Poll for Christians: Are the End Times imminent?

[Minimalist]

God created everything as good. We rebelled against Him and as a result there is bad.

What are you? About 7 or 8?

You talk like a fucking child.

[Chad32]

Reason, compassion, empathy and evidence. People should follow that standard because it conforms to the real world in which we live, and the people therein; their wellbeing is paramount.

Follow up questions: if you're claiming biblical morality, why don't you obey your god's instructions with regards to, say, slavery? And if you're saying you follow god's morality, were there actual reasons why he chose X things as good, and Y things as bad, that apply to the real world? Or is it all just a grab bag of the guy's opinions? If it's the latter, what use is morality at all? If it's the former, should not those real world reasons become apparent to anyone else as well, if your god is always correct?

Where did you get your reason from? Where did you get your compassion from? Where did you get your empathy from? Where do you get your evidence from? No animal displays these characteristics.

Not everyone agrees to your standards. Why should we accept your standards as truth?

Biblical morality states that: "there is no one rightous no not one." This is the truth of morality. You're not moral, I'm not moral, mother Teresa isn't moral. That has been and always will be the truth. No one can live up to what Biblical morality expects of us because "all of us like sheep have gone astray." We have all broken the law. We have all done wrong. We have all sinned. There have been times that we haven't been reasonable, compassionate, empathetic, and with evidence. So what happens then? What happens to a person who can't even live up to their own standards?

What's ironic is that we, who can't even live up to our own standards, want to hold God to those standards as if we have some kind of moral superiority to Him.

God created everything as good. We rebelled against Him and as a result there is bad. God didn't choose this or that to be good or bad, we make it that way then blame Him for the wrong we have created or ask Him to save us from the consequences (which He has done in the Christ).

I don't recall God telling me to get slaves but rather to be a servant to others.

You don't know much about humans or animals then. We are all capable of showing empathy. None of us are perfect, but the one and only source of morality is from people who raise and interact with us on a regular basis. Maybe someone told you about what's in that book, and convinced you to follow some good parts that are in that book. The book didn't give you our morality, though. No deity gave you your morality. If you grew up in India, you may claim that Vishnu gave you your morality. You'd be wrong, not because you grew up worshiping the wrong god, but because all morality comes from other people. It is flawed, but it's the best we have. That's why it's always good to educate yourself about other viewpoints.

You shouldn't take any one person's viewpoint at face value. You should explore, and make decisions for yourself.

[Mystical]

Where did you get your reason from? Where did you get your compassion from? Where did you get your empathy from? Where do you get your evidence from? No animal displays these characteristics.

Really? It's been observed in so many species, I'm confused as to whether or not you live in the same world as I do. It's just social behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXD...ata_player

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZw-1BfH...ata_player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tojOIhc1...ata_player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pbthNAE...ata_player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QdAH6qz...ata_player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWxCM6ll...ata_player

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZG0MgCS...ata_player

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04RZrf3-...ata_player
Mice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVcAHOz...ata_player

---

As Frans de Waal notes, the principles of biological continuity should make it unsurprising that mice act in empathetic ways similar to those seen in primates, including humans. This study bolsters that view in striking ways. For instance, it's tempting to explain empathetic behavior in animals that we believe to have only rudimentary cognition, such as mice, by arguing that the sight of a suffering fellow mouse simply evokes an automatic fear reaction. This study undermines that explanation by showing that mice showed empathetic reactions only with cage mates; the mice seem to go far beyond being frightened by injury to accounting for whom the injured party is -- friend, family, foe, stranger. This response is a significant step toward human-like social feeling -- toward caring for acquaintances more than for strangers, just as our empathy for someone who is hurt differs depending on whether the person is a foreigner, a national compatriot, a school chum or an immediate family member.
News of the Week ANIMAL BEHAVIOR Signs of Empathy Seen in Mice Greg Miller Science 30 June 2006: 1860-1861.
.

---

[Godlesspanther]

Animals nurturing animals of another species and demonstrating sure signs of empathy -- must be another sign of the end times.

The "animals don't have morals" is another unscientific ignorant pieces of right-wing religious propaganda. Orangebox21 is just demonstrating that he has absolutely no desire to embrace reality and just believes what he would like to be true.

Another difference in thinking. I don't care what i would prefer to be true. I care what IS true. Reality existed before I did and will continue to exist after I'm gone. I'm not so arrogant as to think that I can influence the greater reality by merely believing something to be true.

[Mystical]

Animals nurturing animals of another species and demonstrating sure signs of empathy -- must be another sign of the end times.

I really hope you're joking.

[Godlesspanther]

Animals nurturing animals of another species and demonstrating sure signs of empathy -- must be another sign of the end times.

I really hope you're joking.

So do I.

[Chad32]

That's a lot of good videos. I've also heard that cleaner fish will punish any member of the group that harms whatever fish they're cleaning the teeth of. Any social creature will have some kind of system in place that allows them to work together. That's why they're social creatures in the first place. We just use the word morals to describe the set of acceptable behaviors of the group. These behaviors are different for every group. Sometimes they change, due to new beliefs. Sometimes they don't. If you have to push someone down, banish them from the group, or kill them off, just to keep change from happening across the whole group, you probably don't have a good reason for believing what you do.

[Ryantology]

Since you mention that smooth-talking serpent, it reminds me I have a half-formed theory that some of the OT writers were much more sophisticated than their present day fundie fans.

Not hard to agree, if only because the writers of the OT were, to some greater or lesser extent, creating the stupid myths rather than mindlessly reciting them ad nauseam like the world's most useless robot you quote, and those like him.

[Esquilax]

Where did you get your reason from? Where did you get your compassion from? Where did you get your empathy from?

These are evolved traits, formed in us because our survival was predicated, in the past, on being able to form cohesive, cooperative groups in order to stave off predators and build shelter, among other things. Compassion and empathy were inculcated because helping others allows the group to flourish more and gives us the greatest chance of passing on our genes. Reason allows one to better spot environmental hazards and navigate the world, and so it too makes for better chances of being passed on. Natural selection at work.

Where do you get your evidence from?

... The real world?

No animal displays these characteristics.

What an embarrassingly ill-informed thing to say. I hope the things the others have posted have thoroughly disabused you of this notion.

Not everyone agrees to your standards. Why should we accept your standards as truth?

I mentioned that in the initial post; because they take into account and prize the well being of thinking beings. Such things are also the only moral systems, by the way: religions aren't moral systems at all. They're just orders, given without context, nor a mechanism by which the morality of them can be determined.

Biblical morality states that: "there is no one rightous no not one." This is the truth of morality. You're not moral, I'm not moral, mother Teresa isn't moral.

Great, so if you aren't moral, how did you determine that the bible is a source of moral good, or that the quote you gave from it is truthful, if under its premise none of us have ever had experience with an actually moral being for contrast?

That has been and always will be the truth. No one can live up to what Biblical morality expects of us because "all of us like sheep have gone astray." We have all broken the law. We have all done wrong. We have all sinned. There have been times that we haven't been reasonable, compassionate, empathetic, and with evidence. So what happens then? What happens to a person who can't even live up to their own standards?

Who said we're all perfect? Saying "sometimes this morality fails!" isn't an argument against it. It's an endorsement of all the times it succeeds.

What's ironic is that we, who can't even live up to our own standards, want to hold God to those standards as if we have some kind of moral superiority to Him.

So if your standards are so lax, how did you determine that god's is better?

God created everything as good. We rebelled against Him and as a result there is bad. God didn't choose this or that to be good or bad, we make it that way then blame Him for the wrong we have created or ask Him to save us from the consequences (which He has done in the Christ).

Bare assertion: prove it.

I don't recall God telling me to get slaves but rather to be a servant to others.

"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. " Leviticus 25.

Ahem.

[Mystical]

I don't recall God telling me to get slaves but rather to be a servant to others.

You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

The following passage describes how the Hebrew slaves are to be treated.

If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)

Notice how they can get a male Hebrew slave to become a permanent slave by keeping his wife and children hostage until he says he wants to become a permanent slave. What kind of family values are these?

The following passage describes the sickening practice of sex slavery. How can anyone think it is moral to sell your own daughter as a sex slave?


When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

So these are the Bible family values! A man can buy as many sex slaves as he wants as long as he feeds them, clothes them, and screws them?

What does the Bible say about beating slaves? It says you can beat both male and female slaves with a rod so hard that as long as they don't die right away you are cleared of any wrong doing.

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

You would think that Jesus and the New Testament would have a different view of slavery, but slavery is still approved of in the New Testament, as the following passages show.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian,that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2NLT)

In the following parable, Jesus clearly approves of beating slaves even if they didn't know they were doing anything wrong.

The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. "But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given." (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)



compliments of http://www.evilbible.com