@shinyblurry

Of what you said above in the first two paragraphs about the consequences of accepting meaninglessness as reality, just about all of it I fully agree with. For clarity, I’ll mark the exceptions:

the closer you are to death the less happy and hopeful you will become
and
Eventually, when enough tragedy happens to you, you will break down and the future will become more and more like a millstone around your neck.

I found these to be presumptuous. They do happen to some people, maybe even most people, but they don’t happen to all. Many people of no religion, and despite immense tragedies, live happy and fulfilling lives, and feel happy and fulfilled on their death beds. I’d further argue that people with religious faith also get depressed. I suspect you’d counter that anyone who is depressed has insincere faith. That seems tautological to me, but either way, it’s moot, for now.

Further, you comment that, "people become depressed because of a lack of hope."

Some people do, at least in part. It’s a lot more complex than just a lack of hope though. For some people it’s due to a tragedy, or overwhelming cognitive dissonance, or it’s simply chemical, and has no correlation with anything in their lives at all. Maybe I’m nitpicking. I just want to make clear that depression is a mental disorder and is not a synonym for, "lack of hope because I don’t have God in my life."

For all of our so-called progress, humanity is just as sick and depraved as it always has been. Evil is increasing, not decreasing, and mankinds destructive appetites will never be satiated. There is no hope in man, but there is in God. I think you know that.

Here you slipped into metaphysical talk that means nothing to me, full of judgemental words ("sick and depraved") and terms that I had just told you I don’t accept as objective concepts ("evil"). You also know that I don’t think there’s any hope in your Yahweh God since he’s a mythological character, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from.

(Also, not that it’s critical to the discussion, but I’d like a reference for your poll about young people not knowing who Hitler was.)

All that is to say I pretty much agree with your view of what meaninglessness implies, and if there’s any bits that you want to explore more, I’m all for it.

Now, about "bliss". I didn’t define what I meant by that, so you didn’t understand it. I’ll make up for that now. By “bliss”, I don’t mean immediate pleasure, or instant gratification, or fulfillment of a goal, or basically anything you mentioned. I do mean a great powerful feeling of being centred, being in tune, achieving self-fulfillment, overflowing joy, love, inner peace, elation, connection, lightness, "harmony", "rapture" or a feeling that many describe as "doing what I was born to do/meant to be doing" or "transcendent". It’s the kind of happy that boosts your immune system and makes people around you feel good about themselves as well. (The words in quotes aren’t words I tend to use myself—I’m employing them to help clarify the concept I’m talking about.)

If you understand now what I mean by "bliss" (as opposed to instant gratification, etc.), you’ll understand that people don’t follow their bliss and rape people, nor find inner peace by beating their wives, and so there’s no need to append any rules about not hurting. I can’t imagine how anybody’s bliss could ever include causing harm to other people, but I’ll even address that hypothetical, towards the end of this comment.

Lots of people do bad things to others and themselves, and later on, some may consider what they did was bad, or they might not. If they still think it was OK, it’s because they’ve used some kind of justification, like, "She did it to me first," "She was teasing me. What did she think would happen?" or, "He had it coming," or "I had no choice," And so forth. These are all rationalizations after the fact, justifications that allow them to still consider themselves as good people rather than change their behaviour or take responsibility for having done something wrong. These don’t address the real reason these people did these things. In all cases, whatever they did, it was because they were feeling bad about something, weren’t centred, and reacted from "lizard brain" instincts of individual survival rather than from human compassion.

I believe that the natural and best state for a human being to be is happy (and here again, I mean blissfully happy). Every bit of programming we have nudges us towards certain actions by rewarding us with feelings of happiness, or reduced misery. We only live once, so I would modify your description only slightly to, “taking what bliss you can when you can”.

Divine morality isn’t necessary. Having any collective understanding of what is good and what is bad is enough. For most of humanity’s existence, even up to now, there hasn’t been a clear standard. In patches of geography where there was one, it only applied well to that time and culture. Just as ordinary people supplanted kings and emperors as absolute leaders without society collapsing, and just as ordinary people supplanted religions are sole arbiters of the law without society collapsing, ordinary people can supplant religion as arbiter of what is good and what is bad as well, and society will continue not to collapse.

And better than a list of what’s good and what’s bad is a system that determines for us what’s good and what’s bad. I’ve seen one model that I like, delivered by Sam Harris. The most salient bit starts at about 10:00 and runs to around 27:30. If you don’t want to watch it now, I’ll summarise the most important ideas: For a moral code to have meaning, it has to apply to some form of consciousness – it cannot apply to rocks and dust. Then there’s the central point which requires you to imagine "the worst possible misery for everyone", and assume that this situation is "bad". "Good" is then defined in terms of moving people away from this "worst possible misery for everyone". That’s it. I recommend hearing it from Harris himself.

The three advantages that occur to me of this system over Yahweh’s morality are that it’s a simple system rather than a long intricate list, so it’s quick to teach, easy to absorb, understand and reference, hard to corrupt, and all-inclusive; there’s absolutely nothing random about it, so odd details like not being allowed to wear garments made from two different thread types won’t make it in and there’s nothing objectionable about it from the standpoint of people who just want to do the right thing; and it’s truly universal in that it applies equally well now as it would have in 4000 BC China, in 30 AD Mesopotamia, or will in 12 000 AD Mars, so it’s broadly acceptable too. Every act that is good makes things better for people. If an act makes the world worse, then it’s bad. Simple. Lots of generalities can be derived from it, like killing people is bad, respecting other people’s property is good, and there’d be no arbitrary crap about touching pig skin being bad or extra-marital sex being bad.

Even more generally, we clearly don’t require any god to tell us what’s good and what isn’t. We already have a conscience inside us that tells us what’s good and what isn’t regardless of laws. I know you believe that Yahweh made our conscience for us. Even if that were so, it doesn’t change the fact that if properly relied upon, a conscience precludes the need for an external set of laws. Any law that echoes what everyone naturally feels already is superfluous. Any law that contributes to human misery is morally wrong and deserves to be disregarded.

You state that without a divine moral standard that exists outside our consciousness, there is no objective justice. This is true by definition. Without a true objective moral code, you further argue that nobody can condemn any action as bad without being hypocritical, so in effect, everything is permissible. This is not the case, however. Although the moral code I advocate isn’t "objective" in the sense that it exists beyond our consciousness, it is universal among humans. And if we’re only attempting to determine moral behaviour for humans, then a universally accepted standard among humans suffices, regardless of where we think it came from.

The arguments I make here don’t describe a perfect system. That’s wasn’t my intention. I believe they do, however, answer your concerns about non-objective morality being insufficient to guide humans.

I'm guessing that's probably because you generally deal with English-speaking atheists. Technically we are arguing against Allah when we argue against God but why would we use an Arab word? Allah is not the name of the God of Islam and, even if it were, it would be the same God anyway. "Allah" means "the one God". It's what Arab Christians call God as well.

Krishna... well, I would argue against Krishna in much the same way as I argue against Yahweh if it ever came up, but it doesn't. There is no significant number of Hindus trying to force their beliefs on us, fighting societal advancement, or passing laws based on their holy book. Where I live these are the actions of Christians and so, merely out of priority, these are the people I argue against most frequently.

I'm not talking about technicalities, though. If atheists are really so incensed about the evils of religion, they would be concentrating on religions, countries and cultures that had the most egregious examples of perceived evils. Instead, 99 percent of it concentrates on the God of the bible. The fact is, Christianity has played a very positive role in shaping our civilization. If you want to read about it:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595553223/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343535302&sr=1-1&keywords=the+book+that+made+your+world

Yes, an entertaining speaker and an entertaining, and funny, presentation, which is why I'm so disappointed that he gradually took it off the rails over the course of it.

The meaning of life
He's arguing that the meaning he finds in his own life, living for Jesus, is the only valid meaning and therefore non-Christians must have no meaning in their lives.

What? That is not what he was arguing, by any stretch of the imagination. He argued that to be free = meaningless, and that no one can live that way, on top of all of the logical, emotional, psychological and philosophical convolutions that this truth entails. He proposed Christianity as a solution to this problem, but he did not make it the thrust of his argument. He asked at the end, what is your alternative? What is your reason for life?

Few, if any, people have the luxury of never struggling with this question and yet most of us, religious positions aside, find meaning in our lives eventually. Many of us recognize that, in the grand scheme, our lives, even our entire species, will have no impact; Nothing any of us does will ultimately affect the outcome of the universe or existence, but that does not make life meaningless. We find meaning in many things in life. We find meaning in our relationships with others. We find meaning in our work. We find meaning in religion, both Christianity and others. It's different for each of us and there's nothing wrong with that.

The argument is, though, that if you're free to make up your own meaning, then there is no actual meaning.

Unfortunately for him, he builds his entire argument on this false premise. Even more unfortunate (for him), he makes an excellent point about what to do with conclusions that are based on a false premise.

I could stop here since I've destroyed his premise, but I'll continue below.

You do not appear to have understood the basic premise of his argument..

Freedom
There's no such thing as absolute freedom, God or not, except maybe in non-existence.

You're splitting hairs here..he is talking about what it means to be truly be free, in the sense of not having any meaning imposed upon you from the outside.

Nobody can live without meaning
I think people who live without any meaning in life are few and far between but I do not see why they could not live that way. They may be miserable, depressed, suicidal even, but they will not cease to exist in any way that is different from how the rest of us will cease to exist.

No, he is saying that there is no way to live that way and be logically consistent with your own knowledge and experience.

The Straw Frankenstein Monster
Over the course of the video he constructs a straw man out of pieces of ideas from various philosophers and thinkers, assembling them like Frankenstein's Monster and then, fittingly, being destroyed by his own creation.

Give a specific example.

Scientific Theories
This whole section is fucked and was pointless to bring up in the first place. His argument has nothing to do with scientific theory.

CS Lewis
In the case of this quote, at least, Lewis is a damn fool. Love is no less real because it is a chemical process. Music is no less enjoyable, art no less beautiful because they are biological reacitons.

Flowers and Love
"The only way to enjoy flowers and love is to not think." This is a typical (and baffling, for me) anti-knowledge argument that I see so often from fundamentalist Christians. I don't get it. Flowers smell as good and look as beautiful after you learn how your senses function as they did when you were ignorant. There is no reason to avoid learning. The world is just as amazing when you understand it.

I think you might need to rewatch the video because I don't think you understood the point to these sections, or how they were supported by his overall argument.

>> ^xxovercastxx

>> ^shinyblurry:

Yeah, but we're talking about atheists, and you don't really see many atheists out there arguing against Allah or Krishna.

I'm guessing that's probably because you generally deal with English-speaking atheists. Technically we are arguing against Allah when we argue against God but why would we use an Arab word? Allah is not the name of the God of Islam and, even if it were, it would be the same God anyway. "Allah" means "the one God". It's what Arab Christians call God as well.

Krishna... well, I would argue against Krishna in much the same way as I argue against Yahweh if it ever came up, but it doesn't. There is no significant number of Hindus trying to force their beliefs on us, fighting societal advancement, or passing laws based on their holy book. Where I live these are the actions of Christians and so, merely out of priority, these are the people I argue against most frequently.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

In reply to this comment by Morganth:
I'm sorry that Shinyblurry doesn't fit into the VideoSift mold, but this argument is no longer a discussion; it's bullying and harassment and needs to stop. Now.


i agree.
i may disagree with shiny and may even get frustrated with him from time to time but he is not a bad dude.
not a bad dude at all.

>> ^Morganth:

I'm sorry that Shinyblurry doesn't fit into the VideoSift mold, but this argument is no longer a discussion; it's bullying and harassment and needs to stop. Now.


I only see one side threatening the other with eternal torture.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Someone mentioned that the deterrence didn't work, because people still sinned. To which I ask, how do you know how much worse it could have been? Take a look at this study to see why its a valid theory:
http://www.inquisitr.com/262882/believing-in-hell-equals-lower
-crime-rate-study/


Here is the original article which you are referring to in its entirety:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0039048

Did you read it? I question their methodology because they claim that their study found that poverty does not affect the crime rate of a country (which, considering the wealth of other studies which DO show a substantial effect should be enough to make one question the results of this particular study), yet the only measure of poverty they seem to have used is a country's GDP per capita.

I quote from their conclusion:

First and foremost, these findings are correlational, and thus reverse-causation and third variable explanations need to be discounted before causal claims can be firmly endorsed.

In other words, they didn't show that believing in divine punishment causes lower crime rates, only that there was a correlation. But even leaving the correlation/causation issue aside, the authors came to the conclusion that belief in hell independently correlates with the crime rate from belief in heaven. In other words, countries in which more people believe in hell than believe in heaven have less crime than other countries... which begs the questions of who are all these poor people who only believe in hell but not heaven?

But even leaving that aside, this study in no way shows that killing people for picking up sticks is an effective deterrent to the rest of society for committing future crimes of any kind. What it shows is that you can get really wonky results when--instead of doing actual reasearch--you take a bunch of unrelated numbers (i.e. number of people who believe in God, number of people who believe in heaven/hell, crime rates, per capita GDP, etc.) and try to run linear regressions on them.

I appreciate it bro. Christ said we should expect the same treatment as He got so I try not to let it bother me. If God can forgive me, I can forgive them for any personal slights.

>> ^Morganth:

I'm sorry that Shinyblurry doesn't fit into the VideoSift mold, but this argument is no longer a discussion; it's bullying and harassment and needs to stop. Now.

My standard is absolute as well. Any deity that would command it's people to do evil things in the name of order (as opposed to 'good') is evil...

God's old testament law is not about being good, it's about following the rules. Even if the rules are inherently evil (ownership and (mis)treatment of slaves for example).

Your charactisation of your god is as a slave master who demands absolute obedience, not as a loving father protecting his flock... Further, god changes his mind on the punishment and decides suddenly that the one must sacrifice for the all... Sin didn't disappear, but all the drastic measures you claim are needed to combat it sure did. Mebbe he finally woke up to the fact that commanding people to commit atrocities is.. ya know, WRONG... Gee, convenient for those born AD right? X D

How about you SB? If your god commanded it would you stone your child to death for talking back?

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/children.html

Yeah, your god is loving and kind... Like Idi Amin or Pol Pot was... If any human did what god ordered back then, we would condemn them.. Sharia law and all that right? Pro tip, if us flawed humans can see that something is morally wrong, how can the almighty not?

>> ^shinyblurry:

The proof that you're not is that you give no regard to the sin itself. You are using a relative standard to judge his crime, whereas God uses an absolute standard. There is no such thing as a minor sin in Gods eyes. God is holy and His standard is moral perfection. Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin.
Neither was the crime itself picking up sticks. The actual crime was rebellion. It is not a minor thing to break Gods law, which the man knew full well he was doing. God punished Him not only for rebellion, but also as a public example to the rest of Israel that His laws were to be taken seriously. You have to remember that the Jews were His chosen people, and that they had entered into a covenant with God willingly. They agreed to follow His laws and adhere to His standards, and His standard was that they would be holy as He is holy. This meant that they would obey His law unceasingly with no exceptions. They also agreed with God that if they did not obey His law, they would incur the penalties He laid out.
I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent.
You say there is no way a loving God would ever do that, to which I reply, that a loving God would do everything possible, including invoking extremely harsh punishments, to prevent as much sin as possible and protect His creation from the greatest amount of harm. To not take extreme measures against sin would actually be a point against Him, and not for Him.

I have to admit I find this pretty shocking myself. I personally don't believe that stoning is ever a justifiable action for anything, ever, period. What I find incredible is that I'm even having to take a stance AGAINST stoning in this day and age. Although of course it still goes on legally in several countries. This fact doesn't make it acceptable, it just makes it more disgusting.

Shiny, personally I'm disappointed. I was ready to give it a shot and read the bible all the way through, to give it the benefit of the doubt and try to approach it and what you said with an open mind. I saw this video and thought for sure you would dismiss it as false or something similar, but to see you essentially defending it, I just can't accept that the actions described in this verse are moral. I will never accept them as moral.

If this makes ME immoral in god's eyes than Shiny you had better get some stones ready because here's another sinner deserving of sinner's death.


>> ^SDGundamX:

>> ^shinyblurry:
The proof that you're not is that you give no regard to the sin itself. You are using a relative standard to judge his crime, whereas God uses an absolute standard. There is no such thing as a minor sin in Gods eyes. God is holy and His standard is moral perfection. Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin.
Neither was the crime itself picking up sticks. The actual crime was rebellion. It is not a minor thing to break Gods law, which the man knew full well he was doing. God punished Him not only for rebellion, but also as a public example to the rest of Israel that His laws were to be taken seriously. You have to remember that the Jews were His chosen people, and that they had entered into a covenant with God willingly. They agreed to follow His laws and adhere to His standards, and His standard was that they would be holy as He is holy. This meant that they would obey His law unceasingly with no exceptions. They also agreed with God that if they did not obey His law, they would incur the penalties He laid out.
I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent.
You say there is no way a loving God would ever do that, to which I reply, that a loving God would do everything possible, including invoking extremely harsh punishments, to prevent as much sin as possible and protect His creation from the greatest amount of harm. To not take extreme measures against sin would actually be a point against Him, and not for Him.
>> ^Asmo:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I'll address it. I think stoning was used as a deterrent. He ordained an admittedly harsh punishment to keep His people from sin. While you don't see sin as a big deal, it is what caused the corruption of this entire world and all of the suffering therein. Every negative thing that has ever happened here stemmed from just one sin, and each of us have committed hundreds, if not thousands of sins. Sin is a big deal and I feel that punishment was a reflection of the seriousness of sin.
Look up stoning videos on Liveleak sometime and tell me how a supposed god of infinite love would prescribe it for collecting firewood on the sabbath... I condemn people who use stoning as monsters. By any standard, it appears that I am morally superior to your god... = P


Hi, shinyblurry.
I haven't responded to any of your posts in a while, but this time your answer made me throw up in my mouth a little so I thought I'd chime in. Let me read back to you what you just said:
"Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin."
But in the Christian tradition, the ONLY being capable of moral perfection is God himself. Humans can strive for it, but never achieve it. So what you have essentially said is that God created imperfect creatures and now punishes them repeatedly, mercilessly, and arbitrarily with death for being imperfect. That doesn't sound much like a loving (or rational) God to me.
"I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent."
Except that "deterrent" didn't work, did it? After Numbers 32-36 there are countless more examples of the people sinning in the Bible. So you're basically saying the poor guy in this passage died for nothing and that the supposedly omnipotent God who commanded the death was unable to see that this deterrence would fail. Nevermind that picking up sticks is treated as a far worse form of "rebellion" than the other various sins recounted both before and after this story in the Bible in which many of the characters are given less severe punishments or the chance to repent. So much for the Christian god being a god of mercy...
These kinds of contradictions and irrationalities are apparent to anyone who takes even a brief moment to consider them... and you wonder why the Sift isn't flocking to your evangelical banner?

>> ^shinyblurry:

The proof that you're not is that you give no regard to the sin itself. You are using a relative standard to judge his crime, whereas God uses an absolute standard. There is no such thing as a minor sin in Gods eyes. God is holy and His standard is moral perfection. Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin.
Neither was the crime itself picking up sticks. The actual crime was rebellion. It is not a minor thing to break Gods law, which the man knew full well he was doing. God punished Him not only for rebellion, but also as a public example to the rest of Israel that His laws were to be taken seriously. You have to remember that the Jews were His chosen people, and that they had entered into a covenant with God willingly. They agreed to follow His laws and adhere to His standards, and His standard was that they would be holy as He is holy. This meant that they would obey His law unceasingly with no exceptions. They also agreed with God that if they did not obey His law, they would incur the penalties He laid out.
I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent.
You say there is no way a loving God would ever do that, to which I reply, that a loving God would do everything possible, including invoking extremely harsh punishments, to prevent as much sin as possible and protect His creation from the greatest amount of harm. To not take extreme measures against sin would actually be a point against Him, and not for Him.
>> ^Asmo:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I'll address it. I think stoning was used as a deterrent. He ordained an admittedly harsh punishment to keep His people from sin. While you don't see sin as a big deal, it is what caused the corruption of this entire world and all of the suffering therein. Every negative thing that has ever happened here stemmed from just one sin, and each of us have committed hundreds, if not thousands of sins. Sin is a big deal and I feel that punishment was a reflection of the seriousness of sin.
Look up stoning videos on Liveleak sometime and tell me how a supposed god of infinite love would prescribe it for collecting firewood on the sabbath... I condemn people who use stoning as monsters. By any standard, it appears that I am morally superior to your god... = P



Hi, shinyblurry.

I haven't responded to any of your posts in a while, but this time your answer made me throw up in my mouth a little so I thought I'd chime in. Let me read back to you what you just said:

"Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin."

But in the Christian tradition, the ONLY being capable of moral perfection is God himself. Humans can strive for it, but never achieve it. So what you have essentially said is that God created imperfect creatures and now punishes them repeatedly, mercilessly, and arbitrarily with death for being imperfect. That doesn't sound much like a loving (or rational) God to me.

"I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent."

Except that "deterrent" didn't work, did it? After Numbers 32-36 there are countless more examples of the people sinning in the Bible. So you're basically saying the poor guy in this passage died for nothing and that the supposedly omnipotent God who commanded the death was unable to see that this deterrence would fail. Nevermind that picking up sticks is treated as a far worse form of "rebellion" than the other various sins recounted both before and after this story in the Bible in which many of the characters are given less severe punishments or the chance to repent. So much for the Christian god being a god of mercy...

These kinds of contradictions and irrationalities are apparent to anyone who takes even a brief moment to consider them... and you wonder why the Sift isn't flocking to your evangelical banner?

The proof that you're not is that you give no regard to the sin itself. You are using a relative standard to judge his crime, whereas God uses an absolute standard. There is no such thing as a minor sin in Gods eyes. God is holy and His standard is moral perfection. Moral perfection is what God calls good, and everything short of that is evil. He has also ordained the death penalty for all sin.

Neither was the crime itself picking up sticks. The actual crime was rebellion. It is not a minor thing to break Gods law, which the man knew full well he was doing. God punished Him not only for rebellion, but also as a public example to the rest of Israel that His laws were to be taken seriously. You have to remember that the Jews were His chosen people, and that they had entered into a covenant with God willingly. They agreed to follow His laws and adhere to His standards, and His standard was that they would be holy as He is holy. This meant that they would obey His law unceasingly with no exceptions. They also agreed with God that if they did not obey His law, they would incur the penalties He laid out.

I will agree that stoning is a particularly harsh punishment, but while you don't think the punishment fits the crime, that is because you don't understand how bad sin really is. Consider for a moment that what I said earlier is true, that one sin led to all of the madness that we see in the world today. If you can comprehend that, maybe you'll start to get the idea why God would use such a punishment as a deterrent.

You say there is no way a loving God would ever do that, to which I reply, that a loving God would do everything possible, including invoking extremely harsh punishments, to prevent as much sin as possible and protect His creation from the greatest amount of harm. To not take extreme measures against sin would actually be a point against Him, and not for Him.

>> ^Asmo:

>> ^shinyblurry:
I'll address it. I think stoning was used as a deterrent. He ordained an admittedly harsh punishment to keep His people from sin. While you don't see sin as a big deal, it is what caused the corruption of this entire world and all of the suffering therein. Every negative thing that has ever happened here stemmed from just one sin, and each of us have committed hundreds, if not thousands of sins. Sin is a big deal and I feel that punishment was a reflection of the seriousness of sin.
Look up stoning videos on Liveleak sometime and tell me how a supposed god of infinite love would prescribe it for collecting firewood on the sabbath... I condemn people who use stoning as monsters. By any standard, it appears that I am morally superior to your god... = P

>> ^shinyblurry:

I'll address it. I think stoning was used as a deterrent. He ordained an admittedly harsh punishment to keep His people from sin. While you don't see sin as a big deal, it is what caused the corruption of this entire world and all of the suffering therein. Every negative thing that has ever happened here stemmed from just one sin, and each of us have committed hundreds, if not thousands of sins. Sin is a big deal and I feel that punishment was a reflection of the seriousness of sin.

Look up stoning videos on Liveleak sometime and tell me how a supposed god of infinite love would prescribe it for collecting firewood on the sabbath... I condemn people who use stoning as monsters. By any standard, it appears that I am morally superior to your god... = P

I'll address it. I think stoning was used as a deterrent. He ordained an admittedly harsh punishment to keep His people from sin. While you don't see sin as a big deal, it is what caused the corruption of this entire world and all of the suffering therein. Every negative thing that has ever happened here stemmed from just one sin, and each of us have committed hundreds, if not thousands of sins. Sin is a big deal and I feel that punishment was a reflection of the seriousness of sin.

>> ^Asmo:

I just love how SB jumps on the Saturday/Sunday issue and ignores the murdering of essentially innocent people with big fucking rocks at the commandment of his omnipotent and omnipresent god.

-
>> ^shuac:

>> ^shinyblurry:
I think taint said it pretty well, the hypocrisy which is veritably oozing from your post, so I won't pile on to that.
What I will say is that all authority belongs to Jesus Christ, and since you do not belong to Him, you have no authority what so ever. You told me that you "counsel" Christians who are in a "crisis of faith". Considering your very public anti-christian stance, and the things you have told me, it's not hard to imagine the kind of "advice" you have to offer someone who is vulnerable in their faith. What kind of ideas you insinuate into their lives.
Your error is that you believe you can do it your way, and you have bought into that selfish trap hook, line and sinker. You rail against the bible, why? Because it says you're wrong. Scripture says that you have bought the lie and fallen into delusion. Why? Because you think you can be like God, just like Eve did. It is the oldest lie that there is. What you call theosophy is described in Revelation 2:24. You cannot know God except through Jesus Christ, period, end of story. You beg borrow and steal from His wisdom to try to make an end run around Him, but you will never know God until you submit yourself entirely to His will. He is the Creator, and He has commanded you to repent and believe the gospel.
>> ^enoch

Your taint speaks to you know? What does it say?
"What's that awful smell?"
Seriously, enoch pretty much smacked you down hard with all those citations. Thass gotta sting!