10 questions for intelligent christians...

[cardero]

Copernicus writes: but it also provides people with pat answers that are patently absurd.

Have you even considered and reasoned all my answers?

 

[McBell]

lies? so i take it you feel u have possession of the "truth".. yes.. most interesting indeed..

Assume much?

how can any one faith or denomination feel entitled to the "truth"? when there are obviously sooooo many truths to be had.

You assume that there is only one truth.
Why is that?

your answers are the right answers i presume.. and anyone not clinging to what you believe is spreading lies?

Presume away.
I mean, why not?
You make assumptions quick enough.

 

[McBell]

mestemia.. either ask me a question.. or dont address me. your presumptions wont get you anywhere. im here for information.

I did ask you questions.
Three of them in fact.
Of course, you have not answered them, but they were asked none the less.

My Presumptions?
So asking you a QUESTION equates a presumption?

You sure do not act as though you want information.

 

[Vile Atheist]

The amputee thing kind of reminds me of this.

You might be a fundy-atheist if:
You believe that extra drippy ice-cream is a logical proof against the existence of God, because an omniscient God would know how to stop the ice-cream from being extra drippy, an omnipotent God would have the ability to stop the ice-cream from being extra drippy, and by golly, an omnibenevolent God wouldn't want your ice-cream to be extra drippy.

It's true. A God that hates ice cream is not a God worthy of worship.

 

[Copernicus]

The faithful have a mystery, not a problem. Nothing about God's selectivity with healing implies the non-existence of God or calls into question is love for those who suffer.

What makes such "mysteries" a problem is that they are totally an artifact of the religious belief system. You say that nothing about God's selectivity implies his non-existence or calls into question his love for those who suffer. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of Christians who question God's existence and question his love for precisely those reasons. Consider, for example, stories about Mother Theresa's attitudes towards God at the end of her life. Many of us who are lapsed Christians see the loss of cognitive dissonance--what you call "mysteries"--as a benefit. That was very much the message of the video cited in the OP.

I didn't say that atheists are immoral or don't have moral intuitions. What I'm saying is that, if naturalism is true, there's no basis for objective ethics. It's just a matter of feelings. But if THAT's true, then it's kind of mysterious why we should argue about whether particular actions are evil. There's just the way you feel about it and how I feel about it. In other words, most of our moral activity -- arguing, debating, searching, and analyzing putative moral truth -- is apparently nonsense.

I cannot see how you got these interpretations of my position from what I wrote. I never accused you of claiming that atheists are immoral or lack moral intuitions. I quite explicitly accepted the position that ethics and morality are subjective rather than objective. I also defined the basis for a non-theological definition of evil: intentional behavior that causes unbearable, unnecessary suffering in humans. The problem is that theists lose sight of that very obvious definition when they try to define it in terms of the judgment of an imaginary superbeing. It becomes a mystery why this superbeing would have a human-centric concept of evil or, indeed, anything at all. That's no mystery to atheists, since they see God as a completely human construct.

I think you've descended into incoherence here. At least I can't figure out what you're saying. It's also obvious that you've missed at least one of my major points, so perhaps I'll elucidate.

Fair enough. But I think that you are misinterpreting your lack of understanding as my incoherence. It can have other causes.

On naturalist lights, we cannot have knowledge of anything.

Not at all. First of all, you are confusing naturalism with denial of gnosis. We cannot have absolute knowledge of anything outside of our direct perception. I can only know what I feel, not whether my feelings are the result of conditions in the world or a delusion. What we usually call knowledge is a belief that we have utter confidence in.

To have knowledge, we must have cognitive faculties that are aimed at getting us true beliefs. But if naturalism is true, our cognitive faculties are designed to get our body parts in the right place to do the four Fs: fighting, fleeing, feeding, and reproducing. Truth, whatever that is, takes the hindmost. Indeed, all our beliefs could be false, every last one of them for all we know. At least on Christian lights, we have reason to think that our cognitive systems are designed to get true beliefs.

There need be no substantive difference between atheists and Christians on the subject of knowledge. Many Christians deny that one can have absolute knowledge, but they still have faith in God's existence. I have no problem with Christians who take that position. I disagree with those who think that they can base knowledge claims on direct revelation.

Other mysteries for the naturalist are the emergence of the universe and the emergence of life...

I am not denying that there are no mysteries, but it is only the naturalists who have a provable, coherent methodology for solving those mysteries. We do have some pretty good hypotheses about how life could have emerged via natural abiogenesis. We are also making progress on understanding the origin of our universe. Religion prematurely declares such mysteries solved, whereas science actually goes about trying to solve them. We will never solve all mysteries, but the pursuit of truth is part of what makes life so interesting.

My point in all this is simply that you pick your mysteries and take your chances. The Christian struggles with mystery, but the mystery is not cognitively crippling (unlike naturalism, which entails that we can have confidence in exactly none of our beliefs, not even what we believe about our own names).

You keep mixing things up and creating straw men. I have tied conventional knowledge directly to confidence in belief. Here you say that my position denies that we can have confidence in our beliefs. That is simply absurd, and I have said so many times in the past. If you keep insisting that I take that position, then you are being disingenuous. My point--and that made in the video--has been that many of these "mysteries" disappear completely when you stop trying to justify the existence of God. They are pure artifacts of religious belief.

 

[Copernicus]

Have you even considered and reasoned all my answers?

Oops. I forgot that there were Patrickists here. I meant no offense by my reference to "pat answers". :sorry1:

 

[Dunemeister]

What makes such "mysteries" a problem is that they are totally an artifact of the religious belief system. You say that nothing about God's selectivity implies his non-existence or calls into question his love for those who suffer. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of Christians who question God's existence and question his love for precisely those reasons. Consider, for example, stories about Mother Theresa's attitudes towards God at the end of her life. Many of us who are lapsed Christians see the loss of cognitive dissonance--what you call "mysteries"--as a benefit. That was very much the message of the video cited in the OP.

That the "mystery" is an artifact of the belief system is a problem that infects every world view, so it's not a particular problem for Christian theism. Yes, there is an essential tension within Christian doctrine and life with respect to our active engagement with God. Why should we think that engagement with a person such as God should'nt involve difficulty, searching, mystery, puzzlement, and wonder? Why should we think that living with God would be straightforward or easy? Spirituality is not for the intellectually or morally lazy (not that I'm accusing you of those particular vices).

I cannot see how you got these interpretations of my position from what I wrote. I never accused you of claiming that atheists are immoral or lack moral intuitions. I quite explicitly accepted the position that ethics and morality are subjective rather than objective.

Sorry if I misunderstood you, and I thank you for correcting me. But as my earlier comments said, the position that morality is merely subjective puts the lie to most of our ethical intuitions and discourse. You and I might question whether it's good to give to a particular charity at a particular time. We might debate this. But if the goodness in this case is merely a matter of subjective opinion, why are we so apt to debate? You can't debate feelings, you can only debate truth. If there's no objective truth to the matter, you must conclude (if morals are subjective) that almost all humans for almost all of history -- including today's modern, intelletually sophisticated folk -- are doing something inherently illogical. I put to you that this is quite a bold assertion that has absolutely nothing to commend it (intellectually or otherwise). Why assume something so paradoxical as this? The answer, of course, is your commitment to metaphysical naturalism. Naturalism leads to this very paradoxical position with respect to our moral discourse and intuitions. This paradox is the "mystery" you have chosen to live with. I prefer to live with a mystery that implies the truth (or at least we can talk about truth) and rationality of our moral discourse.

I also defined the basis for a non-theological definition of evil: intentional behavior that causes unbearable, unnecessary suffering in humans.

Why is that "evil"? Why use that term? And even if it is "evil", why should anyone care (even if it turns out that most people do)? It's not an objective standard, so it doesn't necessarily include me. Perhaps I prefer another formulation that allows me my particular pleasure of torturing puppies. There's no truth to the matter, so what makes your formulation more "moral" than mine or "better" than mine or "more correct" than mine? You've got exactly nothing that could even slyly hint at an answer to such questions. That again is the conundrum of naturalism. Once again, I prefer a world view that simply leaves the mysteries where we find them, namely, with the quite natural puzzle of dealing with a being that is so alike yet unlike us.

The problem is that theists lose sight of that very obvious definition when they try to define it in terms of the judgment of an imaginary superbeing. It becomes a mystery why this superbeing would have a human-centric concept of evil or, indeed, anything at all. That's no mystery to atheists, since they see God as a completely human construct.

There are a couple of confusions here. First, evil, on a Christian theist's lights, isn't (or need not be) defined in terms of the "judgment of an imaginary superbeing." Rather, we take it that God has certain loves and hates, and right and wrong are determined by that. There are things that really are appropriate, lovely, worthy of esteem, and others not. What makes them so is God's attitude toward them. This is a matter of affection/will, not rationality/judgment. (However, if you think that the distinction between atttitude and judgment is a distinction without a difference, I don't wish to argue over mere words, and we can call this "judgment" if you like.)

Also, I'm not really sure what you mean by a "human-centric concept of evil", so perhaps you could reformulate it so that it's clearer what you're getting at.

Not at all. First of all, you are confusing naturalism with denial of gnosis. We cannot have absolute knowledge of anything outside of our direct perception. I can only know what I feel, not whether my feelings are the result of conditions in the world or a delusion. What we usually call knowledge is a belief that we have utter confidence in.

Exactly my point. If our cognitive faculties have no purpose (where would they get that by naturalist lights), or if their function is to get us to reproduce successfully (probable on metaphysical naturalism and evolutionary biology), there is simply no reason to think that our cognitive faculties are reliable at providing true beliefs. After all, that's not what they're designed to do. So for each belief you think you have, you must reckon that they come from a faculty not designed to get to the truth. So how should we regard such beliefs? I suggest that, since we have no idea how to assess the reliability of our cognitive faculties, the proper attitude is agnosticism. But that means we need to be agnostic about all our beliefs regardless how firmly we hold them or how evident they seem to us.

There need be no substantive difference between atheists and Christians on the subject of knowledge. Many Christians deny that one can have absolute knowledge, but they still have faith in God's existence. I have no problem with Christians who take that position. I disagree with those who think that they can base knowledge claims on direct revelation.

Knowledge based on revelation is another topic for another day. I'm talking about the more mundane sort of stuff. As I've already explained, naturalism is cognitively crippling, implying as it does that we have no reason to think that the deliverances of our cognitive faculties are anywhere near the city where the ballpark of accuracy is.

I am not denying that there are no mysteries, but it is only the naturalists who have a provable, coherent methodology for solving those mysteries.

You can't be serious.

We do have some pretty good hypotheses about how life could have emerged via natural abiogenesis.

These are the fairy stories I alluded to earlier. We have (and indeed can have) nothing like a scientific hypothesis about this. All we can have is the most vague sort of hand-waving.

We are also making progress on understanding the origin of our universe.

If you mean that we have gerrymandered our mathematics around for a while, you're right. But we're no further along toward understanding why there is something rather than nothing.

Religion prematurely declares such mysteries solved, whereas science actually goes about trying to solve them. We will never solve all mysteries, but the pursuit of truth is part of what makes life so interesting.

I agree about pursuing truth is part of what makes life so interesting. My only point has been that mystery abounds in this universe. Naturalism imposes its own mysteries, as does Christian theism (note I'm not talking about theism simpliciter). And by mysteries, I mean that there are deep puzzles for both world views. I contend that naturalism entails a deep and irresolvable conundrum about knowledge. For more on this, see the following outline for this argument by Alvin Plantinga. If this argument is even approximately correct, naturalism entails a defeater for its own truth and for the truth of every proposition. Obviously, if the argument is right, it entails that naturalism is cognitively crippling. Christian theism doesn't entail anything so intellectually drastic. Yes, there are mysteries, but on the whole, those Christian mysteries are tame compared to those imposed by naturalism.

You keep mixing things up and creating straw men. I have tied conventional knowledge directly to confidence in belief. Here you say that my position denies that we can have confidence in our beliefs. That is simply absurd, and I have said so many times in the past. If you keep insisting that I take that position, then you are being disingenuous. My point--and that made in the video--has been that many of these "mysteries" disappear completely when you stop trying to justify the existence of God. They are pure artifacts of religious belief.

I am insisting that you hold a position that ENTAILS that we cannot have confidence in our beliefs. Obviously, you believe that we CAN have confidence in at least some of them. What I'm saying is that you haven't noticed the entailment from metaphysical naturalism to global skepticism, but that there is such an entailment. That is, your confidence in your cognitive faculties is utterly unfounded, undermined as it is by your naturalism, but of course, you won't see that unless you consider the argument for it. Check it out at the link I provided.

 

[Dunemeister]

It's true. A God that hates ice cream is not a God worthy of worship.

Luckily for me, the Christian God adores it.

 

[tomspug]

Why would God heal an amputee if HE was the one that allowed the person to become an amputee? This is what I would call, dumb religion. Instead of exploring the nature of God, we play a game of 20 questions with him and convince ourselves that its the most intelligent way to go about it.

You vs. thousands of years of religion. Think about it.

 

[Vile Atheist]

Why would God heal an amputee if HE was the one that allowed the person to become an amputee? This is what I would call, dumb religion. Instead of exploring the nature of God, we play a game of 20 questions with him and convince ourselves that its the most intelligent way to go about it.

You vs. thousands of years of religion. Think about it.

I'll place my bets on me.

 

[tomspug]

I'll place my bets on me.

The funny thing is that you are still looking at it as some sort of roulette table, a one time thing that has to be decided as immediately as possible.

Think of religion as a library. It's not going to kill you to read a book. You don't have to touch it, if you don't want to, but there have been many things said over the years about willful ignorance. Do you really think it makes sense to vehemently oppose something you know nearly nothing about?

 

[Copernicus]

...as my earlier comments said, the position that morality is merely subjective puts the lie to most of our ethical intuitions and discourse...

Dunemeister, I fear a major derail of the thread, so I'll take some time to think about what you said and start another thread to answer it. My only comment here will be to sort out some labels you've been using in ways that make no sense to me. Atheist, naturalist, and humanist are not synonyms. Neither atheism nor naturalism has anything to say about judgments of morality. Here is how I use the terms:

• atheist--a person who rejects belief in gods
• naturalist--a person who believes that all observable phenomena have natural causes (i.e. rejects supernatural explanations)
• humanist--a person who (among other things) defines morality in terms of benefit to humanity

I think of myself as belonging to all three categories. I believe that most atheists are naturalists and humanists, but not all of them are. I also believe that most religious people are humanists and at least partially naturalists. A great many religious people are naturalist in the sense that they normally assign natural causes to observable phenomena.

 

[richardlowellt]

I actually had never even considered nor heard anyone ask the first question... which I believe is the most interesting - and I, at least, feel is worth taking seriously.

Why won't God heal amputees? If someone's miraculous recovery from cancer or some other illness is God at work, then why wouldn't he heal amputees with the same frequency? I admit, being an amputee doesn't necessarily mean you can't survive, obviously... but then, neither does having cancer.

And the answer seems simple. In my opinion it's for the same reason that sightings and visits by God seemed to stop at about the same time humanity began making more and more consistent historical accounts of the goings on in the world.

If being an amputee weren't such a visible and ever-lasting condition, then people would claim that God was healing anyone who was healed from that condition, just the same as they do for other conditions now. Which, by extension, could be used to infer that no condition is actually being healed by God.

It's sort of like the ruse of a placebo. You're just sitting there hoping with all your might that what you're drinking isn't just water.



To be honest, I'm not sure that "mestemia" even knows what he is talking about.

I have been told by some Christians that God in fact, does heal amputees, he does this by providing the knowledge to construct artificial limbs.

 

[mimidotcom]

Really?
You have no idea?
So you are merely a puppet for the spreading of the lies?
A most interesting confession.

these three questions? mestemia.. what is your point? your manner of conversating doesnt appeal to me.. you are rude.. and this isnt the place to attempt to exude some level of superiority that you apparently feel..so i feel there's no reason to respond to you any longer and you didnt even ever say hello. i have other conversations that i'd much rather participate in. thanks so much.

 

[McBell]

these three questions? mestemia.. what is your point? your manner of conversating doesnt appeal to me.. you are rude.. and this isnt the place to attempt to exude some level of superiority that you apparently feel..so i feel there's no reason to respond to you any longer and you didnt even ever say hello. i have other conversations that i'd much rather participate in. thanks so much.

My sincere apologies.
I was taking you for your word that you were after information.
I was completely unawares that you want it all spoon fed to you.

 

[Vile Atheist]

The funny thing is that you are still looking at it as some sort of roulette table, a one time thing that has to be decided as immediately as possible.

Think of religion as a library. It's not going to kill you to read a book. You don't have to touch it, if you don't want to, but there have been many things said over the years about willful ignorance. Do you really think it makes sense to vehemently oppose something you know nearly nothing about?

I was being facetious, but okay lol. And of course. Most atheists were at some point theists. And of course, once you make that transition, you automatically eschew any knowledge you had of that religion. Makes perfect sense. Because I was never a Catholic or a fundamentalist Baptist or an agnostic. So you're right. I know nearly nothing about those things.... /sarcasm.

 

[jamaesi]

Well, I only got one question in before closing the video.

Why SHOULD G-d heal amputees? I am so sick of this mindset that being disabled is a fate worse than death. We're not debate points, we're people and yes, a lot of us are just fine as we are. A better question is why don't abled people support accessibility for the disabled- that's our biggest complaint.

 

[Vile Atheist]

Well, I only got one question in before closing the video.

Why SHOULD G-d heal amputees? I am so sick of this mindset that being disabled is a fate worse than death. We're not debate points, we're people and yes, a lot of us are just fine as we are. A better question is why don't abled people support accessibility for the disabled- that's our biggest complaint.

Why would God make their lives more difficult in the first place? Just to be an ***?

 

[mimidotcom]

My sincere apologies.
I was taking you for your word that you were after information.
I was completely unawares that you want it all spoon fed to you.

what is your deal?

 

[nonbeliever_92]

He is quite annoying mimidotcom