The Creationist's Argument and its Greatest Weakness

[SkepticThinker]

We don't. You and I have an innate morality:

1) Mine is informed by the Bible, but if I lost faith, I'd still have innate morality

2) Per the Bible, since you have innate morality, when you sin against conscience as we all do (hurt another because it feels good to do so despite the protests of conscience) that witnesses to you the moral accountability that will come someday

1. You say that, but I bet you don't stone unruly children to death or keep slaves. Am I right? Why don't you do those things?

Are you saying we both share the same innate morality then? What kinds of moral values are included in this innate morality?

2) I can't remember the last time I sinned "against conscience," but okay.
I have no idea how you think the concept of innate morality demonstrates the "moral accountability that will come someday." Perhaps you could elaborate.

 

[sayak83]

Respectfully, I find Jesus Christ morally perfect. And having had children and served as a babysitter/caretaker, I've NEVER met a child or teen who always acted in accordance with their moral conscience. You can say you are greatly, currently moral and reformed, but I wouldn't believe you, for example, if you said you never argued with a partner or colleague, knowing you were off, but it just felt good to be argumentative. I don't buy that you and Jesus both have never sinned against conscience!

Your experience is limited. Children don't often understand right from wrong and have not developed a moral conception fully. Many teenagers are also in that class. So its not a fair comparison. But there are plenty of quiet hard working kids and teens and eventually adults who are friendly nice and warm to everybody. I have met quite a few. I have never acted contrary to my conscience from the time it became a coherent set of principles... from 11-12, I think.

I have never quarreled with a friend, or a coworker. That is because I have difficulty in getting angry at people. Any quarrel will lead to unnecessary suffering. Then why do it? There is enough suffering already in life.

Perhaps the one fault I have is that I do not react rapidly to developing situations as I need time to think and reflect. So there are opportunities that I have missed for positive action. But its a lack I am willing to accept as the cost of not acting unwisely and in haste.

 

[SkepticThinker]

People are moral to an extant, innately, in the most pagan and atheist cultures, far removed from the Bible, sure.


I know God's moral code is moral in that it "speaks" both to my innate morality and where I fall short.

How do you know your "innate morality" is moral at all? Because it matches what the Bible says? Who says the Bible is moral? Oh right, the Bible.
Surely, your reasoning isn't that circular.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Can I help you with that, as a friend?

1) Indentured servitude (work for protection and food in safe, clean conditions) is biblical and a type of how all will serve the meek in the next world, willingly or no. Modern slavery (rape, kidnapping, random beatings, intolerable conditions) is wrong, of course.

I appreciate your attempt to help, but I've heard this song and dance before, and I've read the Bible.
What is described in the Bible is the owning (and treating) of other human beings as property. You can try to sugar coat it all you want, but that's slavery.

2) The Bible does not proscribe killing all gay persons. The OT proscribes killing two gays found having sex publicly. It would condone the same thing for straight adulterers caught having sex not behind closed doors, too.

Wait, so you think it's moral to kill people for having sex publicly? Like, you find that to be a moral action? Because I don't.

What's this all about then?

"'If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
-Leviticus 20:13

Most biblical Christians are fine with gays behind closed doors, just like they're fine with married straights having sex behind closed doors only.

Public parades where children watch, less so. Is that reasonable to you?

Good for Biblical scholars, but what about the rest of the Christians? Who has been persecuting all the gay people all these years? It's not the atheists, is it?

People don't have sex in those parades. But if you don't think it's moral for children to be there, don't bring your children to one. That's reasonable to me. We can both do what we think is moral without having to impose our beliefs onto each other.

 

[SkepticThinker]

My feelings are suffering sucks, unless there is a reason we can safely, wisely put to it, and that the atheists I know are confronting the meaninglessness "of it all" as best as they can cope.

100 years from now, I will be remembered, and even alive!

You almost got it .... so close! If you hadn't thrown that line in, you would have done it.




P.S. This atheist doesn't think life is meaningless.

 

[viole]

Biblical indentured servitude (workers do agriculture under good living conditions to earn food/shelter/protection, and to demonstrate that the whole world will come to serve God's people in the coming age, like it or not) is acceptable.

Western, modern slavery (beatings, kidnappings, rapes, poor living conditions, starvation) is never acceptable.

Both stances are outlined in the scriptures.

You might have a point here. The Bible is indeed very precise in prescribing how far you can go when you beat your slave.

Exodus 21:20
20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

A nice piece of morality, proving your theory of good living conditions for slaves, lol.

And the author of such commands is the primary source of your morality.

Right?

Ciao

- viole

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

1) Okay, we both have subjective, not objective, moral codes, but I think the best friend and advisor morals can have is the Bible

And you are completely free to think so. For me the framework The Bible sets up will simply never work. Take, for example, the 10 commandments - The Bible casts as the first 3 commandments: "Have no gods before me", "Make no graven image" and "Do not take The Lord's name in vain." Those are 3 pretty useless laws when taking the wider context of the world into consideration. To my mind, they are God missing the boat on what's important in human behavior - we don't even get to the human-to-human relationship aspect of "morality" until commandment #5! God's feelings seem to trump human lives or well-being in that list - which I simply refuse to abide by.

2) Just and fair are different concepts--when the buzzer rings, you give the ball to the best player, no matter how much the weaker players have come to practice early and lifted weights--the Bible says that there is a lot of suffering here--like the children's situations you've described well here--that is caused by human sin and free will--if God stops paedophiles only, then paedophiles only lack true free will and we get it? That might even be just but not fair--the fair coach gives the same ball to all the players. You follow me here? God is not only just, but fair--one wants to take pleasure in hurting others (which we all do at times) than you get pleasure for a time and judgment later--just like my parents raised me.

I just want you to note the two parts I bolded in your response above. You start out saying that "just" and "fair" are two different concepts - which I assumed was an attempt to label God's assignment of children to abusive homes as "unfairness" - rather than "injustice", which is what I tried to label it. But then you go on to say that God is both just and fair. So... which of those two is He playing fast and loose with when He assigns children to abusive homes? Is that situation unjust? Is it unfair? Were those kids "given the same ball" as all of the rest of the players?

Guessing at your answer here - let's say it really is only the "free will" of the parents at play in the child's abuse - are you saying that God didn't know beforehand that the parent would abuse the child? What if this is their third child, and they have abused the other 2 already? Does God not see it coming at all? Would it interfere with the parents' free-will for God to simply make them sterile when He discovers/knows that they are abusive? Do we each, individually, need to have the ability to procreate in order to have "free will?"

3) I would not agree with a Communist USSR-styled program that pre-selects my career path as you wrote. I do agree with God that He has great sovereignty but gives us some free will and freedom, also. But why would I have a "problem of justice" if God lets a free will beast beat a child to death, then the child goes to Heaven? Seriously. We both feel righteous anger at the human beast. God does too, but is extremely patient and has plans.

In heaven you probably believe we no longer feel pain, correct? So, when a child is killed and their soul ascends, then God can welcome them with open arms and the sentiment there is something like "Come - now you will be protected from all of the evil of the world." Except the protection comes AFTER the child was already subjected to horrible pain, shame, humiliation, degradation, evil, etc. Does God also ask the child "You understand why I had to let you go through all that, don't you?" If He had the guts to ask such a question - what do you think a child might answer?

4) Consensus on abortion will change once persons are consistent. Pro-aborts are the same as me and would NEVER murder a child. They would NEVER kill a toddler. They only allow abortion where they believe they are not taking a life, a soul. I just have a heart that people be consistent in their philosophy--I'd like to personally see more skeptics who are upset at this forum about "children suffering" not push for mothers at will to immolate their children or have them chopped apart in their wombs. You're different, I appreciate that, my friend!

There is definitely something to what you say here. Most of the justification for abortion tends to revolve around what is considered "human", which is definitely a cop-out for the simple understanding that life is moving in that direction regardless what stage we're talking about. Let's say you target that after the first trimester the fetus is a "baby" - well... what about an hour before they have hit the first trimester? Is the fetus NOT a baby then, but it is an hour later? The fact is that any point on the line you choose to say the baby is "human" is arbitrary - and only for the convenience of having guidelines and wording for a law. It has the same potential at all stages, and all stages are intrinsically "human." Again - I remain a supporter of abortion - but only because human beings have proven themselves completely irresponsible with one another's feelings, and I feel that unwanted children often arguably bear the brunt of the worst things that can be dealt out by the world on an emotional level.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Exodus 21:20
20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

This quote has always boggled my mind, because the "recovery" (or, what I have usually seen as mere survival for 1 or 2 days) is still within the context of the slave ultimately dying from the beating. So, if you beat them to death, but they survive for 1 or 2 days before that death occurs, you're in the clear.

Your particular quoted source seems to be trying to ameliorate the situation by throwing the word "recover" in there - which I have never actually seen. But this doesn't change the fact that the whole passage relates to punishment for a slave dying as a direct result of a beating. Insanity.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I always answer your questions, just sometimes Socratically.

That doesn't make sense. Socrates questions statements, not other questions. You can't apply Socratic method to someone who is questioning your statements.

What does empathy have to do with your question, and where do people, who are biological machines struggling to survive the same as other species, empathetic in general?

I will not continue to enable your deliberately obtuse behaviour.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Good question! Per the scriptures:

1) Suffering was utterly out of the original Garden of Eden equation
2) Suffering became implicit with giving people free will

Why? Why can't God enable humans to have free will without suffering?

3) Suffering has dozens of specific purposes, per the scriptures

Purposes that are completely determined by God, and could easily be changed by God.

4) You will agree some suffering is good (learning, training muscles with weights, hope fulfilled after an engagement/commitment, etc.)

That's not the question. How do you not understand the issue is with why a loving ALL-POWERFUL being would choose to make a world in which suffering was a necessary part.

And I will curse my God for making children suffer as soon as you praise Him for making children.

I don't want to curse or praise anything, I just want you to acknowledge an obviously nonsensical position.

 

[Audie]

I appreciate your attempt to help, but I've heard this song and dance before, and I've read the Bible.
What is described in the Bible is the owning (and treating) of other human beings as property. You can try to sugar coat it all you want, but that's slavery.

Wait, so you think it's moral to kill people for having sex publicly? Like, you find that to be a moral action? Because I don't.

What's this all about then?

"'If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
-Leviticus 20:13

Good for Biblical scholars, but what about the rest of the Christians? Who has been persecuting all the gay people all these years? It's not the atheists, is it?

People don't have sex in those parades. But if you don't think it's moral for children to be there, don't bring your children to one. That's reasonable to me. We can both do what we think is moral without having to impose our beliefs onto each other.

If the gay people are now coming out more publicly than
some like to see, it is just a good case of "what goes around,
comes around". IF they'd just been left alone, accepted
rather than condemned so viciously, it would no more
occur to them to have rights parades than it would
for there to be one for blondes.

 

[SkepticThinker]

If the gay people are now coming out more publicly than
some like to see, it is just a good case of "what goes around,
comes around". IF they'd just been left alone, accepted
rather than condemned so viciously, it would no more
occur to them to have rights parades than it would
for there to be one for blondes.

Bingo!

 

[Audie]

Why? Why can't God enable humans to have free will without suffering?


Purposes that are completely determined by God, and could easily be changed by God.


That's not the question. How do you not understand the issue is with why a loving ALL-POWERFUL being would choose to make a world in which suffering was a necessary part.


I don't want to curse or praise anything, I just want you to acknowledge an obviously nonsensical position.

And I will curse my God for making children suffer as soon as you praise Him for making children.

I wonder what is the mental block that will not allow
a "Christian" such as this one to understand that
an atheist sees "god" as a character in a novel?
Like, not a real thing?

"Curse my God" is absolute nonsense. to an atheist.

A person who cannot grasp that is seriously deficient
in analytical ability, and puts everything else they
may say or think into grave doubt.

 

[ecco]

For example, repealing Roe v. Wade.

Women got abortions long before Roe v Wade.
Before Roe v Wade many women died during the procedure.
Before Roe v Wade many women were seriously injured during the procedure.

Repealing Roe v Wade would not end abortions. It would just make them unsafer for women.

Is that what you want?

 

[ecco]

Why is it an about face? It says right there in my profile that I am an atheist. Whether you could or could not convert me should have no bearing on whether or not you can demonstrate that the writers of the Gospels were honest and that the content is true. You believe it to be so. You place your own salvation on it. You should be able to list your evidence without having to think twice about it.

But you can't offer any evidence, you know it and I know it and I know you know it. So you play a silly game of "if I, would you". It's lame and it's transparent.

I can sum the evidence this way...

OK Let's see your EVIDENCE.

1) I read the writers often and find them self-disclosing, self-limiting (little income, willing to risk persecution, limited faithful marriages, etc.) and honest

Your "findings" are no more than your opinion. So, no EVIDENCE here.

2) I have much personal experience with Jesus, and trust Him for salvation

Your "personal experience" of interactions with an alleged, long dead, entity is not EVIDENCE.

3) Archaeology is a modern science and there was no archaeology in the ANE, so the Bible writers had to be writing contemporaneous to their events, as archaeology has unearthed countless details showing they wrote when conservatives think they wrote

Stating "the Bible writers had to be writing contemporaneous..." is your opinion, it is not EVIDENCE.

4) The Bible is extraordinarily pithy, containing fabulous money, love, relationship, mental health and other advice in mere sentences--I agree with the writer who said, "No one ever spoke like this man, Jesus"

Agreeing with what is written in the Bible is not EVIDENCE.

5) I have carefully and exactingly studied prophecy fulfillment, Bible codes and more, and find the Bible remarkable/unique/God-derived in its prescience, construction and accuracy.

Saying you have found accuracy is not presenting EVIDENCE.

6) The Bible seems univocal to me in all its major and minor doctrines, despite being written over a millennia by 40 authors/teams of authors

Saying "the Bible seems univocal" is your opinion, it is not EVIDENCE.

7) The Bible has endured despite exceptional, specific persecution--and per prophecy, such persecution caused it to flourish!

So a new religion comes along, says it is going to be persecuted, predicts it will flourish and flourishes. That same EVIDENCE applies equally to The Church of Scientology, Baha'i, Islam and probably all extant religions.

Now if I may, if it is that important to you, you shall pick any or all of those 7 points and really dig deep for yourself--

All I did was point out that your seven instances of Evidence contained no EVIDENCE. I really didn't have to dig too deep.

I don't care if you do so to find God or to prove me wrong--either way, if you seek you will find God IMHO--if you simply come back with snappy rhetoric, however, as a friend to you, may I say everything you've accused me of in recent posts is what is true of you--there is an intentional shallowness there, which you would accuse me of, an intentional shallowness that masks the need for God.

I wouldn't seek anything from your God just as you wouldn't seek anything from Allah or Shiva or Atlas. For pretty much the same reasons.

I don't believe I ever referred to you as shallow. However, you have accused me of being intentionally shallow. Why would you consider me shallow? Why would I ask you to present evidence for your beliefs if I was just shallow.

Am I shallow or do I simply have some kind of intense, throbbing confirmation bias? I have decades of Bible study under my belt AFTER greatly resisting conversion as a Jew (as I knew I would, I lost friends, family and community standing after conversion) AND a Bachelor's in Religion AND a year of Greek at university AND I've been discussing and debating all the related issues to Bible honesty for decades.

Yet with all that background and study and knowledge, you were unable to present any evidence. Perhaps you should seriously ask yourself why. Are you afraid that you might find the answer is that there is no evidence?

 

[ecco]

the atheists I know are confronting the meaninglessness "of it all"

Who dat? Not me!

 

[viole]

This quote has always boggled my mind, because the "recovery" (or, what I have usually seen as mere survival for 1 or 2 days) is still within the context of the slave ultimately dying from the beating. So, if you beat them to death, but they survive for 1 or 2 days before that death occurs, you're in the clear.

Your particular quoted source seems to be trying to ameliorate the situation by throwing the word "recover" in there - which I have never actually seen. But this doesn't change the fact that the whole passage relates to punishment for a slave dying as a direct result of a beating. Insanity.

Yes, it could be that it tried to ameliorate things by using “recover”.
But what I found even more disturbing is the justification: “because it is your property”. And the source did not feel the need to ameliorate that, for some reason.

How can anyone really believe to get his morals by the author of that, and not get embarassed, is what is really mind boggling to me.

Ciao

- viole

 

[BilliardsBall]

Why? Why can't God enable humans to have free will without suffering?


Purposes that are completely determined by God, and could easily be changed by God.


That's not the question. How do you not understand the issue is with why a loving ALL-POWERFUL being would choose to make a world in which suffering was a necessary part.


I don't want to curse or praise anything, I just want you to acknowledge an obviously nonsensical position.

I think it's simple from many different perspectives. Let's try this on for size:

Free will is understood as the freedom to live in society. Once someone misuses their free will for evil, best practice is to restrain/retrain them. Murderers in prison, non-murderers roaming free.

This aligns with concepts of Heaven and Hell. Those able to be morally perfect can live in utopia, free, the immoral will be where they can harm no other persons or creatures.

This aligns with suffering. Some suffering is beneficial--lifting weights for muscles, struggling to learn a new athletic activity or memorize facts for tests, some suffering is caused by using free will for evil.

I'm not God, I'm not as moral as God. True free will allows me to disobey orders, from God, the original sin of the Garden being disobedience. I think morally imperfect creations don't have free will unless they can choose between good and evil, not good and good which is not a choice, and not good vs. lesser good--which lesser good is relatively evil!

I like your question, but part of the answer is neither you nor I can copy ourselves, and I don't think infinite God can make more infinite gods--all His creations are shadows of him, just like all our creations. It's not free will if I can't choose to do the wrong thing, even "the lesser good" is not absolute good. If I only have one choice in every moral situation--the highest good--I don't have free will. Free will is not choosing between one option. There's no "between"!

You are asking a question analogous to, "Why can't I eat only pizza but freely choose what food I eat?" or "Why can't God make a rock too heavy to lift?" when He's already had to move the mass of the rock to time/space to create it or "make" it!

God doesn't do anything illogical. The question is illogical and moot IMHO.

As for the other question you raised, "why must there be suffering", you are begging questions--I say so respectfully--including one with a presupposition about suffering being unneeded or without purpose. The Bible address this question, by the way, and gives over 30 legitimate purposes for suffering--you may not like it, but the 30 reasons are mainly blessings on God's people:

Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Note here--if I suffer in this life, I get rewarded in the next. If you suffer, could it be meant as a wake-up call for repentance or to seek faith? Note, that's different than an innocent child suffering, and the Bible addresses that differently, rather than put all suffering under a "God must be stupid or cruel" banner, but the fact that you and I believe children are INNOCENT means we know adults must be GUILTY before God.

It's logical, if God should be held accountable for making innocent children suffer, why He is unjustified in making non-innocents suffer, if that suffering is proportionate to their sin lives? Ouch. But some suffering which SEEMS meaningless has MUCH meaning--time to read that Bible!

 

[BilliardsBall]

This is filled with nonsense and false claims if not outright lies. At any rate, he knows that he can't support these claims so why post it?

Do you mean I'm unable to provide testimonies from loved ones who know me, who know I've witnessed to numerous atheists, and that atheists often align with what I suggest here?

 

[BilliardsBall]

You are far from an expert and even the experts do not agree on the date of Jesus death. And all so called prophecies that I have seen failed so I do not know how they could support you. You are probably merely cherry picking again.

And no, the Bible does not even harmonize with itself. For example Mark and John have different times of the day for Jesus's crucifixion. And Luke does not harmonize with history. He says that Jesus was born in both roughly 4 BCE and 6 CE.

Did you acquire this knowledge from AtheistComplaints.com or from your own devoted, devout Bible study?

 

[BilliardsBall]

1. You say that, but I bet you don't stone unruly children to death or keep slaves. Am I right? Why don't you do those things?

Are you saying we both share the same innate morality then? What kinds of moral values are included in this innate morality?

2) I can't remember the last time I sinned "against conscience," but okay.
I have no idea how you think the concept of innate morality demonstrates the "moral accountability that will come someday." Perhaps you could elaborate.

It is illegal in America to have indentured servants. I hope if I had one I'd be just and a good boss. I've managed employees and students before.

It is a misunderstanding of a clear passage that unruly children were executed in biblical Israel--the passage says it takes both parents to drag their drunken, known-about-town as unruly "child" in for justice. It's a rebellious older "child", not a toddler or 1st grader.

You can't remember the last time you knew you were in the wrong and argued anyway, with a partner or coworker, that little voice telling you that you were swimming upstream and simply enjoyed being a rapscallion, you know, the devil on your shoulder?

The devil and the angel on your shoulder tell you there is moral accountability. God will judge.