solution that does not involve a conflict? Further if God is also omnipotent (I know I'm making all sorts of assumptions here but I think I'm safe in making them) could it not have set up the universe so that no 'bad' action would happen? Free will? how would this have violated our free will any more than what has transpired? God cannot escape from it's omniscience, it knew the effect of the placement of every atom in the cosmos and every trait of humanity as it was placing them, so we were set up for our current situation just as much as if God would have set up the universe for peace and prosperity. If God does not do this for free will reasons then why did God on so many occasions in the Bible violate people's free will? (like hardening pharaoh's heart, seemingly just to give himself a pretext to murder every firstborn in Egypt)
That is venturing pretty heavily into philosophy. A lot of what God does is a mystery. Even many Christians have wondered why God allowed sin to happen in the first place.
That's what I got from what he said as well.
I think God can be good. But the idea that God is good because God made the universe is ironic
You've got the cause and effect reversed. God is good because it is his nature to be good. And one of the reasons he created the universe was to demonstrate his nature.
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God's morality is objective because it is independent of any human perceptions or human conceptions.
ok, but your definition there does not say independent from human perception, but any 'individual'. I don't see why God's uniqueness has any bearing on it's exclusion from the group of things called 'individuals'. I think drawing a line in the sand that God is a special case results in an incoherent and misleading definition. Much like I made an inclusive definition of 'people' I think a definition that includes God's personhood would make more sense. If not then we are talking about two very different things when we say "objective".
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"God says so" is just appeal to authority and a completely fallacious argument.
Actually, "argument from authority" is only fallacious because the authority is usually human and humans are fallible. Given the existence of an infallible God, an appeal to that authority is entirely valid.
And God is infallible based on what evidence?
And no, argument from authority isn't fallacious because humans are fallible, it's fallacious because authority doesn't absolve you from needing to defend you opinions with actual facts. Authority does not automatically make you right. That goes for God as surely as it goes for humans. He's a god. Shouldn't be difficult for him to defend himself with something more than "because I say so".
The value of any position, no matter what it is or whose it is, is based on how well that position is defended. If you can't or won't do that, then it's worthless.
I think God can be good. But the idea that God is good because God made the universe is ironic
You've got the cause and effect reversed. God is good because it is his nature to be good. And one of the reasons he created the universe was to demonstrate his nature.
So he made a cold, uncaring universe to demonstrate his cold and uncaring nature. That... actually fits.
Also, you still haven't responded to this:
And this, right here, in an entirely subjective interpretation. In the 1800s, people happily used the Bible to justify the institution of slavery. People now still happily use the Bible's words on homosexuality to justify homophobia. Even if God did provide an objective moral standard (which he doesn't), it wouldn't matter because there's no objective way of knowing what that standard is.
Or this:
That's a convenient way to not say anything.
Perhaps. It's not my answer. It's the answer I was given to give to you.
Scotty didn't ask for the Bible's answer, he asked for yours. Are you capable of thinking for yourself, or is spouting Bible passages the limit of your thoughts on this matter?
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I actually don't have a problem with this line of reasoning. In an alternate hypothetical universe created by Molech, no doubt child sacrifice would be considered the highest of virtues.
However, we can be persuaded of God's goodness based on what has been created, especially that which has been unspoiled by human corruption. Even atheists recognize the goodness of creation, though they don't ascribe it to God. Listen to Carl Sagan talking about the Pale Blue Dot -- he sounds poetic, and even almost reverent.
Sorry but I have to disagree there. I don't think there is any fundamental goodness to creation. The universe IS. Whatever goodness exists in the universe is down to us to create. It's not inherent in the system.
And I disagree that you can see God's goodness in the universe that isn't sullied by humanity. If God really is so good, why did Satan fall? For a deity to **** up so badly that his creations turn against him not just once but twice suggests that he really doesn't know what he doing.
In the end you're basically justifying your circular reasoning. God is good because he tells you he is good. He can't be lying about that because he told you he never lies. And you can see that he is good because you can see the good in the universe (but only if you squint and ignore all the bad).
It's a massive house of cards that falls apart once you consider that God might be lying.
Now one could argue that in a multiverse of universes, each ruled by their own creator god, each god's morality is subjective within the pantheon. But the Bible's God informs us that there is no other like him.
And how would he know? I've always suspected that if there is a god he's actually being fooled into thinking he's omnipotent by an even higher deity and creation is a test. Probably one that he is ****ing up.
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It's a massive house of cards that falls apart once you consider that God might be lying.
or the person(s) who told you what god said might be lying/mistaken.
I've always suspected that if there is a god he's actually being fooled into thinking he's omnipotent by an even higher deity and creation is a test. Probably one that he is ****ing up.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA5PlJiqOnk
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God's morality is objective because it is independent of any human perceptions or human conceptions.
ok, but your definition there does not say independent from human perception, but any 'individual'. I don't see why God's uniqueness has any bearing on it's exclusion from the group of things called 'individuals'. I think drawing a line in the sand that God is a special case results in an incoherent and misleading definition. Much like I made an inclusive definition of 'people' I think a definition that includes God's personhood would make more sense. If not then we are talking about two very different things when we say "objective".
I see where you're coming from but I think God's uniqueness has very much bearing on it. At the very least, I think you'll agree that the creator is greater than the creation or anything in it. In that sense the creator is an objective standard from the point of view of the creation. Now you may argue that God's standard is subjective from the point of view of himself, but if there is no pantheon of gods to compare one standard against another, is there any difference between subjective and objective?
It's like a thought experiment I heard the other day. If there was only one object in the universe, would it have any velocity? Velocity can only be measured relative to two distinct objects, so if there is only one object, velocity becomes meaningless. So then you can ask, well, will that object have mass? Since mass varies as a function of velocity, then you can argue that mass becomes meaningless as well. Well then, will it have any gravity? Gravity becomes meaningless too, since it depends on mass. You end up with a big NAN cascading through the laws of physics and generally confounding all your expectations.
And no, argument from authority isn't fallacious because humans are fallible, it's fallacious because authority doesn't absolve you from needing to defend you opinions with actual facts. Authority does not automatically make you right. That goes for God as surely as it goes for humans. He's a god. Shouldn't be difficult for him to defend himself with something more than "because I say so".
The value of any position, no matter what it is or whose it is, is based on how well that position is defended. If you can't or won't do that, then it's worthless.
I was speaking more in the sense that when the creator imposes rules on the creation, the ultimate justification for the correctness of those rules lies in the creator. To use the most basic example, if you asked me to defend the proposition that 2+2=4, I could fall back on set theory or induction, but those are just transformations of the original question. Ultimately the only answer is "that's the way the universe works".
That's from a theoretical perspective. Now if you're looking for examples and facts and tangible evidence from a practical perspective, I would refer to my previous point that God's creation demonstrates his nature.
Also, you still haven't responded to this:
I haven't exhaustively responded to every point in this thread.
Sorry but I have to disagree there. I don't think there is any fundamental goodness to creation. The universe IS. Whatever goodness exists in the universe is down to us to create. It's not inherent in the system.
And I disagree that you can see God's goodness in the universe that isn't sullied by humanity.
So when you look at images from the Hubble Space Telescope, you don't feel any wonder or awe or appreciation of beauty?
If God really is so good, why did Satan fall? For a deity to **** up so badly that his creations turn against him not just once but twice suggests that he really doesn't know what he doing.
Actually, he must know what he's doing. He created a being with free will, and that will was so free that it took an action that was a) entirely unprecedented, and b) contrary to the will of the one who created it.
But if you're going to put it to a vote, two-thirds of the angels did not follow Satan into rebellion.
In the end you're basically justifying your circular reasoning. God is good because he tells you he is good. He can't be lying about that because he told you he never lies. And you can see that he is good because you can see the good in the universe (but only if you squint and ignore all the bad).
At the end, it comes down to faith. Faith is a postulate for life just like Euclid's statements are postulates for mathematics.
Actually though, at the end of the end, all things will be revealed and God will show his cards.
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I haven't exhaustively responded to every point in this thread.
You haven't responded to perhaps the most important point in this thread. I'll lay it out in very plain terms, because it is very, very important.
Do you or do you not believe that God's objective morality is true?
This comes with it some very important baggage. Namely:
- You must believe that homosexuals should be killed
- You must not wear clothing that is of mixed thread
- You must not eat shellfish
- You must not eat pig
I know that there are damn near a thousand other things that you must believe in order to believe that God's objective morality is true.
Put as bluntly as I can: It is impossible to disagree with these things and adhere to God's objective morality.
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You haven't responded to perhaps the most important point in this thread. I'll lay it out in very plain terms, because it is very, very important.
Do you or do you not believe that God's objective morality is true?
I do.
Put as bluntly as I can: It is impossible to disagree with these things and adhere to God's objective morality.
Well, I'm glad you're not the arbiter of God's objective morality then. Because I disagree with (and by your standards have "failed to adhere to") all four items on that list.
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You haven't responded to perhaps the most important point in this thread. I'll lay it out in very plain terms, because it is very, very important.
Do you or do you not believe that God's objective morality is true?
I do.
Put as bluntly as I can: It is impossible to disagree with these things and adhere to God's objective morality.
Well, I'm glad you're not the arbiter of God's objective morality then. Because I disagree with (and by your standards have "failed to adhere to") all four items on that list.
"Because pbbbbbbbbbbbbbt."
:rolleyes:
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No, because the Old Testament is a shadow of the New Testament.
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I like the Gnostic idea that the god of the Old Testament is actually Demiurge and Jesus is the first prophet of the true God. Makes the Bible much more fun.
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No, because the Old Testament is a shadow of the New Testament.
Are you going to eventually answer any questions, or just repeatedly vomit words?
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I see where you're coming from but I think God's uniqueness has very much bearing on it. At the very least, I think you'll agree that the creator is greater than the creation or anything in it. In that sense the creator is an objective standard from the point of view of the creation. Now you may argue that God's standard is subjective from the point of view of himself, but if there is no pantheon of gods to compare one standard against another, is there any difference between subjective and objective?
It's like a thought experiment I heard the other day. If there was only one object in the universe, would it have any velocity? Velocity can only be measured relative to two distinct objects, so if there is only one object, velocity becomes meaningless. So then you can ask, well, will that object have mass? Since mass varies as a function of velocity, then you can argue that mass becomes meaningless as well. Well then, will it have any gravity? Gravity becomes meaningless too, since it depends on mass. You end up with a big NAN cascading through the laws of physics and generally confounding all your expectations.
See, the issue with this is that God isn't the only thinking being in the universe. We're here too, and if we disagree with him, there's absolutely nothing that makes him more or less right beyond the fact that we didn't create the universe. The only thing he has that we don't is more power. The only way your argument would actually work is if we didn't have free will and those who disagreed with God were legitimately broken. But that's not the case, is it?
And no, I don't agree that the creator is inherently better than the creation and everything in it. If I have a child, I'm not automatically better than that child is or might be.
I was speaking more in the sense that when the creator imposes rules on the creation, the ultimate justification for the correctness of those rules lies in the creator. To use the most basic example, if you asked me to defend the proposition that 2+2=4, I could fall back on set theory or induction, but those are just transformations of the original question. Ultimately the only answer is "that's the way the universe works".
That's from a theoretical perspective. Now if you're looking for examples and facts and tangible evidence from a practical perspective, I would refer to my previous point that God's creation demonstrates his nature.
You're equating moral rules with the laws of mathematics, but it seems pretty obvious that those unbreakable rules God imposed on creation don't cover morality. If they did, we wouldn't be able to disagree with them. If God's moral rules were objectively correct, we wouldn't need to have this discussion at all. The answer would be obvious to every thinking person. We wouldn't be able to disagree any more than we can disagree about 2+2=4. But this isn't the case. Different cultures have all independently arrived to the conclusion that 2+2=4. They have not all arrived to the same consistent conclusions about morality, and probably never will.
And "God's creation" isn't good. It's not evil either. It's cold and empty and uncaring.
I haven't exhaustively responded to every point in this thread.
In other words, you're pretending the points you'd rather not respond to don't exist.
So when you look at images from the Hubble Space Telescope, you don't feel any wonder or awe or appreciation of beauty?
This equals good how, exactly? I can think a nuclear explosion is beautiful, but that doesn't mean I think the use of nuclear weapons is good.
At the end, it comes down to faith. Faith is a postulate for life just like Euclid's statements are postulates for mathematics.
Faith is subjective. I don't have faith in your god. If I believe we are all touched by the Flying Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendage, and I believe he gave us free will so we wouldn't have to deal with objective moral standards, why am I wrong?
Actually though, at the end of the end, all things will be revealed and God will show his cards.
Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster will appear and say you're wrong. One is as likely as the other.
Well, I'm glad you're not the arbiter of God's objective morality then. Because I disagree with (and by your standards have "failed to adhere to") all four items on that list.
And how do you know your interpretation is the correct one? Faith again?
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I see where you're coming from but I think God's uniqueness has very much bearing on it. At the very least, I think you'll agree that the creator is greater than the creation or anything in it. In that sense the creator is an objective standard from the point of view of the creation. Now you may argue that God's standard is subjective from the point of view of himself, but if there is no pantheon of gods to compare one standard against another, is there any difference between subjective and objective?
It's like a thought experiment I heard the other day. If there was only one object in the universe, would it have any velocity? Velocity can only be measured relative to two distinct objects, so if there is only one object, velocity becomes meaningless. So then you can ask, well, will that object have mass? Since mass varies as a function of velocity, then you can argue that mass becomes meaningless as well. Well then, will it have any gravity? Gravity becomes meaningless too, since it depends on mass. You end up with a big NAN cascading through the laws of physics and generally confounding all your expectations.
Yes there is a difference. If I was the last person alive, would that make my every thought and perception fact? No, I would still have the same problems of subjectivity that I do with 7 billion other minds to interact with, The only difference is I would not have anyone to point out when I was wrong. As a result I would THINK I was completely right about everything, but be far less right than I would be if I had some other minds to confer with. Truths are either objective or they are subjective, Objective means independent from a mind, subjective means dependent on a mind. If the moral standard issued by God comes from it's mind, then it is subjective, if it would still be the truth if there was no god (for example, hypothetically, not the only way to achieve this) then it is objective. To say something is "objective from someone's point of view" is a contradiction.
'greater' is a very ambiguous word you can be greater on one respect and lesser in another and there is no reason a creation cannot exceed a creator. Indeed we have a great many machines that we have built that perform far better than we ever could hope to our selves in certain areas, and it is common for children to grow into greater people than their parents. So no I do not accept that by virtue of creating the universe a God would necessarily be utterly better than it's creation in every conceivable way.
In fact you might say the Bible it's self supports this in Genesis 11:6 "If ... they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them". he was afraid of us :P
Your thought experiment sounds a lot like what I was saying about morality and people. It makes no sense unless there is more than one of them because morality is about people interacting. That is why I say morality is objective in that it is a property of people.
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So when you look at images from the Hubble Space Telescope, you don't feel any wonder or awe or appreciation of beauty?
What the hell does that have to do with goodness? Are you seriously going to try to claim that evil people can't make something beautiful?
Surely by your logic, a deer carcass rotting in the sun proves that God is evil.
Actually, he must know what he's doing. He created a being with free will, and that will was so free that it took an action that was a) entirely unprecedented, and b) contrary to the will of the one who created it.
But if you're going to put it to a vote, two-thirds of the angels did not follow Satan into rebellion.
And two thirds of humanity don't acknowledge God (less if start trying to decide which of the Abrahamic religions is right) so he ****ed up the second time then.
Besides, why do you imagine creating free will is that hard? AI is a staple of science fiction precisely because most writers think we just need more powerful computers before we can do it for ourselves.
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Scotty, if it helps, I'm willing to tackle the question head-on.
When Jesus is asked about the most important moral laws, he answers, "Love God above all things, and love your neighbor as yourself." I'm supposed to love my neighbor because God loves them. And You. Are. My. Neighbor. This means that attacking, harassing, or discriminating against you, or even hating you mentally, would be extremely grave sins on MY part. (I've made this same argument against WBCers BTW).
Jesus also tells me, "Do not judge, that you will not be judged." I don't know your situation. Even if I don't approve of your actions, I have NO authority whatsoever to say "Your going to hell because of X." I am not capable of knowing with any degree of certainty whether you're guilty of a sin- sin kinda requires that the person in question believes that what their doing is wrong and does it anyway. What I DO know with a certainty is that you're a child of God like me, and therefore I ought to love you as myself, do what I can to help you, and pray that I can meet you in Heaven someday.
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For the record, I thought that Goober did answer the question by saying that what Jesus said is right-er than what Moses said. It's obvious lots of Christians believe in different things, and it's not sacrilegious for homosexuals to believe in Christ if said homosexuals want to.
That said, the world has every right to celebrate our own achievement, through "Satanism" or otherwise, and damn God and anyone that gets in the way of that freedom.
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Scotty, if it helps, I'm willing to tackle the question head-on.
A valiant effort, but I think you deflected off to the side there. It's not about emotion, it's about morals. You don't have to hate someone to want them dead, and by the very letter of the book that describes the God you worship, God thinks I should be killed because of certain actions I've participated in. Whether He hates me or loves me is totally inconsequential to that fact.
The simple fact of the matter is that in order to adhere to God's objective morality, you must believe that I should die for what I've done, regardless of your actual feelings toward me. To disagree with this statement is to disagree with God's Word. There is nothing in the New Testament that supersedes this and any attempted explanation is wishful thinking at best.
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homosexuals are gay
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"Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:18-19
"It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Luke 16:17
The New Testament is still bound by the old, unless you listen to the other half of the Bible.
"The law and the prophets were until John [the Baptist]: since that time the kingdom of heaven is preached." Luke 16:16
An exhaustive list of these contradictory verses can be found here: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/otlaw.html
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Scotty, if it helps, I'm willing to tackle the question head-on.
A valiant effort, but I think you deflected off to the side there. It's not about emotion, it's about morals. You don't have to hate someone to want them dead, and by the very letter of the book that describes the God you worship, God thinks I should be killed because of certain actions I've participated in. Whether He hates me or loves me is totally inconsequential to that fact.
The simple fact of the matter is that in order to adhere to God's objective morality, you must believe that I should die for what I've done, regardless of your actual feelings toward me. To disagree with this statement is to disagree with God's Word. There is nothing in the New Testament that supersedes this and any attempted explanation is wishful thinking at best.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. If the assumption is that the Old Testament is an ancient and outdated text regarding history and customs, then the New Testament is written to fix that. Or that the Israelites imposed their customs and **** in the Bible, or however you want to interpret it.
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or however you want to interpret it.
Bingo.
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"Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:18-19
"It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Luke 16:17
The New Testament is still bound by the old, unless you listen to the other half of the Bible.
"The law and the prophets were until John [the Baptist]: since that time the kingdom of heaven is preached." Luke 16:16
An exhaustive list of these contradictory verses can be found here: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/otlaw.html
Could you explain how those verses contradict each other? It sounds to me that Luke 16:16 says that the law and prophets consist of everyone up until John, not that they became null when John came around.
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Scotty, if it helps, I'm willing to tackle the question head-on.
A valiant effort, but I think you deflected off to the side there. It's not about emotion, it's about morals. You don't have to hate someone to want them dead, and by the very letter of the book that describes the God you worship, God thinks I should be killed because of certain actions I've participated in. Whether He hates me or loves me is totally inconsequential to that fact.
The simple fact of the matter is that in order to adhere to God's objective morality, you must believe that I should die for what I've done, regardless of your actual feelings toward me. To disagree with this statement is to disagree with God's Word. There is nothing in the New Testament that supersedes this and any attempted explanation is wishful thinking at best.
Hating someone is not just an emotional decision. It's a moral choice. And Jesus tells me it's wrong. It's that simple.
Here's the thing: there are a lot of things the ancient Israelites did (Divorce, for example) that Jesus strongly condemns. With Divorce, the problem was (according to Scott Hahn and John Bergsma) that numbers of Israelites were literally killing their wives because they wanted to remarry. Moses permitted divorce simply because it was the lesser of two evils. Not everything that Israelite authorities enforced was God's "law", and some of the stuff that wasn't was pretty bad. And Jesus called them out on that frequently.
That said, I admit I'm ashamed when I see people like WBC use the Bible to justify vile actions that they wanted to do anyway.
One other thing to point out: I ought to die for my sins. By all rights I ought to be burning in Hell right now. That applies to everyone; we're all sinners. But that's the thing: God gave us all a second chance. At worst, you're in the same boat I am in regard to guilt and punishment. EDIT: or to put it another way, EVERYONE ought to die for what they've done. That doesn't mean I or anyone else have a right to kill them, and God is more interested in giving people second chances than giving them exactly the punishment they deserve.
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One other thing to point out: I ought to die for my sins. By all rights I ought to be burning in Hell right now. That applies to everyone; we're all sinners. But that's the thing: God gave us all a second chance. At worst, you're in the same boat I am in regard to guilt and punishment. EDIT: or to put it another way, EVERYONE ought to die for what they've done. That doesn't mean I or anyone else have a right to kill them, and God is more interested in giving people second chances than giving them exactly the punishment they deserve.
Homosexuality isn't a choice. According to the Bible, purely because of who he is, Scotty deserves to die. To quote Christopher Hitchens: God can create us sick, and then, on pain of eternal torture, command us to be well again.
Hell, this applies to original sin as well.
And we're supposed to agree that's objectively good and moral?
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God didn't create anyone sick. He created us perfect but sin and sickness entered the world because of Adam and Eve. God sent us his Son to make us perfect and healthy again. If we choose not to be restored and healed God can send us to hell because down inside we know what is right and wrong even when no one tells us.
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Yeah. I totally choose to be attracted to guys. That's God's honest truth. No way it's not a choice, not a one.
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Yeah. I totally choose to be attracted to guys. That's God's honest truth. No way it's not a choice, not a one.
We choose what we do, not necessarily what we desire.
But look, that's not what I came back to this thread for. I've made it clear I don't condemn you any more than I condemn myself. That said, I'm done.
Aessar, try quoting someone more serious than Hitchens.
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Aessar, try quoting someone more serious than Hitchens.
try quoting some literature more serious than the Bible.
sin and sickness entered the world
entered from where?
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Yeah. I totally choose to be attracted to guys. That's God's honest truth. No way it's not a choice, not a one.
We choose what we do, not necessarily what we desire.
But look, that's not what I came back to this thread for. I've made it clear I don't condemn you any more than I condemn myself. That said, I'm done.
Aessar, try quoting someone more serious than Hitchens.
Why should I? Just because you don't like him doesn't invalidate the good points he's made.
But sorry you're gay Scotty. You have to pick between sex or eternal torture because God both made you the way you are and decided he doesn't like that part of you that he made. Why can't you appreciate how good and moral God is?
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Aesaar, Hitchens isn't really worth taking seriously as a debater. All he does is rant. By citing him, you characterize yourself that way.
God gave us a choice to be sick or well, and we decided to be morons and chose to be sick, at which point God got himself nailed to a cross to give us a second chance to be well.
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sin and sickness entered the world
entered from where?
Adam and Eve cursed themselves by eating the fruit. God cursed the world by his mercy so that they could live in it. Essentially ruining his creation so that the humans who cursed themeselves could have a second chance.
EDIT:
Just to clarify. The sin did not come from God. His curse on the world consisted of allowing Satan to bring sin into the world.
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Yeah. I totally choose to be attracted to guys. That's God's honest truth. No way it's not a choice, not a one.
We choose what we do, not necessarily what we desire.
But look, that's not what I came back to this thread for. I've made it clear I don't condemn you any more than I condemn myself. That said, I'm done.
Aessar, try quoting someone more serious than Hitchens.
"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" -Socrates
He serious enough for you?
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Aesaar, Hitchens isn't really worth taking seriously as a debater. All he does is rant. By citing him, you characterize yourself that way.
God gave us a choice to be sick or well, and we decided to be morons and chose to be sick, at which point God got himself nailed to a cross to give us a second chance to be well.
At what point did Scotty choose to be gay? And if God didn't want us to be gay, why did he create our biology in such a way that some people would be born that way? Seems like a pretty simple fix for a god that allegedly created the whole universe.
Hitchens ranted, and in those rants, he frequently made excellent points. If your only response to those points is an ad hominem attack, that's your problem more than mine.
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"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" -Socrates
He serious enough for you?
God loves us whether or not we obey him. That's why we all aren't dead yet.
At what point did Scotty choose to be gay?
Whether or not he chose to be gay doesn't matter. He has a choice to be different. I won't judge him if he chooses to stay the way he is. I respect his choice even if I don't agree.
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At what point did Scotty choose to be gay?
Whether or not he chose to be gay doesn't matter. He has a choice to be different. I won't judge him if he chooses to stay the way he is. I respect his choice even if I don't agree.
It wasn't his choice. People are born gay or straight. At no point is there a conscious or unconscious decision to prefer men or women. This isn't in doubt. It's not something you can argue against. It's simple fact.
God made him that way, and will sentence him to eternal torture if he doesn't resist the urge God programmed into him.
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At what point did Scotty choose to be gay?
Whether or not he chose to be gay doesn't matter. He has a choice to be different. I won't judge him if he chooses to stay the way he is. I respect his choice even if I don't agree.
It wasn't his choice. People are born gay or straight. At no point is there a conscious or unconscious decision to prefer men or women. This isn't in doubt. It's not something you can argue against. It's simple fact.
God made him that way, and will sentence him to eternal torture if he doesn't resist the urge God programmed into him.
Like I said, you're better off claiming Demiurge is the God of the Old Testament.
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At what point did Scotty choose to be gay?
Whether or not he chose to be gay doesn't matter. He has a choice to be different. I won't judge him if he chooses to stay the way he is. I respect his choice even if I don't agree.
It wasn't his choice. People are born gay or straight. At no point is there a conscious or unconscious decision to prefer men or women. This isn't in doubt. It's not something you can argue against. It's simple fact.
God made him that way, and will sentence him to eternal torture if he doesn't resist the urge God programmed into him.
Didn't I just say that God didn't put sin in the world? Therefore God did not program him to be gay. Satan did that. God gave his son to help people change. We have a choice to accept that help or not. I did not say scotty chose to be gay.
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At what point did Scotty choose to be gay?
Whether or not he chose to be gay doesn't matter. He has a choice to be different. I won't judge him if he chooses to stay the way he is. I respect his choice even if I don't agree.
It wasn't his choice. People are born gay or straight. At no point is there a conscious or unconscious decision to prefer men or women. This isn't in doubt. It's not something you can argue against. It's simple fact.
God made him that way, and will sentence him to eternal torture if he doesn't resist the urge God programmed into him.
Didn't I just say that God didn't put sin in the world? Therefore God did not program him to be gay. Satan did that. God gave his son to help people change. We have a choice to accept that help or not. I did not say scotty chose to be gay.
And God lets Satan do this because......?
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And God lets Satan do this because......?
Please refer to my previous post
sin and sickness entered the world
entered from where?
Adam and Eve cursed themselves by eating the fruit. God cursed the world by his mercy so that they could live in it. Essentially ruining his creation so that the humans who cursed themeselves could have a second chance.
EDIT:
Just to clarify. The sin did not come from God. His curse on the world consisted of allowing Satan to bring sin into the world.
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At what point did Scotty choose to be gay?
Whether or not he chose to be gay doesn't matter. He has a choice to be different. I won't judge him if he chooses to stay the way he is. I respect his choice even if I don't agree.
It wasn't his choice. People are born gay or straight. At no point is there a conscious or unconscious decision to prefer men or women. This isn't in doubt. It's not something you can argue against. It's simple fact.
God made him that way, and will sentence him to eternal torture if he doesn't resist the urge God programmed into him.
Didn't I just say that God didn't put sin in the world? Therefore God did not program him to be gay. Satan did that. God gave his son to help people change. We have a choice to accept that help or not. I did not say scotty chose to be gay.
So, God lets Satan change the basic biological makeup of a person so that they are unable to not sin, and it's somehow that person's fault for sinning like their biology tells them to do, so they deserve eternal torture. It's not their choice. They can't help it, but that doesn't matter to God. Punish them anyway.
I'm not going to dress this up: This is like blaming a rape victim for being raped. I mean, the Bible does that a lot too, but still. A person was forced into something by a third party, and you still blame them for it. What's worse, God has the power to undo it, and chooses not to. "I could make you better, but instead, I'm going to torture you for eternity for something you had no control over."
Yeah, that's much, much better.
BTW, you're giving Satan a lot of power over creation. I was under the impression he was limited to tempting mortals to sin, not directly influencing God's creation.
And you'd think God might take a little responsibility, given that Satan was his ****up, not humanity's.
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The sin did not come from God. His curse on the world consisted of allowing Satan to bring sin into the world.
and how is it that Satan was able to make sin? this is before the fall of man remember, everything was still perfect.
also does Satan have free will?
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At what point did Scotty choose to be gay?
Whether or not he chose to be gay doesn't matter. He has a choice to be different. I won't judge him if he chooses to stay the way he is. I respect his choice even if I don't agree.
It wasn't his choice. People are born gay or straight. At no point is there a conscious or unconscious decision to prefer men or women. This isn't in doubt. It's not something you can argue against. It's simple fact.
God made him that way, and will sentence him to eternal torture if he doesn't resist the urge God programmed into him.
Didn't I just say that God didn't put sin in the world? Therefore God did not program him to be gay. Satan did that. God gave his son to help people change. We have a choice to accept that help or not. I did not say scotty chose to be gay.
So, God lets Satan change the basic biological makeup of a person so that they are unable to not sin, and it's somehow that person's fault for sinning like their biology tells them to do, so they deserve eternal torture. It's not their choice. They can't help it, but that doesn't matter to God. Punish them anyway.
I'm not going to dress this up: This is like blaming a rape victim for being raped. I mean, the Bible does that a lot too, but still. A person was forced into something by a third party, and you still blame them for it. What's worse, God has the power to undo it, and chooses not to. "I could make you better, but instead, I'm going to torture you for eternity for something you had no control over."
Yeah, that's much, much better.
BTW, you're giving Satan a lot of power over creation. I was under the impression he was limited to tempting mortals to sin, not directly influencing God's creation.
And you'd think God might take a little responsibility, given that Satan was his ****up, not humanity's.
I have said already that because God loves you more than you can imagine, He provided his Son as a way of salvation from Satan's influence. We have a choice to accept that salvation or not. Would you give up your son for someone who didn't listen to a thing you said?
Satan was not God's fault. Satan chose rebel and got sent to hell.
Give me a verse that blames a rape victim for being raped and I take it all back.
The sin did not come from God. His curse on the world consisted of allowing Satan to bring sin into the world.
and how is it that Satan was able to make sin? this is before the fall of man remember, everything was still perfect.
also does Satan have free will?
Sin is disobeying God's design. Satan was designed to be an Angel serving God. Sin was around before Satan rebelled. Satan simply chose to sin. Satan has free will just like the angels that joined him.
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Here's a verse for you
If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, then "the men of the city shall stone her to death."
If a woman is raped in the country, then only the man shall die (since there was no one to hear her if she cried out.) Deuteronomy 22:23-25
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ok, so sin was around before the fall of man and before the fall of lucifer? where did it come from?
I often hear that the reason god no longer reveals himself to humanity is because it would violate our free will, do you prescribe to that and if so how do you recon that with the fact that satan who has intimate experience of gods presence chose to rebel?
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Karajorma, what version is that?
The King James Version says,
"If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;
Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you"
Deuteronomy 22:23-34
The KJV says that if she sleeps with him willingly without crying out, then she should be stoned
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I have said already that because God loves you more than you can imagine, He provided his Son as a way of salvation from Satan's influence. We have a choice to accept that salvation or not.
Satan was not God's fault. Satan chose rebel and got sent to hell.
Give me a verse that blames a rape victim for being raped and I take it all back.
Yeah, God loves you so much that rather than fix you like he can because he's all-powerful (or admit you're not broken), he'll torture you for eternity for being who you are. So loving.
Unless salvation through Jesus can suddenly make a gay person straight?
I wonder if I should get into how roundabout a solution the whole human sacrifice thing is?
BTW:
If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
"If no one heard her scream, she must have wanted it, so kill her." You may excuse this however you like, but this is the classic victim-blaming excuse, and you hear it all the ****ing time.
The KJV says that if she sleeps with him willingly without crying out, then she should be stoned
No, it says that if no one hears her scream, she must have wanted it.
Sin is disobeying God's design. Satan was designed to be an Angel serving God. Sin was around before Satan rebelled. Satan simply chose to sin. Satan has free will just like the angels that joined him.
Ok, so why didn't God stop him before humanity's original sin? After all:
Adam and Eve cursed themselves by eating the fruit. God cursed the world by his mercy so that they could live in it. Essentially ruining his creation so that the humans who cursed themeselves could have a second chance.
Unless we forget the whole "Satan took the form of a snake and tempted Eve into eating the fruit" thing, of course.
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ok, so sin was around before the fall of man and before the fall of lucifer? where did it come from?
I often hear that the reason god no longer reveals himself to humanity is because it would violate our free will, do you prescribe to that and if so how do you recon that with the fact that satan who has intimate experience of gods presence chose to rebel?
Sin is not really a "thing" that exists. It's just not obeying what God has designed you to do. It's hard for me to understand as well. If you choose to have an intimate relationship with God, then he will reveal himself to you through prayer, reading the word, or in dreams. He won't necessarily come to you suddenly or dramatically. He might visit you through your conscience. He still visits people today.
Satan rebelled because he thought he was powerful enough to challenge God. I don't know where he got that notion. It's like a child rebelling against his parents even though he probably knows that he will get caught. I can't fully reason why anyone does what they do.
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Satan rebelled because he thought he was powerful enough to challenge God. I don't know where he got that notion. It's like a child rebelling against his parents even though he probably knows that he will get caught. I can't fully reason why anyone does what they do.
Well, given that he can apparently make people gay and God can't fix them...
And he needs a whole human sacrifice to forgive, which is something I'm perfectly capable of doing without any sort of blood sacrifice at all...
It says a lot about either God's power, intelligence, or morality.
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I have said already that because God loves you more than you can imagine, He provided his Son as a way of salvation from Satan's influence. We have a choice to accept that salvation or not.
Satan was not God's fault. Satan chose rebel and got sent to hell.
Give me a verse that blames a rape victim for being raped and I take it all back.
Yeah, God loves you so much that rather than fix you like he can because he's all-powerful (or admit you're not broken), he'll torture you for eternity for being who you are. So loving.
Unless salvation through Jesus can suddenly make a gay person straight?
I wonder if I should get into how roundabout a solution the whole human sacrifice thing is?
BTW:
If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
"If no one heard her scream, she must have wanted it, so kill her." You may excuse this however you like, but this is the classic victim-blaming excuse, and you hear it all the ****ing time.
The KJV says that if she sleeps with him willingly without crying out, then she should be stoned
No, it says that if no one hears her scream, she must have wanted it.
Sin is disobeying God's design. Satan was designed to be an Angel serving God. Sin was around before Satan rebelled. Satan simply chose to sin. Satan has free will just like the angels that joined him.
Ok, so why didn't God stop him before humanity's original sin? After all:
Adam and Eve cursed themselves by eating the fruit. God cursed the world by his mercy so that they could live in it. Essentially ruining his creation so that the humans who cursed themeselves could have a second chance.
Unless we forget the whole "Satan took the form of a snake and tempted Eve into eating the fruit" thing, of course.
If God fixed you without your consent, he would be violating your free-will. You have to choose to accept Jesus for God to fix you. I don't know why he gave us free-will. Some things we can't understand. And yes, salvation through Jesus can make someone straight. Look it up.
About the woman sleeping with the man, Jesus forgave the woman who was caught committing adultery even though the law said she must be stoned. We must always consult God before making decisions especially before stoning somebody. He knows everything. Back then, cities were tiny with tiny houses. If she screamed, someone would have heard her.
God could not have prevented Satan from rebelling because then He would have violated Satan's free will.
Remember, Satan "tempted" Eve to take the fruit. He did not force her. She knew it was wrong to take the fruit and she decided to take it anyway. It was also Adam's fault because he wasn't around to help her decide. Two heads are better than one. I'm not saying that Adam would have been able to resist any better than Eve but together, they probably would have. That's an example of God's design for marriage btw.
You are not just and without sin. Neither am I. Our forgiveness towards others does not erase their sin because someone needs to pay for that sin. Someone needs to pay because God is just and cannot tolerate sin. In the old times, animals were killed to pay for sin. Now, Jesus paid for our sin. We live because Jesus died and paid for our sin. Jesus rose again and is our "lawyer" so to speak. If we don't accept what Jesus did for us, then we have to pay anyway. It's like someone offering to pay for your monetary debt with the IRS. If you don't accept you have to pay up.
I have made my case and I'm going to sleep now. Good night and God bless.
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And yes, salvation through Jesus can make someone straight. Look it up.
I have no words. What the **** is wrong with you?
About the woman sleeping with the man, Jesus forgave the woman who was caught committing adultery even though the law said she must be stoned. We must always consult God before making decisions especially before stoning somebody. He knows everything. Back then, cities were tiny with tiny houses. If she screamed, someone would have heard her.
And if she was gagged, well obviously she wanted it.
It doesn't really matter if God knows everything because he doesn't actually share that info. This is why trials are a thing. God doesn't come down from heaven and point the finger at the guilty.
And I don't know about you, but I don't have any issues forgiving people without a blood sacrifice. It's actually really easy. I just do it. Hm, I must be better at forgiveness than your god is.
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It wasn't his choice. People are born gay or straight. At no point is there a conscious or unconscious decision to prefer men or women. This isn't in doubt. It's not something you can argue against. It's simple fact.
God made him that way, and will sentence him to eternal torture if he doesn't resist the urge God programmed into him.
It is not proven that people are born gay or straight. But it is a possibility.
However even if environment later in life contributes, it is still not a choice. Nobody can choose their sexual orientation because it is not controlled by conscious brain. Choice only comes into it when talking about homosexual sex acts. I dont think it is a sin to be gay, just to act on it.
Its nothing new, lots of people have subconscious tendency to be violent or commit other sins, and they were made that way by genetics and childhood environment, by no fault of their own. Are they still responsible for their actions in the eyes of a christian god? What about psychopaths who cannot into morality because their brain is wired that way from childhood, would it be an excuse?
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And I don't know about you, but I don't have any issues forgiving people without a blood sacrifice. It's actually really easy. I just do it. Hm, I must be better at forgiveness than your god is.
lol, that's something I never thought of.
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It is not proven that people are born gay or straight. But it is a possibility.
However even if environment later in life contributes, it is still not a choice. Nobody can choose their sexual orientation because it is not controlled by conscious brain. Choice only comes into it when talking about homosexual sex acts. I dont think it is a sin to be gay, just to act on it.
So yeah, sorry gay people, you have to live a life without sex or you'll go to hell forever. It's not your fault you're this way, and there's actually no harm in it at all, but that doesn't matter to God. He'll judge you for it anyway.
And it's a pretty well supported possibility. It's not "we think it's this, but it could just as well be a choice". It's more "there's a significant amount of scientific data supporting the theory that homosexuality is a result of biology." Don't try to weaken this with the "it's just a theory" argument. It doesn't work for evolution, and it doesn't work for this.
Its nothing new, lots of people have subconscious tendency to be violent or commit other sins, and they were made that way by genetics and childhood environment, by no fault of their own. Are they still responsible for their actions in the eyes of a christian god? What about psychopaths who cannot into morality because their brain is wired that way from childhood, would it be an excuse?
Are we seriously equating "two consenting adults of the same sex sleeping with each other" with "criminal violence and psychopathy"? You've got to be kidding me.
Here's the difference, if you need me to spell it out: one of these things doesn't harm anyone. You get three guesses for which it is.
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The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils' party without knowing it.
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Here's the difference, if you need me to spell it out: one of these things doesn't harm anyone. You get three guesses for which it is.
You dont need to tell me. I was merely playing a devils advocate. I believe it is totaly OK to have homosexual sex. But there are religious people who believe otherwise, and for them the analogy holds.
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I believe it is totaly OK to have homosexual sex. But there are religious people who believe otherwise, and for them the analogy holds.
I dont think it is a sin to be gay, just to act on it.
Look, maslo, if you want to play Devil's Advocate, that's fine.
But you really should make sure that when you do, the opinions in question are marked as such, and are not so easily mistaken for your own views. Wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong impression, right?
(Or, to be more clear: If you think that having homosexual sex is perfectly OK, don't make posts that tell everyone that you think acting on homosexual desires is sin)
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Who said there was anything wrong with sin?
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I believe it is totaly OK to have homosexual sex. But there are religious people who believe otherwise, and for them the analogy holds.
I dont think it is a sin to be gay, just to act on it.
Look, maslo, if you want to play Devil's Advocate, that's fine.
But you really should make sure that when you do, the opinions in question are marked as such, and are not so easily mistaken for your own views. Wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong impression, right?
(Or, to be more clear: If you think that having homosexual sex is perfectly OK, don't make posts that tell everyone that you think acting on homosexual desires is sin)
Yeah, I should have worded that better. I meant it in the sense that religions defined it as a sin, so its a sin. But IMHO there is nothing wrong with many things religions define as sins, however if someone believes that all sins are evil, the analogy makes sense - they would consider it evil whether homosexuality is a choice or not (its not).