The Bible-Boooooring

[Whateverist]

By removing God as an objective source of morality, people either create some objective source (utilitarianism/hedonism creates the "mankind", positivism has the government) or they make it subjective (whatever the each person "feels"). Both of these have their individual issues. Even the morality with God has it's issues (Divine Command, Euthyphro Dilemma, etc.)

Well there is a rare admission. Is the choice of which God's commandments to follow any less arbitrary than the morality the godless live by? Suppose you decide to follow the commandments of the God you were indoctrinated to believe in at young age. To suppose that any objective set of morals will never give rise to conflicting imperatives is mostly wishful thinking.

Uncertainty is less of a problem than undeserved certainty.

[Ryantology]

A person who believes in magic can be a physicist and potentially make a break through in the field, regardless of the incorrect belief. The fact that he has something wrong doesn't make him wrong on all accounts. To say otherwise is to embrace ad hominem as valid.

It is highly unlikely that a person who holds a sincere belief in magic is the sort of person who is going to do anything in any physical science, though I don't doubt it happens by accident. Certainly, if they do, it is not because they base an experiment on the magic they claim to believe in.

A physicist who attempts to base their work on Biblical superstition is doomed to become an xkcd punchline.

And similarly, I can say that you don't believe in something so self-evident that it calls your competence into question. Making ad hom attacks against each other really doesn't get anywhere.

And, I can say that if you can't demonstrate the existence of something which is 'self-evident', perhaps you don't know what 'self-evident' means.

[Tex]

Certainly, if they do, it is not because they base an experiment on the magic they claim to believe in.

Thank ya, sir.

And, I can say that if you can't demonstrate the existence of something which is 'self-evident', perhaps you don't know what 'self-evident' means.

Or the person I'm demonstrating it to is slow =p

[The Grand Nudger]

Sigh, fucking apologists, blaming others for their failure to convey their own message. Try harder?

[Tex]

Well there is a rare admission. Is the choice of which God's commandments to follow any less arbitrary than the morality the godless live by? Suppose you decide to follow the commandments of the God you were indoctrinated to believe in at young age. To suppose that any objective set of morals will never give rise to conflicting imperatives is mostly wishful thinking.

Well, don't get me wrong! I think there is a solution with having God as the source of objective reality (obviously, I'm a theist), but there are multiple ways to mess it up. The reason I follow my God's commandments isn't that he decides morality nor is it that he obeys morality (Euthyphro), but the only reason to follow a God's commandments is a friendship.

If the government said, "I need you to pay a little extra in taxes for me" and no one else had to pay it, you'd scream about injustice for weeks. If your best friend asks for money in order to go on a road trip with some hot chicks, you'd give it to him (assuming you had it). You'd also wonder how hot the chicks are and if you could go, but that's beside the point. In Christianity, God isn't some governmental executive officer for eternity. I follow his commands (well, attempt) because God and I are cool like that.

[The Grand Nudger]

If your god doesn't decide, then what use do I have for him? Why not worship whatever well he draws his morality from instead? If your friend asked you to do a terrible thing, or become complicit in some terrible thing, you'd just wade right in because you're buddies? Admittedly, a good friend helps you bury a body....but a perhaps a good friend wouldn't ask for such help - even if they knew you would give it.

[Tex]

I opened up Rhythm's post... total incompetence. But I guess I'll respond... once...

If your god doesn't decide, then what use do I have for him?

Use? Considering he is the source of all res, unum, aliquid, bonum, et verum, I think he's pretty useful. However, worship so that you can get use is not worship. That's called "using people".

Why not worship whatever well he draws his morality from instead?

Quoting myself... "The reason I follow my God's commandments isn't that he decides morality nor is it that he obeys morality (Euthyphro)..."

If your friend asked you to do a terrible thing, or become complicit in some terrible thing, you'd just wade right in because you're buddies? Admittedly, a good friend helps you bury a body....but a perhaps a good friend wouldn't ask for such help - even if they knew you would give it.

I think you answered your own question at the end there. Also, since my God has never murdered, I think he's clear.

[The Grand Nudger]

Use? Considering he is the source of all res, unum, aliquid, bonum, et verum, I think he's pretty useful. However, worship so that you can get use is not worship. That's called "using people".

Laying aside that this is a bare assertion which you will be incapable of establishing.......and?

Quoting myself... "The reason I follow my God's commandments isn't that he decides morality nor is it that he obeys morality (Euthyphro)..."

I appreciate that you figured it would be prudent to repeat yourself, but this doesn't help to clear up my confusion about the usefulness of your god, or the purpose of your worship.

I think you answered your own question at the end there. Also, since my God has never murdered, I think he's clear.

Oh, I'm sure we could come up with excuses all day long, but to be honest, I'm uninterested in how you might wrest your god out of the OT. Your friend asks that I accept scapegoating. That's pretty terrible amigo. I don't have any friends that would ask this of me. So no, he's not clear, and neither are you. You both have blood on your hands if this is all that we might reference.

(how many times will you have to imply that I'm incompetent before it excuses your own incompetence, do you reckon?)

---

You know, I have to get this down somewhere before I forget - because those moments when I can tease some lucidity and value from the biblical narrative are rare - I've often heard that jesus didn't come for the righteous, but for the sinners. If this were true, and if the word sin is to have any substance at all, then I'd be inclined to agree.....as acceptance of vicarious redemption would be the most egregious example of sin that I can imagine. That might be a failure of my imagination though, others maybe able to come up with something more "sinful", more abhorrent and hollow, something entirely more evil than this. They might, but I think it's a pretty tall order.

[Ryantology]

I don't believe it is either, but I have a specific ethical justification that points to really existent things in the world.

No, you don't. You claim to have one. It is an unsubstantiated claim.

Atheists do not have any justification for the belief that God exists, it is not even at the level of faith that they argue for this, atheists argue based in a world in which human life necessarily has no value different from rocks or snails that people ought to make up a "fairy tale" of morality.

It has no value other than that which we assign it, and religion does nothing except assign its own arbitrary values (and then say that they come from a god so they sound like they have authority on their side).

It is not as if the Christian religion places any important value on human life, anyway. If God really does run the world, it's obvious he doesn't care about it, and his scripture teaches people to value it only to a limited point. When you get right down to it, Christianity is nothing but a long, boring litany of how much humanity sucks. Its core message is "all people are bad and want to be bad", and besides that being some serious projection, has inspired Christians to justify one atrocity after another for two thousand years.

The difference between the atheist "fairy tale" of objective morality is that there is no possible world in which there could be justification for atheist ethics, while Christian belief has been considered probable or certain by many of the greatest minds in history.

Hello fallacious appeal to authority.

Which just goes to show that even the greatest minds get it wrong sometimes when they are born and raised in a world mired in superstition and are themselves tasked to help drag humanity out of it.