If you want to understand God, seek God. It is not that hard to find God. I did, when I found God, things felt much different from when I started looking.

(March 17, 2013 at 4:56 pm)jstrodel Wrote: When two people who are spiritually mature talk to each other, you can see the Holy Spirit flowing.

In case there are any young folk in our audience tonight, I want to direct a special message exclusively to you.

Children, this is what happens to your brain when you do drugs. Don't do drugs. Drugs are bad. Mmmmkay.

(March 17, 2013 at 6:06 pm)jstrodel Wrote: If you want to understand God, seek God. It is not that hard to find God. I did, when I found God, things felt much different from when I started looking.

Going from one addiction to another?

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(March 17, 2013 at 6:08 pm)apophenia Wrote: In case there are any young folk in our audience tonight, I want to direct a special message exclusively to you.

Children, this is what happens to your brain when you do drugs. Don't do drugs. Drugs are bad. Mmmmkay.

Alrighty then Mr. Mackey.

(March 17, 2013 at 6:09 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote:

(March 17, 2013 at 6:06 pm)jstrodel Wrote: If you want to understand God, seek God. It is not that hard to find God. I did, when I found God, things felt much different from when I started looking.

Going from one addiction to another?

Karl Marx Wrote:Religion is the opiate of the masses.

(March 17, 2013 at 6:06 pm)jstrodel Wrote: If you want to understand God, seek God. It is not that hard to find God. I did, when I found God, things felt much different from when I started looking.

I spent much of my adult life actively seeking God. You have all the evidence you need to see how well that turned out.

I could seek God, and perhaps through a combination of events even convince myself that I've found him. I could be every bit as certain as you are. Even more certain. That would not still not prove a thing. Like you, I've fallen victim in the past to believing things because I wanted them to be true. Unlike you, I try to avoid it.

(March 17, 2013 at 6:06 pm)jstrodel Wrote: If you want to understand God, seek God. It is not that hard to find God. I did, when I found God, things felt much different from when I started looking.

That's bullshit. God is one of the most difficult things in the world to believe in because the concept is so ridiculous. We're talking about an invisible, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent being floating somewhere in the sky. There's more supporting evidence for alien abductions than for the existence of God, and don't even get me started on how ridiculous THAT is.

Seek and ye shall find.


Indubitably. The problem is, it doesn't matter what you seek, you'll still find it. If you want to seek evidence that you've been abducted by aliens, you will find it. You can insert anything in that equation and it becomes true. Therefore, seek and ye shall find becomes evidence for nothing, along the same lines as the comment that an explanation which explains anything whatsoever, explains absolutely nothing.

(March 17, 2013 at 6:12 pm)Ryantology Wrote: I spent much of my adult life actively seeking God. You have all the evidence you need to see how well that turned out.

What did you do to seek him? Did you read a bunch of books about philosophy or did you sanctify yourself?

People have their own conditions of what God needs to do to prove themselves to H'Shem, but God has H'Shem's own standards of what they must do to find God. The standard is not really related to knowledge it is about holiness. Peoples sin separates them from God. God will be angry with people until they turn away from sin. If you want to understand God, sanctify yourself.

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(March 17, 2013 at 6:11 pm)futilethewinds Wrote:

(March 17, 2013 at 6:09 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote: Going from one addiction to another?

Karl Marx Wrote:Religion is the opiate of the masses.

It takes much more faith to believe that Marx's unfalsifiable, false predictions end up resembling anything other than political propaganda disguised as social science research than to believe God exists.

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Quote:Alrighty then Mr. Mackey.

Minor threat fan?

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Could you just accept for a moment there are some situations in which empathy is not the most important virtue? Real life is different from Oprah, you know? If you go to work, you work 60 hours a week to feed your family, what guides you most of the time? Is it empathy? Or are there many, many virtues that work together. There is no one that is more important than another. They are virtues.

You used working 60 hours a week to feed your family as an example of something that doesn't need empathy. Don't you think that the primary motivation to care for them comes from empathy? Unless you meant that empathy wouldn't get the work done, in which case you'd be right.

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote: It is the epitome of liberal sophistry to say that empathy is the only virtue necessary in life. [/quote[
Good thing I never said anything like that.
[quote='jstrodel' pid='416167' dateline='1363553357']

Quote:Naturally, I disagree. Justice, when morailty is severely breached, would often not be considered moral outside of the domain of justice, I should note.

I am not sure what this means. You still havn't grounded the authority of empathy in anything other than feelings.

Locking someone up would usually be considered immoral. Now, if you are putting a violent criminal in prision (i.e. justice) then it wouldn't be immoral. Humans are not machines, nor should they act like they are. That is why some feelings matter. But it isn't just that. Empathy can be used to asses how much harm or help an action would cause to someone by placing yourself in their situation.

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote: I don't think I am getting through to you. I understand human rights are important, that is why I am making this argument: your belief system can't defend against them.

You're right, they can't defend against the concept of human rights. Human rights were defined by humans, they can't exist apart from humans to create them. Just because they are a concept developed by humans does no instantly invalidate them (although you will probably disagree).

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote:

Quote:You will need to define "authority" then.

If someone says "You cannot murder", authority is what gives the statement weight that is greater than an opinion.

Now it is even more vaguely defined than before. Should I say that "authority" is the combination of empathy and reason, then?

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote:

Quote:Okay, so how do you determine exactly how much authority they have?

By comparing their actions to a measure of Christian ethics. If their actions are good, they have authority. They also have authority just because they are in certain elected positions. But at a certain point, they lose that authority.

So you pressupose that Christian ethics are the ultimate moral code. What exactly are Christian ethics, anyway? Does it contain all of that terrible OT stuff too?

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote: How does this explain why people should accept their biological behavior. If naturalism is true, how does evolutionary traits that encode morality carry greater weight than evolutionary traits that encode appendix's or cancer? What is the standard that you use to separate them, and how could someone else not make another standard?

I would argue that biological evidence in favor of evolutionary processes that formed people to be moral people could be evidence of God's imparting people with a cognitive nature that could deal with moral problems. I am not sure about that.

Did you ignore the part where I said:

I Wrote:It should be noted that morality didn't evolve purely out of genetic change, but from societal constructs that would, you know, keep it from becoming a free for all where the greediest and most selfish prevailed.

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Where do the rights come from? Did they exist before the constitution? Was there a time in which they didn't exist? Are the rights people opinions or do they refer to something else?

Rights sort of come from the government. At least in the sense that they are the thing that is supposed to protect your rights. They can technically take away your rights at any time, though this does not mean they are justified in doing it (and there might be riots). Historically, I'm not sure if they existed before the constitution (it depends on what is defined as a right). Human rights didn't exist before humans, at least. You could call them opinions if you wanted, but there are strong reasons supporting their existence that are seperate fromn people's feelings (society would eventually fall apart without them, greatly reducing most people's chances for survival...that or we'd all live under a tyrannical dictatorship).

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote:

Quote:I don't worship the founding fathers just because I agree that human rights are good. The difference between us is that you think the founding fathers need to be like religious thinkers, whereas I don't think religion is necessary.

But you are elevating the opinions of the founding fathers to be above other human opinions. What makes them more authoritative? Why are the founding fathers more important than say, the leaders of France in the 14th century? What makes the founding fathers so special that they are able to define, absolutely, the nature of human rights?

Nothing makes them special in the regard you say. A talking chicken could have come up with human rights and I would still agree that it is a good ides. Then again, a talking chicken would be pretty special...

(March 17, 2013 at 4:49 pm)jstrodel Wrote: If you were God, wouldn't you reveal yourself in the open? Wouldn't you make it easy for people to follow you?

Yeah...so why doesn't god do that? Or are you saying he does so through religious "authority"? There are some theists at AF who aren't too fond of the Roman Catholic Church.

[quote]
You used working 60 hours a week to feed your family as an example of something that doesn't need empathy. Don't you think that the primary motivation to care for them comes from empathy? Unless you meant that empathy wouldn't get the work done, in which case you'd be right.
[/quote]

Not exclusively. Empathy is one virtue or psychological process, and an important one. But empathy is not the only one

[quote]
Good thing I never said anything like that.
[/quote]

Good thing. Wisdom comes when you see things for what they are, not what you want them to be, or someone else wants you to think they are.
When you abandon all of your selfish desires and desire nothing other than to know, and understand, and see clearly, apart from anything else moving you, just to be aware and to listen, not trusting your mind or anyone elses mind, just listening, trying to understand not only the particular thing in front of you but how everything fits together, and you listen, and listen, and pray, then you will find God.

[quote]
Locking someone up would usually be considered immoral. Now, if you are putting a violent criminal in prision (i.e. justice) then it wouldn't be immoral. Humans are not machines, nor should they act like they are. That is why some feelings matter. But it isn't just that. Empathy can be used to asses how much harm or help an action would cause to someone by placing yourself in their situation.
[/quote]

I agree that empathy is a tool for responding to human nature, but it does not ground empathetic desires philosophically, it raises the question of why they are there and what causes them.


[quote]
You're right, they can't defend against the concept of human rights. Human rights were defined by humans, they can't exist apart from humans to create them. Just because they are a concept developed by humans does no instantly invalidate them (although you will probably disagree).
[/quote]

But to call human rights opinions ignores the large amount of data that suggests that they are not opinions, many would call this data from intuition far more meaningful than the psuedo-religion of naturalism.


Either human rights are explained teleologically (people are designed) or they are opinions

necessarily (A v B)
either A and ~B - Teleological/God explanation for rights, deny naturalism
or ~A and B - evidence that rights are teleological is false, accept naturalism

There is a massive amount of evidence to say that A is true, from every single civilization.

What you are saying is completely contrary to ordinary language in almost every single society. The human experience captures an appraisal of the nature of morality as something that is not reducible to opinions. Indeed, to suggest so would bring sharp rebuke and condemnation in almost every single society in history.

It is not simply that you are moving one idea to another, you are substantially changing the course of human history and removing a great deal of the collective perceptions that humans have had on the nature of their existence. What you are doing is very serious and very evil. Human rights are not reducible to opinions, as the overwhelming witness of history says.

[quote]
Now it is even more vaguely defined than before. Should I say that "authority" is the combination of empathy and reason, then?
[/quote]

No, it is not a combination of either. Those are tools to perceive the nature of authority, not to define it. If you saw a man who through using a combination of empathy and reason sought to fill his house with canned food because he believed the apocalypse was coming, that would not give the mans actions authority. That is to say, empathy and reason are not sufficient conditions for ethics. It is possible to have any number of possible courses of actions that could be based to some degree on empathy and reason and be wrong. Empathy could be channeled towards false ends, for instance, a defense attorney could arouse a sense of empathy for a crooked CEO on trial. Reason could be used to seemingly ground the belief in what was supposedly true. But the person is still guilty. Empathy is not a sufficient condition for the authority of morals.

[quote]
So you pressupose that Christian ethics are the ultimate moral code. What exactly are Christian ethics, anyway Does it contain all of that terrible OT stuff too?
[/quote]

Christian ethics, I would not limit to Christians only as I believe Muslims, Jews, other faiths can be saved, involve people perception of the divine nature inside of them, responding to it like Job and Melchizedek did, that God calls all people to fear God and do what is right. God wants all people to obey God, which means to a large degree, following the command "to love your neighbor as yourself".

[quote]
Did you ignore the part where I said: [quote=I]It should be noted that morality didn't evolve purely out of genetic change, but from societal constructs that would, you know, keep it from becoming a free for all where the greediest and most selfish prevailed.[/quote]

So evolution gave people a wrong idea of morality and then society fixed it? How does that solve the problem?


[quote]Rights sort of come from the government. At least in the sense that they are the thing that is supposed to protect your rights. They can technically take away your rights at any time, though this does not mean they are justified in doing it (and there might be riots).
[/quote]

If rights come from the government, why are people not justified in taking them away. If there is a cause that requires rights to be justified outside the government, then there is some external thing that allows rights or not.
[quote]
Historically, I'm not sure if they existed before the constitution (it depends on what is defined as a right). Human rights didn't exist before humans, at least. You could call them opinions if you wanted, but there are strong reasons supporting their existence that are seperate fromn people's feelings (society would eventually fall apart without them, greatly reducing most people's chances for survival...that or we'd all live under a tyrannical dictatorship).
[/quote]

You are treating society as if it has some sort of value apart from peoples perception of it. Why is that? What makes society valuable, even when people don't consider it to be valuable?

[quote]
Nothing makes them special in the regard you say. A talking chicken could have come up with human rights and I would still agree that it is a good ides. Then again, a talking chicken would be pretty special...
[/quote]

I think that how we treat each other is the most important thing in life. The question of what is the right way to treat others should be given extremely serious consideration.

[quote]Yeah...so why doesn't god do that? Or are you saying he does so through religious "authority"? There are some theists at AF who aren't too fond of the Roman Catholic Church.
[/quote]

HE DOES! GOD DOES DO THAT ALL THE TIME! Sanctify yourself. Go hang around Pentecostals or Charismatics. God does reveal himself.

Yes, there are controversial issues in the church. It is difficult business to run a church and receive revelation from God. Not all spiritual leaders are saved. Not all have the Holy Spirit. You have to look for it. God is real.