Quote:
Interesting. I'm fascinated by the origins of morality too. But don't you believe that morality comes from God? If moral values, principles, and behaviours can evolve and exist naturally, and be explained scientifically, then where is the need for God?
I believe that God typically works through contingent means. To me it is a more beautiful demonstration of His power that He can create through contingent means. However, I believe God guides the contingent means so that His purpose is fulfilled. So I do believe that the chance of the universe, Earth, and life forming naturally is a 1 in a trillion zillion zillion chance (basically mathmatecally impossible) however, I believe God guided the universe so that it would always just happen to his that lucky number so to speak. Its like God pre set the deck and then let the game of cards unfold naturally. However, I do beleive that God interferes at some points with certain individuals to set man straight and better define what we were coming close to hitting, and sometimes missing by far. Like perhaps with Moses, and of course with Jesus. I also believe that he may have allowed for supernatural menas to influence other cultures like Hindu cultures and Buddhist cultures and other native cultures. DISCLAIMER: This is not an arguement, this is just what I believe concerning God and morality. I don't mind if people want to be critical about certain points that I make, but don't say that I am committing some fallacy "within my arugment" becaues I am not making an arguement.
With that said I beleive that ultimately all reality flows from God. However, when I throw a rock God does not necessarily throw it as the primary actor, but that is not a way of me denying God's soverignty over my actions.
@ cpt scar
Quote: If you beleive in a god that is infinite, then he does not exist. Actual infinities cannot be instatntiated (see Hilberts Hotel). You may want to re-assess your belief, if you really believe this. Theists get round this by using terms like maximal etc. Which means "really, really, really etc big/great [fill the blanks in here]"; but it is just a form of weasel words to save the god concept. In other words meaningless.
This leaves it hards for theists and atheists alike to prove or disprove god; because there is no definitive definition of what a god really is, which omnis they possess, changeless or not, timeless or not, loving or not, caring or not, merciful or not, judgemental or not, communicative or not...the list goes on. Its all too wooly and I'm afraid theists have the burden to define then prove as atheists do not make the claim.
Thats funny because I've been reading Tillich and aparrently he says God is so great that He does not exist, as existance is a property and God is Divinely Simple or something like this. Its all very weird to me.
But I do believe that God is infinite. And I do beleive that that does not make sense from a temporal point of view. I beleive in Revelation. Which means God reveals things to man that we could not have known for certain by the light of reason alone. I believe reason has her limits. This is why I believe that it is natural that man should be a creature of Faith and Reason. Which is what the Church teaches us. We have to have faith in something, or else we are a coward who never advances things forward, I suppose you could assume something is true for the sake of moving somethign forward without actually believing in it whole heartedly, but you still had to rely on some measure of faith. For example, you have to beleive even if not whole heartedly, that there is a truth in order to look for it, and make certain statements like matter exists, our senses are trustworthy and so on.
I believe that Jesus does reveal truth to us through the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which I believe is the Church led by the successor of Peter in Rome. Commonly known as the Catholic Church.
However, I do appreciate your exceptionally high view of reason, it reminds me of Bertrand Russel, he is hilarious. It is admirable. I for one beleive that reason is perfectly sufficient in understanding the temporal realm, but I do believe that there is an infinite realm that superceded the temporal and does not behave by the same rules so to speak. I do not expect you to beleive this and I do not have a good argument other than God exists becasue intrinsic value does. I'm sure there is some philosopher some where that really went in knee deep in the issue but I cant think of any.
My beliefs have come from this progression, there is intrinsic value, there must be a God, God must have created me to be free and loving, Jesus meets all of my metaphysical problems with His Gospel, the Gospel must be protected and passed down perfectly by something, this thing must be the Church. As you can see it gets more and more complicated as you go down and the arguements change a lot as you get to belief in the Church. So it would take many threads to argue each of the reasons that I came to each conclusion in sequence.
With that said I believe the Holy Spirit (God) is soverign over the entire process, and I believe that it is perfectly natural and ok to begin at the end and not have to go from beginning to end. That is just a natural progression that could be made.
Typically Protestants could follow this same route but they will say that the Gospel is protected by the Bible. My thoughts were that the Bible was created by the Church, and the same men who told us that the Bible is without error are the same men who have authoritry to teach on other issues.
[/quote]
This is an unfounded belief. Objective morality cannot be arrived at evidentially nor logically. Why would you believe in such a concept, if it wasn't becuase you wanted to? [/quote]
I agree with you. And if this is why you do not believe then I respect your conclusion, as it is a valid one. I believe in it because I believe in objective morality and thus intrinsic value more than I believe in my senses or my reason. I understand that it could just be a wish fulfillment, but it could also be a design that leads us to believe in "deeper and more profound truths."
