*related=http://videosift.com/video/Gospel-of-Intolerance-american-evangelicals-in-Uganda

and the same people are helping to sponsor the death penalty for homosexuality in africa

Gospel of Intolerance - american evangelicals in Uganda has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

Well, it's under His discretion. I've felt like leaving a few times but He hasn't released me. The Lord also said to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everything belongs to Him, including this website, and He cares about the people here who use it. To be despised and ridiculed for speaking about Jesus is business as usual for a Christian:

John 15:18-19

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

The seasoned believer is either busy about His masters business or living a spiritually defeated life. There isn't any inbetween in that equation.

So what's your take on Jesus and His trip downstairs?

Good points. Not that I agree wholeheartedly or at all, necessarily, but you seem congruent in quoting a text. Bibliography isn't stout enough for MLA standards, but I'll let it pass.



Here's what I don't get the most; out of all things you are not supposed to do according to the bible, it seems like homosexuality gets an "unfair" mention. Being that it's only condemned a few times. Now, I know if it's condemned once it might as well be condemned a thousand times, but I just feel that it's slightly coincidental that homosexuality—an act that can actually be repulsive to a non-homosexual or to a homosexual that's ashamed of his/her own feelings—that it is the one touted as the downfall of humanity. I mean there are plenty of ways to sin, why is so much emphasis placed on homosexuality. It just doesn't seem to be congruent with the amount of mentions it has.



Also, as a straight male, I've never had to make a decision in my sexuality. In fact, if anything I'd say it seems out of my control (not my actions but my tastes). So really, anecdotally, I'd say that sexuality is far from being within our conscious control. The problem, it seem, the religious have with that, is it seems to undermine parts of the bible. This, to me, is why it has become such a lynch-pin issue. To admit homosexuality is naturally occurring and against our control, would prove a part, even a small part, of the bible fallacious.

Instead of attacking homosexuality, however, I'd think that Christians would be better off focusing as much on homosexuality as is in the bible—which is very little.>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^VoodooV:
I do have to give the WBC credit for just showing up and credit to Brand for controlling his audience enough to give them a chance to speak.
Anytime you have that chance to at least have a dialog is a win and how one learns.
This just reinforces the absurdity of believing in a god or at the very least having any immutable doctrine of god.
Even if you're at the very least a deist, this idea that you can know precisely what god wants (on BOTH sides of the issue). You don't know that god wants you to hate fags, for that matter you don't know that god wants you to love either.
Even amongst people of the same faith, you can't get anyone to agree on exactly what god is/wants. There is no authoritative source, and that includes the bible and it's multiple versions. There is no empirical evidence either way.
even if you do believe in a god, saying "I don't know" sets you free from any religion or cult like this.
Even if a god does exist and does in fact hate homosexuality and does not want you to be/practice it. He's got an undeniably shitty way of communicating this guideline and why it should be adhered to.
God may be all powerful, but he's shite at communication and education.

That may be true of the various religions, but in Christianity you have near universal agreement on the foundational tenants of the faith, both today and going back to the early church. How you get saved and what God expects you is very well understood and agreed upon by nearly all Christians. Yes, there are differences..some people think baptism is really important, some not so much. Some people think speaking in tongues is important, others not so much. These are all peripheral issues to the heart of the fatih, which is the suffering death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no confusion in the church as a whole as to how you get saved.
It's also not that God is a bad communicator, it is people are hard of hearing because they suppress the truth:
Romans 1:18-21
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
He gives everyone more than a clue that He is there and what He expects of them, but they harden their hearts to God because of sin.
And far be it from me to defend the WBC, but they have a point about sin. This nation (world) glorifies sin, but sin is what leads people to destruction. If you glorify sin to someone, it is like hating them. Where the WBC goes wrong, and that's to put it mildly, is the negative and judgmental way they present the gospel. This is what scripture says about sharing the faith:
2 Timothy 2:24-26 And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
I think they skipped over these verses when they put together their ministry. They've probably done more in recent times to turn people away from Christ than all the televangelists put together.

>> ^VoodooV:

I do have to give the WBC credit for just showing up and credit to Brand for controlling his audience enough to give them a chance to speak.
Anytime you have that chance to at least have a dialog is a win and how one learns.
This just reinforces the absurdity of believing in a god or at the very least having any immutable doctrine of god.
Even if you're at the very least a deist, this idea that you can know precisely what god wants (on BOTH sides of the issue). You don't know that god wants you to hate fags, for that matter you don't know that god wants you to love either.
Even amongst people of the same faith, you can't get anyone to agree on exactly what god is/wants. There is no authoritative source, and that includes the bible and it's multiple versions. There is no empirical evidence either way.
even if you do believe in a god, saying "I don't know" sets you free from any religion or cult like this.
Even if a god does exist and does in fact hate homosexuality and does not want you to be/practice it. He's got an undeniably shitty way of communicating this guideline and why it should be adhered to.
God may be all powerful, but he's shite at communication and education.


That may be true of the various religions, but in Christianity you have near universal agreement on the foundational tenants of the faith, both today and going back to the early church. How you get saved and what God expects you is very well understood and agreed upon by nearly all Christians. Yes, there are differences..some people think baptism is really important, some not so much. Some people think speaking in tongues is important, others not so much. These are all peripheral issues to the heart of the fatih, which is the suffering death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no confusion in the church as a whole as to how you get saved.

It's also not that God is a bad communicator, it is people are hard of hearing because they suppress the truth:

Romans 1:18-21

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

He gives everyone more than a clue that He is there and what He expects of them, but they harden their hearts to God because of sin.

And far be it from me to defend the WBC, but they have a point about sin. This nation (world) glorifies sin, but sin is what leads people to destruction. If you glorify sin to someone, it is like hating them. Where the WBC goes wrong, and that's to put it mildly, is the negative and judgmental way they present the gospel. This is what scripture says about sharing the faith:

2 Timothy 2:24-26 And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

I think they skipped over these verses when they put together their ministry. They've probably done more in recent times to turn people away from Christ than all the televangelists put together.

Terrific post, thank you, it should be required viewing in all schools. The last comment - Steven Weinberg - is the way forward; "science IS corrosive to religious belief, and, it's a good thing too." We have a duty to insist that our children are well informed. That they doubt, and question, tenets, rather than just simply accepting them as "gospel." I forget who said; " An intelligent man has no need of religion."

Don't try and pawn this off on me. It's not my "excuse". I'm closed only to one idea: of my being absolutely certain about anything. I'm not closed to any other idea, period. You have failed to convince me. That's why I don't accept your story. And after all this, you revealed yourself to be absolutely certain of your own judgement that your numinous experiences are coming from God.

Let me get this straight..you're completely closed to the idea of being absolutely certain of something. Think about that for a minute and see if you can spot the inherent contradiction contained within this idea.

If I say there is absolute truth, and someone says no there isn't, and I say are you absolutely sure about that?, this isn't a trivial question. That's what I used to think, that it was some kind of cheap trick, and ultimately meaningless. Don't be like I was and just dismiss this without giving it a great deal of thought. The fact is, you can't deny the idea of absolute truth without confirming it. It's not a cheap parlor cheap of logic, it is a revelation of the framework of reality, of how things really work. That there really is a certain truth, and everything you ultimately believe, flawed logic and all, ultimately points to it. It actually could be no other way. There is a ground for everything we know and understand. The atheist says though that's he is standing on air. The issue is that subjective beings can't know anything about objective reality so they grope around in the dark trying to understand what truth is. An atheism has no route to get beyond his subjective understanding. The only way you can understand truth then is by the light of revelation. IE, someone without objective understanding (an omniscient being) would have to enlighten you. If you've never seen light then you won't understand what darkness is. Jesus said if the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

What I believe is that you were not systematic in trying to understand your experience. When you woke up from it and figured out that you were being led down a path to insanity, you just wrote the whole thing off as being entirely in your mind. I would liken this to coming home one day and finding a group of thieves moving furniture out of your house and loading it into a truck. You ask them what they're doing and they say that they are a moving company and that you called them and set up an appointment 2 weeks ago to move you out, and don't you remember? Oh wow, you say, it must have skipped my mind! It looks like it was just a rash idea of mine, really sorry for this inconvenience! You then proceed to help them move your furniture back into your house.

As you're moving everything back in, you notice the door has been busted open and the house has been ransacked. You ask them about this and they say that just earlier you were here trying to let them into house but you couldn't find your key so you kicked the door in because you didn't want to keep them waiting. You then tore the house apart looking for your keys, and when you found them you left to go get something to eat and that's where you've been this whole time. Pondering this you decide that if you could forget about calling them in the first place then you could most certainly forget about doing all of those other things too.

So you finally get everything back in the house and you again apologize profusely for wasting their time, but as they are leaving, they say don't worry about it because we were never here. We're just part of a dream you're having. Goodbye! You think to yourself, considering the memory problems I've been having, this seems very reasonable. The next day a friend stops by and asks you what happened to your house. Oh, it was all a bad dream, you say. I apparently did all of this in my sleep, but it's over now, not to worry!

I don't know what your experience was; typically, they try to convince you that you're some kind of Messiah-like figure, or that reality is centered around you in some way. What I do know is that things happened to you which you cannot explain; signs and wonders, strange "coincidences", etc. These were the signposts in your journey that reinforced your paradigm and kept you on that road. You want to believe that it was all in your head rather than a strategic plan to destroy you, so you chalk it up to delusion. It wasn't all delusion, though; you were being herded down a path, probably with the goal of getting you to kill yourself, and it's only because they went too far that you woke up from that spell.

You have failed to convince me. That's why I don't accept your story.

I can't convince you of anything. This isn't an intellectual problem that you're having, it is an issue of your heart. Only God can convince you, but your heart is hardened towards Him and you refuse to come near to Him.

And after all this, you revealed yourself to be absolutely certain of your own judgement that your numinous experiences are coming from God.

That's just what I've been saying all along, that there is a certain truth, and God reveals it to those who seek Him. That truth is Jesus Christ. You've admitted that God could convince me, so it isn't an inherently irrational position.

All you're telling me is that you are convinced of something, and FWIW, I believe that you are. You have no grounds to believe that your human perceived conviction is warranted, especially given that you know of many other humans who are equally convicted about things that contradict what you believe. That alone should give you doubt about your convictions, as it gives me doubt. If it doesn't give you doubt, you're not being rational. What's more likely: that you alone are correct among all the millions of equally convicted people, or that all equally convicted people, including you, are wrong? What makes you so special?

Nothing makes me special; I simply responded to Gods calling. I can explain why people follow false religion in imitation of the true God, which is that Satan blinds the eyes of unbelievers so that they cannot know the truth about God. He backs up their experiences with supernatural signs and wonders so that they believe they are on the right path. Satan is an imitator of God:

2Co 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
2Co 11:15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

I DO doubt my own existence -- at least, I don't take it as fact that I exist. I could be a brain in a vat, etc. I don't accept my own senses either as categorical evidence. I live as if they're accurate because it's instinctive and it serves me to do so. Skepticism is not ignorance. Accepting something absolutely and uncritically is ignorance. You expect me to accept your word on faith. Why should I believe you? You're just some random person on their internet soapbox who claims to have visions of god. See how stupid it would be for me to change my life because of that? You wouldn't.

I don't think you're actually that skeptical, because I haven't really seen you critically examine your own presuppositions. You say that you don't have any preference for the truth, but that is clearly not true. You are very slanted in favor of a liberal/humanistic/naturalistic mindset, and you oppose any ideas which contradict it. You clearly do accept some things, like evolution for instance, as the gospel truth. This is very inconsistent with your statements about uncertainty. You've seen the human capacity to delude itself, so you keep saying, but you don't seem to question the thought process that leads you to any of these conclusions.

The reason I came to be a Christian, and no one ever witnessed to me by the way, is because I wanted to know the truth and God showed me what it is. I had sufficient evidence from God to give my life to Jesus, and then Jesus completely transformed me and made me a new person. I didn't expect any of that to happen. I had no idea what it would mean to become a Christian. But it did happen, supernaturally, and I found out later that it matched up to everything the bible said would happen. It's one thing to use confirmation bias to make a bunch of coincidence and happenstance into some kind of experience of God. It's another to be transformed at the core of your being into an entirely new person, losing all the negatives and gaining an unlimited supply of peace, joy, hope and love. Even more so when it happens within a moment in time. I've seen miracles, and I've seen things like demon possession. I am certain because God made me certain, but there is plenty of evidence to justify my certainty.

You are certain about God's revelation to you because God has given you certainty of it. That's tautology, if you're a rational agent.

Actually, it's circular reasoning. You will find that every inductive argument suffers from this problem. You cannot actually ultimately justify a single one of your beliefs to me. The conversation could go like this:

You: (objection to a stated fact or belief)
Me: Is that a rational statement?
You: Yes, it is logical.
Me: How do you know it is logical?
You: Because I reason it to be so.
Me: How do you know your reasoning is valid?
You: Because I reason it to be so.

Repeat ad infinitum. You've admitted that you can't trust your senses, and you just assume that you're rational because it's instinctive, which provides you no ultimate justification for anything you believe. That you're telling me it's wrong to use circular reason is absurd since everything you believe is based on it.

Circular reasoning is not necessarily fallacious because you cannot point to an ultimate authority for any claim without using it. Look at the issues this problem of induction causes when it comes to proving scientific theory:

"Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau note that “using the scientific method to judge the scientific method is circular reasoning”. Scientists attempt to discover the laws of nature and to predict what will happen in the future, based on those laws. However, per David Hume's problem of induction, science cannot be proven inductively by empirical evidence, and thus science cannot be proven scientifically. An appeal to a principle of the uniformity of nature would be required to deductively necessitate the continued accuracy of predictions based on laws that have only succeeded in generalizing past observations. But as Bertrand Russell observed, “The method of ‘postulating’ what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

You cannot use empirical evidence to prove empiricism is valid, just as you can't use the scientific method to prove the scientific method is valid. Therefore science cannot be proven scientifically! It needs an ultimate justification which cannot be proven inductively. Therefore, you would have to use a deductive argument by presupposing the uniformity of nature to justify the continued accuracy of the predictions of science. But again, just assuming the uniformity in nature leads you to the same problem. The only evidence you have that the future will be like the past is in the past. Therefore it would be fallacious reasoning to say the future will be like the past because of the past.

This is where the problem comes in for the atheist, because he must use viciously circular reasoning, which is always fallacious. I can point to God to justify logic, truth, the uniformity in nature, and my own rationality. These concepts don't make any sense in an atheistic worldview, because there is no way to justify them. My reasoning isn't viciously circular..I can point to an ultimate authority. Your reason is viciously circular because you must point to yourself as the authority.

You want God to be real so you deny all evidence even to other *possibilities*, let alone facts.

I didn't originally go looking for God. He tapped me on the shoulder. I didn't become a Christian because I wanted God to be real, I became a Christian because the evidence indicated He is real.

I don't want anything in particular to be real. I only want to be as sure as possible of what I do believe.

I don't think you want the Christian God to be real, and would prefer that He wasn't. What you can be sure of is that you cannot ultimately justify any of your beliefs.

Yes, of course a god could convince you, but just because you're convinced, doesn't mean it was God who did it. That would be a faulty syllogism. Minds can play the most amazing tricks on people. That's documented fact.

How is it that when you have evidence that confirms your belief, it's faulty, but when you reject that evidence, it's rational? Just because you can potentially falsify an idea doesn't mean it has been falsified. I have a path to the truth, as you've admitted. God could make me certain, and He could reveal truth, so it isn't irrational to believe it, considering the overwhelming evidence that I have received, and continue to receive, each and every day. When God touches your life, you have a justified true belief in Him. In every case, when God makes someone certain, they are going to justified in saying that they're certain. You would say all these people are delusional, but you have no way to be able to tell the difference. Only the individual could really know that they've been touched by God. The only way you could find out is if you were yourself touched by God. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along. I can't convince you, but God can. He loves you and He is waiting for you to soften your heart and seek His face. That is the only thing which will prove or disprove my claim.


>> ^messenger:

stuff

I would test it, if I could. By “God”, I’m assuming you’re still talking about Yahweh specifically, and not just any random god-type entity. If that’s the case, then I’ve already falsified the claim that the Bible is perfect, so that argument is gone.

You haven't falsified it. If you have, show me where. If you're referring to Matthews lineage using Chiastic structure, that isn't an imperfection. Chaistic structure is a literary device, so Matthews genealogy is not giving us the entire line, but rather like an artistic summation of it. To say it is wrong would be like telling a painter his painting is wrong.

If you’re merely making a deist claim, then I can’t argue with you. I take no position on deism other than if some deity created the universe and set it in motion, I have no reason to believe it cares about humans, and it certainly has made no edicts that I perceive as to how I should live my life.

Since you have no argument against a potential God, and couldn't tell whether you were living in His Universe or not, then how would you know if this God cares about humans or if it has laid down any edicts about how you should live your life?

You’re not listening to me. Seriously. I do have ways of determining which story is more likely. Occam’s razor is the best for this problem. The complexities introduced by faith in Yahweh and the Bible are necessarily more complex than the problems they solve. They are also blind faith (I'm talking about the vast majority of the faithful, and about what you're recommending I do), which is willful self-delusion. The theories that physicists and biologists have come up with are quite convincing, especially if you understand how science works.

I have been listening to you and what I have found is that if you can find some kind of excuse to dismiss something that seems even potentially legitimate, then you run with it. You only seem interested in trying to falsify the question, because you apparently have already decided it isn't true. You don't have any real evidence to prove it, but in previous conversations you have said you see no reason to bother thinking about it. In short, you don't care.

You say I'm talking about blind faith, and I'm not. I believe what I believe because God convinced me of its truth. I had no reason to believe it otherwise, and I wouldn't. I am telling you that if you draw near to God, He will draw near to you. He loves you and wants you to know Him. You just don't want to know Him and that is the problem.

Neither do you understand the law of parsimony. The law states that in explaining a given phenomenon, we should make as few assumptions as possible. Therefore, if we have two theories which are equal in explanatory power, but one has fewer assumptions, we should choose the one with fewer assumptions. However, a more complex theory with better explanatory power should be chosen over a more simplistic theory with weaker explanatory power. I think John Lennox kind of sums this all up at 3:00



Agreed. I find myself in an environment in which my species was capable of evolving. It says nothing of how statistically improbable it is.

You were created in your parents womb; this says nothing about evolution. It only says that you have some way to come into existence, personally. It says nothing about the particulars of how that came to be.

Disagree. I’m lucky that of all the possible combinations of molecules that could have come together to create our terrestrial environment, the right ones came together to create life, then the right DNA strands combined to eventually create me. I’m lucky, sure, but given the length of time we’ve had, there’s no reason I should be surprised, especially when there's no reason to assert that this is the only universe.

There is no reason to assert it isn't, either. In a finely tuned Universe, it is more plausible to believe it was designed rather than it just happened to be one Universe out of trillions that implausibly just looks like it was designed because if you have enough Universes eventually one will form that appears that way. Remember Occams Razor?

You ask why multiple universes are more likely than a deity? Because you and I both know for sure there is at least one universe, so positing some more of them is less of a stretch than asserting a self-contradictory entity, alien to our objective experience, defying any consistent and meaningful description, so vastly complex that it cannot be properly understood, and so full of human failings that it looks man-made.

That would be true if God were any of those things. I can agree with you though that your understanding of God is self-contradictory, alien to your experience, etc. You believe you have God figured out, when you don't know Him at all. You would actually do anything to know God, but you are rejecting Him out of ignorance.

In the scenario between multiple universes or God as a theory to describe a finely tuned Universe, God wins every time. It doesn't matter how complex God might be; the explanatory power afforded by the theory is by far superior.

I’m sceptical of all your claims because that’s how I roll. I’m sceptical of everything, especially big claims. It’s the smartest way to avoid being duped.

You're skeptical of everything that doesn't agree with your presuppositions about reality. Those I have rarely if ever seen you seriously question in all the time I have spoken to you. Regarding knowledge that agrees with those presuppositions, you feel free to speculate about that all day long and will say that virtually any of it is more plausible with no evidence. The thing is, I used to be on your side of the fence, and I know what a search for the truth looks like. This isn't it.

The smartest way to avoid being duped is to understand that you might be duped at this moment and not realize it. That's the trouble with being deceived; you think you're right when you are really wrong.

You have been telling me that I must believe in the one true thing that is true that is Yahweh and the Bible and creation because it’s true because it’s true because it’s true because it’s the only possibility.

What I've been telling you is that God is not hiding from you. You are hiding from Him. It's not that you don't know there is a God so much as you don't want to know that there is. You simply want to do whatever you think is right and you automatically reject any possibility that says this is wrong and you are in fact accountable to a higher authority. In short, your attitude towards God is not skeptical but rebellious.

Now, I conceive of another possibility: my 10^trillion universes. You agree it’s possible, so there’s no reason for me to believe yours is necessarily true. If I have to choose between them, the one that doesn’t require the further explanation of a sentient deity more complex than 10^trillion universes is simpler. And even then, I DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE one or the other. I can remain sceptical. To me, it’s foolish not to.

I concede its possible that God could have created other Universes, but I don't concede the idea that Universes just happen by themselves. This is really a very foolish idea. It's like coming across a coke can and believing wind and erosion created it. It only seems plausible to you because you must have a naturalistic explanation for your existence to make sense of your reality.

I don't expect you to believe in God unless He gives you some kind of revelation. I frequently pray that you will receive this revelation, both for you and the sake of your family.

Since I already pointed out this flawed understand of the law of parsimony, I won't reiterate that argument here.

While we’re talking about being honest with ourselves, I’d like to hear it from you that the following things are *at least technically possible*: that Yahweh doesn’t exist; that your relationship with Yahweh is an illusion created by you inside your head because you are human and human minds are prone to occasional spectacular mistakes; that the Bible was created by deluded humans; that the universe is around 14 billion years old; that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old; that life on Earth started 1-2 billion years ago; and that all species evolved from primitive life forms. To be clear, I’m not asking you to accept them as true or even probable, just state whether this collection of statements is possible or impossible.

This is what Paul said:

1 Corinthians 15:17,19

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

I wasn't there at the resurrection; I take it on faith. My faith has been borne out by the evidence, such as being born again, witnessing miracles, and experiencing the presence of God in my daily life. I don't admit any of those things; I have most definitely received revelation from God, and there is no other plausible explanation for the evidence. If you can concede that God can give you certain knowledge then you can understand why I don't doubt that knowledge.

Notice what George Wald said?

I notice that you only quote scientists out of context, or when they’re speaking poetically. I guarantee he never said that in a scientific paper. Life may be a wonder, not a miracle.

I *only* do? That's a false generalization. This quote is right on target, and I challenge you to show me where I have taken George out of context. This is what scientists believe, that time + chance makes just about anything possible. Has life ever been observed coming entirely from non living matter? That's a miracle, and that's what you must believe happened either here or somewhere in the Universe.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/2012/03/is-the-universe-fine-tuned-for-life/

Near the end, you’ll find this gem: “The history of physics has had that a lot, … Certain quantities have seemed inexplicable and fine-tuned, and once we understand them, they don’t seem to [be] so fine-tuned. We have to have some historical perspective.”

If you haven't done so already, watch the first 10-20 minutes of this: http://videosift.com/video/The-God-of-the-Gaps-Neil-deGrasse-Tyson. It's "creationism/intelligent design" laid bare as a position of weakness. Your "fine tuning" trope is part of "intelligent design" and has the same historical flaw.

It's the God of the gaps argument which is flawed. It's not a God of the gaps argument when the theory is a better explanation for the evidence.

It's just a bare fact that there is a number of physical constants in an extremely narrow range which conspire to create a life permitting Universe. It's even admitted on the wikipedia page:

Physicist Paul Davies has asserted that "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life".[2] However he continues "...the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

What do you mean, “they hate that possibility”? Why should a scientist hate any possibility? If there were science that pointed to the real existence of God, that’s exactly the way their investigations would go. That’s what motivated early modern scientists – they believed unravelling the laws of the universe by experiment would reveal God’s nature. It was only when the scientific path of experimentation split conclusively away from the biblical account that anybody considered that religious faith and scientific endeavour might become separate enterprises.

The roost of the scientific establishment today is ruled by atheistic naturalists, and they very much hate the idea of God polluting their purely naturalistic theories. They consider science to be liberated from religion and they vigorously patrol the borders, expelling anyone who dares to question the established paradigm. A biologist today who questions the fundamentals of evolutionary theory commits professional suicide. It is now conventional wisdom and you either have to get with the program or be completely shut out of the community.

Here are some other interesting quotes for you:

Richard Lewontin “does acknowledge that scientists inescapably rely on ‘rhetorical’ proofs (authority, tradition) for most of what they care about; they depend on theoretical assumptions unprovable by hard science, and their promises are often absurdly overblown … Only the most simple-minded and philosophically naive scientist, of whom there are many, thinks that science is characterized entirely by hard inference and mathematical proofs based on indisputable data

Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.

As for the “much” stronger evidence, as stated in the article, every time scientists solve a mystery of something they thought was “finely tuned”, they realized that there is a much simpler explanation than God. Evolution, for instance, eliminates the question of "fine tuning" in life. “God” is a metaphor for “things outside my understanding”. Once they move within our understanding, nobody claims that they’re God anymore. And FWIW, some of the most famous scientists ever came to the same "Because God" conclusion, which held until someone else got past it and solved what they couldn't.

I'm glad you understand that the whole enterprise of science was initially driven by the Christian idea that God created an orderly Universe based on laws, and thus we could reason out what was going on by investigating secondary causes. Yet God wasn't a metaphor for something we didn't understand; God was the reason we were interested in trying to understand in the first place, or even thought that we could.

You say there is this "because God" brick wall that we break down by determining the operations of the Universe. We can then see that it was never God at all, but X Y Z, yet what does that prove? Genesis 1 says "God created", and that He controls everything. What you're confusing is mechanism with agency. Can you rule out a clockmaker by explaining how the clock works? That's exactly what you're saying here, and it is an invalid argument.

You also act as if evolution has been indisputably proven. Let me ask you this question, since you claim to understand science so well. What is the proof and evidence that evolution is a fact? Be specific. What clinches it?

So to your conclusion, how do you figure that the appearance of fine tuning—which seems to go away when you look close enough—is stronger evidence?

It only goes away when you come to a series of false conclusions as you have above. The evidence is there, even the scientists admit it. To avoid the conclusion multiple universes are postulated. However, this is even more implausible for this reason; the multiple universe generator would be even more fine tuned than this Universe. Therefore, you are pointing right back at a fine tuner once more.

Eh??? But in your last nine paragraphs, YOU yourself, a limited temporal creature, have been trying to prove God’s existence with your “fine tuning” argument (corrupt reasoning, like you say), even after you've repeatedly asserted in the other threads that the only possible evidence for God is that he’ll answer our prayers. Why are you bothering? It is laughable how inconsistent you’re being here.

I wouldn't know the truth on my own; only God can reveal what the truth is. There are two routes to the truth. One is that you're omnipotent. Another is that an omnipotent being tells you what the truth is. Can you think of any others?

Keep fishing. Either the patient being prayed for recovers or doesn't recover. If not, the sincere prayers weren't answered. Unless you’re suggesting God secretly removed the free will of the scientists and the people praying so that the tests would come back negative? Gimme a break.

You seem to believe that free will means God doesn't interfere in the Creation, and this isn't the case. Free will means, you have the choice to obey or disobey God. It doesn't mean you are free from Gods influences. That's the whole idea of prayer, that God is going to exert His influence on creation to change something. God is directly involved in the affairs of men, He sets up Kingdoms, He takes them away. He put you where He wanted you and He will take you out when He has sovereignly planned to do it.

Even if the prayers are sincere, God isn't going to heal everyone. Yes, either way the patient recovers or doesn't recover, and either way, God isn't going to reveal His existence outside of what He has ordained; faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Anyone trying to prove Gods existence any other way will always come away disappointed.

And all of this was written only after the prophesy was fulfilled. A little too convenient.

Actually it was written hundreds of years before hand.

The 70 weeks are not concurrent, first of all.

I know. I'm assuming they were consecutive. How could 70 weeks be concurrent? That makes no sense at all. Even if you meant to say “not consecutive”, what does it mean to declare a time limit of 70 weeks if they're not consecutive? It means nothing. That time limit could extend to today. What's your source for saying they're not concurrent/consecutive/whatever?

This is why I suggested you become more familiar with theology. Yes, you're right, I meant to say consecutive. You would know they were not consecutive if you read the scripture. The prophecy identifies they are not consecutive. Please see this:

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/552/

Again, conveniently, this “prediction” doesn't appear in writing until after the fall of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem fell in 70 AD. The gospels were written beforehand. If they were written afterwards, there would have been a mention of the fall of the city, if only to confirm the prophecy, but there is no mention of it in any of the gospels.

I'll rephrase this by saying, that Jesus fulfilled dozens of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Clearly, the impact of that Jesus has had on the world matches His claims about who He is.

Which clearly defined prophecies did he fulfil, not including ones that he knew about and could choose to do (like riding on a donkey)?

http://www.godonthe.net/evidence/messiah.htm

Except for all the religions that aren't Christian. They don’t belong to him, and they have surely had enough time to hear his voice.

The world belongs to Christ. The difference between the Lord and the other religions is this:

1 Chronicles 16:26

For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens

You really think that’s unique to Christianity? Do you know much about Islam? And I don't mean Western stereotypes of it. I mean, really know how normal Muslim people live their lives.

Muslims don't have a personal relationship with God. Allah keeps them at arms length, and they mostly serve him out of fear. They also have no idea whether they are going to heaven or not. They only hope that at the end of time their good works will add up more than their bad ones. The reason Muslims choose martyrdom is because under Islam it is the only guaranteed way to go to Heaven.

I get it. It’s a test of sincerity. For whom? Who is going to read and understand the results? To whom is the sincerity proven that didn't know it before, requiring a test? I think you’re avoiding admitting it’s God because that would mean there’s something God doesn't know.

Why do metalworkers purify gold? To remove the dross. That's exactly what God is doing when He tests us:

1 Peter 1:6

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

>> ^messenger:

stuff

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

@enoch,
When Chomsky said, "the stupid masses", he was characterizing an elite point of view. (I looked it up) He wouldn't be the Noam Chomsky we know and love if he had that much contempt for his species. If you agree with that sentiment, then you identify with the elites Chomsky was criticizing. Chomsky may be cynical, but he is no nihilist. He is a humanist. (and so are you!)
If the human race is truly stupid, then there is no point in seeking positive change, and we are all doomed to suffer whatever cruel horrors fate has in store for us.
Underinformed? Sure, that is fixable.
Stupid? Fuck that kind of collective self loathing.
We are all we have. Everything that happens to us -short of an apocalyptic act of nature- , good or bad, will be a result of human action. If we think ourselves stupid, then stupid we shall be. If we loathe ourselves, it only makes it that much easier for the rich and powerful to dominate us. If we think ourselves elite in a world of fools, it just makes it that much easier for the real elites to divide and conquer (yes, I'm looking at you, rightwing libertarians.)
We need to start a humanist revival. White tents. Gospel music. The whole nine. And we are going to need some rebel preachers. Are you in?
disclaimer: dft has a strong pro-human bias and should probably not be trusted.



Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann

Chomsky is getting some of his quotes and ideas the elite have of "the bewildered herd" from Walter Lippmann. His (Lippmanns) contempt for people is pretty shocking and it actually really bothers me reading it. The idea of course is that people can't be trusted and must have decisions made for themselves. I disagree of course but there's some things I wonder about. How the elites use it though is to attack other countries and that I will never agree with.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

@enoch,
When Chomsky said, "the stupid masses", he was characterizing an elite point of view. (I looked it up) He wouldn't be the Noam Chomsky we know and love if he had that much contempt for his species. If you agree with that sentiment, then you identify with the elites Chomsky was criticizing. Chomsky may be cynical, but he is no nihilist. He is a humanist. (and so are you!)
If the human race is truly stupid, then there is no point in seeking positive change, and we are all doomed to suffer whatever cruel horrors fate has in store for us.
Underinformed? Sure, that is fixable.
Stupid? Fuck that kind of collective self loathing.
We are all we have. Everything that happens to us -short of an apocalyptic act of nature- , good or bad, will be a result of human action. If we think ourselves stupid, then stupid we shall be. If we loathe ourselves, it only makes it that much easier for the rich and powerful to dominate us. If we think ourselves elite in a world of fools, it just makes it that much easier for the real elites to divide and conquer (yes, I'm looking at you, rightwing libertarians.)
We need to start a humanist revival. White tents. Gospel music. The whole nine. And we are going to need some rebel preachers. Are you in?
disclaimer: dft has a strong pro-human bias and should probably not be trusted.


totally agree my man.
guess i should have paid more attention to how my comment may have been misconstrued in regards to chomsky's quote.
"manufacturing consent" is the book that started it all for me and the more time that passes ...the more it seems chomsky had it right from the get-go.
the man is brilliant and i have the utmost respect for him and his work.

and if you took the metaphysical aspect out of my worldview,what you would have left is a secular humanist.
i feel very strongly that my fellow humans have been utterly and thoroughly duped into believing that their happiness is tied to what they do or what they own and that somehow their success/failure resides solely in their ability to "pick themselves up from their own boots-straps".

this paradigm is utter bullshit of course.
it was a creation.
specifically designed to create good consumers.
the carrot on the stick.
you are not smart enough...
you are not pretty enough...
your skin is too light...
too dark...
nose is too big..
too small..
everything you wanted or desired is just inches out of reach.you are so close you can almost taste it.....
buuuuuuut..
if you purchase this skin cream,or that pair of sneakers..
this make/model car..or home...
YOU can achieve happiness and everyone will love you and you will be so popular and content.
so buy NOW!operators are standing by!

the irony is that the very companies selling you this happiness are the very people who created your own discomfort in your own skin.
its the great flim-flam and it has worked brilliantly.

wait..
what were we talking about again?
sighs...*derailed

@enoch,

When Chomsky said, "the stupid masses", he was characterizing an elite point of view. (I looked it up) He wouldn't be the Noam Chomsky we know and love if he had that much contempt for his species. If you agree with that sentiment, then you identify with the elites Chomsky was criticizing. Chomsky may be cynical, but he is no nihilist. He is a humanist. (and so are you!)

If the human race is truly stupid, then there is no point in seeking positive change, and we are all doomed to suffer whatever cruel horrors fate has in store for us.

Underinformed? Sure, that is fixable.
Stupid? Fuck that kind of collective self loathing.

We are all we have. Everything that happens to us -short of an apocalyptic act of nature- , good or bad, will be a result of human action. If we think ourselves stupid, then stupid we shall be. If we loathe ourselves, it only makes it that much easier for the rich and powerful to dominate us. If we think ourselves elite in a world of fools, it just makes it that much easier for the real elites to divide and conquer (yes, I'm looking at you, rightwing libertarians.)

We need to start a humanist revival. White tents. Gospel music. The whole nine. And we are going to need some rebel preachers. Are you in?

disclaimer: dft has a strong pro-human bias and should probably not be trusted.

That's all well and good, but people don't hold religion in a historical context -- they subvert science beneath these mythical stories and cling to their interpretations of said stories as 'gospel truth' above anything else, empirical or otherwise.>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

The Christians most likely lived in and around greek culture dominated by roman law. The Homeric tails and the iliad most likely dominated the prevailing mindset of their area, though, not as much as the hay day of greece. The punishment for not obeying the Gods was pretty drastic, you wouldn't want to be the one to do it unless you were super brave. The bible talks about entire towns of sinners being wiped out or an entire kingdom falling for the sins of a single king, pretty drastic. We must remember not to think in our own context, but of someone whom is bought in to the idea of communing with the creator(s) of existence. It is easy to scarecrow religion to death, but in a way, it was early science...trying to put the world in context the best way we knew how.
>> ^Trancecoach:
... therefore, let's kill each other over what's true or not true on the basis of these stories, shall we.>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^TheJehosephat:
Did she say 4th century... and then say 150-200 years after Christ?
Which is it?

Things were seldom written down, the actual bible stories of mark, matthew, ect, were not written by them nor where they written in those times. So, what I think she meant is the story most likely started at around that time and was then transcribed much later. Studying biblical history from a historic perspective instead of a religious one is pretty fascinating and very hard. Jesus was a popular figure and had many different story lineages until codification much much later in christian history. Just because it it written down doesn't mean it is true or accurate, getting an entirely accurate view of what is happening is hard. Most notably because pretty much all the stories we have of Jesus were finally transcribed much after his death, and anyone who has played the telephone game knows how that goes.

@shinyblurry

Overall, this is how I summarize your arguments: (A) Life without God is meaningless, and (B) a meaningless life would sometimes be difficult to tolerate, therefore (C) God exists. We pretty much agree on A, and we do agree on B, but C does not follow from A and B. You can correctly conclude that (C) life without God would be difficult to tolerate at times. So? That still doesn’t mean that God exists. I believe that God doesn’t exist, so I conclude from A and B that life is difficult to tolerate at times. Which is true.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who weren't believers who died happily in ignorance of the truth, but the question is, did they understand that their life was meaningless? I doubt it. It is not something that many people are able to face, and even if they could, they certainly don't live that way. In some way or another, they are deluding themselves and living as if their life does have meaning.

Fair point. They may not have ever had the philosophical conversation with themselves about whether their lives have meaning, so it never occurred to them to be upset about it. I agree that it could be a very difficult thing to face, and I think that’s why the human species developed a proclivity for religion. Elsewhere here I’ve suggested we developed metaphysical faith because we’re intelligent and inquisitive, and it freed our minds from the obvious nagging questions of our existence with a one-stop catch-all answer: “Because God”. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense. If believing you have a purpose in the grand scheme of things makes you feel better and gives a higher community bond, then it conveys higher survivability to you and your genes. It may be (or once have been) helpful for us to believe that a god exists (any god/gods, mind you, or even a non-deity-based faith system like Buddhism), but this still is not an indication that any god exists.

Hope is what keeps people going … They are not mentally ill, they are simply facing the cold, stark reality of their situation.

I’m going to be blunt here: you don’t have a clue what depression is. You’re starting with your conclusion, and applying it to whatever pop psychology you’ve picked up. You’re like a North Korean telling me what democracy is, and concluding that Kim Jong Un therefore is the greatest person on Earth. I know what depression is for me, for my family members and my friends who have suffered from it, and I have done private research on it beyond that. Reducing depression to the factor of “hope” is incorrect, and presuming to know something because you’ve got Yahweh on your side is arrogant. You don’t know us, you don’t understand our condition, so please don’t assume to speak for us. You can guess, and you can ask me, and I’ll tell you what I feel, what I have experienced, and what I have learned. Then if it fits your argument, you can let me know.

The point being, that if there is no God then no one is in the drivers seat here on planet Earth. I would be surprised if the extreme fragility of our civilization escaped you. If you look at history, and you contrast it to what is going on today, you will find that the new is simply the old in different packaging. We're watching the exact same game show, simply on a grander and more dangerous scale. Humanity has never been closer to utterly destroying itself anytime in its history than it is today. I'm sure, like everything else in creation, you will attribute that to dumb luck. However, if you think everything is a numbers game, then sooner or later the odds say that cooler heads will not prevail and there will be a civilization annihilating calamity. The truth is, it is only the sovereign hand of God that is restraining this from happening.

Your first sentences are close enough I’ll just agree. The last one is your own fantasy straight out of nowhere. That aside, so what? We’re close to killing ourselves. I don’t know if humanity will survive another 100 years. I hope it does, but I can’t know. It’s hard to face, and very frustrating to watch our so-called leaders (who all leverage claimed faith in God, mind you) pissing it all away for money and power. No other age has had to face the possibility of the destruction of civilization. It’s hard. You said your point was that there’s nobody in the driver’s seat. I agree. What’s your point? How do you figure Yahweh’s “in the driver’s seat”?

My original point, however, still stands. You say you can't imagine someone finding bliss in hurting people. Well, have you ever heard of psychopaths? They do indeed find their bliss in acquiring power and control and making other people miserable, and they feel absolutely no remorse for doing so.

This is my fault. As I mentioned in my last comment, I had intended to write further down about people who do find bliss in hurting others, and I had it fleshed out in the drafting process, but I guess I accidentally deleted it before posting. Anyway, here it is. First, there’s psychopaths. You don’t understand what a psychopath is. It’s not a blood-crazed killer from a Hollywood movie. In real life, a psychopath is someone who fails to feel empathy or sympathy, someone who has no sense of altruism. They do whatever serves their own interests best – however they define that. This is in sharp contrast with how the rest of us think about other people, which is mostly with compassion. I’ve been close to a few psychopaths, and they enjoy things like music or sports or writing or whatever like anyone else, and they mostly understand that others think hurting people is bad, so they avoid it. They don’t get any special thrill from hurting others – it just doesn’t hurt their conscience if they do. I’m guessing they don’t really ever feel the bliss I’m talking about.

Separate from those people, let’s imagine there’s a group of people who feel they’re experiencing the same bliss you feel in your numinous experiences, but they feel it only when they hurt or kill people. Now, I’m asserting that these people probably don’t exist, but if they did, people behaving according to the principles of what’s “good” (which I’ll get to later) would have to restrain them from hurting other people, and with a heavy heart, would probably imprison them. And while they were in prison, compassionate people on the outside might be researching ways to help the inmates self-realize – within the limits of their confinement, like they do in the Swedish penal system.

Yes, it feels good to feel good, but this doesn't tell us why we *ought* to do anything.

The reason we’re having this conversation, or at least the reason I am, is because we both already have a sense that some things are right and other things are wrong. That is primary. We both agree that we have this sense, and that for us it feels important to follow it. So for me, the fact that I have this feeling that some actions are good and others aren’t is all the “ought” I need. I don’t need anybody’s permission or orders. I ought to do things that I feel are good things to do. So, whether my conscience comes from human DNA (my position) or from an external entity (your position) doesn’t matter because we have both already decided to follow it, and so has just about every human on Earth.

In a meaningless Universe there is no actual right and wrong, so why shouldn't you just do whatever you want? Why waste your time trying to navigate some moral landscape that you don't even believe really exists? Why not just take what you can, when you can, before you lose the opportunity?

There’s nobody who’s going to judge my soul when I’m dead, so in that sense, once I’m dead, it won’t matter to me in the least what I do now once I’m dead because I’ll be dead. What I want to do at any given time is what feels good to me, and that’s the same with almost everyone, in spite of what religions teach people about their wicked “fallen” souls and how not to trust themselves (except when they paradoxically teach us to trust ourselves). Like, I might like to eat your cookie, but it would feel worse to steal it from you than it would feel good to eat it. Instead, I think about how I can have the cookie without feeling bad about it. I would probably ask you for some of your cookie, and then I’d not only have some cookie, but I’d also share a friendly interaction with another person in my community, someone who will probably enjoy sharing their cookie with me and be glad I asked them. Win-win. So to recap, “taking what I can” to me and most people, involves having the greatest amount of personally rewarding experiences I can, and those involve not doing bad things, and often involve doing good things.

I don’t feel I’m wasting any time navigating any landscape. I hardly think about morality at all, since to me, it’s quite easy. Jesus knew it; he just claimed that his father had made it up. I think it’s human nature. It gives me immense joy to see people in love getting married. That extends identically to same-sex people too. See? It’s not complex. Taking what I can when I can in the malevolent sense feels awful, and I don’t want to do that.

People do evil because they get carried away by their lusts and become enticed. You view this as some sort of ignorance, or automatic function. Not so. When a person is doing wrong, they are almost always entirely aware of this, but simply override their moral restraints with their desire to fulfill their lusts. People are responsible for the evil that they do, not society, environmental factors, their parents, or anything else.

I agree completely (except where you said I think it’s out of ignorance or automatic function, which I didn’t say). You say it’s about people getting carried away or being enticed. What I was explaining is when that happens and why. It’s not relevant anyway. People are the only ones who can be held responsible for their own actions, and they should be, but not because they are bad people who need to be punished, but because their behaviour hurt someone and as a member of society, they need to understand this, make amends, and hopefully change their behaviour moving forward.

I've already agreed with you that we all have a God given conscience that tells us right from wrong. Therefore, we don't need to read the bible to know that it is wrong to murder or steal. However, what God has commanded is that we all repent and believe in the gospel. This is something you aren't going to intuitively understand without being told.

But I would have had to already accept Yahweh to think that’s true. And I don’t, so it’s not. Nothing in me tells me that the bible is a holy book or that following it has anything to do with what is good, so I don’t need to follow any religious dogma.

what is the ground for associating moral evil with misery and moral good with "moving people away from misery". Where do you get moral duties in a meaningless Universe?

It involves accepting one assertion: Harris’ definition of “bad”. If you accept that, and you accept that “good” is its opposite, then moving away from something bad must be good. I think your problem with my argument is that there’s no argument for a metaphysical morality. That’s because I don’t believe in one. As I said above, this whole conversation, for me, is based on our shared feeling that there are right and wrong things. That’s it. If I kick someone’s dog, no matter who they are or what their religion, they’re going to know without consulting any authority that I did a horrible thing. I don’t really know why, and I don’t care. I do know that humans share this sense, and I’m keen to live with respect to it.

The morality that God gives can be summed up in two commandments: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind and all thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself…That's a very simple system. When you love God and other people everything else follows naturally.

Yahweh’s morality is nowhere near as simple as a secular morality. Where in those two commandments of Jesus does it say that using condoms or allowing same-sex couples to marry is wrong? In fact, saving lives, preventing unwanted pregnancies and allowing all loving couples to get married are ways to love your neighbour, and they’re exactly what I would want my neighbour to do or advocate for on my behalf.

On the contrary, it's all arbitrary, because "what makes things better for people" or what "makes the world worse" is something determined by consensus. If everyone in the world agreed that torturing babies for fun made things better for people, it would be good in your view. If your moral system allows for this possibility, I think that's a sign its time to throw it away.

First, you’re talking in circles. If Harris’ model of morality is arbitrary, then so is Jesus’ model of “do unto others…” because they amount to pretty much the same thing, and what one person wants his neighbours to do may not be the same as someone else’s, etc. At some level, we’re going to have to determine for ourselves what’s right and what’s not.

Second, you can’t possibly make the argument that “better for people” and “makes the world worse” are arbitrary concepts. They’re not perfectly defined, but that doesn’t mean arbitrary. As for the torturing babies example, according to Harris’ morality, it’s bad because babies are people, and torture causes misery. Where’s the ambiguity?

Third, do you picture a world where everyone suddenly agrees that torturing babies is OK? Do you really believe that without religion people have absolutely no internal direction whatsoever, and will accept torturing of babies as acceptable? I don’t. So, no, Harris’ moral system does not allow for the possibility of torturing babies.

But yours does. Whatever else you address, please answer this: I believe –and forgive me if I’m putting words into your mouth– somewhere on the Sift you agreed that if God commanded you to do something people think is horrible (like torture an infant/rape your own son/etc.), that you would do it. Is that true to say? If so, then by your own witness and a test you came up with, it’s your system that allows for the possibility of absolutely any vile act, and it’s time for it to go.

If you think I’m being ridiculous, what do you think is more likely: that a society somewhere will suddenly realize that they feel just fine about torturing babies, or that a society somewhere will get the idea that it’s their god’s will that they torture babies? Human instinct is much more consistent than the will of any gods ever recorded.

If this were true, there would be no need for courts, judges, prisons, or police officers. There are also laws which may make some people miserable but are necessary for the greater good.

True. Your point?

It doesn't suffice, though. Yes, we can both agree there is a universal morality among human beings. How is that fact supposed to serve as grounds to invent an arbitrary system of good and evil based on people following their bliss and avoiding misery? I could just easily reverse the two and say the existence of universal morality justifies that too. I could say that the existence of a universal morality justifies that we should all love eggplants and hate rutabagas. There is no logical connection here between the system you've created and universal morality.

It’s not arbitrarily invented. Religion is. I must be misunderstanding you. By my reading, your argument is that the connection between reducing people’s misery and doing good is arbitrary. Is that right? You don’t think that wanting to help people who are suffering is normal and good? If you agree that there is a connection between the two, that’s all you need. If you don’t agree, then your morality system really sucks, and I don’t know who I’m talking to.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/29/half-german-teens-dont-know-hitler-dictator_n_1636593.html

I take it you didn’t read the article yourself. There’s no mention of Americans, anyone of college age, nor anyone who can’t identify Hitler. It’s about German high school students who didn’t know that Hitler was a dictator, etc. Please take better care with your arguments. It’s disrespectful and a waste of my time.

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.

Well, the central argument of the video is that life without God is meaningless. You've already agreed with that point, so the argument now seems to be is whether someone can be happy and fulfilled with a meaningless life. I'm sure there are plenty of people who weren't believers who died happily in ignorance of the truth, but the question is, did they understand that their life was meaningless? I doubt it. It is not something that many people are able to face, and even if they could, they certainly don't live that way. In some way or another, they are deluding themselves and living as if their life does have meaning.

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."

Hope is what keeps people going. Without hope, you are just going through the motions. When you have hope and lose it, it is emotionally devastating. A person without any hope is a person most likely clinically depressed.

You can call depression a kind of mental disorder, and some people may be born without the right chemical receptors for instance, but most people are depressed because of a lack of hope. A person, for instance, who worked their whole life and lost their retirement in an afternoon, or a mom whose kids abandoned her to live in a nursing home. They are not mentally ill, they are simply facing the cold, stark reality of their situation.

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.

The point being, that if there is no God then no one is in the drivers seat here on planet Earth. I would be surprised if the extreme fragility of our civilization escaped you. If you look at history, and you contrast it to what is going on today, you will find that the new is simply the old in different packaging. We're watching the exact same game show, simply on a grander and more dangerous scale. Humanity has never been closer to utterly destroying itself anytime in its history than it is today. I'm sure, like everything else in creation, you will attribute that to dumb luck. However, if you think everything is a numbers game, then sooner or later the odds say that cooler heads will not prevail and there will be a civilization annihilating calamity. The truth is, it is only the sovereign hand of God that is restraining this from happening.

The reason I made that comment about God is because of your comment about your depression. The reason you have that feeling that if you believed in God you wouldn't be depressed is because you know there is hope in God.

(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.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/29/half-german-teens-dont-know-hitler-dictator_n_163659 3.html

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.

Thanks for the elaboration. I am familiar with the philosophy of Sam Harris, and I figured you were borrowing from him, but it is good to know where you stand. My original point, however, still stands. You say you can't imagine someone finding bliss in hurting people. Well, have you ever heard of psychopaths? They do indeed find their bliss in acquiring power and control and making other people miserable, and they feel absolutely no remorse for doing so.

You also say that you feel the best state of a human being is to be blissfully happy. I'm sure everyone will agree with you that feeling blissfully happy is good. However, why should we believe this is actually what good is?. Yes, it feels good to feel good, but this doesn't tell us why we *ought* to do anything. Maybe this is just incredibly selfish and the opposite of good, or somewhere in the middle is true, or maybe none of it. You give no actual reason (beyond arbitrary statements like that which makes the world better or worse) to equate feeling good with moral goodness. In a meaningless Universe, neither is there any basis for thinking that you have any moral duties. This leads me to some questions that you didn't actually address in the last post. Let me ask them again because they are central to this discussion:

In a meaningless Universe there is no actual right and wrong, so why shouldn't you just do whatever you want? Why waste your time trying to navigate some moral landscape that you don't even believe really exists? Why not just take what you can, when you can, before you lose the opportunity?

I'll also address some of your comments:

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

People do evil because they get carried away by their lusts and become enticed. You view this as some sort of ignorance, or automatic function. Not so. When a person is doing wrong, they are almost always entirely aware of this, but simply override their moral restraints with their desire to fulfill their lusts. People are responsible for the evil that they do, not society, environmental factors, their parents, or anything else.

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.

I've already agreed with you that we all have a God given conscience that tells us right from wrong. Therefore, we don't need to read the bible to know that it is wrong to murder or steal. However, what God has commanded is that we all repent and believe in the gospel. This is something you aren't going to intuitively understand without being told.

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.

I am familiar with his system, to which I reiterate the point; what is the ground for associating moral evil with misery and moral good with "moving people away from misery". Where do you get moral duties in a meaningless Universe?

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.

The morality that God gives can be summed up in two commandments: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind and all thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself. As Jesus told us:

Matthew 22:40

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments

That's a very simple system. When you love God and other people everything else follows naturally.

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.

On the contrary, it's all arbitrary, because "what makes things better for people" or what "makes the world worse" is something determined by consensus. If everyone in the world agreed that torturing babies for fun made things better for people, it would be good in your view. If your moral system allows for this possibility, I think that's a sign its time to throw it away.

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.

If this were true, there would be no need for courts, judges, prisons, or police officers. There are also laws which may make some people miserable but are necessary for the greater good.

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.

It doesn't suffice, though. Yes, we can both agree there is a universal morality among human beings. How is that fact supposed to serve as grounds to invent an arbitrary system of good and evil based on people following their bliss and avoiding misery? I could just easily reverse the two and say the existence of universal morality justifies that too. I could say that the existence of a universal morality justifies that we should all love eggplants and hate rutabagas. There is no logical connection here between the system you've created and universal morality.

If there is no objective morality, then nothing is really wrong. Any system you create in the end is a human invention, based on human interpretation, and agreed upon by human consensus. You still cannot get an ought from an is. Good could be defined as a world of people who love each other, or a world of people who love to eat children. What is wrong then is simply based on your personal preferences.

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 understand that this wasn't meant to be perfect. It has, however, raised more concerns than it answered.

>> ^messenger

I agree. And I'm a "religious person."

The vast majority of religious people are nothing like the members of Westboro Baptist Church. I have no problem with your general sentiment about being kind and loving to everyone. I have a problem when you say "religious people glorify in the hatred of others."

That's just a hateful thing to say about me.

>> ^UsesProzac:

Just because he didn't say hate doesn't mean it isn't in him. To act like that, to willfully turn away a customer because you look down upon them and their lifestyle? That's bigotry, intolerance of another. Especially in light of the bible explicitly saying not to judge others.
Terrorism, really? You're silly.
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"
I bring this up because I feel that servicing a customer is part of operating inside of society and being an obedient and humble person, just as your religious text wants you to be.
Wielding judgement is for your god alone.
>> ^deedub81:
" I really don't understand why religious people glorify in the hatred of others."
Using the same hyperbole that you do, I can paint all non-religious people with as broad a brush by saying "I don't understand why all non-religious people are violent terrorists and threaten hard working families with death threats."
I'm religious and I wouldn't deny business to somebody for being gay just like you didn't (and wouldn't) call in a death threat to this guy.
>> ^UsesProzac:
Business has doubled since the incident? I really don't understand why religious people glorify in the hatred of others. I've seen it firsthand in extended family members and it chills me. How can Christians ignore the gospel of loving thy neighbor and judge not and all those other fancy things their prophet said in their own religious text?
@shinyblurry, how do you reconcile that hypocrisy within yourself? You're the only person I know to ask here, seeing as you called me a harlot and all that. When you judge another person and go directly against the words set down in your bible, do you immediately ask your god to forgive you or what?
Edit: I'll throw in one of my favorite quotes to further illustrate the rampant hypocrisy.
“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.” - Stephen Colbert