Why It Is Not Too Late To Repent And Turn To Christ

[The Valkyrie]

A "great price" would be not existing before you are born, then dying on a beach in France fighting fascism without the expectation of personal fame or ass kissing, dying on that beach and never coming back or becoming famous.

Jesus is a man/God so according to them he was around for eternity prior to his human form, is only in physical pain for a few hours, then goes right back to being a God without staying dead. That seems more like a pin prick, a slight inconvenience. And on top of not being a sacrifice why does he do it? For his own self glorification. Hardly selfless and completely narcissistic.

Before the cross Jesus was still glorious and worthy of praise and woship just for being God and Creator.

---

Very good point. God could eradicate world hunger with no effort in less than 1 nanosecond. He is omnipotent after all. We are back to the problem of evil. For a millionth time.

He gave free willed humans plenty on His planet so that no one starves.

---

The thing is, many atheists, particularly former believers, like myself, have read the whole bible objectively, which helped us become atheists. The believers generally read it through their god glasses, and usually not the whole thing - just the sections they agree with and think should apply to them.

There have been several people who went out to disprove the Bible and landed up becoming fervent believers.

No doubt.

That doesn't make those who deconverted any less relevant.

However, I will say that those who gave up after reading the bible are far more numerous.

There are those, Christians included, who have set out to disprove the Koran who have ended up converting to Islam.

I would say, generally, that atheists are more knowledgable of the bible than many Christians.

[Esquilax]

There were plenty of societies that burned people alive.

This is true, but they never represented the burning as a good act for the earthly life of the person being burnt. It was always a punishment, or a defense against something, never like "ooh, lucky you, being thrown into the fire!"

They did recognize it was bad, which was why they were doing it at all.

I was looking for objective grounding for morals for years now but I could never find it. Action can be objectively best for the certain set of values but values themselves are preferences which are subjective. For instance a person has opinion that burning people is good and my opinion is different. I will try to prevent him from burning people but it's just because I have different opinion. 1000 years ago many people had opinion that burning witches is cool and women were burned and everyone thought it was fine.
Besides the people feel burning if they are getting burned not if they burn other people

Just because you have differing opinions doesn't mean all of them carry equal moral weight; we do have a set of values by which we can measure the effects of any given moral choice- values which are themselves informed by what is best for a healthy society- through which we can determine those actions that are morally harmful and those that aren't.

In your example of a person who thinks burning people is good, sure, he can think that, but I can't envision a case that could be made for how burning people alive causes more good than harm. Meanwhile, the case explaining how it does more harm than good is easily visible.

Argument and evidence should be sufficient to sway one's moral judgments to one side or another, but you do need to have an argument or evidence for your position, or else you've just got a fiat assertion, which doesn't carry much inherent weight.

[tor]

This is true, but they never represented the burning as a good act for the earthly life of the person being burnt. It was always a punishment, or a defense against something, never like "ooh, lucky you, being thrown into the fire!"

They did recognize it was bad, which was why they were doing it at all.

Yeah but they thought it was good and that's why they did it. They thought it was justice.
And the idea of justice changed because opinions about justice changed.
But they are still opinions.

[Esquilax]

Firstly, it seems like you are getting into the habit of either asking a question and then put parameters around how we can respond to them. I don't think that is fair.

I'm trying to avoid the obvious dodges that theists use to avoid answering the question, so that I can get to the information that I want to know; namely, whether you derive your morals from an unchanging source, or whether they change as god's opinion does.

Surely you'd agree that, when you're asked "would X or Y change your position?" that answering "X or Y will never happen," doesn't answer the question?

Secondly, you are trying to ask a hypothetical with what intention, to trap me? They did the same to Jesus. I am not going to answer this one.

Trap you? No: I just want to know whether your moral positions shift along with the opinions of a conscious (divine or no) entity, or whether they're actually objective and remain true regardless of what anyone thinks of them.

Though I find it rather telling that you'd consider that question a trap: could it be that the answer that actually came to your mind struck you as somewhat troubling? Would posting it here make you look bad among the atheists?

[Esquilax]

This is true, but they never represented the burning as a good act for the earthly life of the person being burnt. It was always a punishment, or a defense against something, never like "ooh, lucky you, being thrown into the fire!"

They did recognize it was bad, which was why they were doing it at all.

Yeah but they thought it was good and that's why they did it. They thought it was justice.
And the idea of justice changed because opinions about justice changed.
But they are still opinions.

Yeah, it's called learning.

I never said people perfectly execute on any given objective moral standard, just that they are present in certain moral situations. Of course you're going to find situations in which mistakes are made, but we've since learned that they were mistakes, using argument and evidence, yes?

[Esquilax]

I don't any of us enjoy being hungry and it is clear knowledge that there are thousands of child who starve to death each day. Yet, why are there not enough people doing something about this to eradicate world hunger?

Well, you do have to modulate your moral sense with a certain degree of self preservation, but certainly not to the ridiculous degree you're intent on characterizing it as. Would you not agree that we accomplish more working together than separately?

More importantly, if we had a button in front of us that could eliminate world hunger forever at zero cost to anyone, the vast majority of us would push that button without a second thought, unlike your god.

[tor]

Yeah but they thought it was good and that's why they did it. They thought it was justice.
And the idea of justice changed because opinions about justice changed.
But they are still opinions.

Yeah, it's called learning.

I never said people perfectly execute on any given objective moral standard, just that they are present in certain moral situations. Of course you're going to find situations in which mistakes are made, but we've since learned that they were mistakes, using argument and evidence, yes?

The action can be objectivaly best ACCORDING to a set of values.
If you want to win a game of chess there are best moves. If you want to lose worst moves become best instead.

The values are not objective. Which means actions are not objective either because they are governed by values.

If you are sick and you value being healthy going to a doctor is objectively good. But you are not objectively ought to be healthy. It's just what you prefer.

[Minimalist]

Why doesn't your fucking god do something? You know, make it rain like it was supposed to so they can grow their own food. Or is that asking to much of him?

Are you blaming God? I thought you don't believe in Him?

I'm blaming shitheads like you who invent an all-powerful god and then make excuses for why he sits on his fucking ass while people die for no reason.

YOU...and other idiots like you...are the problem.

[SteelCurtain]

Why do you insist on being so dense?

I appreciated your response until you had to end it with an insult. Oh well.

That wasn't an insult. It was a serious question. I don't actually think you are this dense. No one is. I am asking why you are intentionally being so.

If that be the case how come after millions of years for our dna and genes to evolve that humans still are susceptible to disease, mental illness, and mental retardation?

There is nothing in the theory of evolution that would make any rational person expect that there would be no disease or mental illnesses.
For several reasons: One, we are biological organisms. So are most diseases. Those diseases evolve, too. Two, genetic mutations occur in every person. Most of those mutations will be deleterious. This is expected, even necessary for evolution to work. Third, there are environmental factors involved with many mental illnesses/retardation. A woman drinking alcohol while pregnant, premature birth, head trauma. Lastly, humans aren't as sexually selective about things like mental illness any longer. My girlfriend suffers from clinical depression. I would never even consider not having children with her for that reason. So the gene will survive in our potential children. There is not much negative selection pressure. (There still is some, but not a lot)

[Esquilax]

The action can be objectivaly best ACCORDING to a set of values.
If you want to win a game of chess there are best moves. If you want to lose worst moves become best instead.

The values are not objective. Which means actions are not objective either because they are governed by values.

If you are sick and you value being healthy going to a doctor is objectively good. But you are not objectively ought to be healthy. It's just what you prefer.

I guess, though I would suggest that, on balance, those that prefer being sick over being healthy don't tend to live very long to be a part of the process of determining those values.

And frankly, I think it's pretty far-reaching to be using examples of people working objectively against their own self interest.