On Hell and Forgiveness

[SteveII]

1. Love is a clear example of a moral virtue (if not the clearest). 
2. Killing babies for no reason constitutes a lack of love and therefore a lack of moral virtue.
3. Yahweh is considered all-loving and therefore defined as having the greatest possible moral virtue at all times.
4. Positive outcomes (harmony, structure, creation, trust, relationships) are better the Negative Outcomes (chaos, destruction, distrust, isolation) for conscious creatures
5. Greater moral virtue is better than lesser moral virtue because it regulates other attributes for more positive/less negative outcomes. 
6. More positive outcomes is better than more negative outcomes.
7. Therefore Yahweh is greater than a god that kills babies.

Just another quick reply, as I may not respond again tonight.

First, #1 is an example of begging the question.  You're essentially assuming what you set out to prove, that killing babies is immoral, you're simply introducing an element of indirection.  Whether you claim that baby killing violates a moral standard or that baby killing violates some other moral standard, you are claiming that a moral standard exists without showing it.  (Craig makes the same basic mistake in his argument pro God based on the existence of objective morals.  Given your fondness for Craig, perhaps you're following his example too well.)

Second, #4 is also begging the question, as whether any properties have valence at all is at issue.  You're simply assuming that certain outcomes are "positive" and certain outcomes are "negative" (in an objective sense).  That's not something you can simply assume, it's something you need to prove.

This is the primary failure of all your arguments on the matter so far, they are nothing more than assertions that certain things are positive or great making or whatever, and then providing a laundry list of the things you think qualify as such.  Your assertions prove nothing other than, perhaps the poverty of your thinking on this topic.  You need more than an assertion that something is objectively positive or great (very similar terms, btw), you need reasons why they are positive or great, and so far the only reason you've given is that a consciousness would find them so, and that doesn't take them out of the realm of the subjective; it actually undermines your argument.  For the sake of clarity, I don't need to show that something is, in a phrase, "mere preference" to show that it is subjective.  Just that it depends upon mental constructs or operations, as the question is not whether greatest is a preference as opposed to some other mental feature, but whether it is an arbitrary standard dependent upon the biases resulting from the development of mind, and not existing independent of any such biases.  So far, nothing you've argued has been anything more than ipse dixit.  In order for your belief that there is a greatest possible being to be rational, you need reasons for why certain things are or are not great that are not subjective, and not just assertions that they are.  I'm sure that you can assert and provide me with laundry lists all day.  That doesn't mean jack squat.  You need more than that.

If you ever manage to provide that, then we can discuss the difficulties that Poly has introduced.  Until you do, I'm not going to waste words on the matter.  And I will remind you that you are making a positive case here.  Your original argument was using the existence of God as the greatest possible being to justify his morality.  If you can't justify his greatest possible being, that argument falls apart.  So provide me with something more than a mere restatement of your beliefs in the form of bare assertions and laundry lists, please!

It may by that I cannot prove objective morality in this scenario. But I think I show (and could support) that some system of moral system based on outcomes is sufficient to show that a God that does not kill babies for no reason is better than one that does. This ties back to the earlier discussion on the attributes of God. We may not be able to ascertain that is is the greatest manifestation of an attribute, but we can reason to an approximation that gets the idea across. 

Also, discussing God's attributes depends on your particular project. If you are doing natural theology, you end up with a much smaller list with metaphysical underpinnings and some reasoning (powerful, first cause, eternal, timeless, immaterial and personal). If you are doing systemic theology, you would take in any revelations to fill in the picture. There is still plenty of inferring to do, but there are enough guiding principles to come to a reasonable composite of God's attributes. 

As far as Poly's point, wondering about pairs of attributes and the coherence of their combined greatness only applies if you are solely relying on natural theology. Christians don't solely rely on natural theology. So the incoherence charge evaporates because there is a decent amount of structure of God's attributes described in and inferred from the revelations cataloged in the Bible.

[Cecelia]

Is someone really arguing Yahweh doesn't kill babies? I mean it's right there in the bible. He LOVED killing him some babies. Especially in Floods.

[SteveII]

Why would he do such a thing? If only the passage explained it...oh wait:

Apparently having the sins of the entire world about to be put on your shoulders has an effect. Who would have thought!

An effect that involves fear of suffering. You went back a few verses to look for the words you wanted, but how about you try to translate Mark 14:36 in light of your interpretation that it was just sorrow. Was Jesus simply just too sorrowful to want to suffer for humankind?

"Oh, I'm not scared or anything, but it gives me much sorrow to have to suffer for others!"

Yeah, right. How about you check this quote from John Calvin on this passage:

Christ, amidst fear and sadness, was weak without any taint of sin.

Well, you failed at showing Jesus showed fear, so isn't this all moot?

That's mainstream Christian teaching, Steve. It's not my personal interpretation. You think you have it all figured out, do you?

If Jesus showed fear, then this means fear and consequently bravery becomes relevant when it comes to God's "great-making" properties. Since your God saw it fit to experience various weaknesses in human flesh, all these weaknesses should become a matter of consideration in deciding what makes for divine greatness. You can no longer argue that your God does not experience fear if he can indeed do so (according to your favorite book).

Wait, you think that God the Son, through which all of creation came into existence, feared physical pain? I would agree that his human nature did not want to endure the actual pain of the cross, but the mind of Jesus was divine and therefore not susceptible to human fear. Jorm was right, it is about your particular Christology. You are just winging it--not that it lines up with some framework you have thought out. 

In fact, all your bluster about "mainstream Christian teaching" is an empty claim when you cannot even correctly characterize what Jesus was facing (as you said: "scared"). He was facing having the entire sins of the world (of all times) put on his shoulders. Because of his divine nature, he was very clear on what that meant--even as we cannot fathom what that means. In fact, the weight of that killed his human nature before the cross could. So, you tell me...IF Jesus knew that having the sins of the world put on his shoulders would kill him before some pretty barbaric physical torture could, what do you think was more on his mind in the garden? 

[polymath257]

An effect that involves fear of suffering. You went back a few verses to look for the words you wanted, but how about you try to translate Mark 14:36 in light of your interpretation that it was just sorrow. Was Jesus simply just too sorrowful to want to suffer for humankind?

"Oh, I'm not scared or anything, but it gives me much sorrow to have to suffer for others!"

Yeah, right. How about you check this quote from John Calvin on this passage:



That's mainstream Christian teaching, Steve. It's not my personal interpretation. You think you have it all figured out, do you?

If Jesus showed fear, then this means fear and consequently bravery becomes relevant when it comes to God's "great-making" properties. Since your God saw it fit to experience various weaknesses in human flesh, all these weaknesses should become a matter of consideration in deciding what makes for divine greatness. You can no longer argue that your God does not experience fear if he can indeed do so (according to your favorite book).

Wait, you think that God the Son, through which all of creation came into existence, feared physical pain? I would agree that his human nature did not want to endure the actual pain of the cross, but the mind of Jesus was divine and therefore not susceptible to human fear. Jorm was right, it is about your particular Christology. You are just winging it--not that it lines up with some framework you have thought out. 

In fact, all your bluster about "mainstream Christian teaching" is an empty claim when you cannot even correctly characterize what Jesus was facing (as you said: "scared"). He was facing having the entire sins of the world (of all times) put on his shoulders. Because of his divine nature, he was very clear on what that meant--even as we cannot fathom what that means. In fact, the weight of that killed his human nature before the cross could. So, you tell me...IF Jesus knew that having the sins of the world put on his shoulders would kill him before some pretty barbaric physical torture could, what do you think was more on his mind in the garden? 

Really? The sins would kill him before the torture?

Wow. Christian mythology is even stranger than I thought.

[Amarok]

Wait, you think that God the Son, through which all of creation came into existence, feared physical pain? I would agree that his human nature did not want to endure the actual pain of the cross, but the mind of Jesus was divine and therefore not susceptible to human fear. Jorm was right, it is about your particular Christology. You are just winging it--not that it lines up with some framework you have thought out. 

In fact, all your bluster about "mainstream Christian teaching" is an empty claim when you cannot even correctly characterize what Jesus was facing (as you said: "scared"). He was facing having the entire sins of the world (of all times) put on his shoulders. Because of his divine nature, he was very clear on what that meant--even as we cannot fathom what that means. In fact, the weight of that killed his human nature before the cross could. So, you tell me...IF Jesus knew that having the sins of the world put on his shoulders would kill him before some pretty barbaric physical torture could, what do you think was more on his mind in the garden? 

Really? The sins would kill him before the torture?

Wow. Christian mythology is even stranger than I thought.

Strange is a very polite way of putting it

[The Grand Nudger]

OFC, jesus, being both fully human and fully divine, could not lack important characteristics of human personhood...or the sacrifice would be diminished.  That was the point of including his nature as one of the central mysteries and tenets of the orthodox faiths.  The heterodox think that you're a loon through and through.  How could an entity be fully human, in a sacrificially meaningful way, if it were deficient in such basic and defining virtues of humanity?  To face fear, and be brave?  How many lives is such a hollow sacrifice worth?  You hear the same comments employed today, though more often by non-believers than by priests and other assorted shamans, as was the situation in the past.  

This was the drama that played out near the birth of the faith which you have..in your pig headed certainty that yours is the True Doctrine™, just shit on.  

-but do go again, listing off things your greatest god -can't- do.  That's sure to make it sound less and less silly.

[GrandizerII]

An effect that involves fear of suffering. You went back a few verses to look for the words you wanted, but how about you try to translate Mark 14:36 in light of your interpretation that it was just sorrow. Was Jesus simply just too sorrowful to want to suffer for humankind?

"Oh, I'm not scared or anything, but it gives me much sorrow to have to suffer for others!"

Yeah, right. How about you check this quote from John Calvin on this passage:



That's mainstream Christian teaching, Steve. It's not my personal interpretation. You think you have it all figured out, do you?

If Jesus showed fear, then this means fear and consequently bravery becomes relevant when it comes to God's "great-making" properties. Since your God saw it fit to experience various weaknesses in human flesh, all these weaknesses should become a matter of consideration in deciding what makes for divine greatness. You can no longer argue that your God does not experience fear if he can indeed do so (according to your favorite book).

Wait, you think that God the Son, through which all of creation came into existence, feared physical pain? I would agree that his human nature did not want to endure the actual pain of the cross, but the mind of Jesus was divine and therefore not susceptible to human fear. Jorm was right, it is about your particular Christology. You are just winging it--not that it lines up with some framework you have thought out. 

In fact, all your bluster about "mainstream Christian teaching" is an empty claim when you cannot even correctly characterize what Jesus was facing (as you said: "scared"). He was facing having the entire sins of the world (of all times) put on his shoulders. Because of his divine nature, he was very clear on what that meant--even as we cannot fathom what that means. In fact, the weight of that killed his human nature before the cross could. So, you tell me...IF Jesus knew that having the sins of the world put on his shoulders would kill him before some pretty barbaric physical torture could, what do you think was more on his mind in the garden? 

It doesn't matter what he really feared. What matters for my point is that he experienced fear and other human weaknesses. I'm glad, by the way, that you've backtracked a little to concede that Jesus did experience fear according to the Bible.

But anyway, I'm well aware that you Christians have been conditioned to spiritualize almost everything that happened with Jesus, including this account of the Garden of Gethsemane. It's not like I've never attended sermons by Christian pastors elaborating on passages such as this, or done some Bible study sessions. So whatever, I'm all too happy to grant you that Jesus feared spiritual suffering, even if taken literally, the passage implies that he feared physical suffering.

But whatever it may be, he still experienced fear. That's all the point I'm trying to make here. Again, if your god is somehow able to experience human weakness via incarnation, then that's a problem for your argument that bravery cannot be considered a viable candidate for one of the great-making property for your god. Somehow, your god is able to be "beyond divine" by experiencing human weakness. How? No idea. But if he can experience fear, than bravery is something that can be applied to him as well.

Of course, theologians don't call the Christian God "brave", but we're not just doing theology here. If there's fear, then there's potential for bravery or courage or whatever you want to call it.

The real point to be made, though, is what others have argued earlier. That you're simply picking and choosing what goes into the set of great-making properties for the divine and what doesn't.

[Neo-Scholastic]

OFC, jesus, being both fully human and fully divine, could not lack important characteristics of human personhood...or the sacrifice would be diminished.  That was the point of including his nature as one of the central mysteries and tenets of the orthodox faiths.  The heterodox think that you're a loon through and through.  How could an entity be fully human, in a sacrificially meaningful way, if it were deficient in such basic and defining virtues of humanity?

I get it. :-) That was one of the central paradoxes that prompted my prior atheism. That and the Trinity. Neither made any sense to me until I started to read Swedenborg's True Christianity. Similarly, the Eucharist didn't make sense to me until I delved deeper into the Scholastics. Both were kind of like calculus, I struggled mightily because it was so foreign. But once I really got a handle on the concepts, it all started to fit together. Today, I probably couldn't explain how to work the simplest "diffy-Q" but the general understanding and respect for its beauty remains.

[Whateverist]

Some of us don't have a belief that needs servicing or maintenance.

Yeah, its easier to never examine one's convictions.

I think he is referring to the maintenance of a predetermined conclusion come hell or high-water. Personally, no matter how faithfully a belief has served me I would prefer to always allow its extinction when a better one becomes apparent. That sort of open marketplace of ideas isn't available to you so long as you serve the preservation of that cherished Belief of yours.

[GrandizerII]

OFC, jesus, being both fully human and fully divine, could not lack important characteristics of human personhood...or the sacrifice would be diminished.  That was the point of including his nature as one of the central mysteries and tenets of the orthodox faiths.  The heterodox think that you're a loon through and through.  How could an entity be fully human, in a sacrificially meaningful way, if it were deficient in such basic and defining virtues of humanity?

I get it. :-) That was one of the central paradoxes that prompted my prior atheism. That and the Trinity. Neither made any sense to me until I started to read Swedenborg's True Christianity. Similarly, the Eucharist didn't make sense to me until I delved deeper into the Scholastics. Both were kind of like calculus, I struggled mightily because it was so foreign. But once I really got a handle on the concepts, it all started to fit together. Today, I probably couldn't explain how to work the simplest "diffy-Q" but the general understanding and respect for its beauty remains.

All you have to say is that it's all a divine mystery. You're acting like there's much credibility behind what you're arguing.