The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[ArtieE]

...if you annihilate God you annihilate the sanctity of life, the inherent worth of each person, the dignity of man, the equality of man. It is far easier to kill a million biological anomalies of no more value that a germ than a creation of God endowed with the above. It is symptomatic of atheism.

Actually, most atheists have logic, reason, common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, conscience, respect for others, self-respect, feel love, duty, obligation, responsibility, obey the laws and the Golden Rule. If we can make sociopaths who feel that their fellow humans have no more value than a germ behave as if they had these above mentioned qualities by making them believe that humans were especially made by some god or if we can make them follow some religious scriptures commanding them to behave morally religion serves its purpose. Religion evolved for the same reason as justice systems did. We need a way to deal with irrational and immoral people. Putting them in jail or even executing them is one way of solving the problem but is very costly for society as a whole. But if we can make them believe in some god or holy scriptures thereby removing the threat and even turn them into assets to society the problem is solved in a much more productive way.

 

[Godobeyer]

I have seen this argument branded about to somewhat discredit evolution (I am lost as to why persons think this have anything to do with evolution, but that's another story). But I would put it to "creationists" that it is you who are advocating that something indeed came out of nothing. Let's forget the "who created God" question for a while; you (usually) advocate that God created everything..ok.

So here is my question: What did God uses to create the VERY FIRST thing that he created? Wouldn't that FIRST thing had to be created from ....nothing?? For example, if he created dirt first, what did he create that dirt from (since dirt would be the first thing created, there wouldn't be any other "something" around; would there)?

See, your argument that God created everything cannot, in my opinion, work unless you are advocating the "something actually came from nothing."

SO you campare our understanding/ability to the issues , to power of God ?

for exemple :
Since the Car/PC are created by human, go ahead convinced the cars,....etc that they are created by human .

Good luck

 

[Sapiens]

Your something else. Distinguishing between experiential claims like observations of planets and fantastic guess about things we have no evidence for like multi-verse is perfectly justifiable and has been differentiated since man first existed. No fallacy, no dismissal, just perfectly justified fact.

I work in a defense laboratory not on an archeological site. However those that are and are NT scholars or historical lawyers, etc.... have and a virtual consensus exists that they were. That is why the Bible is officially classified as a historical biography. Since you will deny any number based on preference I will only give two but could give hundreds.

Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said: "The evidence for our LORD's life and death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

Wilbur Smith writes of a great legal authority of the last century. He refers to John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863), recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, the Solicitor-General of the British government in 1819, attorney-general of Great Britain in 1824, three times High Chancellor of England, and elected in 1846, High Steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him. When Chancellor Lyndhurst died, a document was found in his desk, among his private papers, giving an extended account of his own Christian faith, and in this precious, previously-unknown record, he wrote: "I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such evidence as that for the Resurrection has never broken down yet."

Let the arbitrary denial by preference fest commence.


There is every reason to. In the NIV over 100 biblical scholars contributed and they attributed every book to it's traditional author except one they could not get agreement on. Fortunately it is the most textually accurate book so the damage is minimal (not that slapping a name on anything makes it more reliable alone). Even skeptic conclude that the writers were definitely eyewitnesses. Some of Paul's source material goes back to less than ten years of Christ's death. Caesars Gallic wars is taught as accurate history in universities around the world every day yet the only two copies we have are from 950 years later and even the original was known as pure propaganda in it's time.


It contains more corroborating sources than almost any historical event of the times. You just reject them all because they agree. The Bible is not a single story. It is a collection of writers who did not know each other in many cases, were separated by over a thousand years and lived in completely different cultures, plus there are at least 40 extra biblical sources outside it. Probably no other event (and even if so very few) in ancient history have a fraction of the corroboration. However when you arbitrarily deny all those because they agree then your out to lunch to begin with.


No it is not. Empirical evidence is evidence that can be comprehended by the senses. Can you comprehend anything that occurred longer than a second ago. Is history 100%non empirical? The tomb's being empty was just as empirical then as my cars existence is today. Nothing is empirically available to everyone (or almost nothing).



Empirical evidence
Empirical evidence (also empirical data, sense experience, empirical knowledge, or the a posteriori) is a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation. The term comes from the Greek word for experience, Εμπειρία (empeiría).

Your really desperate now aren't you. No mention of (to every human in existence) at all in that definition.


Those accounts have been verified far beyond what anyone would expect to be available for claims that old. Historical claims are taught as fact by the millions in university that don't have a meaningful fraction of the corroboration the NT does.

Be that as it may, contemporary historical analysis, as I understand it, requires two contemporaneous cross-references. Your problem is, that with respect to Jesus, there are none, zero, nada, zip. Any discussion of the resurrection of a being whose existence has yet to be substantiated by anything more than opinions and belief systems strikes me as putting the cart before the horse.

 

[Thief]

Be that as it may, contemporary historical analysis, as I understand it, requires two contemporaneous cross-references. Your problem is, that with respect to Jesus, there are none, zero, nada, zip. Any discussion of the resurrection of a being whose existence has yet to be substantiated by anything more than opinions and belief systems strikes me as putting the cart before the horse.

We won't have the opportunity for proof before we die.
We have to form a decision with faith.

You can pick a mentor (prophet) but life after death is determined first by you.

Then anyone standing over you in your last hour just might make a judgment call...with sword in hand.

Just my take on the pending situation.

 

[Sapiens]

We won't have the opportunity for proof before we die.
We have to form a decision with faith.

You can pick a mentor (prophet) but life after death is determined first by you.

Then anyone standing over you in your last hour just might make a judgment call...with sword in hand.

Just my take on the pending situation.

Opinions are like *** holes, everyone has one. Just my take on your take.

 

[fantome profane]

Opinions are like *** holes, everyone has one.

And they usually stink.

 

[1robin]

Actually, most atheists have logic, reason, common sense, empathy, altruism, compassion, conscience, respect for others, self-respect, feel love, duty, obligation, responsibility, obey the laws and the Golden Rule.

Since you or I at best will have contact with maybe .000001% of atheists I do not see how we can know what most do or think. That is not to say I disagree but just to say I think your making unknowable claims. Plus even if they are true there are other issues. In the west we have adopted moral codes that originally were founded in Christianity, they have been systematized into law, and are part of the social conscience. Regardless of whether we later have slid towards secularism in places, we were founded in Christian ideals. Society is conditioned by those laws, so an atheist may be obeying the law and not be naturally "good". Also Christian doctrine says we all have God given consciences (even non believers) so that's another factor to be involved in. I would agree most atheists are not in their category but the great genocidal maniacs have been eastern atheist utopias, plus you can easily trace the statistical moral decline in the west by it's slide towards secularism. I am not commenting on any atheist in particular.

If we can make sociopaths who feel that their fellow humans have no more value than a germ behave as if they had these above mentioned qualities by making them believe that humans were especially made by some god or if we can make them follow some religious scriptures commanding them to behave morally religion serves its purpose. Religion evolved for the same reason as justice systems did. We need a way to deal with irrational and immoral people. Putting them in jail or even executing them is one way of solving the problem but is very costly for society as a whole. But if we can make them believe in some god or holy scriptures thereby removing the threat and even turn them into assets to society the problem is solved in a much more productive way.

That is a bunch of theory which even if true would be next to impossible to know. It also defies hundreds of millions of claims to experiences of God which are far more reliable than theories made about morality that are derived from some bones in the ground.

Clifford Herschel Moore, professor at Harvard University, well said, "Christianity knew its savior and redeemer not as some god whose history was contained in a mythical faith, with rude, primitive, and even offensive elements...Jesus was a historical not a mythical being. No remote or foul myth obtruded itself of the Christian believer; his faith was founded on positive, historical, and acceptable facts."
Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

Simply inventing an alterative hypothesis for the origin of faith does nothing to make that alternative true or justifiable. Nothing about the bible (especially the NT suggests they were inventing a myth to keep everyone in line. The apostles would not have given their lives and suffered their whole lives for a mere system to ground morals. They more than any humans who have ever lived knew the truth or falsity of what they claimed. Not many people will suffer and die for what they are fully aware of is wrong, but they will on occasion do so for what they know is true. When I was in my teens and had rejected God and Christianity that was one of the stories I invented to validate my lack of faith. Now 25years later I cringe with shame when I recall I used to believe that.

 

[1robin]

Be that as it may, contemporary historical analysis, as I understand it, requires two contemporaneous cross-references. Your problem is, that with respect to Jesus, there are none, zero, nada, zip. Any discussion of the resurrection of a being whose existence has yet to be substantiated by anything more than opinions and belief systems strikes me as putting the cart before the horse.

I thought we were discussing the empirical nature of a claim. How did we get into the historical method? Regardless I have 4 plus contemporary cross references which is more than many of the most accepted historical claims. As far as I can tell that is not even a rule of the historical method but I have it either way.

Go to this link on the historical method:
Historical method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You will not find any set rules about having to have 2 cross references. In fact I searched for cross (references) and I did not get one hit.

Where on earth do you get zero contemporary witnesses.

Mathew was contemporary.
Mark was contemporary.
John was contemporary.

Paul was contemporary and eyewitness to other events concerning Christ.
Luke may have been. Even some of the Greek extra biblical writers I supplied in abundance were contemporary. What are you talking about?

 

[idav]

That is a bunch of theory which even if true would be next to impossible to know. It also defies hundreds of millions of claims to experiences of God which are far more reliable than theories made about morality that are derived from some bones in the ground.

Clifford Herschel Moore, professor at Harvard University, well said, "Christianity knew its savior and redeemer not as some god whose history was contained in a mythical faith, with rude, primitive, and even offensive elements...Jesus was a historical not a mythical being. No remote or foul myth obtruded itself of the Christian believer; his faith was founded on positive, historical, and acceptable facts."
Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

Simply inventing an alterative hypothesis for the origin of faith does nothing to make that alternative true or justifiable. Nothing about the bible (especially the NT suggests they were inventing a myth to keep everyone in line. The apostles would not have given their lives and suffered their whole lives for a mere system to ground morals. They more than any humans who have ever lived knew the truth or falsity of what they claimed. Not many people will suffer and die for what they are fully aware of is wrong, but they will on occasion do so for what they know is true. When I was in my teens and had rejected God and Christianity that was one of the stories I invented to validate my lack of faith. Now 25years later I cringe with shame when I recall I used to believe that.

Millions have the same experience as theists but don't call it god. That doesn't invalidate their experience it simply says someone is mistaken as to its origin. Many Buddhist would say it is a product of the mind.

This always reminds me of the illusion that the sun goes around the earth. While completely false it is easy to see how experience would justifiy such a belief, not that the experience is invalid, just mistaken about what is right in front of our eyes.

 

[1robin]

Millions have the same experience as theists but don't call it god. That doesn't invalidate their experience it simply says someone is mistaken as to its origin. Many Buddhist would say it is a product of the mind.

Now how in the world could you know this? The experience in completely subjective and you have no access to it. Besides the FACT that there are so few claims that secularists make to being born again as to be unheard of, there exists no reasons or basis by which anyone would expect there to be any. Now let's move on the only area where other claims exist in any meaningful numbers, other faiths. Long before I cared about debate I was obsessed with salvation. I have been asked to write papers ion it, I spent 3 years reading about it every day, I constantly looked into it from other faiths perspectives, etc...... There exists no meaningful fraction of comparable claims to being born again in any other major faith. The ratios would be thousands to 1. In ten years of debate I have heard les than half a dozen claim to be spiritually reborn from those of other faiths. Add to that that there exists no doctrinal reasons why other faiths would be expected to have large numbers of those who claim to have experienced God personally. I will give two comparison to illustrate this.

1. To become a Muslim one must only consent to the intellectual proposition that Muhammad was a prophet and Allah is the only God. No meeting God, no new birth, no confirmation. You won't know your wrong until too late.
2. In Judaism it is a matter of keeping laws. No new birth, no experience with God, no confirmation. You won't know your wrong until too late.

Now based on interpretation they may offer an experience with God to a select few who achieve some rare criteria.

3 To become a Christian every single person must: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

In Christianity experiencing God is the universal first step not only available to a select few. So I have doctrinal reasons to expect in in Christianity and no other faith in large numbers and that is exactly what I find.

This always reminds me of the illusion that the sun goes around the earth. While completely false it is easy to see how experience would justifiy such a belief, not that the experience is invalid, just mistaken about what is right in front of our eyes.

Experience without doubts of any kind can validate a faith. It may not, but it certainly can. The absolute worst person to evaluate the claim is the only who has never had the experience. It is like asking a person who has not been, if they have ever been in love. They want to have been so badly they interpret what ever they have experienced as being in love or they discount other's experiences of it, but for the person who has been in love they know what it is. There is no reason to think spiritual experience any less potentially valid as sight based experiences. There is no reason to think they lack the power to confirm theological propositions but there are very good reasons to think a person who has not been born again can't possibly fathom what it means and will there for either discount the experience or mistakenly equate it with something else.

I do not believe in UFO's visiting Earth but you will never find me suggesting a person's claim to having experienced them doing so is invalid or mistaken unless I was there or their story is contradicted by reliable evidence. Neither of which are available to you concerning Christian salvation.

 

[Thief]

Opinions are like *** holes, everyone has one. Just my take on your take.

I have no desire to sink into any hole...including my grave.
If I have my way.....I won't even be there at the funeral.

As for those who have no intention beyond dying.....the grave awaits.

 

[idav]

Now how in the world could you know this? The experience in completely subjective and you have no access to it. Besides the FACT that there are so few claims that secularists make to being born again as to be unheard of, there exists no reasons or basis by which anyone would expect there to be any. Now let's move on the only area where other claims exist in any meaningful numbers, other faiths. Long before I cared about debate I was obsessed with salvation. I have been asked to write papers ion it, I spent 3 years reading about it every day, I constantly looked into it from other faiths perspectives, etc...... There exists no meaningful fraction of comparable claims to being born again in any other major faith. The ratios would be thousands to 1. In ten years of debate I have heard les than half a dozen claim to be spiritually reborn from those of other faiths. Add to that that there exists no doctrinal reasons why other faiths would be expected to have large numbers of those who claim to have experienced God personally. I will give two comparison to illustrate this.

1. To become a Muslim one must only consent to the intellectual proposition that Muhammad was a prophet and Allah is the only God. No meeting God, no new birth, no confirmation. You won't know your wrong until too late.
2. In Judaism it is a matter of keeping laws. No new birth, no experience with God, no confirmation. You won't know your wrong until too late.

Now based on interpretation they may offer an experience with God to a select few who achieve some rare criteria.

3 To become a Christian every single person must: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

In Christianity experiencing God is the universal first step not only available to a select few. So I have doctrinal reasons to expect in in Christianity and no other faith in large numbers and that is exactly what I find.

It isn't that christians have the monopoly on spiritual experience. Other faiths justify their experience with texts, none are different. There are various forms of being "reborn", hindus call it reincarnation, buddhists also call it rebirth as opposed to reincarnation. I find doctrinal reasons to believe each and every faith with religious texts, it simply isn't enough. I know people have the same experiences cause they explain them and justify them, million and billions of people who are not christian.

Experience without doubts of any kind can validate a faith. It may not, but it certainly can. The absolute worst person to evaluate the claim is the only who has never had the experience. It is like asking a person who has not been, if they have ever been in love. They want to have been so badly they interpret what ever they have experienced as being in love or they discount other's experiences of it, but for the person who has been in love they know what it is. There is no reason to think spiritual experience any less potentially valid as sight based experiences. There is no reason to think they lack the power to confirm theological propositions but there are very good reasons to think a person who has not been born again can't possibly fathom what it means and will there for either discount the experience or mistakenly equate it with something else.

I do not believe in UFO's visiting Earth but you will never find me suggesting a person's claim to having experienced them doing so is invalid or mistaken unless I was there or their story is contradicted by reliable evidence. Neither of which are available to you concerning Christian salvation.

It isn't discounting the experience, as I said. It is saying being mistaken about the mechanics of it. You really should try and understand my analogy. Everyone has experiences of love, nobody would question that. What people question is the source. Does it come from the brain and chemical responses or comes from some faith based spiritual source? Experiencing love can't tell us the answer and finding correlation with what Freud or the Bible says doesn't make them the authority at all. People have been writing about love since we could write, we are all humans experiencing similar human things, so of course peoples experience are valid, but are often wrong as to why or how it is happening.

 

[viole]

Depends on the century. Before the enlightenment God was present in western science to a degree that caused it to be inaccurate at times. This was the God of the gaps era. After the enlightenment God was where he belonged (he was the ultimate explanation of why science can be done, the first cause, the mind behind the rationality, etc..) this is science's zenith and these men are the giants that todays scientists stand upon. In modern times secularization and political correctness have stripped God from science and they no longer care to include him in any form. This has mixed results. It means that many lines of reasoning have no terminus any longer and so fantasy fills the gap, science can still be done, but why science can be done no longer has an explanation. The context is lost and fiction fills the void. We have arrived at the age of the science of the gaps. So your question depends on what era is discussed.

Yes, but it could be a wrong inference. Rationality of the world, if any, does not entail a rational creator. And even if it did, it does not say anything about the qualities of said creator. For instance, I don't think it is an understatement if we say that westener thought has been massively influenced by the ancient greeks. It could take a whole page to name them all. But that would not increase the plausibility of Zeus and polyteism at all, probably.

Eistein, for instance, thought that God does not play dice. Which is a sort typical of his beliefs that Nature is rational and fundamentally predictable. He was wrong.

No I can see an image on a computer screen, what it actually is, is a matter of faith. Your taking my analogy and applying it ways it was not intended. Analogy's are not equalities and only apply where intended.

Do you really insist in comparing the faith in Jesus with the faith in the Empire State Building? If you are ready to go that far, then we have faith in basically everything, incuding my belief that the reality I observe exists and I am not a brain in a vat.

You are very much mistaken. Slavery is an English word that has 19th century baggage. The word that slavery translated was not chattel slavery but actually a form of welfare. There is no known example of involuntary slavery in any Jewish records. It was almost always voluntary. They had unrivaled rights. They could own property, they were supplied with housing and food even though in most cases the "owner" had paid of their debts to their creditors. They could escape at any time and no one was allowed to report them, they could settle in any of the 12 tribes land, which not even a citizen could do. They had to be released after 6 years whether he had worked off his debt or not. The other case was what to do with prisoners. You could let them wonder the country pillaging, kill them, and force them to work and take care of them in very benevolent ways. I have gone into Biblical slavery exhaustively in the thread on is God evil if you want more info. As for race wars they did not exist. God sent his people to attack tribe because of what they had done and not who they were. The bible said to kill the Canaanites because their cup of iniquity was full by practicing human sacrifice etc..... not because they were Canaanites. There is no problem with symbolism and no embarrassment just ignorance.

Ergo, injuring a person, independently of her social status, as long as she survives after a couple of days, is objectively morally acceptable? Or is it more acceptable if that person is a property of someone else?

Or is that another one of those objective and universal values that depend on the current covenant?

In my view Hell is eventual annihilation. You were given a life and you used it to deny the maker so he takes it back. So I believe you will spend an eternity not existing, yes. There may be a temporary physical Hell but even it is thrown into the lake of fire in the end and annihilated with Satan and demons. The bible uses metaphors about burning to indicate the deplorable choice. The valley of Gehenna was a trash dump where refuse was burned day and night and eradicated. God said Hell is worse than that.

Annihilation? Cool. That would put a new spin on Pascal's wager (which you probably consider useless), wouldn't it?

If Hell is annihilation and God says that Hell is worse than living in an eternally burning gabage heap, metaphoric or not, then, well, I am happy He believes that.

Depends. What is required to get to heaven and commune with Christ is so simple a child could understand it but it contains unbelievable complexity on deeper levels. There was a genius behind those words far beyond human comprehension. Rabbis say there are 50 levels of understanding to every passage. I think that hyperbole but I do think here are surface level necessities a child can grasp and far more complex meanings and structure behind much of it. Just look at the Passover and compare it to the crucifixion hundreds of years later. Perfect symmetry.

Yes, the complication comes when you become eight years old.

In Hitchens case yes. I believe Hitchens hated the concept of God. It is easy to see when analogies are more bitter than necessity requires and too frequent to be accidental. However each person must be taken individually.

Well, if someone is mad at God and declares herself atheist, then she is basically nuts. Or she possesses a suboptimal rationality, if we want to be politically correct.

To quote a movie anyone who judges by the group is a Pee Wit. I would not use we because your side has very bitter people in it and very neutral people as well. I take them one at a time. You don't seem all that bitter.

Well, I am not bitter because I don't live in a country where disbelief in God has foreign negative associations. Or can get you killed. Or keep you alive against your free will.

My husband, an italian, is mad at the belief because he would not get euthanasia if he would require it. Bacause the pope said so. And the pope said so not because that is his opinion. He said so because God said so.

Fortunately, we now live in Switzerland where assisted suicide is legal, so he is also less bitter than before. But only slightly, if he thinks about his relatives.

Everyone can express her opinion against euthanasia, abortion, gay marriage, etc. But if they use God to justify it, then they should be ready to get some heat.

There are tens of thousands of Christian sin India. Even though the Protégées were practiced forceful conversion Indians flocked to them in droves because the Hindu caste system was so deplorable. I mentioned Rome, etc... I expect faith to be regional because God judges corporately as well as individually but he has reached into the darkest of pits in every nation to save. This is a classic genetic fallacy to begin with. In my case it is even worse because I hated the popular faith more than those who are ignorant of it.

Alright. I think you know what I mean. If not, change India with ancient Greece.

That is very common and accessible knowledge and does not require an Einstein. I have no degrees in history but my capacity for it is many times that of math. Don't take my word for it, look up the councils like Nicaea.

I have no doubt that your knowledge of history surpasses your knowledge of math. Lol. Kidding, again.

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

It isn't that christians have the monopoly on spiritual experience. Other faiths justify their experience with texts, none are different. There are various forms of being "reborn", hindus call it reincarnation, buddhists also call it rebirth as opposed to reincarnation. I find doctrinal reasons to believe each and every faith with religious texts, it simply isn't enough. I know people have the same experiences cause they explain them and justify them, million and billions of people who are not christian.

I think we do have it, I did not suggest nor do I need a monopoly. I allowed their experiences to be valid for the sake of argument. I said we have by far the most people who claim an experience with God. Perhaps by as much as a thousand to 1. Other faiths do not have texts that offer the type of experience to all it's believers as the Bible does. I allowed for their offering similar but far less significant promises of an experience which are a very ambiguous type of experience and only offered to a select few. What Hindu's call re-incarnation has nothing to do with Christianity's being born again. Hindus are only talking about the soul inhabiting a new body, Christ was talking about our soul being united to God and receiving a spiritual birth, and that we only get one life. The two have nothing to do with each other. They are not even close. But this does show you are not well versed on what born again means. That is no insult but it is relevant.

It isn't discounting the experience, as I said. It is saying being mistaken about the mechanics of it. You really should try and understand my analogy. Everyone has experiences of love, nobody would question that. What people question is the source. Does it come from the brain and chemical responses or comes from some faith based spiritual source? Experiencing love can't tell us the answer and finding correlation with what Freud or the Bible says doesn't make them the authority at all. People have been writing about love since we could write, we are all humans experiencing similar human things, so of course peoples experience are valid, but are often wrong as to why or how it is happening.

If you knew the type of experience of which I was referring to you would not assume it was mistaken for something.

1. It almost always occurs as the result of acquiring an assurance that the Gospels are true. Now what chance is there that millions will have another experience with another cause at that exact moment. Zero.
2. In Christianity it always produces confirmation and faith in Christ. How in the world could something unrelated to Christianity produce faith in it?
3. It usually produces results which have no know natural explanation. Just in my case decades worth of depression gained from losing loved ones instantly disappeared even though I was unaware it existed to begin with. I had tried for decades to stop several habits without success. I instantly lost any desire for those habits. It came with certainty concerning all kinds of Gospel claims and predictions.

I could add quite a bit more but that is enough. You must come up with a counter experience which would do all three which is more likely than my explanation. You can't pull them apart and produce another experience for each one. You must find one reliable event that is a better explanation for those facts.

Hint: No other faith is gong to do 1, 2, or 3. No natural event known will do 2 or 3 and 1 makes it vanishingly improbable anyway. Good luck.

 

[idav]

I think we do have it, I did not suggest nor do I need a monopoly. I allowed their experiences to be valid for the sake of argument. I said we have by far the most people who claim an experience with God. Perhaps by as much as a thousand to 1.

This tells me you truly invalidate the experience of theists if they are not christain. Why invalidate billions of experiences? I'm speechless, lol.

Other faiths do not have texts that offer the type of experience to all it's believers as the Bible does. I allowed for their offering similar but far less significant promises of an experience which are a very ambiguous type of experience and only offered to a select few.

I can't buy the bible as being proof of itself.

What Hindu's call re-incarnation has nothing to do with Christianity's being born again.

I know and this shows you miss the point. It is a theology based on similar aspects of having a soul and moving on, the rest of what happens "after life" is all faith based, all from the same experiences of believing in an afterlife.

1. It almost always occurs as the result of acquiring an assurance that the Gospels are true. Now what chance is there that millions will have another experience with another cause at that exact moment. Zero.
2. In Christianity it always produces confirmation and faith in Christ. How in the world could something unrelated to Christianity produce faith in it?
3. It usually produces results which have no know natural explanation. Just in my case decades worth of depression gained from losing loved ones instantly disappeared even though I was unaware it existed to begin with. I had tried for decades to stop several habits without success. I instantly lost any desire for those habits. It came with certainty concerning all kinds of Gospel claims and predictions.

I could add quite a bit more but that is enough. You must come up with a counter experience which would do all three which is more likely than my explanation. You can't pull them apart and produce another experience for each one. You must find one reliable event that is a better explanation for those facts.

Hint: No other faith is gong to do 1, 2, or 3. No natural event known will do 2 or 3 and 1 makes it vanishingly improbable anyway. Good luck.

1. If you test the bible or quran or book of mormon you will validate they are true but someone is wrong or maybe all three.
2. Uh yeah if your testing against the bible, or the quran validates allah or the gita validate krishna etc.
3. This happens to everyone also. If the bible gets you out of depression great, buddhism works for others, other faiths work for yet others. Buddhism and Hinduism also look to getting rid of desires. Zen is god for all intents and purposes, same valid experience described in different ways as to the mechanisms.

 

[viole]

If by wise you mean it catered to my laziness then I agree. I can show exactly what motivated him but it takes a lot of typing.

I don't need a lot of typing. Just three german words: Gott mit uns.

I took it for granted that you knew Christianity does not believe we are subject to OT laws. Plus the fact that the OT verses authorizing violence were conditional and limited in time neither of which apply today. Again I am lazy. I had hoped you were aware of those basic facts and hoped not to have to spell them out. The Net Testament is a new covenant relationship built on grace not law. The old covenant obviously no longer applies but it takes a while to build hat case.

Do objective moral values, if any, depend on covenants?

Well by far the existence of God but that is an interesting question because I would argue that faith in God even if wrong is of value in that it grounds morality objectively instead of it being untethered to anything beyond our opinion which is inherently dangerous but it would be far less important that his actual existence. However I have no need to make that choice.

Your bizarre (Will Farrell). I think they are equally bleak but I would go with 2 because it would mean there was justice available but we just failed to believe and maybe some mercy would be extended. 1 was a hopeless scenario from the start.

Well, it is already extended, if we think of all the people who never heard of the Bible and believed in the craziest things. So, believing in Jesus is not a necessary condition to gain heaven. Unless you believe that just by watching the beautiful flowers and the stars makes it apparent that Jesus is our saviour.

But if it did, what do you need missionaries for?

I agree. I think most governmental systems would work if man was not so flawed. The reason they all eventually fail is they all include man and his imperfections. You cannot systematize our sin away. The US constitution was specifically designed with that in mind and we had a good run but greed adapts and ruins everything man touches. It is not pure socialism I object to it is it's so frequent denial of God. Atheism does not entail communism but communism does entail atheism.

Well, they see God as a sort of Valium for the oppressed masses. And that is why they fight it. From their point of view, it makes perfect sense. Alas, it does not work. You first need to remove the need for Valium before outlawing it. Much more difficult. You don't even need to outlaw it, then. It will just vanish; as we can observe in today's North European "socialism".

Forget what you do not like about what I am going to say and tell me what is the philosophical, logical, or theological fault in it. God was bringing his people back to the land they had formerly occupied. Others had moved onto and near it and something had to be done because God knew for fact their human sacrificing, raiding at harvest times, idols, and false God's would infest Israel and he had a job for them that required they be a unique moral and theological culture, one that attracted attention. Now proof of both of those exists.

I cannot simply conceive the alleged creator of the universe, the ultimate fine tuner that brought the Universe, the cosmos, the hundred and hundred billions of galaxies, into being, the creator of the laws of nature and life...selecting one tribe on a planet as His chosen one. Logic dictates that it is the other way round. It is the tribe that selected their own sponsoring God.

Human sacrifices and all that stuff cannot be the reason. Human sacrifices prospered in other parts of the world until recently, and nobody moved a finger for thousands of years.

And I would be careful with propaganda, especially when written by the winners or wannabe. It is a natural human feat to depict the "other race" as being cruel and subhuman. It lowers empathy and enable extermination without remorse. Apparently, it works.

1. Israel did not wipe them out and they were plagued by them for generations and were punished severely when some intermarried and adopted their God's and sacrifices. They literally imported Satan into God's house.
2. Despite their being influenced God beat it out of them and it required a steep price. However since a single man who existed in a Roman backwater became the most influential individual in human history you can see the ultimately God got his way but Israel took the hard road by being disobedient.

Yes, and in the meantime the Mayas where pulling off the hearts from children to appease their version of God. Well, at least they cannot be charged with disobedience, I guess.

Now we are left with only the "innocent children" you mention.

1. You and I know perfectly well virtually all these children would have grown up to be just as corrupt as their parents. There was no internet, things changed very very slowly at that time.

Nope. No sensible jury on earth will give you a free pass for killing little babies that are growing up in a nasty environment.

It is only your need to safeguard the dubious morality of the Bible that lets you justify the unjustifiable.

Unless, of course, ripping pregnant women apart, just because they happened to belong to a "nasty" race, is an objective moral value. Lol.

Again. Where was Jesus and His alleged love for children?

2. These children would have be at least as evil as their parents and overcome Israel instead of just polluting them as the survivors did for generations.

Polluting them? This is the most racist thing I have heard in a long time.

That reminds me of that mafia boss in the Godfather II that tries to kill the Corleone kid in fear of him coming back to kill him when older.

That is actually what happend. But can we use that as a justification that it was acceptable to kill that kid? I guess God thinks like a mafia boss, which is odd.

I think your so-called objective morality is all messed up. If that transpires from your God, then well...thanks, but no, thank you.

3. If you examine my God you MUST bring in the entire context he comes with. You stick him in a human context and judge him. He created those lives, he knew their hearts, he knew their future. Instead of letting them become so corrupt they would have wound up in Hell according to our doctrines he placed them in heaven without all the suffering and trials most of us have to bear. God does not have to do as we demand he only requires that he have morally justifiable reasons for his actions. I can't see that his actions in the context they come with could possibly be unjustifiable, We make not like the necessity that required the act be we have no reasons to suggest it was unjustifiable.

He knew their future and therefore He put them out of their misery? Lol, so much for free will and accountability of each person, independently of race or upbringing. Jesus still missing in action.

But then, again, what have those children done to deserve this courtesy? I would exchange a free ticket to heaven anytime, wouldn't you? Alas, I did not grow up in a nasty neighborhood. Bummer. No heaven, just annihilation (or garbage heap). The same for all those billions of poor buggers who had to go through this life without any guarantee at all.

You ask where Jesus was. Jesus is the avenger in revelations as well as the savior in John. People love the fuzzy Lamb of God but forget he is the Lion of Judah as well. God is perfect love and perfect justice. You either accept the truth or get crushed by it. The Canaanites could no longer even see the truth from where they were. Despite God holding his own people in the desert while he attempted to get the Canaanites to repent they abjectly refused. Only after their sins had long before merited judgment did he act. I cringe at his judgments just as you but I know to separate my emotional response from my intellectual study of the events. If right and wrong exist at all God was justified.

Yes, very scary. Jesus is an avenger, so He was probably rejoicing at the sight of thise massacres. Maybe His only concern was to remain unemployed.

So, if right and wrong exist then God was justified. If they don't, then we should not judge Him or He does not exist. Right? Or wrong?

Good luck with proselityzing your objective source of morality and love with people who do not necessarily buy this Biblical Scholarship, or similar things that share the same acronym.

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

Yes, but it could be a wrong inference. Rationality of the world, if any, does not entail a rational creator. And even if it did, it does not say anything about the qualities of said creator. For instance, I don't think it is an understatement if we say that westener thought has been massively influenced by the ancient greeks. It could take a whole page to name them all. But that would not increase the plausibility of Zeus and polyteism at all, probably.

I cannot say I am fully on board with why yet but I hear constantly from philosophers of science that not only is the universes rationality best explained by God but out ability to do science is as well. Like I said I have not mastered the logical basis for this but it is so prevalent that I have accepted it. Let me draw a comparison. If you found a word like "eat at Joe's) on the dark side of the moon you would instantly think intelligence, everyone would and does. Symbiotic issues always have mind as their source, so when I see the longest word ever discovered in the DNA chain I think intelligence also. When I find a lawful rational universe nature does not explain it, or at least is a far more desperate attempt to explain it. As for who influenced who your right. It does say something about that creator as well but night not return every characteristic my God is said to have.

1. Western political, some science, and some philosophical views are founded in Athens.
2. Our soul or spiritual views are founded on Jerusalem.
3. Most don't add a third but our military and administrative views are founded on Rome. Plus some science and math as well.

Since we did not derive our religious view from the Greeks then Zeus is irrelevant. However this is not what I was talking about. Even the most virulent of critics constantly admit that no better explanation exists for abstract sciences rise if Europe than Christian faith. The most credible work on the subject was by an atheist and he finally gave up and agreed. Can't remember his name. IOW if you find the rise of abstract science in the cradle of Christina fifth you can at least say the two are not opposed in anyway and probably that one had influence on the other as the historians have done. That would still be true if God did not exist.

Eistein, for instance, thought that God does not play dice. Which is a sort typical of his beliefs that Nature is rational and fundamentally predictable. He was wrong.

If you want to use Einstein as a correlation between science and faith it would depend on what day you asked. he made some very emphatically statements in favor of faith quite often. I wrote his relevance to theology off after reading statements that completely contradicted each other. Besides he is a product of the abstract science revolution. Newton, Descartes, Bacon and those guys created modern science not Einstein. I can, but am not trying to show Christians are he best scientists, I am trying to show there exists no conflict between them.

Do you really insist in comparing the faith in Jesus with the faith in the Empire State Building? If you are ready to go that far, then we have faith in basically everything, incuding my belief that the reality I observe exists and I am not a brain in a vat.

I was but only where my analogy applied. I do not remember in your case but it almost never fails that whatever way I use an analogy will be the only way that it is not applied. Analogies have limited relevance and are not equalities but they are treated as such in debates. I think my analogy accurate but there are many ways in which faith in the ESB and God are not similar. Let me change it to dark matter. I should have used that up front anyway. Can't detect dark matter by any method. You can only derive it by looking at reality and the lack of explanation for it within what we know about it.

Ergo, injuring a person, independently of her social status, as long as she survives after a couple of days, is objectively morally acceptable? Or is it more acceptable if that person is a property of someone else?

That is not what the bible says. Let me find the verse:

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

However you did not include the context. Normally the master has paid off he entire debt of the servant. He did so that he might recover it over time. Now given the servants debt is taken car of entirely, the bible counts the loss of the work that would have repaid the debt as punishment enough. IOW time served. The lost work of that labor and the money spent on him is taken as payment enough and no additional punishment is required unless they die. In that case no money can make up for even the loft life of a slave because only with God does life have infinite value. There are specific verse about this and I have provided them in the past but could not quickly find them again.

Or is that another one of those objective and universal values that depend on the current covenant?

You misunderstand. The moral truths are universal and objective, but how we interact with those truths and what we are expected to do concerning them depended on God's purpose and our ability. The same as the parents morals do not change butt the child's rules do.

Annihilation? Cool. That would put a new spin on Pascal's wager (which you probably consider useless), wouldn't it?

I have no use for it in it's traditional form but when modified it is reasonable. My revisions states that when two unknowns exist then there is no loss to considering the most useful one at least possible. IOW until the jury is in give the evidence for the bible every chance you can without defying known truth. You can never get true faith by default but you can leave the door open to it.

Continued below;

 

[1robin]

If Hell is annihilation and God says that Hell is worse than living in an eternally burning gabage heap, metaphoric or not, then, well, I am happy He believes that.

Well he is comparing what you could have gained with what you chose. he used a metaphor to indicate how bad your choice was. I have very good reasons for thinking Hell is eventual annihilation but the fire and brimstone version has been so widely accepted I would hesitate to rule it out even though it causes so many and so drastic a bunch of internal problems and inconsistencies I can't buy into it.

Yes, the complication comes when you become eight years old.

Then why do many well aged scholars (even countless non-believers) still consider it by far the most complex and meaningful text ever written. Of course claims such as you find in the bible will cause creatures as limited as we are to pause many times but answers exist to most of the issues we encounter. Ultimately it all depends on our hearts. A wiling heart has more than enough evidence and internal consistency, for the unwilling heart there can't possibly ever be enough. If the bible did not cause us to go "say what" every once in a while I would take that as evidence humans created it.

Well, if someone is mad at God and declares herself atheist, then she is basically nuts. Or she possesses a suboptimal rationality, if we want to be politically correct.

In my case I thought there probably was not a God but if there was I hated him. There is nothing incoherent about that on any level. There is plenty wrong but nothing illogical.

Well, I am not bitter because I don't live in a country where disbelief in God has foreign negative associations. Or can get you killed. Or keep you alive against your free will.

You do not seem to be but I rarely find anyone that is truly agnostic or for whom preference does not play a major role in disbelief.

My husband, an italian, is mad at the belief because he would not get euthanasia if he would require it. Because the pope said so. And the pope said so not because that is his opinion. He said so because God said so.

I would be to. I believe it is my life and if I want to end it I should be allowed. The bible has quite a few suicides in it and while they may have done many things wrong up to that point I don't remember God condemning them for he suicide alone. I probably have more contentions with Catholicism than you do so we can agree to disagree with much of what they cough up. I think Catholicism has been more detrimental to faith than any other group of any kind. Some things they got more right than protestants but they are few and far between.

Fortunately, we now live in Switzerland where assisted suicide is legal, so he is also less bitter than before. But only slightly, if he thinks about his relatives.

Was the reason for the move euthanasia, you might be the first. Is the reason he denies God only what he was told about Euthanasia?

Everyone can express her opinion against euthanasia, abortion, gay marriage, etc. But if they use God to justify it, then they should be ready to get some heat.

Everyone is not female, just kidding. I can present the most incontrovertible arguments against abortion and homosexuality I have ever heard for any subjects from a secular viewpoint alone. However it is the makeup of a country hast determines what laws are. If you have a minority of Christians then I have no issue with you accepting homosexuality though I think you would be wrong it is your right I guess. That is why I don't spend much time debating legality but moral ontology. In our country it is a bit weird because 80% of us are Christian but most of he judges are not. We vote not to legalize gay marriage and the judges say screw you and do it anyway.

Alright. I think you know what I mean. If not, change India with ancient Greece.

I looked back but cannot find the context for this statement.

I have no doubt that your knowledge of history surpasses your knowledge of math. Lol. Kidding, again.

Joking or not it is true. I have studied history my whole life. I studied mathematics out of necessity for ten years (I could not get it in 4). I am not a mathematician in any sense but was always good with the underlying principles of both math and especially physics but they taught application science in my classes not theoretical stuff as you rely on quite a bit. I was taught what it took to build stuff not what is discussed that has no application in industry. Just as info I went to the same university as the Apollo program guys, where Von Braun used to wander the halls. The Redstone arsenal here has a library with a basement full of old Russian mathematic texts from the 20th century which my boss lives in at times.


Hey did you say Italy was so controlled by Christian doctrine they outlawed euthanasia? I find that hard to fathom since Europe has gone so hard to the secular side in recent decades, maybe Italy is an exception.

 

[1robin]

I don't need a lot of typing. Just three german words: Gott mit uns.

Come on. I predicted and spelled out the trap that people who only have a surface understanding of history make then you did exactly that. Ok, you called down the thunder. Hitler lived in a catholic nation. He held no significant orthodox theological views until he became a political figure. If he was to accomplish what he envisioned it would be a lot easier if he had the Catholics in his pocket. Now both before this period and after you can find endless Hitler writings on the occult, Tibetan mysticism, communism (which denied all faith), socialism which was generally hostile to organized religion, Nietzsche ( I don't think I need to clarify here), and social Darwinism. Now he briefly acted as if he had some traditional Catholic views until the church rejected him, then his writings show his true stance.

“…the only way of getting rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 61

“It’s Christianity that’s the liar. It’s in perpetual conflict with itself.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 61

“In the long run, National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 6

“Kerrl, with the noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don’t believe the thing’s possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 145

“As far as we are concerned, we’ve succeeded in chasing the Jews from our midst and excluding Christianity from our political life.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 394

“There is something very unhealthy about Christianity.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 418

“The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity. Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilization by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society. Thus one understands that the healthy elements of the Roman world were proof against this doctrine.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 75-76

“When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunized against the disease.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 145

“Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. It will last another hundred years, two hundred years perhaps. My regret will have been that I couldn’t, like whoever the prophet was, behold the promised land from afar. We are entering into a conception of the world that will be a sunny era, an era of tolerance.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 343-344

“Pure Christianity—the Christianity of the catacombs—is concerned with translating the Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 146

“Christianity is the worst of the regressions that mankind can ever have undergone, and it’s the Jew who, thanks to this diabolic invention, has thrown him back fifteen centuries.” -Hitler’s Table Talk, pg 322
Hitler’s War on Christianity (Quotes) « Conservative Colloquium

That is just a few of the countless statements Hitler made against Christianity just at that one site. Mere belt buckles will not change the actual facts. He had some hybrid theology so when he says God he does not necessarily mean what anything I do and even if it did it was a tactic not a belief.

The fact that this is just he start of what it takes to properly understand what Hitler was is why I did not use his name. I have to excavate what most people surface layer historical understanding about him is and rebuild it with true history and people part with long held ideas very reluctantly.

Do objective moral values, if any, depend on covenants?

Nope, as far as I can think of them they would not. Covenants reflect true moral principles but do not become morals by being part of a covenant unless you mean the application of a moral into a law.

Well, it is already extended, if we think of all the people who never heard of the Bible and believed in the craziest things. So, believing in Jesus is not a necessary condition to gain heaven. Unless you believe that just by watching the beautiful flowers and the stars makes it apparent that Jesus is our saviour.

But if it did, what do you need missionaries for?

Back up a second. Your response doe snot seem to follow from your original question nor my reply. I am not qualified to explain the doctrine of he unevangelised in detail. I would recommend Craig's book on it, as it has great reviews among theologians. I could get into this a little but I am afraid I would obligate myself beyond where my knowledge justifies at some point.

Well, they see God as a sort of Valium for the oppressed masses. And that is why they fight it. From their point of view, it makes perfect sense. Alas, it does not work. You first need to remove the need for Valium before outlawing it. Much more difficult. You don't even need to outlaw it, then. It will just vanish; as we can observe in today's North European "socialism".

First I don't give a crap what someone sees a things as, I care about what they have evidence of it being. Second, in this case there is no evidence they had that justifies their conclusion. Taking into account just how wrong they were about most things and you can easily see why their theology deserves no consideration. Third just look at what their politics was based on. taking away individualism, reducing everyone to a spoke in a wheel and only the wheel mattered, subjecting everyone else to misery in order to make the top .01% filthy rich. Someone might could make the principles work out for good somewhere but they didn't. They produced massive misery and disjunction, and mass murder. I have no reason to trust what they thought about anything. In fact I am far more justified in assuming the opposite is true from what they thought was. Finally hell is not an opiate for anyone. It is the most sobering reality possible.

I cannot simply conceive the alleged creator of the universe, the ultimate fine tuner that brought the Universe, the cosmos, the hundred and hundred billions of galaxies, into being, the creator of the laws of nature and life...selecting one tribe on a planet as His chosen one. Logic dictates that it is the other way round. It is the tribe that selected their own sponsoring God.

Billions can. Logic does not indicate that the Jews recorded their own failures at every turn, were historically accurate at every turn, condemned themselves by their theology, and recorded things that only modern science has validated in recent times and them being the source. That is highly illogical. BTSW God did not chose a race, he chose a man based on faith, and that man ad children that inherited a covenant and agreed to it on their own.

Continued below:

 

[1robin]

Human sacrifices and all that stuff cannot be the reason. Human sacrifices prospered in other parts of the world until recently, and nobody moved a finger for thousands of years.

I never said God killed them because of their sin alone. I said he did so because of the proximity of their level of sin to his chosen conduit for revelation. The same way we tolerate dirt in the yard but not the food. The point was their sin fully validated their judgment not that all judgments are identical.

And I would be careful with propaganda, especially when written by the winners or wannabe. It is a natural human feat to depict the "other race" as being cruel and subhuman. It lowers empathy and enable extermination without remorse. Apparently, it works.

Israel was not the winner. There is more of their failures in the OT than successes and most of the wining was attributed to God not Israel. Have you read the OT?

Yes, and in the meantime the Mayas where pulling off the hearts from children to appease their version of God. Well, at least they cannot be charged with disobedience, I guess.

It was the Aztecs who were known for that. The Mayan's actions were child's play compared to the Aztecs. You cannot equate theological systems and condemn them all. On what grounds are you attempting to?

Nope. No sensible jury on earth will give you a free pass for killing little babies that are growing up in a nasty environment.

I have stated over and over again that moral actions (not moral principles) are different for God and man. We have billions of jurors who hold God innocent, in fact more people associate the biblical God with the greatest possible good than any other concept in history.

It is only your need to safeguard the dubious morality of the Bible that lets you justify the unjustifiable.

Is that what you call including the relevant context?

Unless, of course, ripping pregnant women apart, just because they happened to belong to a "nasty" race, is an objective moral value. Lol.

What?

Again. Where was Jesus and His alleged love for children?

In heaven drying their tears.

Polluting them? This is the most racist thing I have heard in a long time.

For pity sake they were of the same race and race has nothing what so ever to do with any thing I said. The historical fact that they practiced human sacrifice, raiding their neighbors at harvest time, and were indescrimenantly warlike in general and taught their children to do the same is relevant and is what I stated. This liberal tactic of classifying trying to save the US economy as hating grandmothers, trying to stop 4% of us who are homosexuals from producing 60% of the aids in the nation, or calling terrorists as terrorists as being Islama-phobic, and playing the race card every other breath is beneath you and a despicable tactic that is the enemy of truth.

That reminds me of that mafia boss in the Godfather II that tries to kill the Corleone kid in fear of him coming back to kill him when older.

Well it shouldn't have since they have nothing in common.

That is actually what happened. But can we use that as a justification that it was acceptable to kill that kid? I guess God thinks like a mafia boss, which is odd.

God thinks like a judge who has decided to work through human agency at times and the limitations that includes. For Goodness if God exists and did this then by the same context those kids are in heaven. Poor children being forced to endure eternal contentment without experiencing loss and death. Lets stop that cruel being who keeps having mercy and justice on even the kids our moral insanity would have doomed forever. If you bring God into an action you bring the entire context he exists within. Doing the former and neglecting the later is intellectual dishonesty.

I think your so-called objective morality is all messed up. If that transpires from your God, then well...thanks, but no, thank you.

Our two moral systems are pretty much the same with the exception of that mine is true given my world view and yours is not given yours.

He knew their future and therefore He put them out of their misery? Lol, so much for free will and accountability of each person, independently of race or upbringing. Jesus still missing in action.

I did not say that is why he did it. I said that is the end result if he did it. Talk about propaganda, what your turning my original statement into is 100% that. Your side kills hundreds of millions of the most innocent human lives to have ever existed for the sole reason of convenience and they do so without being able to help those lives at all. Your world view is exponentially worse in every regard, and if you agree with abortion your reasoning is as well. No one ever suggested there was indefinite freewill, in fact I have stated many times that we only have it for a unspecified time. Half the time I anticipate exactly what your side will respond with (you guys must go to seminars or something) and explain your predictable contention up front, or render it void before it is posted, yet in most cases no power on earth can stop it. I have seen Craig repeat three times that no matter what he said he would receive as the first response to an ontological moral statement and epistemological response from some non-theist. It has occurred in every debate whether or not he has stated up front that it was irrelevant. I have done the exact same. I can almost have these theological debates without an opponent.

But then, again, what have those children done to deserve this courtesy? I would exchange a free ticket to heaven anytime, wouldn't you? Alas, I did not grow up in a nasty neighborhood. Bummer. No heaven, just annihilation (or garbage heap). The same for all those billions of poor buggers who had to go through this life without any guarantee at all.

No one merits heaven. Nor is the path the same for all. You keep for some reason injecting fairness into stuff without having the slightest foundation for it within your world view. Good, evil, fairness, and a thousands other things are hollowed out of any relevant meaning without God. You need God before fairness is even relevant. You have to crawl in his lap to slap his face.

Yes, very scary. Jesus is an avenger, so He was probably rejoicing at the sight of thise massacres. Maybe His only concern was to remain unemployed.

There is not a verse that validates that propaganda but even if their were is not the perfect judge of the universe entitled to satisfaction when those that have plagued his creation with rebellion and misery are given justice. Heck even we require justice to such an extent hat when a murderer of those important to us escapes it we in many cases break down psychologically.

So, if right and wrong exist then God was justified. If they don't, then we should not judge Him or He does not exist. Right? Or wrong?

No, it is possible another God and another moral truth exists. It is not possible that without a moral God to have a true moral standard however by which to judge anything correctly.

Good luck with proselityzing your objective source of morality and love with people who do not necessarily buy this Biblical Scholarship, or similar things that share the same acronym.

I do not need luck, it is the easiest argument possible in theology. It may be the most undeniable, unavoidable, and obvious argument in any moral field of study. Which is why most professional atheistic debaters deny objective morality up front despite the fact we all act as if it exists. I do not care about denials of simplistic truth, I am only responsible to provide it.

I can't discuss anything with you if you wrongly suggest I violated forum rules BTW, and for some reason the last half of this post you just made is just silly where it was not a personal accusation. What is going on? Is the veneer coming off already? This was so disappointing I am logging off for today.