Why be good?

[Losty]

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Mini is bluntly honest. I don't think any of us are in a position to be judging whether or not someone is a terrible human being. I think most people here are good or as good as they can be. Even you. Maybe not good for the sake of being good, but good just the same. 

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So much for the hide tags
I don't like the weird boxes instead of being able to see the code. How do I fix that?

I could fix it for you, but I'd rather you learn.

You must use the quote and hide tags properly. You can't start a quote, hide, end quote, end hide.... that messes everything up. You must either quote, hide, end hide, endquote, OR hide, quote, end quote, end hide.
And I know too well that the new editor doesn't help. Just above the editor text box, you have a bunch of buttons, the one on the far right, looks like a sheet of paper with some lines on it, brings back the normal, old-style, editor.

Too bad I can't see the dang quote tags in whatever version I'm in. I don't see the button you mean. Do you have a screen shot of it?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually, my assumption was not that you are malicious, but taking your words at face value when I called you amoral. Perhaps if you read closer you wouldn't draw these inapt conclusions?

Also, how is it you can call someone a "terrible human being" when you reject the precepts of morality?

You've overstated my maliciousness a few times (or maybe I'm misattributing someone else's statements to you).

You laid the charge. You can go back through this thread and quote my posts which support it.

 

Maybe you are hung up on my willingness to kill and eat Rhythms family in a post apocalyptic kill or be killed scenario.  I think, behavior wise, I'm fairly in line with most, I just talk/think about it a lot differently.  

Actually, I wasn't paying any attention to that conversation at all. I was only addressing the points that you raised regarding your proclivity for seeing people as a means to an end.

As for calling someone a terrible human being, the standard exists.

What standard? You yourself reject moral claims. What is your standard for calling someone "terrible"? Perhaps a person is "terrible" if they refuse to let you use them? Perhaps a person is terrible if they harm you directly?

You have some basis for judgement, right? Lay it out.

 My interest in letting the standard dictate my behavior doesn't change the existing of the standard.  You guys have your community here, and maybe he's the loveable racist grandma character of the forum.  I dunno why people seem okay with his over-the-top rage and hatefulness.

Setting aside for the moment that he and I have disagreed vociferously on his bigotry towards Muslims, the fact is that you're appealing to some nebulous "standard" in supporting your judgement, but you're not saying what that standard is. Certainly it has a moral dimension, otherwise you wouldn't be squirming so much when the question is put to you.

So I'm going to put the question to you again, with the expectation that this time you will provide a direct answer: How can you judge anyone terrible when you reject morality?

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For sure, my calling someone a terrible human being has no impact.  Nothing is important because I say it.  The only thing that would make it relevant is its accuracy.    

And what is your metric for accuracy? What is your yardstick? And how can an amoralist have any yardstick at all to make such a pronouncement?

I submit that you haven't thought your position out in nearly the detail required for this discussion. You're busy castigating someone else for their behavior even as you state that the only rule of thumb for your behavior is how things benefit you. The only reconciliation of this contradiction is that you think another person is terrible because they will not allow you to use them.

[Randy Carson]

Some of my siblings have cried out of fear that they weren't saved the right way and that they were going to hell.

Then would it be correct to say you aren't Catholic?

It IS unfortunate that people have attempted to used their own private judgment rather than following the shepherd of the flock established by Jesus - the Pope.

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Then why are you wasting time on us unreachable, willfully blind, those-who-actually-know-there's-a-god crowd of heathens?

Perhaps because I don't believe you are any of those things.

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Were you abused as a child?

Yes.

I'm sorry to hear that. Who do you blame for that?

Man...my parents never threatened me with "horrible threats of hell". Instead, they explained why God had sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross so that none who believe in Him might perish but have everlasting life.

Why are you assuming that your particular religious upbringing is the only form of religious upbringing? Or that the fact that your parents didn't see fit to either tell you about the "fiery lake of burning sulfur" written about in the bible, or allow you to read those passages in the bible, for that matter, means those passages don't exist?

I assumed nothing of the sort. I'm guessing your parents were members of some sort of fundamentalist group. Care to share which?

What kind of a warped caricature do you envision when you think of a group of Christians getting together on a Sunday morning for services? Are people there out of fear, out of obedience, or out of love? 

You should talk to my wife sometime: raised by a devoutly christian family, she grew up believing in literal demons that sometimes stalked the earth, from the fire and brimstone hell that I mentioned earlier. Now, I'm not saying that's every christian family's experience, but by the same token, I expect you not to assert that it's nobody's experience either.

There are demons who "stalk the earth"; what's more important is that every believer should know that "He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world."

No. And this is why most of what is argued in this forum fails miserably. Science can say nothing about God.

You still haven't justified this assertion, you're just using it as a means to keep god safe from falsifiability. That might make you feel better, but I'm not obligated to accept it until you've justified it.

What is the subject matter, the "stuff", about which science may speak?

Because God is immaterial, and science deals only with the physical, material world.

Why? Because you said so?

Give me an example of something non-material, non-physical that is studied by science.

Because there is a huge difference between the two (and deep down, you know it). But hey, this forum exists for the entertainment of its members...not their enlightenment. I get that now.

Don't presume to tell me what I know, Randy.

You do have a point there.

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Were you abused as a child? Man...my parents never threatened me with "horrible threats of hell". Instead, they explained why God had sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross so that none who believe in Him might perish but have everlasting life.

What kind of a warped caricature do you envision when you think of a group of Christians getting together on a Sunday morning for services? Are people there out of fear, out of obedience, or out of love?  

Lol. Your naetivity is almost adorable. My parents often threatened me with horrible threats of hell among other more immediate and terriifying things. I don't need to envision a warped caricature of Sunday morning services. I can't tell you why the others went but I had no choice. If was warped for sure but those are real memories. You must be completely blind to scoff at the idea of such things. 

Losty-

I was thinking of the adults who are there by choice, but yeah, kids have to go because their parents make them, usually. 

It would help me understand your experience if I knew which denomination your parents were part of...care to share that?

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Because God is immaterial, and science deals only with the physical, material world.

How can an immaterial being exist in a material world?

And more to the point, how can you, or any other human (including the ones who wrote the Bible) know anything about the immaterial?

Well, in one sense, God is outside of space and time, Parker, so He doesn't exist "in" a material world. OTOH, God became incarnate and took on our flesh, so there's that.

But we know of God in a number of ways including:

1. Reason. We can look at the created universe and discern a designer.
2. We have the natural law of God written upon our hearts which causes us to consider its source.
3. God can reveal Himself to us in various ways - individually and corporately.

[Losty]

I don't really see how it's relevant. My parents have been baptist, mothodist, and nondenominational at different points in my life. My exhusband is catholic, but he's also Guatemalan and his church has a lot of odd superstitious beliefs that I never saw in American Catholic Churches.

[Randy Carson]

Lol. Your naetivity is almost adorable. My parents often threatened me with horrible threats of hell among other more immediate and terriifying things. I don't need to envision a warped caricature of Sunday morning services. I can't tell you why the others went but I had no choice. If was warped for sure but those are real memories. You must be completely blind to scoff at the idea of such things. 

Some blindness is willful.

But not all disagreement results from blindness.

[Losty]

The reason I don't think it's relevant is being I was only commenting on how you scoffed at the idea of parents and/or churches terrorizing children with the threat of hell.

[Randy Carson]

I don't really see how it's relevant. My parents have been baptist, mothodist, and nondenominational at different points in my life. My exhusband is catholic, but he's also Guatemalan and his church has a lot of odd superstitious beliefs that I never saw in American Catholic Churches.

Yes, the Central and South American Catholics do have a lot of devotions that border on or cross over into superstition.

However, I think it is fair to say that the Baptists, Methodists (that was me) and the non-denominational churches ALSO have a lot of things going on that you would not see in your typical American Catholic Church.

Hell is something to be taken very seriously, but not something with which parents should frighten small children.

Now that you are an adult, I think you could easily read the New Testament for yourself, and come to a real appreciation for how much Jesus loves you. This message may not have been communicated to you when you were small.

[Losty]

As an adult I can read the bible for myself and find all sorts of things that make me want to vomit. When I was running the first time from shelter to shelter with my kids, when we were hiding, I took to my bible. I clutched it tightly because it was all I had. I read it day and night every chance I got. That is how I became an atheist.

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However, I think it is fair to say that the Baptists, Methodists (that was me) and the non-denominational churches ALSO have a lot of things going on that you would not see in your typical American Catholic Church.

Yes, of course, but these churches do not claim to be catholic. 

Also, I disagree that hell is something to be taken seriously. If we are going to scoff at something let's scoff at the idea that a bunch of dead people are going to burn for an eternity without being completely burnt up and somehow maintain their sense of pain even though they're dead, because that actually is pretty ridiculous. 

[Pyrrho]

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Hell is something to be taken very seriously, but not something with which parents should frighten small children.

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You either tell children about hell or you don't. If you do, it is frightening to them. So are you saying that children should not be told about hell?

[Aroura]

You know, Randy has dropped all pretense at discourse and is now highjacking any thread in which he spots someone he thinks he might convert, and goes straight to prosthelitizing at them and trying to convert them to Catholicism.

That's waaay past annoying. Isn't there a rule about that around here somewhere? Mods? Someone??