(May 19, 2015 at 1:22 am)Esquilax Wrote:

(May 19, 2015 at 12:19 am)Freedom4me Wrote: What evidence leads me to believe there is anything beyond the physical stuff of nature? Well, although you will probably not accept my evidence as testable or verifiable, my evidence is moral absolutes,

Ha ha, whoa: when did you establish the existence of moral absolutes?

I haven't established any moral absolutes.  But I think that some (a few) moral absolutes exist.  One of these is, "You shall have no other gods before Me."  In this commandment, God is saying that He alone is their God even if they turn away from Him and start worshiping one or more false gods.  By this one commandment, all of us are condemned as lawbreakers since  all of us at times have desired some one or something more than God.  For some, the love of money becomes a violation of this command, for others, pride in one's own worthiness, for others, political power.  There are so many things that we humans can place above God in our lives.  I'm a sinner condemned by this law myself.  

(May 19, 2015 at 12:28 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I haven't established any moral absolutes.  But I think that some (a few) moral absolutes exist. 

You have to do the former before honestly doing the latter.

That does sound like something that would be from Christianity. Sadly, Christianity can focus very heavily on making you hate yourself. It sets standards that are so high you are almost certain to fail, and fail constantly.

It's a dirty, disgusting trick. Morality, any morality that matters, is about the wellbeing of life on this planet. It's not about the feelings of undemonstrated magical beings. I'd rather curse god's name all day long than hurt someone. This is another trick: the conflation of sins with actual immoral, harmful acts. If you stop and examine them in this way, you'll see the two are not related except by coincidence.

If God values his ego higher than the wellbeing of humans and animals, then he is not worthy of praise.

(May 19, 2015 at 12:28 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I haven't established any moral absolutes.

Then don't you think using them as justification for your beliefs is a tad premature?

Quote:  But I think that some (a few) moral absolutes exist.

Best get around to demonstrating them first, because "I believe the supernatural exists because I believe moral absolutes exist" is circular reasoning.

Quote:  One of these is, "You shall have no other gods before Me."  In this commandment, God is saying that He alone is their God even if they turn away from Him and start worshiping one or more false gods.  By this one commandment, all of us are condemned as lawbreakers since  all of us at times have desired some one or something more than God.  For some, the love of money becomes a violation of this command, for others, pride in one's own worthiness, for others, political power.  There are so many things that we humans can place above God in our lives.  I'm a sinner condemned by this law myself.  

If you're just going to presuppose a god exists, in order to justify your belief in moral absolutes, in order to justify your belief in the supernatural, in order to justify your belief in god, then we're done here, because that is a perfect circle and you'd do better to just stop wasting our time and use the simplified version: "I believe god exists because I believe god exists."

You need to stop asserting and start demonstrating, because a chain of things you believe is not going to convince anybody. You can't say you believe X thing because you also believe Y thing, when neither of those things has any evidence behind them; you can't cover for one claim with another claim.

How is "You shall have no other gods before Me" anything to do with morality at all, never mind an absolute?

(May 19, 2015 at 12:56 pm)Stimbo Wrote: How is "You shall have no other gods before Me" anything to do with morality at all, never mind an absolute?

It's a moral absolute because god said it, and he believes in god because moral absolutes require a god to... Oh.

His position is so circular, it contains concentric circles of argumentation nested within the larger circle.

(May 19, 2015 at 12:36 pm)robvalue Wrote: That does sound like something that would be from Christianity. Sadly, Christianity can focus very heavily on making you hate yourself. It sets standards that are so high you are almost certain to fail, and fail constantly.

It's a dirty, disgusting trick. Morality, any morality that matters, is about the wellbeing of life on this planet. It's not about the feelings of undemonstrated magical beings. I'd rather curse god's name all day long than hurt someone. This is another trick: the conflation of sins with actual immoral, harmful acts. If you stop and examine them in this way, you'll see the two are not related except by coincidence.

If God values his ego higher than the wellbeing of humans and animals, then he is not worthy of praise.

In part, my reason for bringing up the first commandment is to make the point that we don't actually have to DO something to violate a moral absolute.  If I love money more than God then I condemn myself by my attitude toward money (relative to my attitude toward God) and not by doing something horrible toward others.  Some horrible and detestable crimes are committed every day by people who have taken the attitude that money is more important than anything else.  It always starts with a persons heart; our attitudes about things matter.

(May 19, 2015 at 1:05 pm)Freedom4me Wrote:

(May 19, 2015 at 12:36 pm)robvalue Wrote: That does sound like something that would be from Christianity. Sadly, Christianity can focus very heavily on making you hate yourself. It sets standards that are so high you are almost certain to fail, and fail constantly.

It's a dirty, disgusting trick. Morality, any morality that matters, is about the wellbeing of life on this planet. It's not about the feelings of undemonstrated magical beings. I'd rather curse god's name all day long than hurt someone. This is another trick: the conflation of sins with actual immoral, harmful acts. If you stop and examine them in this way, you'll see the two are not related except by coincidence.

If God values his ego higher than the wellbeing of humans and animals, then he is not worthy of praise.

In part, my reason for bringing up the first commandment is to make the point that we don't actually have to DO something to violate a moral absolute.  If I love money more than God then I condemn myself by my attitude toward money (relative to my attitude toward God) and not by doing something horrible toward others.  Some horrible and detestable crimes are committed every day by people who have taken the attitude that money is more important than anything else.  It always starts with a persons heart; our attitudes about things matter.

So..just your thoughts can be grounds for 'condemnation' by God?

It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim. He's saying that loving anything else more than his pet god is a crime against that god and thus makes you an immoral person. Then without a pause for breath, goes on to redefine "God" as "anything else". To borrow from Sam Harris, if you replace the word "God" with "hairdryer", f4m would probably think that was insane. How does changing the object make any difference?

Valuing money too much can be bad, sure. But what's that got to do with God? Why have you got to love him more than money? Why not love people more than money?

God is utterly irrelevant to wellbeing, the reddest of herrings.