Why does my God allow children to die? Is he evil?

[1robin]

How many times can you answer this question without ever actually answering it? Repeating your empty claims that morality is impossible without god doesn’t actually answer it.

I can't answer a question based on an impossible premise. If I asked you that since there is a race of aliens that live in the core of the earth is not billions justified in drilling? I would think you would respond by showing that no life can live in molten iron, so as to show the question invalid. However to have some fun let's pretend a minute that a race that has enough weapons pointed at each other to kill us all, has enjoyed 300 years of peace in the last 5000, and which in many cases kills those that attempt to help can use reason to arrive at ethical statements. That still means:

1. We can not ever except by accident arrive at actual moral truths. We can invent laws but we would never know if they were moral of just convenient (for some).
2. Exactly who's reasoning are we to use. Hitler quite literally reasoned that he was improving the world by killing Jews, Stalin reasoned that communism was so good it demanded that any price be paid in it's furtherance, and the Japanese reasoned that because their emperor was a God they had a divine mandate to control conquer the earth.
3. If reason is your standard then you have no basis whatever to resist the enslavement of a less numerous race by a more numerous one.

You are unavoidably stuck claiming whatever is must be moral unless voted or forced into changing by a saint or a tyrant. That is what is wrong with what you suggest. Your secular reasoning (as all of history shows) is faulty.

It is now clear to me that you don’t know the meaning of the word arbitrary. Or that following the whims of the boss in the sky (no matter what he says) is just that – arbitrary. Not only that, but it’s not moral, in that you are not actually exercising any morality in doing so. (Except when you decided that god is good in the first place. How you arrived at the conclusion, I don’t know, because you seem to be saying that we can’t make or own moral decisions.)

I mean a proposition that is independent from truth. If I reasoned that cars can't be called cars unless they have more than 300 horse power that is arbitrary. I may have reasons to say that but it is a superfluous incidental standard that will not produce truth. The relevance of a moral dictate is to reflect an objective quality called justice. That word has an arbitrary meaning if God does not exist. It's definition is capricious and contrived without God. I think, that you think arbitrary implies a lack of reasoning. I do not think that correct (though semantics is not my specialty). I think it means in this context that the criteria are independent from truth. If I said morality is based on human flourishing that would be an arbitrary standard because human flourishing may not (and probably is not) equal to moral correctness. It is defining something into existence independently from anything actually known to be true. Now I know that is very close to what arbitrary means but even if it is slightly flawed in some manner simply know that what I mean is what I stated above. I know of no better single word to use and I am not wasting having a word fight over a term that is that close in meaning. If you give me another I have no problem using it but it is not worth splitting hairs about IMO.

Sorry, that’s how I see it. And I’m certainly not the only one.

It is not important how you see what you have no access to. I am the world's greatest expert on why I believe what I do. I am also in all probability far more knowledgeable about why Christians believe what they do in general than you.

Another non-answer. How did you decide that god is the good one and the devil is the bad one?

Let me state it another way. If God exists in what way would what he claimed to be good not be. What standard supersedes him as the criteria. The only thing a human do is accept it or not. He can't possibly make quality decisions about it because no standard exists to allow for it. I will give you another very easy (if actually true) way to prove I am wrong.

If God killed every human on earth and proclaimed it good by what standards can you prove that he was wrong? If you were actually right the test for it can not get any easier.

BTW some questions have no answers of the types we like. If I asked you to prove God does not exist I could claim you gave non-answers till dooms day because there are none. There exists no standard by which a human can condemn God so I can provide none. That is the point. All I can do is personally approve or disapprove.

Continued:

 

[1robin]

That is exactly what you are doing. You don’t have to be obeying all authority figures. Just the one you’ve decided is the ultimate authority figure.

So you are saying that because I choose God as some obligatory figure I obey him for that reason alone.

1. If my "choosing" him is based on evidence where is the foul?
2. How do you explain my failures to obey?
3. If not true what is my motivation for choosing him?

This is simply another example of the same tired old tactic. You fundamentally hate my conclusions so you CAN"T possibly allow them to be drawn from reason. You must explain away a thousand things to retain your world view which you have no capacity to explain away.

You do what you do because the Bible tells you that God is the best moral foundation and so you have no choice but to justify the actions of said god as moral and good. And if you don’t think that’s true, just look at the way you defend Biblical slavery, murder and genocide. I don’t believe for a second that you would be doing so without consent from the boss in the sky. I don’t think anybody would, because it is immoral.

I do what I do for two reasons.

1. I think it right. In this context I personally agree with the Bible that murder is bad, giving is good, forgiveness is needed. Where exactly is the foul?
2. I want to do x. I do many things I believe are wrong because I want to do them. By doing so I prove entire chapters and narratives in eh Bible true yet again. No better example than this:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Romans 7:15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Read those verse before and after that simple fact and tell me a better explanation than what the Bible gives for that paradox.

Being that no.2 is a universal, tell me what is better in your standard than mine. Mine at least has the likely potential of being perfectly true. Your does not even have that possibility even if God did not exist.

I think the system human beings actually use (reason, logic, weighing evidence and consequences of actions) is the best system we’ve got and the only one we can have. We couldn’t have made it this far without it. And I do think it is superior to a “system” that appears to be nothing more than obedience to authority or “might makes right.”

More accurately without God that is all that is left, so by definition it is the best and worst system available.

And what I don't think is the right thing to do is to follow the morality of people who lived thousands of years ago because to do so would be to ignore how far we've come as a species and how much we've grown and learned since then. Those people didn't know anything close to what we know now about just about everything.

So if murder was said to be wrong you would say it is right because whatever people believed long ago must be rejected based on age. That is exactly why your system is so dangerous. We have for the first time in history almost wiped all life known out several times. How is that an improvement? We on an industrial scale destroy human life in the womb for the sake of convenience in almost all cases? We nudity, cursing, and violence into our kids heads in general and seem baffled why a school shooting occurs every few months. In what way is that more enlightened? The moral insanity required to claim it is far more frightening.

Not only myself, but many others have explained why we think you are wrong.

That is just about what I figured was coming. I gave you the easiest test possible to prove that I was wrong. You knew very well you could not meet even it's minimalistic requirements and punted. You have no argument if it can't survive the easiest test possible as proof it is. It is as if you said there exists no moon circling the earth and I said to take two pictures from both sides of the earth simultaneously (with a clear sky) and if right they will contain no moon. You said I will not do so but there is no moon. I really can't take that seriously.

Answer my question first, please. Actually answer it. How are you exercising morality when you’re simply following orders from the invisible boss who simply declares that “he” is absolute morality? How is it moral to kill your child on god’s orders? How is it moral to keep slaves, on god’s orders? How is it moral to slaughter and pillage neighbouring tribes on god’s orders? I really want to know, because I just don’t get it.

I have answered that question in theory, with analogy's, and with true examples. If someone asked me what would be the best possible proof a moral system produced a mistaken result. I would have said if it produced the deaths of large numbers of human lives without any justification (even theoretical) that would be it. Currently that exact thing occurs around the world constantly and you do not recognize the failure (which is also evidence of the failure). If what kills millions of the most innocent human lives before they can begin for the sake of convenience is not wrong the criteria used for moral truth is meaningless.

BTW If 99.9% of abortions were because of serious health risks to the mother that would be justification. For the moral mistakes of the mother is the worst possible justification. How many moral mistakes does it take.

Moral failure #1. People throw of moral sexual restrictions on their actions for the sake of a few minutes of physical gratification and do not even spend $.50 cents to mitigate the damage potential. That is not just immoral, it is stupid.

Moral failure #2. They then decide the only innocent party should pay everything they have or would have for the guilty parties actions.

Moral failure #3. Then defend the right to take everything another innocent life ever will have for the sake of their own mistakes and weaknesses as some kind of sacred right. Or claim to have a right to a body that they did not create and have no actual source of rights for by taking the exact same rights from another human life.

Anything that results in that madness is not a moral system at all. The reason I bring up abortion a lot is that it is the most obvious moral failure possible. If it can't be admitted or grasped then there is no hope of a reasonable discussion about morals with that person possible. There incidentally are about a dozen more moral failures associated with just that one issue but I do not think they would help if those three failed to convince.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I will make it even easier. All of them. Any moral truth that exists requires God. I mean that anything if it is actually objectively wrong must have God as it's source.

That's a fine assertion. It is confused and indefensible, but if you want to proclaim it, that's what you want to do.

The Bible must have been ultimately authored by 1 or two of three sources. Good and honest men, bad and dishonest men, God.

It was written by confused regular men. Then it was theologically twisted by various scribes, mistranslated by others, corrupted again by political voting, and now exists in hundreds of translations and collections.

Good luck trying to find absolute moral truth in it.

1. Bad men do not admit their own failings and do not live lives of complete self sacrifice for the benefit of others and die passively and willingly for their own lies.

Bad men are always wailing about their own guilty natures. So you are mistaken.

Anyway, you have no idea who wrote the books of the Bible. You don't know who died for what or when.

So bad men are out as the author.

You present some of the most quaint logic I've ever encountered. Bad men vs. good men. Goodness.

2. Good men do not make up lies and doom people by them if they have access to the truth wish they claim and know it is wrong. These same good men said God wrote the bible.

There is no dooming. That's your own creation.

By deductive logic that leaves. 3. God.

Really, your logic is as flawed as any I've seen. Deductive logic could as easily conclude that space aliens wrote the Bible because they wanted to control the human population with heavenly carrots and hellish sticks.

Have you considered reviewing some logic primers? I'll provide you some book titles if you ask.

That is the most absurd thing I ever heard. 50% is not a majority. In my example a vote would produce a tie every time. However lets enter your imaginary world and pretend the side that loves to murder won the vote. Now you have two and only two choices. You can go along with them and in that we see the utter immorality of your system. Or you can resist them by using some reasoning which your own world view does not contain. In your system there is nor good or right answer.

You haven't the least idea about my moral system. You couldn't accurately discuss it if your immortal soul depended upon it.

In mine there is a clear and perfectly founded justification within it that allows me to know the murderous side is actually wrong and should and will be resisted.

Sure. You squeeze your eyes real tight and exclaim: "God is on my side. He supports all my moral opinions!"

Not much of a trick, I think, but lots of people are unthoughtful about moral issues.

Since your pattern has been to make a comment with just enough relevance in it to lure a rational person into a discussion and then to leave relevance and
rationality completely out of your next posts until they give up on you, get the obligatory non-sense freight train in gear.

Oh, my. The master of rationality instructs the poor ignorant acolyte. Goodness.

 

[adi2d]

So God is obligated to suspend free will and make anyone who is acting imperfectly into an automaton because you say he must? That is just for starters a false optimization fallacy.

Do you even read the threads you answer? Nowhere did I say God was obligated to do anything. The post I responded to asked what COULD God do. His hands were tied. I gave a couple answers to what God COULD have done to stop the shooter.

Unlike you I don't claim to know Gods will so I don't say what God must do

 

[Ingledsva]

...


I did not mean you fabricated the story. I meant you are using stories fabricated or at best distorted that others wrote.

...

This is bull and you know it.

Cortez was there for years - we have Friars going with him, others joining him, and many more later. Some of these people collected and wrote the history from the native view.


The history you are pushing has a lot of bull. He was not a great man. He was a rapist and murderer. Writers saying he was noble - do not change the fact that he was not.

Bishop Diego de Landa, in 1562, ordered the destruction of all books found. They were still destroying them more then 135 years later in Nojpetén, Guatemala (1697.) An almost total destruction of history before, during, and after Cortez.

As to your history study. I take it with a grain of salt. You have shown here over the last few days, - that you pretty much agree with awful things done in the name of Christianity. That, - for the savage's own good - mentality. This puts your research, and choice of which "historians" to believe, into question.


*

 

[Sees]

If you see no value in our moral systems being based on truth I do not know what else to say. If I decided it was justifiable to kill Hitler and those that followed him or to take a man's life who had killed another person. I would hope that truthfulness of the moral justification used would have been important to anyone involved.

The terms justice, good, and evil are almost meaningless without a transcendent standard.


Your last statement seems to be surrender but an attempt to blame it on another persons mistake.

Let me restate the official argument since you seem to not be familiar with it.

1. Almost all people believe objective moral truths exist.
2. If even one moral one person things actually is objectively true.
3. That requires a transcendent source.
4. A transcendent source requires a transcendent being, God.

So if any moral actions is actually good or actually evil then it require that God exists.

This is the same nonsense... Looking for something exaggerated and not found in the world. Absolute, transcendent, same crappola. You don't need this for universal principles and ideals of morality, compassion, justice.

 

[1robin]

That's a fine assertion. It is confused and indefensible, but if you want to proclaim it, that's what you want to do.

It is defended by Aquinas, Plantinga, Craig, Zacharias, and a thousand others who are in a position to know what is defensible or not. It is not only defensible it is an absolute necessity. Out of the dozens of professional atheistic, materialistic, deterministic, etc.... debaters I have spend thousand of hours watching and reading not one I know of ever posited objective moral truth without a God. One neurobiologist named Harris tried to, but Craig instantly cornered him and he admitted he assumed it. Instead of trying to counter a true assertion by a false one, try instead to do what you said you would. Show my claim is untrue.

It was written by confused regular men. Then it was theologically twisted by various scribes, mistranslated by others, corrupted again by political voting, and now exists in hundreds of translations and collections.

Without exaggerating even a little you are IMO the most confused person I have ever debated and can't know what you claimed even if it was true. Your betters in every way who have been trained to know whether testimony is confused or sincere and accurate claim the exact opposite. You have no credibility with me in this area that would make anything you said about it meaningful. I am sorry but all the hyperbolic and ridiculous stuff you have said has consequences.

Good luck trying to find absolute moral truth in it.

It says murder is wrong. Do you say that is not truth?

Bad men are always wailing about their own guilty natures. So you are mistaken.

No they are not. That is why courts consider embarrassing testimony the most reliable. Find me ten statement by Hitler or Stalin about how bad and stupid they claimed themselves to be.

Anyway, you have no idea who wrote the books of the Bible. You don't know who died for what or when.

I know far more reasons exist to credit the traditional authors with writing it than any other author. The living bible had over 100 of the worlds best scholars examine that very issue There was 100% agreement in 95% of the authorship issues.

You present some of the most quaint logic I've ever encountered. Bad men vs. good men. Goodness.

If you call moral quality quaint that says more about you than me.

There is no dooming. That's your own creation.

Actually I got hat from one of the brightest legal minds in history and it used actual modern legal procedures in it's deduction. It is flawless but I do not find it all that persuasive.

Really, your logic is as flawed as any I've seen. Deductive logic could as easily conclude that space aliens wrote the Bible because they wanted to control the human population with heavenly carrots and hellish sticks.

That is not deduction. That is pure speculation. I have no use for your assertions. Mere assertions require credibility to have any relevance. Your out of it, with me.

Have you considered reviewing some logic primers? I'll provide you some book titles if you ask.

I do not have time for this. This is not an argument, it is simply more bizarre entertainment for your twisted pleasure.

 

[1robin]

Do you even read the threads you answer? Nowhere did I say God was obligated to do anything. The post I responded to asked what COULD God do. His hands were tied. I gave a couple answers to what God COULD have done to stop the shooter.

Unlike you I don't claim to know Gods will so I don't say what God must do

Your post was set up in a way that suggested God should have done X or Y or he would be less God for not doing so. God does not suspend freewill unless it is in very very rare circumstance which has grave implication for faith over all. His prime directive seems to be to allow choice to operate unimpeded by direct intervention. You suggest he should do what would make him not God. God has promised to do certain things, he will not break his promise. You wish him to become not God in order to do as you would have.


You may restate your claim any way you wish but if discussed any length at all it will end up right where I said it started. God promises to respect freewill in virtually every case, you suggest he should not have done so. Your demand renders God not God. I do not claim what God must do. I simply restate what he said he will do. Making up hypotheticals that violate that is meaningless.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

It is defended by Aquinas, Plantinga, Craig, Zacharias, and a thousand others who are in a position to know what is defensible or not. It is not only defensible it is an absolute necessity. Out of the dozens of professional atheistic, materialistic, deterministic, etc.... debaters I have spend thousand of hours watching and reading not one I know of ever posited objective moral truth without a God. One neurobiologist named Harris tried to, but Craig instantly cornered him and he admitted he assumed it. Instead of trying to counter a true assertion by a false one, try instead to do what you said you would. Show my claim is untrue.

Sure. All of your heroes win all their debates. That's a common belief among those who crave certainty.

I do not have time for this. This is not an argument, it is simply more bizarre entertainment for your twisted pleasure.

OK. If you need to withdraw, I won't try to stop you.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is defended by Aquinas, Plantinga, Craig, Zacharias, and a thousand others who are in a position to know what is defensible or not. It is not only defensible it is an absolute necessity. Out of the dozens of professional atheistic, materialistic, deterministic, etc.... debaters I have spend thousand of hours watching and reading not one I know of ever posited objective moral truth without a God. One neurobiologist named Harris tried to, but Craig instantly cornered him and he admitted he assumed it. Instead of trying to counter a true assertion by a false one, try instead to do what you said you would. Show my claim is untrue.

Wow, kind of a mischaracterization there. As if Craig doesn't assume anything!

You should read the Moral Landscape if you want to understand Harris' argument better. He points out that we make similar "assumptions" in health and medicine, and yet nobody would say that we can't determine any kind of objective medical truths.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So God is obligated to suspend free will and make anyone who is acting imperfectly into an automaton because you say he must? That is just for starters a false optimization fallacy.

He's not obligated, but his choice of action reflects on his character. Your god is somebody who would not intervene to stop someone from being victimized even though he could do so with no personal risk.

 

[adi2d]

He's not obligated, but his choice of action reflects on his character. Your god is somebody who would not intervene to stop someone from being victimized even though he could do so with no personal risk.

Careful. You said God could. To that guy that means you are telling God what He must do he has a personal definition of words that whatever he says is right and whatever you say is wrong

 

[User Inactive]

He must have use for them where he lives.

 

[1robin]

This is bull and you know it.

Cortez was there for years - we have Friars going with him, others joining him, and many more later. Some of these people collected and wrote the history from the native view.

The events you described that any connection at all with real events were all about Cortez's initial incursion into Mexico city and his return to it after being run out. He had two priest at most with him during his conquest of the Aztecs. I have only ever read of one and only he produced authoritative writings. I can allow that another was there somewhere but will not allow he was a reliable source for anything. If the events I could not even find a real event similar enough to them to have any idea what your talking about are about a later aborted expedition where nothing much at all occurred, or about his later role as a civil official his behavior improved with time. He wound up being an advocate for the natives, he stopped oppressive slavery operations, defended them in court against the crown, paid for reconstructions of their property. I do not think a single event you described occurred but my certainty of that goes up based on time frame. I was discussing his most violent time frame and he had one known priest with him who wrote the most authoritative accounts, there may have been a single additional priest but his role was as minor I have never heard of him before. Cortex became more gentile and just with the natives a s time went by. If you are trying to place you events at a later date than I was discussing they have even less probability of containing any truth.

The history you are pushing has a lot of bull. He was not a great man. He was a rapist and murderer. Writers saying he was noble - do not change the fact that he was not.

Who did he rape? How do you know? I could not care any less what type of man Cortez was. I value him as a military leader and I have never been a fan of Catholic conquests. I only want him condemned for what he did and praised for what he did. Neither one of us are absolutely certain what occurred but I do know my accounts come from vastly more reliable sources than yours. Accusing a conquered of murder is like passing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. I am quite sure he did murder people as a military expediency. Cortez was never cruel for the sake of cruelty. He would have slaughtered as many people as he thought he needed to in order to achieve his goals, but he never killed for the sake of killing.

I claim 3 things.
1. Cortex did great things that could easily be seen as moral and Godly. He did them against odds and at risks 99.9% of us would have never ventured.
2. He did horrible things. Most were military necessities but probably wrong just the same.
3. Cortez was not a great moral example except in a few areas and his moral failures outnumbered his successes.

The only problem I have is that you never mention the bad things he actually did but saw fit to adopt the most unreliable sensationalistic claims you apparently could find and you have no interest in resolving what information most likely accurately reflects what happened.

Bishop Diego de Landa, in 1562, ordered the destruction of all books found. They were still destroying them more then 135 years later in Nojpetén, Guatemala (1697.) An almost total destruction of history before, during, and after Cortez.

That is not true but let's pretend it was. Then ho is it you seem to think you know what happened. You were the first to propose a detailed list of historical atrocities committed by Cortez, now you seem to suggest history was erased. Which is it? Once you chose a single truth to defend instead of two self contradictory ones I will evaluate the accuracy of it. It is hardly necessary to debate against the same person claiming opposite truths.


I have made a horrible mistake which ironically proves my point. Cabbot is not the name of the priest who recorded Cortez deeds so accurately. I am currently searching for his name. Cabbot was a bishop from the 18 hundreds who compiled all the first hand accounts he could find. That proves you have not even attempted to evaluate the authenticity of source material. You would have in 3 minutes saw my mistake and that would have been the best argument possible for you to make. You are obviously not interested in what the most authoritative source materials are. I also have original documents (not destroyed by anyone you mention) from Cortez himself to King Charles. That is the best information possible and they agree with everything I have said. You may certainly claim he was making up stuff to be flattering to himself. You however can't know that that accusation is true, so it is meaningless. If you some day actual care about the quality of source material or the accuracy of claims about total historical text destruction, see this link.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson6/pdfs/primarysourcepacket.pdf

As to your history study. I take it with a grain of salt. You have shown here over the last few days, - that you pretty much agree with awful things done in the name of Christianity. That, - for the savage's own good - mentality. This puts your research, and choice of which "historians" to believe, into question.

I have said the exact opposite, but even if you were right that would have no relevance to my historical source and authority claims. I can think God should torture all humans all the time and still be the most accurate historian who ever lived. I never even said God approved of a single immoral (by what standards that can be known without God escapes me) act Cortez ever committed. However let's pretend that God did approve of some of his cruel actions, and also that I believe that it is justified. How would you know they were not justifiable? How would that effect the accuracy of the history I gave? If I had any desire to paint Cortez in a rosy light I would not have mentioned all the actual horrible things he did. I know of dozens, but not one of them appear in your list, and nothing in your list appears in authoritative accounts of the conquest.

1. Cortez did authorize a regions chiefs to be killed in cold blood after tricking them into a court yard.
2. He did pit tribes dissatisfied with the Aztec's against them and let them do as they pleased as long as it was any help to him. This is where most of the truly diabolical actions came from (but I have never read of any you claimed that even these guys did). Those tribes had been systematically brutalized, enslaved, and tortured for decades by the Aztecs and wanted revenge and then some. Cortez often did nothing to restrain them but never ordered any brutality for it's own sake.
3. He took Montezuma prisoner under false pretenses and used him as a puppet.
4. He stole every scrap of Gold he could find.
5. When military necessity made it practical he destroyed as much of the enemy as he could including their capitol city.

Now if you wish to use any of these actual historical events instead of sensationalistic propaganda we can evaluate God's possible role or connection to them, Cortez as a moral agent, and start separating militarily justified acts from acts of vengeance, etc....


Growing up I had a grandfather who was shot in WW1. Apparently that made my dad investigate military history exhaustively. I was raised in a house with a hundred books on war for every one on something else. Military history was like a right of passage and it still is. I had to justify my claims, I had to source material, I had to account for other sources. I was trained for 15 years to be historically accurate by a man who would catch every fault in my opinions or claims. I have read about Cortez for a very long time. I know what he did. What you claimed is not among them nor mentioned in any accepted authoritative account. I am not interested in them. That however still leaves you plenty to use for your position. You claims are not true. For example the roles list almost all the men that you say Cortez "slaughtered" that were sent to stop him. His force almost doubled. The same numbers appear to include those slaughtered men for months and years afterwards. They even accompanied him years later on another but abortive conquest. Dead men do not appear in roles from years later. I even gave you many reasons that conquests cannot afford to be cruel for cruelties sake. They require efficiency, speed, and the good will of many of those they exist among. Everything about your claims suggests they are later sensationalized accounts.

 

[1robin]

This is the same nonsense... Looking for something exaggerated and not found in the world. Absolute, transcendent, same crappola. You don't need this for universal principles and ideals of morality, compassion, justice.

Objective moral values are either existent or non-existent. What they cannot be are exaggerations of something else. I agree that is not a provable contention that objective moral values do exist. However all the evidence is on the side that they do.

It is a virtually universal belief that they do exist. You believe they do even if you deny it unless you are some unique species I am unaware of. You most certainly do need them to establish a form of justice that is true. When Hitler killed the Jews one of two things took place.

1. In my world view he violated an objective standard of human conduct that applies to all sane humans. He can be stopped, killed, arrested, etc... with perfect justification found in my views.
2. Or God does not exist and in your views at most he acted unfashionably. He could not be stopped, killed, or arrested by any outside secular authority unless they justified their actions on foundations that do not exist in their world views.


Hitler used reason, logic, and rationality and arrived at the opposite conclusion as you would have (hopefully). However he and the millions that followed him used the exact same methods you say are the basis for morality so he violated no standard that your views actually contain. So did Stalin. Even if you added up all the deaths caused in the name of God (not that God had any part in most of them) for Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists they would not be a meaningful fraction of the deaths caused by people who share your views. The absolute height of man's injustice towards man are always in atheist utopia type societies or weird hybrid forms of superstition and Godlessness, where your views are put into practice. Where religion is annihilated there remains no foundation whatever for the sanctity of life, the equality of men, rights, or actual moral truth. Your views actually and inevitably produce a mighty makes right society which kills millions of the weak.

I do not see any evidence you are educated in this issue. I know of no professional trained in areas of ethics, morals, and philosophy that claims moral truth is possible without God. I will prove that by supplying a debate excerpt from two of the great scholars today. Notice that both draw the same conclusion. The atheist agrees with what I said as the more educated almost always do.

Over the years I have had many occasions to quote and comment on Prof. Taylor’s work in my own writing, and it’s a distinct honor to be sharing the platform tonight with him.

Now I want to say at the outset that I agree thoroughly with him that the question is not whether we can be good without God. I don’t think that’s a disputed issue tonight. Rather, the important question is the subissue: Is the basis for morality natural or supernatural? And I’m going to defend two basic contentions in tonight’s debate: (I) that supernaturalism provides a sound basis for morality, and (II) that naturalism does not provide a sound basis for morality.

Look with me at that first basic contention, that supernaturalism provides a sound basis for morality. In support of this contention I’d like to make two points:

(1) If God exists, then objective right and wrong exist. God’s own holy and perfectly good nature provides the absolute standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. His commands flow necessarily from His own moral nature and constitute for us our moral duties. In the JudeoChristian tradition, the whole moral duty of man can be summed up in the two great commandments: first, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength, with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your mind," and second, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On this foundation, we can affirm the objective goodness of love, generosity, selfsacrifice, and equality, and condemn as objectively evil selfishness, hatred, abuse, discrimination, and oppression.

(2) Because, according to supernaturalism, man’s life does not end at the grave, all persons are held morally accountable for their actions. Evil and wrong will be banished, righteousness will be vindicated. Good ultimately triumphs over evil, and we shall see that we do live in a moral universe after all. In the end, the scales of God’s justice will be balanced. Thus, the moral choices that we make in this life are infused with an eternal significance. We can, with consistency, make moral choices which run contrary to our selfinterest and even undertake acts of extreme selfsacrifice, knowing that such decisions are not just empty and meaningless gestures. Rather, our moral lives have a paramount significance.

It’s noteworthy that Professor Taylor, in his writings, agrees that supernaturalism provides a perfectly coherent and sound basis for morality. In his most recent book, Ethics, Faith, and Reason, he writes, "The idea of moral…obligation is clear enough, provided reference to some lawmaker higher…than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations…can be understood as those imposed by God. This does give a clear sense to the claim that our moral obligations are more binding upon us than our political obligations…."1 Unfortunately, Professor Taylor seems not to believe in God, and so he shuns a supernatural foundation for morality. Nevertheless, he admits that if God exists, then the foundations for morality are secure. Thus I think that we can agree that supernaturalism provides a sound foundation for morality.

What a contrast that—when we turn to naturalism and look at my second major contention—naturalism does not provide a sound foundation for morality. Naturalism does not match supernaturalism in supplying the necessary conditions for successful moral foundations.

(1) If naturalism is true, objective right and wrong do not exist. Again in his writings Professor Taylor agrees with me on this score. He argues that when modern man abandoned God as the foundation of morality, he lost all basis for saying that objective right and wrong exist. Taylor writes,

The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well.... Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things as war...or the violation of human rights, are ‘morally wrong,’ and they imagine that they have said something true and significant.

Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion.2

He concludes, "Contemporary writers in ethics, who blithely discourse upon moral right and wrong and moral obligation without any reference to religion, are really just weaving intellectual webs from thin air; which amounts to saying that they discourse without meaning."3

I couldn’t agree more. Without God, there is no objective right and wrong. As Professor Taylor says, it’s just conventional. Thus if naturalism is true, it becomes impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as morally wrong. Some action, say, incest, may not be biologically or socially


Read more: Is the Basis of Morality Natural or Supernatural? The Craig-Taylor Debate | Reasonable Faith

That discourse is very typical of the universal understanding in academia and theology today and is the opposite of what you claim.

 

[1robin]

Sure. All of your heroes win all their debates. That's a common belief among those who crave certainty.

I did not mention anyone winning anything. I mentioned my claims being accepted in circles composed of men who best know.

OK. If you need to withdraw, I won't try to stop you.

Now that is certainly true.

 

[1robin]

Wow, kind of a mischaracterization there. As if Craig doesn't assume anything!

He might but I know of no assumptions concerning this issue. He makes conditional statements. Crag can be right or wrong. However he is a master of making technically correct statements. Where conditional he sets them up as such. He has been doing it a long time and I am sure when younger he was embarrassed quite often. At this point whether his argument is true or not, his logic is flawless and technically correct where I have read it.

You should read the Moral Landscape if you want to understand Harris' argument better. He points out that we make similar "assumptions" in health and medicine, and yet nobody would say that we can't determine any kind of objective medical truths.

I sat through a three hour debate by Harris with Craig and another hour or two with him and Rabbi Boteach. He has some arrogant quality to his speech that irritates me and that combined with his assumptions and IMO terrible deductions makes it not worth the effort. There are several experts on your side that I do respect and admire but even they IMO loose the arguments but I have no problem looking over less arrogant and more capable debaters if you suggest them.

he is right and I have stated over and over you use assumptions exactly like or even far worse than are used in faith claims everyday. He is right about that . However non-conditional assumptions that are the central and core issue at hand are not valid for a debate. He could have made a conditional (if then) claim as Craig did but there is nothing that "if" would produce objective moral truths without God that I can even theorize. he should have done as virtually everyone on your side does and honestly admit that absolute moral truth does not exist without God and we are left to do the best we can. I can agree with the reasoning if not the premise in that kind of claim. Harris committed two perfectly destructive fouls that produce a perfect storm of intellectual failure.

I actually would like a professional scholar to illustrate how objective morals can exist without God if it is anyone besides Harris. he already ruined me on his argument.

 

[1robin]

He's not obligated, but his choice of action reflects on his character. Your god is somebody who would not intervene to stop someone from being victimized even though he could do so with no personal risk.

Yes my God is that kind of God. He is also a God that can and does make every injustice accountable and repairs all wrongs in the end. I deny your ability to know that allowing an action you may think is bad makes God less good. I however agree that God's purpose does allow evils to be committed but exacts perfect justice for every single one before its all over.

That has nothing to do with my faith. My faith includes the existence of evil and gives the most comprehensive explanation of it. Would you deny any God who did not create whatever it is that you would consider perfection even if it meant running afoul of the God that actually exists. I am unclear how your claim is relevant to my faith. Lets pretend you have a foundation that would allow you to know that God permits an absolute evil act to occur. In what way is that relevant or meaningful? I think your premise is an assumption but even if I grant its truth I have no idea what the conclusion would be that you are driving at.

 

[1robin]

He must have use for them where he lives.

I have no idea what this post of the one previous to it are supposed to mean.

 

[Sees]

This is all still games bro.

This is William James Craig type of arguing where you create examples only relevant in your world view and theology to prove themselves.

For people to see torture and murder as universally wrong doesn't require any absolute objective source for morality. Only the human recognition that pain and suffering are not great things and we should avoid causing them unless we deem necessary.

This mumbo jumbo is pretending that there is a right, objective answer to "what is the best thing to watch on TV at 8pm" Stuff that sucks, in universal opinion...will get the least views. Stuff that is good will get the most views. It doesn't mean there is an objective right or wrong choice.

Our morality is general agreement that this or that action sucks... Based off very human factors.

Objective moral values are either existent or non-existent. What they cannot be are exaggerations of something else. I agree that is not a provable contention that objective moral values do exist. However all the evidence is on the side that they do.

It is a virtually universal belief that they do exist. You believe they do even if you deny it unless you are some unique species I am unaware of. You most certainly do need them to establish a form of justice that is true. When Hitler killed the Jews one of two things took place.

1. In my world view he violated an objective standard of human conduct that applies to all sane humans. He can be stopped, killed, arrested, etc... with perfect justification found in my views.
2. Or God does not exist and in your views at most he acted unfashionably. He could not be stopped, killed, or arrested by any outside secular authority unless they justified their actions on foundations that do not exist in their world views.


Hitler used reason, logic, and rationality and arrived at the opposite conclusion as you would have (hopefully). However he and the millions that followed him used the exact same methods you say are the basis for morality so he violated no standard that your views actually contain. So did Stalin. Even if you added up all the deaths caused in the name of God (not that God had any part in most of them) for Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists they would not be a meaningful fraction of the deaths caused by people who share your views. The absolute height of man's injustice towards man are always in atheist utopia type societies or weird hybrid forms of superstition and Godlessness, where your views are put into practice. Where religion is annihilated there remains no foundation whatever for the sanctity of life, the equality of men, rights, or actual moral truth. Your views actually and inevitably produce a mighty makes right society which kills millions of the weak.

I do not see any evidence you are educated in this issue. I know of no professional trained in areas of ethics, morals, and philosophy that claims moral truth is possible without God. I will prove that by supplying a debate excerpt from two of the great scholars today. Notice that both draw the same conclusion. The atheist agrees with what I said as the more educated almost always do.

Over the years I have had many occasions to quote and comment on Prof. Taylor’s work in my own writing, and it’s a distinct honor to be sharing the platform tonight with him.

Now I want to say at the outset that I agree thoroughly with him that the question is not whether we can be good without God. I don’t think that’s a disputed issue tonight. Rather, the important question is the subissue: Is the basis for morality natural or supernatural? And I’m going to defend two basic contentions in tonight’s debate: (I) that supernaturalism provides a sound basis for morality, and (II) that naturalism does not provide a sound basis for morality.

Look with me at that first basic contention, that supernaturalism provides a sound basis for morality. In support of this contention I’d like to make two points:

(1) If God exists, then objective right and wrong exist. God’s own holy and perfectly good nature provides the absolute standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. His commands flow necessarily from His own moral nature and constitute for us our moral duties. In the JudeoChristian tradition, the whole moral duty of man can be summed up in the two great commandments: first, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength, with all your soul, with all your heart, and with all your mind," and second, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On this foundation, we can affirm the objective goodness of love, generosity, selfsacrifice, and equality, and condemn as objectively evil selfishness, hatred, abuse, discrimination, and oppression.

(2) Because, according to supernaturalism, man’s life does not end at the grave, all persons are held morally accountable for their actions. Evil and wrong will be banished, righteousness will be vindicated. Good ultimately triumphs over evil, and we shall see that we do live in a moral universe after all. In the end, the scales of God’s justice will be balanced. Thus, the moral choices that we make in this life are infused with an eternal significance. We can, with consistency, make moral choices which run contrary to our selfinterest and even undertake acts of extreme selfsacrifice, knowing that such decisions are not just empty and meaningless gestures. Rather, our moral lives have a paramount significance.

It’s noteworthy that Professor Taylor, in his writings, agrees that supernaturalism provides a perfectly coherent and sound basis for morality. In his most recent book, Ethics, Faith, and Reason, he writes, "The idea of moral…obligation is clear enough, provided reference to some lawmaker higher…than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations…can be understood as those imposed by God. This does give a clear sense to the claim that our moral obligations are more binding upon us than our political obligations…."1 Unfortunately, Professor Taylor seems not to believe in God, and so he shuns a supernatural foundation for morality. Nevertheless, he admits that if God exists, then the foundations for morality are secure. Thus I think that we can agree that supernaturalism provides a sound foundation for morality.

What a contrast that—when we turn to naturalism and look at my second major contention—naturalism does not provide a sound foundation for morality. Naturalism does not match supernaturalism in supplying the necessary conditions for successful moral foundations.

(1) If naturalism is true, objective right and wrong do not exist. Again in his writings Professor Taylor agrees with me on this score. He argues that when modern man abandoned God as the foundation of morality, he lost all basis for saying that objective right and wrong exist. Taylor writes,

The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well.... Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things as war...or the violation of human rights, are ‘morally wrong,’ and they imagine that they have said something true and significant.

Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion.2

He concludes, "Contemporary writers in ethics, who blithely discourse upon moral right and wrong and moral obligation without any reference to religion, are really just weaving intellectual webs from thin air; which amounts to saying that they discourse without meaning."3

I couldn’t agree more. Without God, there is no objective right and wrong. As Professor Taylor says, it’s just conventional. Thus if naturalism is true, it becomes impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as morally wrong. Some action, say, incest, may not be biologically or socially


Read more: Is the Basis of Morality Natural or Supernatural? The Craig-Taylor Debate | Reasonable Faith

That discourse is very typical of the universal understanding in academia and theology today and is the opposite of what you claim.