(March 12, 2016 at 8:23 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(March 12, 2016 at 8:20 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Ok big bang happens, no cause. Now what? Everything keeps existing and existing without anything causing and maintaining it's existence? Or do quarks cause and maintain their own existence constantly?

This is not the cosmological argument. It has nothing to do with how things started. I'm not talking beginning, but about constant existence needing constant cause. 

I don't believe quarks cause themselves to exist, rather, I believe it's more rational to believe in supernatural existing being causing them to exist.

How did you determine that these things require anything to maintain their existence? All you've done thus far is assert that.

In the same way I know they can't come from nothing without cause, that is being non-existence and then existing with no cause, I know they are in need of cause to exist.

(March 12, 2016 at 8:18 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(March 12, 2016 at 8:07 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Yeah, it's pretty clear that Catholic_Lady thinks "objective" means "super duper."  She thinks killing and rape are super duper bad, and therefore objectively evil.

No. It is true that objectively immoral acts are very bad, but what it means specifically is that the act is immoral, period. It is not a matter of opinion. If someone says "oh I think rape is good", that person would be incorrect. It's different from your opinion of what the best tasting food is, for example, where there is no correct or incorrect answer, but is merely just a matter of personal opinion and taste.

I don't think so.  Wouldn't he just disagree?  He dissents from God's opinion/rule/call-it-what-you-will.  Given free will his morality merely does not coincide with God's.  He is only 'wrong' if he was in fact attempting to predict God's rule.  Perhaps he wasn't?

(March 12, 2016 at 8:06 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: It's obvious I cannot be causing the whole universe to exist.

Nope. Wrong. It is not obvious by any stretch of the imagination. As we are truly "brains-in-a-vat", it is entirely conceivable that everything you perceive is nothing more than your own local reality created in your mind.

(March 12, 2016 at 7:24 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(March 12, 2016 at 6:53 pm)pocaracas Wrote: So.... conceptually... what's the difference between a non-interventionalist god and a non-existent god?

Well, you're asking a theist that lol. If God didn't exist I don't think anything would exist at all.

World's fastest proof of god:

P - If God didn't exist, nothing would exist.
P - The world exists.

C - God exists.

(March 12, 2016 at 8:25 pm)IATIA Wrote:

(March 12, 2016 at 8:06 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: It's obvious I cannot be causing the whole universe to exist.

Nope. Wrong.  It is not obvious by any stretch of the imagination.  As we are truly "brains-in-a-vat", it is entirely conceivable that everything you perceive is nothing more than your own local reality created in your mind.

It can be said as a possibility but it's not conceivable to me. I know I don't have the power to be constantly maintaining the existence of myself. 

I know for certain I am not moving time, moment to moment. I know the flow is not in my hands.

(March 12, 2016 at 8:24 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote:

(March 12, 2016 at 8:18 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: No. It is true that objectively immoral acts are very bad, but what it means specifically is that the act is immoral, period. It is not a matter of opinion. If someone says "oh I think rape is good", that person would be incorrect. It's different from your opinion of what the best tasting food is, for example, where there is no correct or incorrect answer, but is merely just a matter of personal opinion and taste.

I don't think so.  Wouldn't he just disagree?  He dissents from God's opinion/rule/call-it-what-you-will.  Given free will his morality merely does not coincide with God's.  He is only 'wrong' if he was in fact attempting to predict God's rule.  Perhaps he wasn't?

Yes, he would disagree, but he would be incorrect. It's like if I disagreed that 2+2=4. I could disagree all day, but I'd still be wrong. What we believe is that the person who thinks rape is good is wrong because we believe rape is objectively immoral. That's what objectively immoral means.

(March 12, 2016 at 8:29 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: It can be said as a possibility but it's not conceivable to me. I know I don't have the power to be constantly maintaining the existence of myself. 

I know for certain I am not moving time, moment to moment. I know the flow is not in my hands.

You do it in a dream.

(March 12, 2016 at 6:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(March 12, 2016 at 6:01 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: If I knew my toddler son will choose to wander out onto a freeway, and I did nothing, would i not be complicit in his death?

Are we not toddlers compared to your god and your devil?

I don't know what we are compared to God. 

The difference between a human parent running out to grab their toddler son off the street, and God changing things that would naturally happen, is that for God to do it would require divine intervention. And like Tibs said, you start getting into a slippery slope. Why didn't God stop the toddler from getting hit by a car? Why didn't God stop my brother from getting severe food poisoning last week? Why didn't God prevent me from stubbing my toe? If God were to prevent every negative thing that were about to happen, we wouldn't have free will anymore.

Nonsense. Preventing someone from stubbing their toe inhabits a different moral dimension than allowing them to die by your own inaction.

If you think otherwise, your moral values are not my cup of tea anyways.

Furthermore, what is the point of praying if divine intervention is off-limits? (I'm assuming you pray).

Sorry, by allowing your god a heartlessness and deadly disinterest that you'd castigate if you saw it in a human, you're demonstrating that your morality is subjective -- it changes according the the point-of-view of the moral actor.

(March 12, 2016 at 8:18 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(March 12, 2016 at 8:07 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Yeah, it's pretty clear that Catholic_Lady thinks "objective" means "super duper."  She thinks killing and rape are super duper bad, and therefore objectively evil.

No. It is true that objectively immoral acts are very bad, but what it means specifically is that the act is immoral, period. It is not a matter of opinion. If someone says "oh I think rape is good", that person would be incorrect. It's different from your opinion of what the best tasting food is, for example, where there is no correct or incorrect answer, but is merely just a matter of personal opinion and taste.

The sad fact is that not all people think rape is bad, because there are rapists, and not all of them think what they are doing is bad; they may for example think they are getting revenge against society, or that they are entitled to sex which nobody will give them freely, or that women's feelings about their own bodies don't matter.  So it is, in fact, a matter of opinion.

Your view is this: There are people who see that rape is objectively bad, and they are right.  There are others, who commit rape, and they are wrong.

Now my turn: There are people who see that the Beatles are objectively good, and they are right.  There are others who don't "get" that, and they are wrong.


You are still talking about opinions-- you just happen to be discarding the opinions of people who disagree with you.

(March 12, 2016 at 8:33 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Yes, he would disagree, but he would be incorrect. It's like if I disagreed that 2+2=4. I could disagree all day, but I'd still be wrong.

Yes, and a dog isn't the word "pontificate," cuz, you know, it's a dog. But you haven't explained what morality is, nor, I think, can you.